This happens with all companies where leadership does not have a strong vision and a good plan for the future. Still, at one time I couldn't even think that the company would become what it is today. Rock bottom doesn't seem far away anymore, does it?
12 replies (most recent on top)
During the Thomson days we regularly made $40-80K bonuses.
Cengage=Wrong business at wrong time.
I don't know that the people who run Cengage are any better/worse who ran Thomson. It was the same stuff. Just different times.
The “life changing” bonuses are not at all life changing. They barely supplement the pathetic base pay. It’s for small minded “sales reps” who are not experienced to work for an actual company that sells things where you are paid a commission monthly or even bi monthly. I’ve made more in commission in 1 month than the “life changing” yearly bonus check earned. And I was over goal at Cengage for multiple years In a row. Go experience a real sales position! “Bye haters” ???!!! Such a joke.
@8jwt+1h8Nb3vA Enjoy your 1400 bucks. Biggest Cengage bonus payout ever. Don't spend it all in one place.
@8vhc+1h8Nb3vA lol someone’s mad it’s a bonus year. Bye hater.
Its cost of borrowing will also go through the roof.
@8daf+1h8Nb3vA. Congratulations! You are $100mm smaller than you were in 2018. Cengage must be so proud!
Actually this inflation situation does benefit Cengage. It will raise prices but give little to no raises. What a wonderful business model!
Changed for the worse, huh? Did you haters look at our financial performance numbers today?
@2fxw+1h8Nb3vA Very solid point about insurance. There is an actual return there unlike textbook content.
Here are a few things the few remaining publishing Kool aid drinkers need to know from someone with a daughter in college.
- every student who can, cheats. It’s rampant.
- students don’t hate publishers. In their minds it’s completely irrelevant. They aren’t buying the product unless it is forced upon them. Prior to buying, they will exhaust every effort to share passwords or content.
- companies gamed the system for years by stuffing channels with textbooks at deep deep discounts.
- all the execs who benefited from this are fabulously retired or dead.
- insurance is actually a solid value for what you pay. Both life and property-casualty. Flooded basement? Get a brand new one thanks to the $100 bucks a month you pay.
- no one needs publisher content to understand a topic. It’s why teachers exist.
I started there during the Thomson days and honestly can't remember it being any more than an "OK" company. At its best it was a 2nd or 3rd tier old media company. Things obviously started to tumble after the private equity sale and then really plummeted with book rentals. That was the beginning of the end. Higher ed publishing is ultimately an avoidance product like insurance...you're selling something to people who don't want it but are forced to purchase it. It worked when professors crammed the book down students' throat and they just accepted it. However, once students realized they didn't have to buy the book to get the grade it went from bad to worse. Everything since then has been a gimmick to try and get students to buy something they absolutely do not want. First it was our former CPO telling us with a straight face that students would willingly choose to purchase a textbook over their iPhone because we would "delight the student" somehow with 3rd rate software they didn't need. When that fell on its face Cengage pivoted to "Netflix for textbooks" and pretended they were for saving the student money all along. None of it is going to work because students have hacked the system. You can make it digital, you can make it a subscription....none of it matters because they don't want it. The only thing keeping Cengage and its competitors afloat is the fact that they still work hand in glove with higher ed institutions that are resistant to change. They will bump along for a while...but don't think this company or industry will ever get any better.
Password sharing is a huge problem, the data shows it, now if they want to share that truth is another story.
Oh jeez, I think rock bottom happened ages ago. About the time they decided to try and reinvent the wheel via Unlimited and the entire higher education universe chuckled and moved on. Now it's all about password-sharing and trying to pass ancient tech off as something really desirable and vastly underpaid employees wondering how much of the feel-good speak coming from above is actually real . . .