Thread regarding Open Text Corp. layoffs

Our model is built on the premise that specialized knowledge is a liability (cost) rather than an asset. Recipe for failure.

@2b4 I am not so sure that imposing a common culture in a company that consists almost entirely of acquired non-organic products is a good idea. It is particularly egregious to impose a purely cost cutting culture like that of OTEX on products that require investment, specialized knowledge, and innovation.

If OTEX had a culture of innovation, flexibility, and organic growth it might be different.

The product I am familiar with has survived 4 ownership changes. Up until OTEX the culture was somewhat preserved, and that helped the product succeed. It was not all smooth sailing, during one transition the new owners thought they would treat the product like all of their other products with regard to support and sales, and it nearly ki-led the product. Luckily, the management was flexible enough to learn from the mistake, correct it and move on, and the product survived and thrived.

Now, I am afraid it is doomed by the rigid dysfunctional OTEX culture that only has one trick.

We use Rally, Fortify and CDD from opentext and they are some of the worst software I have ever used in my life. I wonder how long will they survive.

OpenText’s best days are in the past!

@26z successful companies have a successful culture. That does not mean everyone is happy, but rather there is a synergy that everyone is working to ensure the company is successful. When the model is to acquire companies rather than innovate to have organic growth, you need a leader that ensures there is only one culture. We are multiple cultures that in many cases what to see other divisions in OpenText fail so a given culture gets more attention. And having some product lines sold almost exclusively through partners/MSP and other product lines exclusively sold directly means the sales cycle are completely different. This is why we hear James say we need to shrink to grow. But I think it’s too late and too many of us have given up. Sell everything off and have the new companies strive for a success culture.

@1vr
💯 accurate account of M&A approach.

Still boggles the mind that MB was allowed to continuously inflict damage on employees and yes shareholders...completely unchecked.

@1vr totally agree. To add to your comment, OpenText put no money into product development, rather it all goes into marketing using firms like this https://matrixbcg.com/blogs/growth-strategy/opentext#:~:text=What%20is%20OpenText's%20Growth%20Strategy,to%20capitalize%20on%20market%20opportunities to make it look like there is logic in the product stack.

And they don’t merge the internal tools so sales need to use multiple instances of Salesforce to make a single sale across product lines.

I hope we all get move to other companies that can invest in the product and integrate the sales process.

"As someone who has worked in Tech for 4 decades this is absolutely the worst run company I have ever witnessed."

Only 3.5 decades here. Can confirm. Just flat out bad. Worse than pre-bust dotcom BS. Acquire, acquire, acquire...

Integration? Sure, you minions, make this random POS stack play nice with that unrelated one. What do you mean it makes no damned sense, do it anyway! We don't care if it doesn't really work, make it look good for the next demo!

Every day I hope that today is the day that OT sells my BU to another company.

There will be no “OpenText” by the end of 2029.

@1ce Sears/Kmart is a great example. It will stay public as long as people are willing to buy the stock. And it will stay in business privately until the Executives and Board members are unable to keep their high paying salaries and can’t give themselves bonuses. Today OpenText is still considered a “cash cow.” For context, many successful tech companies aim for 20–25%. OpenText’s 36.3% is considered "robust" by analysts at firms like Barclays and CIBC, who monitor these margins to judge the company's health. That’s because many customers still have active support contracts and subscriptions. But as companies leave without acquiring new ones or organically growing existing ones, the company with die a slow death.

I worked for a company about 15 years ago that was in a bad spot, poorly managed, cr-p business practices, extravagant expenses for execs and favoured sales people, sound familiar. They ended up selling to a private firm. They didn't end up officially closing the doors till 2023.

I guess what I am getting at is open text is probably dying but that can take a long time to happen

Customers and MSPs are leaving OpenText everyday without signing and new ones. This is a formula for disaster.

@OP

Respectfully this company does not deserve to 'survive'. It was mismanaged for at least a dozen years, and the Leadership went totally unchecked by the Board, especially with a series of illadvised acquisitions, that were never properly integrated. Also the OpEx spend was outrageous..especially for executive travel and Marketing.

Finally the Shareholders have said "enough"!

This company will last long enough to 'part it out'.

If I were a customer I would be migrating off anything OT.

If I were an employee I would be seriously focused on networking, interviewing and up-grading your skills to find another job. Don't wait around for severance checks or un-vested RSU'S. OT has a history of finding ways not to give you all your RSU'S anyway.

A lot of smart people on this site have been saying this for a long time though maybe not as direct. Get out asap.

As someone who has worked in Tech for 4 decades this is absolutely the worst run company I have ever witnessed. Also the treatment of its rank and file employees is borderline d abusive.

Please seriously get a transition plan together, you all deserve so much better.

OpenText will die because document management is becoming invisible. Companies won't "manage" documents anymore. AI will manage them for you along with focusing on the information inside them. We were a pioneer on searching text and managing documents but we fell behind in AI innovation, thinking we could acquire the innovation and integrate it. Now we are stuck trying to convince customers not to look at newer solutions from other companies and telling them to just tack on our AI. The only answer is to sell the company in parts to innovative companies that can add the AI and build on the AI we have acquired. And the former OT employees can thrive at those companies.

@mf Reliability only. Customers will wait for a good product, it's only short-term thinking investors who think release dates are the critical bit when it's the customers who can't use sh-t products that were rushed who will leave the company and find software that works.

@OP looks like more and more OT has passed the point of no-return for implosion.

Not if we don’t improve speed and reliability of our releases.

@cp you are right. Product developers are fuel that keeps the company running. The problem is that OpenText blows the money on d-mb marketing and doesn’t have enough money for gas. Whoever takes over needs to change this or the products will die. Muhi believes in engineering but no one listens to him.

@cc You clearly have no development or engineering experience.

You must be management.

@ca if the product can not survive unless we keep legacy people, it’s not a product worth keeping. The product needs to stand alone to be profitable. We are a publicly traded company not a family business.

@c9 Right. Continue to jettison any legacy knowledge of how any of this sh-t works. Great plan.

Unfortunately, dipsh-ttery like that fits in nicely with the mo--n managerial malfeasance that brought the company to its current predicament.

Getting all new employees is key to the company’s survival. Existing employees carry too much baggage and can’t unlearn the ways of the past. If you were with the company when Mark was the CEO, start looking for a job now. Don’t wait till July when your are forced to.

Senior leadership as directed by Tom Jenkins is making changes part of two objectives: 1. Sell 25 percent of the business for cash to use to pay some debt as a huge balloon payment for the MF acquisition is due in 2028. ADM and SBM Cyber and Analytics are being prepared for carve out. 2. Make material, behind the scene changes that analysts have said will raise the stock price, with a timing that coincides with senior leaders exiting the business. NO ONE - and I mean NO One - in the company cares about anyone who is NOT part of that senior leadership group from an outcome perspective.

To many employees for only 5B revenue.

How will it look dramatically different ?

@bk they key metrics to gage health are renewal rates (which need to be above 80%) and churn rates (which need to be below 20%).

@bj

"Opentext is still a profitable business"
"incapable of organic growth (ok, and for having cr-ppy products)".
"There's a lot of debt coming due"

The last two things negate any chance of the first thing.

Opentext is still a profitable business but it is being punished in the markets for being incapable of organic growth (ok, and for having cr-ppy products). There's a lot of debt coming due, but even that isn't the end of the world. The company will survive, but as someone else said, it will have to look dramatically different than the OT we know today. I am also seeing the AI-first mentality fading in other big US companies as they realize AI can't completely replace people... I expect OT to slowly de-emphasize AI in a few months (we seem to be about 5-6 months behind other enterprise trends).

No.