Funny story. I was talking to someone who has communicated with Centene's new ad agency and this person's impression is that the agency is ill-equipped to handle the work that will be coming their way. This person coined them the "Having Less Knowledge" agency (or HLK for short). Not having spoken to this mystery agency myself I will take this person's word for it. With that being said, I will sit back and enjoy the show. LOL!!
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HLK lost the Centene account only about 18 months into a multi year contract due to total mismanagement on the side of HLK. They are currently laying off just about everyone they hired since bringing Centene on.
the print is on the wall: Centene does not care about CMS compliance, just money, therefore, it could be that they are planning to sell again at higher price, the music chairs again acquisition game, to make richer the rich again and the the shares as high as they can go, corporations are all about the money, bonus for upper management and nothing about members, employees or anything else! after all the CEO is above 70 y/o, his last chance to make more money
Understand that the moldy bread etc. makes no difference to MFN and Centene leadership. Internal quality or your positive feelings are not their objective. All they are looking for is to juice the individual unit financial performance plus the share price. They need to keep quality up by hook or crook for the plans because that is directly related to contract renewal, and to stay out of compliance trouble, so they will continue the beatings till they get it. Their strategy is for short term gain (their options and LTI) and in the long term, a sale in part or whole of the company for further enrichment.
I'm out of the company, but have seen this movie before in other companies. If you expect Centene to care about what makes you excel, forget it. What they will tell you: you don't like it, there's lots of people waiting to get in, so don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Don't get angry, get even. If you have any talent and a mind, it is likely time to go.
The legacy Centene side is a sad tale. Quite comical too when you think about it. Say for example, a chef was expected to create a spectacular dish but the powers that be discarded all of the fresh and flavorful ingredients. But they left you with days-old leftovers. Moldy bread. Sour meats. Soiled veggies. That's what Centene did. Left the chef with less-than-desirable ingredients in which to create and dazzle. That's essentially what happened. Or it's like taking away a chef's sous-chefs and leaving the chef with interns. That's essentially what has happened. Who does that? Who takes away the strongest talents on a team and chooses the less experienced. hahahaha. It's sadly comical. What a joke of a company.
Value talent: Contrary to your statement, WellCare legacy marketers weren't mostly retained. Most were eliminated after the acquisition close, a group in March and another at end of June (like me). There were two people I know who were brought into the MA sales organization. WellCare had also bought Meridian which largely ran as a separate unit and they were nearly all eliminated. So there were not that many who transitioned to Centene marketing for AEP.
The only thing that I can think of is that those who came over with the WellCare MA plans were retained because there's some plan for MA and maybe the rest of Centene down the line, like a spinoff or sale. You might want to read this post carefully: @Cvdh+16McEw3o Stripping down the company makes more sense if you see this as the possible end point.
From what i heard, all the legacy WellCare folk were retained. And 95% of legacy Centene folk were laid off. So to them it's like thanks for the loyalty Centene. And the legacy Centene folk were not cherry picked because the most talented and experienced of the bunch were not retained. It was like they picked names out of a hat...LOL!
But it is quite interesting. Is anyone in California staying? Is there an anti-California bias? Very interesting and curious. Maybe the California Labor Board should be informed?
Was everyone in corporate marketing laid off or some asked to stay and/or transition to HLN?
The current status is that the ones who are leaving are hoping that projects get transitioned quickly so we can get moving with our lives and on to better companies. The hope is that we don't have to pick up the slack of those less qualified to do the job but who were nonetheless selected to stay.
There were a handful of people given the honor of interviewing for jobs and convincing Having Less Knowledge that they were qualified to help the agency handle the Centene account (i.e. their current employer)
Where do the layoffs in corporate marketing stand right now? We're almost at November, the push on AEP is over. Did Having Less Knowledge pick up anyone? And what about the leadership?
I'm out of there since July since the WellCare side was decimated.
FYI Zachs was off on the 3rd Quarter earnings–there is a tidy increase. But more to this and it doesn't take a deep dive on the numbers. See my post on the earnings at @OP+17DIs1it
This is a joke, I hope they are ready for sanctions and non-compliance. It is going to be hard for them to motivate and underpaid external company to really care about following the rules.
In response to the last post: I agree with a lot of what you said. There were a lot of layers to the legacy Centene Corporate Marketing Department due in part to acquisitions that occurred. Some of it made sense, some of it did not. However, this notion about being closer to the health plans is bull. Legacy Centene was a lot closer to the health plans prior to the WellCare acquisition, why the structure changed after that is a mystery to me. Because there was no pure connection to the health plans after that. And quite honestly, there was a better connection than the current set up of dealing with the Operations department or through SOMs. And those Marketers who are being let go are some of the best. They were not order takers as are some of the people who are staying on the legacy Centene or legacy Wellcare side.
As far as HLK goes, who cares about them. Good luck to them. And good luck to Centene. If adequate is what they want then adequate is what they got. This has always been about how Centene went about this. It was c-appy. And not soliciting valid feedback regarding who should stay is also c-ap and just solidifies the idea that adequacy is all they are interested in.
Take this from a view from someone who came from WellCare marketing: Centene corporate marketing may have set themselves up for this. They were huge and bureaucratic when they should have been close to the plans and other units, but their leader came from P&G and that is how he rolled–an empire versus a lean marketing machine. I worked with them only briefly before my own departure, but he definitely struck me as a 'feather merchant' (a fun term to look up!)
I hate to say this to my former fellow marketers, but unless HLK really screws up (as in getting in compliance trouble with CMS or the states, which puts a lot of pressure on Centene compliance), they will be adequate until Centene is sold off or parted out, which is what I believe their future will be.
Outsourcing marketing saves Centene money. That's the bottom line. Centene stock is seen as an earnings play, and cutting employees looks good to institutional holders. BTW, Zachs is projecting that earnings will be flat when reported on 10/27: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/centene-cnc-reports-next-week-163104598.html
I believe it! They did the same thing with a lot of their system and product offerings, outsource to another company and get a minimally viable product, lots of liquidated damages.