Alteryx was considered by the PE sponsors as a relatively easy turnaround, because of a strong customer base, stable / slightly growing revenues, high customer loyalty and a relatively strong and somewhat unique position in its market(s).
It was viewed as too bloated with sales and marketing people and in need of an infusion of cloud-savvy / cloud-native engineers to help accelerate the stalling cloud pivot.
Getting rid of toxic and misguided C-suite leaders, including Anderson and the existing sales, product and marketing heads, who were collectively fully inexperienced in the data/analytics markets, and especially relating to a SaaS business (or on-prem business pivoting to SaaS), was the key priority for PE. They wasted no time in doing exactly that.
Cutting deeply and then hiring back in key investment areas was the second priority. Also, re-orienting sales and marketing to become more focused ... and focused on building demand for the product, rather than the prior focus on broad brand awareness (TikTok and Twitter, anyone ?!?) and focusing on selling to buyers who NEED the product, rather than pie-in-the-sky multi-hundred-thousand dollar enterprise sales to IT leaders who don't know Alteryx and don't trust Alteryx.
So, PE has been doing the right thing. You won't find a bigger critic and skeptic here than me, but you are also going to see some modest turnaround in the next quarter or two, and by the end of 2025 some decent acceleration in sales.
Bottom line, is that this was considered a relatively easy lay-up in terms of PE investments and ROI. There was just a lot of cobwebs and house-cleaning to do.
The most critical success factor in the near future, is getting the right executive leadership into place. PE is focused on this and is making progress.
@hmd+1v8Yxx9Q makes an excellent point.