Aptean

1.0

Aug 19, 2016

Anonymous employee

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Generally you are not micro managed and there's flexibility with working from home if you need to rather than be in the office every day. The majority of employees are generally great people.. They have some good processes in place such as timely expense payments but the cons outweigh these

Cons

Since becoming Aptean under Vista Equity Partners the focus is all about EBITDA. They say that the people are important but they fire people to cut costs as soon as the revenue looks poor in order to hit their targets. Senior Mgmt are tactical not strategic, it's very short term all round, quarterly and annually focused, no plans are put in place for a 3 or 5 yr plan for example - probably because no one believes they will be around then to see it! Certain products are clearly in declining market share with customers leaving and seeing little value in upgrading or new additions so revenues are down. Targets seem unrealistic for the Sales teams globally, where there's less and less customers to squeeze. No new business sales except from the partner base yet the partners are struggling. Aptean are great at shooting themselves in the foot and making it as hard as possible to do business with. Customers are exasperated. Employee morale is rock bottom, everyone believes the next quarter is their last and the next cost cutting will see them out of the door. Year on year employees are given more tasks, more work but no pay rises (cost cutting is always cited, as is the falling revenues) It's not an inspirational or motivational place to work, you are treated like Eddy Punch-clock. You work as hard as you can, they stress you out and you don't know when they might fire the next person and how long you have. The CEO Kim Eaton says the company cares about it's people but it's not how it feels on the shop floor, the Vista led management are on a rota basis, going from one Vista company and role to the next, the minions are just expendable assets to help them get their bonuses. Not a place if you're looking for career progression.

Aptean Response

Thank you for your review. Private equity ownership has provided a strong financial backing for Aptean’s growth; with that ownership, there is a focus on AEBITDA. Just as we measure our employees’ performance by objectives, we measure our company’s performance by AEBITDA. That said, AEBITDA is not the only measure of our success. As a company, we enjoy a high customer retention rate. Our strategy is centered around delivering an improved Customer Experience and high value to our customers in the products they use and the service and support they receive – and we believe that our customers are more engaged than ever. We have listened to their feedback and we welcome their input on how to improve product functionality and performance to meet their needs. We also have continued to deliver new logo sales commensurate with previous years, but with a very targeted focus, which allows us to invest in more R&D and more customer-focused programs and events. Over the last six quarters, we have enjoyed incredible success in not only meeting, but also exceeding our financial targets. This has allowed us to make improvements in compensation and incentive plans, including over achievement payouts. Our employees are eligible for merit increases every year – but those increases are dependent upon employee performance - I am confident that our leaders are focused on recognizing high performers, who have earned them. And it is true that some of our Executives, and many other high performing employees can move to different companies within the portfolio. This is an added benefit of our private equity backing, and one we speak about openly. This allows for greater career development and progression opportunities for our high performing employees. Lastly, we are on a multi-year journey to change and grow Aptean and it can take time - we are committed to listening to our employees and our customers on how we can continue to improve.

They don't value the people, it's all about EBITDA - Anonymous employee Aptean Employee Review

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