Pros
New CEO and other members of the C-level club hopefully to evaluate the effectiveness of mid-level management. A fresh perspective might correct some of the long-running management issues that are hurting the company's success.
Cons
Telephone Game: In my humble opinion, SciQuest employs a tall organization structure that results in disconnects between boots-on-the-ground feedback as it gets word-smithed on the way up to senior leadership. Fear inducing mid-level management tactics, whether intentional or not, yield lower management scrambling to find any reason a customer issue is "not their fault" and provide sufficient proof, rather than take ownership. Ultimately, this trickles down to skill-level employees who are put under scrutiny for issues that could have been resolved had management actually had the customer's satisfaction in mind when said issues were brought up. It's this completely unchecked management flaw that has low-level management and boots-on-ground employees walking on eggshells. Unapproachable Senior Leadership: It was an widespread unwritten rule "don't talk to the <insert C-level person here>" which applied to most VP level and select others. It was evident that it was unwelcome if you were more than a level below. I can only assume because management needs to filter out the "noise" from the every day "work" so they could focus on the "big picture." This unwritten rule was better heeded than not, as mentioning anything not-positive is more likely to damage your reputation or career than to help provide a solution. Transparency: So much for an "open kitchen". The wordsmithing continues with customer communications. Taking ownership, at the organization level, of a customer impacting issue doesn't exist. The customer is left mostly in the dark with an overly vague description of the issue and a generic "we're working on it" type reassurance. This creates further distrust and customer angst. How easy is it to sell a renewal to a customer who has serious qualms with recent inconsistent or vague messaging that is affecting their daily activities? Probably not that easy. Customer Focus: I can't imagine it would be easy to forget that customers paid for a service you provide. Yet somehow, there's an equilibrium where SciQuest stops "trying" to keep a customer happy. Promises made, and new priorities outweigh those promises. This results in a customer having been told one thing to expect, and receiving another, nothing at all, or too late to matter. In closing...run, don't walk.
