Appalling Senior Leadership CTO, CEO, CFO, and EVPs without exception.
Most VPs are appalling leaders, with an ability to create the perfect conditions for sure-fire failure!
We have a myriad of specialist VPs who focus on the minutiae of the business where these roles would have typically been fulfilled others as a part of their role, or by lesser roles.
The business is so fragmented that it is impossible to move things forward supported by a blame culture that stems from the very top of the organisation.
What the city analyst see in Sage is perplexing because new online solutions Accounting, Financials, and Enterprise (not really online) are a million miles away from where they need to be. Our competitors have us beaten here, yet there is naivety of the City to believe what our failed CEO & CFO says about our success and transformation.
• We had some training needs in Q1, and have addressed these with Sales!?! Come on!
• H1 We had some localised challenges and have taken decisive action!! Really!
• We have the best business platform in Sage Business Cloud! Shoot Me!
• We have invented a magical way to create value from nothing! Ok that isn’t true, but it may as well be.
City Analysts!!! What the heck are you doing! Do your job! Ask some probing questions! And the golden thread will surely unravel.
Make no mistake there has been a transformation, one to oblivion and insignificance. Our products need life support, so we invent a marketing term “Sage Business Cloud” to wrap these products up in a digestible diversion. Not only do we do this, but we then say it is growing by 57%! What does this mean, and where is this revenue coming from… growth?
We fail slow and repeat frequently! Well as fast as slow failure will allow! Constantly putting barriers in the way of success, costs constraints, forced distribution, this is leading to attrition and paralysis.
Getting new roles approved is like getting a meeting with the Pope. Yet we constantly push people into the lower performance curve resulting in our top performers leaving in addition to the ones we aggressively manage out of the business.
We love to do acceleration cases, 99% of which result in nothing.
Roll play:
EVP: Wouldn’t it be great if we could deliver new product x to market in 6 months? Have a think about it and tell me what you need?
Team: 1 week of intense activity EVP person, we have looked at the market and it is our view that to deliver a world beating product we would need 18 people for 6 months.
EVP: Great we’ll give you 2 additional head, and oh we need the product in 6 weeks.
[Cycle of failure to be repeated every 6 months…]
We recently lost 30 execs from the business, and whilst I would not say all should not have left we have found ourselves in a frightening situation.
1. Majority of our established business leaders have left (decades of understanding)
2. We have an influx of VPs and EVPs who have little or no experience of Sage or indeed running any business of scale
3. The leadership capability within the business is at the lowest since our inception
Steve Hare & Steven Kelly are delusional are lining their pockets for as long as they can, reaping from the suffering and destruction of a national treasure.
Steve Hare was at the helm of Marconi during its demise and given the opportunity I believe he will do the same for Sage. I can see his LinkedIn strapline now “I have been instrumental in the demise of not one but two FTSE 100 companies, but don’t worry I did really well in the process 😉”.
Steven Kelly, well what can I say! He is incredibly driven and blind to the fact he is driving the business to oblivion, he needs to be removed ASAP. Although I fear the damage is so severe now Sage will never recover.
