Aptean Reviews

Should start with a warning before going in to depth: if your company is acquired by Aptean, expect to see immediate redundancies and price increases for valued customers. Don't buy into "it's business as usual" or "we won't be making any changes for at least 12 months", be on very high alert as soon as the acquisition is confirmed. The bottom line is that Aptean acquire you for your customers NOT for your talent, knowledge or expertise, and they'll start stripping the business immediately. Of course they'll warn against this early doors - the fact they even mention that they're backed by private equity firms and reassure you regarding this, is a red flag in itself. So, Cons - Inappropriate town halls - plenty of talk about how great Aptean is whilst staff are going through really difficult redundancy procedures, it's actually quite distressing. I really thought we were being punked when during a town hall they said they were recruiting for talent, when everyone in the room was at risk of redundancy. It's demoralising, sort it out. Suspect redundancy processes - pretty standard scoring process but the score that cost me my role was utter tosh, and proved they hadn't actually done ANY research on me. It's a cost cutting, face-fitting exercise, and not a talent retention exercise (which is how they framed it). No real strategy to speak of - regular acquisitions mean regular changes to direction and strategy, regular changes to staff and line management. No transparency - acquisition is an anxious time for everyone, but you will be blocked from requesting more information. You spend months doing deep-dives with various Aptean bods whilst they pull apart your business, processes and people. Then you'll be left for months on end with no idea as to if there's a 'go-forward' strategy for your area. Trusted senior managers/Directors start to go quiet, then disappear entirely - honestly, it's like the KGB. An us versus them culture - you're either 'Aptean' or you're not. And you're looked down on if you don't fit the mould - they make this very clear in early acquisition meetings. Fickleness - when we were acquired, we were told to essentially 'play the game' in terms of networking, and to fight hard to save our roles. It's all very superficial and if you're a person who likes to know where they stand, it's not for you.

Severe lack of communication to the acquired companies. The company I worked for was acquired by Aptean. When Aptean management arrived at the very start of the acquisition, they said it was business as usual. Staff were concerned about their offices in China and India carrying out work for our company, Aptean assured us that it wouldn't be the case. In under a year, Aptean closed offices, carried out two rounds of redundancies and started outsourcing work to their offshore offices. The first thing Aptean management advise is ignore glassdoor reviews... Unfortunately, this is business and Aptean, Vista and TA (joint owners of Aptean) have no consideration to the employees.