10% of CDKi to go - The cull has started
1665 replies (most recent on top)
I think it is clear to anyone looking at Keyloop's job vacancies which countries are prioritised and which are not when it comes to employees. So, to use the maritime terminology below, if you are in one of the following ports of departure, jump ship while you can:
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the African and South American continents.
Judging by LinkedIn, the sale of Keyloop must be imminent. Why else would you increase the number of managers who are obviously there to ensure the right KPIs and figures, and to make sure everyone claps their hands with joy at being on a sinking ship the size of the Titanic, while at the same time firing the people on the floor who know the products and markets?
It will be interesting to see whether FP is as skilled in their sales pitch as CDK was back then, selling a utopia. I remember reading something earlier about how the talented CRO wants everyone to do this already, to sell something that does not exist – a utopia.
I wonder if the big pre-sale purge is coming this autumn? As we also saw shortly before the sale from CDK?
Hopefully, the new people who are hired have secured some good severance packages, because Keyloop doesn't give a damn when they fire people, or rather, they do – they give people a proper kick in the a-s like the cynical psychopaths that the management are – backed up by their incompetent HR department.
The best advice here must be to jump into the lifeboats while there is still time and hurry away – don't look back. Out on the horizon, a better world awaits, and many companies are eager to pick up the people who had the courage and wisdom to leave the ship while there was still time.
It really boils my pi$$ to see the LinkedIn brown nose id--ts trying to big up fusion, vega, service hub and many other products that are half finished, unfit for purpose and not ground breaking at all. I’m a project manager responsible for launch and to be honest I tell my customers not to get burnt as sales are selling vapourware. Every customer that is installed never pay hence the AR is huge. Desperate KLT just don’t listen or care. Sad sad times.
TLDR - Never bothered applying for the job in the end. HR never, ever replied, Glassdoor reviews and the breakdown of the consensus of this website, thankfully made up my mind.
It might make up yours too, if like me you haven't the time to scroll through pages and pages, here's a breakdown:
General Theme
The thread is a long-running, anonymous discussion about layoffs, restructuring, and internal culture at CDK Global now Keyloop.
It’s highly critical, with contributors expressing frustration, suspicion, and disillusionment about leadership decisions and company direction.
Layoffs & Redundancies
Multiple users confirm ongoing layoffs, often described as strategic cost-cutting disguised as redundancy.
There are claims that roles in the UK are being eliminated and shifted to lower-cost regions like India, which some argue may violate UK employment law if the work continues elsewhere.
Posters mention tactics like spacing out redundancies to avoid triggering collective consultation requirements.
Legal & Ethical Concerns
Several posts suggest that the company’s redundancy practices may not meet legal standards under Section 139 of the Employment Rights Act.
Advice is shared about seeking legal counsel, contacting ACAS, and checking home insurance for legal cover to pursue unfair dismissal claims.
Settlement agreements are described as common but potentially morally questionable.
Culture & Leadership Critique
Leadership is portrayed as disconnected, self-serving, and overly focused on short-term revenue boosts ahead of a potential sale.
There’s criticism of HR practices, alleged “blacklists,” and a lack of transparency around who is being let go.
Some posts mention a toxic culture, poor communication, and a lack of accountability.
Financials & Strategy
Users discuss financial losses, rising executive compensation, and expensive acquisitions (e.g., ATG for €230M on €30M revenue).
There’s skepticism about the AWS migration and new platform initiatives, with claims that they’re poorly executed and harming customer relationships.
Customer Impact
Dealers and long-time customers report deteriorating service, missing legal integrations, and disappearing account managers.
Some suggest competitors like Pinewood may benefit from Keyloop’s missteps.
Once upon a time, in a bustling kingdom known as Profitland, there was a ruler named King Tom. King Tom had a group of advisors called the FP Puppets, who were tasked with ensuring the kingdom's treasure chest always appeared full and prosperous.
In Profitland, the balance sheet was a magical scroll that showed the kingdom's wealth. If King Tom and his FP Puppets could make the numbers on the scroll reach so many million gold coins, it looked like the kingdom was thriving. However, what the magical scroll didn't show was the happiness and satisfaction of the kingdom's people.
The kingdom's people were the loyal customers who relied on the kingdom's products and services. Unfortunately, the products were often only part ready, and the Knights who installed them, both from within and outside the kingdom, had no idea if they worked properly. They would install the products and then disappear, leaving the people to fend for themselves.
The Slaves, a group of dedicated but overwhelmed individuals, were left to manage the aftermath. They had little training, no resources, and were already struggling under the weight of the people's demands. They cried out for help and were slapped down, beaten, and told to battle the kingdom's demons alone as it must be their fault. Most waited in despair for the inevitable arrest and disappearance into the Labyrinth of PayOff.
King Tom and the FP Puppets had parties to attend and didn’t want to be distracted from the fun and happy times by the downtrodden slaves and miserable people of Profitland.
As the kingdom continued to focus on the magical scroll, it began to fail its people. The once-loyal customers grew disheartened, and the kingdom's reputation started to crumble. The people whispered among themselves, saying that the kingdom was feeding King Tom's greed rather than serving their needs.
One day, a wise and kind-hearted Merlin joined the kingdom. Merlin saw the suffering of the people and decided to act. He gathered The Slaves and provided them with the training and resources they needed. He also listened to the people's concerns and worked tirelessly to improve the kingdom's products and services.
With Merlin’s guidance, the kingdom's products became dependable, and the people were once again happy and satisfied. The magical scroll began to reflect not just the kingdom's wealth, but also the happiness of its people. King Tom and the FP Puppets realized the importance of serving their people and started to focus on their well-being.
@8ay7 probably you.
I'll give you three guesses
@8ay7
There’s been quite a few of these types even back in the CDK days
@8ak7 I’d love to know who you’re referring to
@8ah6 We all know certain little sh7ts who simply cannot stick to their own job and have to constantly stick their noses into other peoples work. The kind of person who would start off as a pen pusher administrator and continually stab people in the back, for personal gain. They think due to hanging out with certain people in the business, they now have a wealth of knowledge and they can tackle any job and think they are technical guru's. Sadly not. They still are admin b7tch3s.
These people fit the Keyloop mould well and make the likes of TK and other senior w4nk3rs look like they know what they are doing. The sad thing is Keyloop has become brown nose central and you can smell them a mile off.
Poundshop kardashians in their element.
Us, the remaining core people are getting buttfu---d by TK and the rest of the ELT and SLT. As the Company over the last 3 years have lost extensive and critical coding, product and market knowledge by outsourcing UK jobs to very cheap places like India, Spain and Czech, the people left who have the knowledge, often just a single person who might not even be working on that any more, is being buttfu---d by the company to train and do other people’s job beside their own, with no recognition, promotion or pay increase by the company.
If all people on the floor stopped working double jobs and just did what they where supposed to do, then Keyloop would be forced to care about their customers and employees where as today they are only thinking about the money and their big fat bonuses.
The BS which the company has decided to start telling to it's customers and also employees is beyond embarrassing. Some people really don't know what they are doing and decide to make things up on the spot. The truth has a funny way of always coming out in the end.
Big indication that there is big trouble at the top and it's filtering down though the business.
Just got kicked out because I questioned how Keyloop is talking about Fusion and VEGA as groundbreaking and new in the industry. Sometime I wonder where the ELT and SLT get their market and product intel from. Hopefully the dealers don’t fall for these cheap marketing stunts that Keyloop are running. Also interesting when the first dealers will be calling Mr. Kilroy to complain about sales promising and selling something that doesn’t work properly.
Thanks for sharing that. I hope that you have gone onto bigger and better avenues (couldn't have been hard however).
Think everyone still remaining is pretty much looking over their shoulder for the Reaper email to arrive. Only a matter of time thankfully
I only know that there were some notable DMS and country personalities on the list. My thoughts seeing the list was, if you let go of those people and don’t treat them well, say goodbye to 50% of your revenue. Hopefully for Keyloop and the remaining personel, that hasn’t happened.
I f*^king hope that I am on top of that list!
Can you remember and share details of the hitlist?
When I left Keyloop 1 year ago- unwillingly after 24 years of service, Keyloop was led by HR- and women, who all was see me - hear me. Is it still so?
Also, do HR still have their black list of unwanted people? Yes, it is actually a thing, though they will never admit it. I saw it because a lifelong colleague in HR showed it to me. It showed Plus/Minus and strategies of release for each person. Most funny thing was that some of the info there was totally off from reality!
Of course he sleeps at night, because he sold his soul as soon as he became a corporate lawyer. He doesn't care about customers, he doesn't care about the company and he certainly doesn't care about the employees. He cares about finding loopholes in the law or in contracts so he can sc--w people over and make a profit for his masters, other than that he has no discernible skill and he's never ever actually created anything in his working life, just destroyed stuff.
How the CEO sleeps at night is beyond me. He must be waiting for that knock at the door any time of the day. Oh wait, he has his endless flock of sheep underneath him ready to take the bullet for a price and become the next Lee Majors (Fall guy) to all you Millennials.
Always remember what happened to the likes of that fat **** Robert Maxwell, Phillip Green, et al.
What goes around comes around.
P.S. remember if they pi$$ you off tw%t them. Prison is only temporary and sentences are being reduced.
Saw Esther Rantzen outside the Reading office earlier
Anybody know of the contact number for BBC Television's Rogue Traders?
I work in finance management and have seen “Irregularities” and sometimes even breaches of the law that, with further and thorough investigation, will 99% of the time lead to legal proceedings across countries and regions, and we are talking about fines and compensation claims of many millions of euros, as well as deprivation of the ability to do business. In some countries, there will even be the possibility of personal prosecution of individuals and groups of individuals.
Maybe the person who made the post is no longer with Keyloop or made a good agreement with Keyloop to keep his or her mouth shut.
Money talks - or do the opposite.
I wonder who the poster was (about 12 months ago) who had information allegedly that could sink the company?
I genuinely would love to know what that information was? if it was an existing employee in the know? or a disgruntled ex employee?
Would love to know if they have they been given the boot, or are they still with us?
As this board is pretty quiet of late I can only imagine a lot of people have fallen foul to Tom's sword
See it. Sod it. Forget it.
Culture of Accountability? What a joke! 30 year old management fad that's not going to address the fundamental issues in the company. Delivered by a bunch of brown-nose management poodles who don't understand what they're talking about.
If everybody goes on the course that's 10+ man years of time wasted.
@87v4 its also down to where the resource is needed. some roles are for support and they will be needed to cover certain time periods this is only possible if you are in the right time zone. there also needs to be overlap with your manager. what ever it is your hoping to bring to the keyloop table, i feel you would be better utilized for a company that cares about it. Most keyloop products are bespoke in house code so you could be the best programmer in the world but you would never be able to reverse engineer some of the crazy stuff going on. trust me i have been watching it happened for the last 5 years. instead the product is failing and trying to be rebuilt onto a new platform
@87v4
Simple answer is no.
Jobs are within country specified only. Resource is allocated based on region where its needed and cost. e.g employing someone in Europe in far more expensive than say Vietnam plus there are tax and benefits complications. And like any business costs have to be managed and VC overlords will be looking to sell Keyloop so at the moment its all sell sell sell and not spend spend spend.
Is this short sighted? Absolutely! But its a business with a bottom line to manage and not a charity spreading love to the world.
Sorry, for this post not being about CDK or layoffs. I would be interested in working for your company, but after reaching out to your HR department a numerous number of times without any response maybe someone on here can help. You have a lot of open positions that are all tied to specific countries. Does that mean that even if was the best candidate ever to apply, I wouldn’t get the job because of my location? I guess, sorry for saying it, would leave Keyloop only with the best in the country and not in the world. That doesn’t seem to match the inclusive culture you are mentioning on your website as well as it might be leaving your products second best.
This company is a complete train wreck, and the people in charge are absolute clowns. I used to think they were just trying to squeeze every last penny beforevthey sold, but now I'm genuinely convinced they're just clueless! The decisions make zero sense. The whole AWS thing was always a pipe dream they could never afford, and it's being pushed by the biggest clown of them all, Jeff! Mark my words, this is going to crash and burn.
They got way too radical with the changes, bled themselves dry, and now nobody's going to want it. If they'd just nurtured the decent stuff they had, it could've been something. Instead, they messed it up beyond repair.
Was the same negotiator used for when AD P purchased K3rridge?
Looks like keyloop paid at the top end of the revenue multiplier for ATG. Paid 230M on 30M revenue. Wow!
Will there be any money left for sham redundancies?
2024 accounts available on Companies House now (search for Concorde Topco). Highlights (or lowlights depending on your point of view):
- Net loss after interest payments €95.7m
- ATG was acquired by increasing loans
- Outstanding loan debt now exceeds €1bn
- Cash at bank at start of 2024 stood at €85.6m by year end it had dropped to €24m
- Tom's salary and benefits increased by 25% over the 2023 figure
You're welcome
To quote TK at his Keyloop inauguration: We know what we are doing - we have done this before. Already at that point the alarm bells started chiming for customers, partners and employees.
Did you know that some of our vendors have adopted Keyloops revenue share strategy? Guess what impact that have on our products rentability. Then on top of that, put all the fancy stuff like AWS and our apps. Guess where that put us compared to our customers. In top of most expensive products - sometimes double or triple the price down to #2 on list. Trust me, I have seen this before. Revenue will increase on short term which is what FP and ELT wants to secure their bonuses on sale. Then when a sale has happened and the ELT and other Senior leaders have abandoned the ship, the old guard are left back with another clean-up monster of a project.
A kind of a loop, a Keyloop.
Customers not being helped by the AWS migration project, especially Drive and Rev8. Jeff and his minions know there are serious issues, but keep on forcing through migrations, creating problems for customers and leaving other departments to clean up the mess. Amit or Tom really need to grip on this, otherwise pinewood are going to have a field day picking up new business!
For those looking to pursue unfair dismissal claims but are worried about the cost. Check out your home insurance policy as you may have legal cover included and many policies with legal cover will cover work related claims via tribunals.
Keyloop seems to be more focused on their new platform than the OEM integrations that are mandatory for us dealers to have, and not to speak about the country legal requirements that are also missing. If they don’t provide us dealers with the mandatory stuff, they don’t have any customers left to sell their new shining platform to. Speaking of their platform. Dealers should try challenge the GDPR compliance of that platform, and see who they react - hilarious. Have independent auditors look at it, and they will be shocked!
Again kicking out people that know the industry replacing them with software generalist is a bad idea.
As a customer of Kerridge for many years and having such a great service, It has been more than disappointing to our company by the way we are treated and problems dealt with since Keyloop took control. The situation has got dramatically worse since our contact has disappeared without any explanation. I have spoken to other dealers who feel exactly the same. The lady I used to deal with was more than helpful but suddenly disappeared and our account manager has gone awol. Previously this lady managed to get problems resolved quickly. Not the case now I am afraid to say #Pinewood may the way forward
Customers are forced to resort to social media thanks to the communication blackout when account managers disappear emails go un-responded to and obvious lack of being able to phone anyone
@8784 but using LinkedIn for that is the wrong channel.
Interesting how customers are beginning to share their bad experiences with Keyloop in public, like on LinkedIn.
Ball is now rolling, let’s see how many heads will be rolling along.
The reason Settlement and Compromise agreements exist is to allow for this, while giving the affected individuals a redundancy payment plus additional sum that would be equal to what would like by be achieved in a Tribunal. This is far less than people imagine. Plus the Tribunal process is long and painful and take over your life.
It a very common and accepted practice but maybe a morally repugnant.
Obviously this is only for the contract termination and not for any other issues raised in the case below.