Excellent company before Cvent acquisition, significant decline after integration (No Plan)
Pros
Prior to the Cvent acquisition, ON24 provided an environment where people were encouraged to grow, evolve, and take ownership. The company allowed me to wear many hats, expand my skills, and contribute beyond my core role. This created opportunities to build automation, improve processes, and introduce efficiencies that strengthened collaboration across teams. The APAC organisation was highly collaborative, with strong cross functional partnerships between Sales, Solutions Consulting, Customer Success, and Services. The team was empowered to solve problems, innovate, and create meaningful outcomes for customers while operating in a fast moving and supportive environment. ON24 provided excellent opportunities for professional growth, exposure to enterprise customers, and the ability to make a genuine impact.
Cons
The Cvent acquisition significantly changed the culture (they removed the entire sales, senior sales and leadership team), wrecked the structure, and operating model that had made ON24 successful. Many of the existing APAC sales processes, market knowledge, and regional strategies that had been built over many years were no longer recognised or valued. The biggest challenge was the assumption that an existing sales model could simply be replaced without a deep understanding of the APAC market, customer buying behaviours, competitive landscape, and the complexity of selling a specialised digital engagement platform. The acquisition brought a different perspective from a company focused primarily on in person events, which created challenges when adapting to a digital-first enterprise SaaS environment. Decisions impacting regional sales strategy appeared to be made without sufficient consultation with teams who had built the market, relationships, and customer knowledge over many years. This resulted in reduced trust, lower morale, and the loss of experienced talent across APAC. The transition highlighted the risks of integrating companies with different sales motions, cultures, and market approaches without adequately preserving the expertise and processes that contributed to the original company's success.
