Think about how big companies budget. They basically split their money into two buckets: Running the business (the day-to-day survival stuff like claims, compliance, and basic IT) and Changing/Improving the business (the future stuff like innovation, strategy, and customer experience).
If you’re sitting in that second bucket right now, you need to prepare for a heavy hit—and yes, that includes the VPs. These departments are massive cost centers, and honestly, Centene isn’t worrying about NPS scores or customer satisfaction right now. I mean, that much is obvious after losing 2 million members, with probably more on the way.
Leadership is in total survival mode. They are strictly focused on weathering this massive membership drop and hacking down operating expenses. Customer strategy, future-thinking roles, and tracking NPS are suddenly being treated as expensive, non-essential luxuries for this fiscal year.
HR? Goodbye. Customer Strategy? Goodbye. And if you’re in UX & Design, my best advice is to find your way onto a locked-in, fully funded project as fast as you can.