Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

tomtom.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 269 posts

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#11

Post by helsinkiandrew »

noasaservice wrote: post #2

Damn. And instead of reinvesting and furthering R&D, product lines, and more - they're just chopping 10% (or 450 people). That's a hell of a lot of institutional knowledge just gone. It also goes to show that when I automate, I should keep it hidden. That's because I do not receive the gains of automation. Instead, I receive more work or get laid off.

It's not clear from the article what the 500 people are doing - they could be doing manual data entry or map validation tasks which are made redundant by the new "automated mapmaking platform" built by others (developers/engineers etc).

The saving from those roles could well be going to be reinvested in R&D and product lines.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#12

Post by helsinkiandrew »

wjnc wrote: post #6

TomTom is such an interesting story in technology and finance. Went from zero to $ 10B+ between '05 - '07 [1]. Everyone you knew had one, used one, loved one. Then the sudden boom in mobile phones and mobile internet and the financial crisis. Total crash of the stock. Pretty much subsistence without any proper profits since '09-'10. Not enough IP to get bought, a few licensing deals here and there. Always falling rev…

Wow an unbroken 13 year stretch of ever decreasing revenue:

https://companiesmarketcap.com/tomtom/revenue/

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#13

Post by dtech »

wjnc wrote: post #6

TomTom is such an interesting story in technology and finance. Went from zero to $ 10B+ between '05 - '07 [1]. Everyone you knew had one, used one, loved one. Then the sudden boom in mobile phones and mobile internet and the financial crisis. Total crash of the stock. Pretty much subsistence without any proper profits since '09-'10. Not enough IP to get bought, a few licensing deals here and there. Always falling rev…

They pretty much lost because free (subsidized) alternatives like Google Maps became available, pretty much the same story as Netscape. It probably didn't help that their maps were also incredibly expensive, €100-200 for western Europe in 2005 money.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#14

Post by belter »

wjnc wrote: post #6

TomTom is such an interesting story in technology and finance. Went from zero to $ 10B+ between '05 - '07 [1]. Everyone you knew had one, used one, loved one. Then the sudden boom in mobile phones and mobile internet and the financial crisis. Total crash of the stock. Pretty much subsistence without any proper profits since '09-'10. Not enough IP to get bought, a few licensing deals here and there. Always falling rev…

As the owner of several TomTom devices, who tried a smartphone and google maps as an alternative, my experience is that the maps are of higher quality and the navigation recommendations better.

Multiple times, when in a Taxi in a foreign country, that used the usual solution of smartphone and Google maps, managed to get on time and find a tricky destination by popping up my trusted TomTom.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#15

Post by Havoc »

wjnc wrote: post #6

TomTom is such an interesting story in technology and finance. Went from zero to $ 10B+ between '05 - '07 [1]. Everyone you knew had one, used one, loved one. Then the sudden boom in mobile phones and mobile internet and the financial crisis. Total crash of the stock. Pretty much subsistence without any proper profits since '09-'10. Not enough IP to get bought, a few licensing deals here and there. Always falling rev…

Yeah does seem like they're in a market where the problem is solved & there is no next harder step to progress to

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#16

Post by jopsen »

ben_w wrote: post #8
myst1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most company's right now want to automate all skilled labor away as quickly as possible. CEOs don't want innovation, they want a saleable product with the highest profit margin and the least risk. Removing people was always the goal. I've worked at two jobs were in the first week I was told my goal was to automate myself so I could progress my career... Yup okay then...

I remember hearing much the same words (cf. “My job is to make myself redundant”) in 2004. I’m fairly sure this was the goal at least as far back as when ship builders switched from high-skilled artisans to carve each pulley for the sails individually and by hand, to using jigs so that low-skilled carpenters could make a lot that were almost as good for a fraction of the price.

> when ship builders switched from high-skilled artisans to carve each pulley for the sails individually and by hand, to using jigs so that low-skilled carpenters could make a lot...

Sounds like an interesting story, do you have a link :D

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#17

Post by mtmail »

Recent presentation about one of their automation tools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh5fV8TVlSo Like other map providers they record where user actually drive and adjust the map. Steven Coast (founder of OpenStreetMap) explain how that is now sufficient to even start a map from scratch.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#18

Post by polynomial »

fatboy wrote: post #10

Are announcements like this always done in this strange mixed-voice style? The first para reads like it's a third party that's reporting on the event, then in the third para they use the word "our", and it's on their website of course.

At my first job I found it exceptionally odd that the CEO (who was charged with properly running the company, obvi) would phrase his quarterly reports to the board as if he was just an outside auditor, eg. "you're going to have a problem here" "you're won't have revenue to cover expenses" "your company is not running well"

As if to deny any responsibility for how the company was being run.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#19

Post by pionar »

fatboy wrote: post #10

Are announcements like this always done in this strange mixed-voice style? The first para reads like it's a third party that's reporting on the event, then in the third para they use the word "our", and it's on their website of course.

Usually, yes. It's because "reporters" will copy-paste the press release and put it in a "story" about it that's just a parroting of the release.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#20

Post by wjnc »

dtech wrote: post #13
wjnc wrote: post #6

TomTom is such an interesting story in technology and finance. Went from zero to $ 10B+ between '05 - '07 [1]. Everyone you knew had one, used one, loved one. Then the sudden boom in mobile phones and mobile internet and the financial crisis. Total crash of the stock. Pretty much subsistence without any proper profits since '09-'10. Not enough IP to get bought, a few licensing deals here and there. Always falling rev…

They pretty much lost because free (subsidized) alternatives like Google Maps became available, pretty much the same story as Netscape. It probably didn't help that their maps were also incredibly expensive, €100-200 for western Europe in 2005 money.

Netscape disbanded as a company in 2003. Why is TomTom still here?

I like the questions at the end of a company since a large market I work in (insurance / life insurance) is dwindling as well. What does that do with companies? How do they communicate? What happens when the inevitable shrinking sets in and your brain drain is faster than the way you shrink? Should you ever actively terminate a company and tranfer IP / assets?

Post reply on HN