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TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

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

#21

Post by kawsper »

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 did try moving to mobiles, I used to have TomTom Navigator on my Symbian phone (Nokia N73), it worked quite well back then!

But you needed a seperate bluetooth GPS device because my phone didn't include a GPS-receiver.

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

#22

Post by lozenge »

wjnc wrote: post #20
dtech wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Transfer to who? All the people who know how to put the assets to good use... are already employed by TomTom.

As long as the company provides value to shareholders and customers, why wind it down? Not everything had to be about growth, growth, growth.

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

#24

Post by wly_cdgr »

polynomial wrote: post #18
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.

Sounds like he was trying to deny ultimate (as opposed to any) responsibility, which seems fair enough given that the board was his boss and had the power to fire him

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

#25

Post by Aperocky »

madiator wrote: post #3

> Regrettably, this will have an intended impact on approximately 500 employees in our Maps unit, equivalent to around 10% of our total global headcount. At least they are honest about it. I am currently reading the first chapter of 21 lessons for the 21st century and it fills me up with a bit of dread. People having been losing jobs for a long time, but in the future it will get harder to get new ones due to the amo…

> due to the amount of specialization

I see high amount of specialization but only after onboarding and not asked of potential candidates.

All we ask are capable software engineers, who we then train to be very specialized in what we do.

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

#26

Post by asddubs »

belter wrote: post #14
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.

yup, I still use one too. it's great, way better than google maps. But I'm guessing it's a hard pitch to get people to even try a dedicated device for something they already have in their pocket, for free.

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

#27

Post by wjnc »

lozenge wrote: post #22
wjnc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Transfer to who? All the people who know how to put the assets to good use... are already employed by TomTom. As long as the company provides value to shareholders and customers, why wind it down? Not everything had to be about growth, growth, growth.

Let me be the first to say that hardcore capitalism isn't my usual purview. And that exactly the diversity of stakeholders is why I like this question.

TomTom obviously offers no value to shareholders (no dividend policy, history of losses, perhaps except those searching for volatily). It's 49% owned by the directors with a 51% float. It clearly offers some value to customers since it has revenues. However, the revenues have been falling for a decade and most auto manufacturers seem able to procure these materials in-house.

It has value to 4500 employees who retain gainful employment at TomTom! But the financial metric to measure value added for those employees is lacking: TomTom is worth nearly nothing. Society would be better of 'cancelling' TomTom and letting all employees go to companies with higher added value to society. They could be teachers, nurses and researchers at companies that further the technical boundary. Instead, they are working for no value at all except their salaries. It's sad. (: Hyperbole.)

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

#28

Post by andsoitis »

asddubs wrote: post #26
belter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

yup, I still use one too. it's great, way better than google maps. But I'm guessing it's a hard pitch to get people to even try a dedicated device for something they already have in their pocket, for free.

"the best camera is the one that's with you” － Chase Jarvis

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

#29

Post by tluyben2 »

belter wrote: post #14
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.

Guess it depends on the location? We used it to drive through rural Canada and if we had followed any of the many wrong ways it tried to send us, we would be very dead.

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

#30

Post by [deleted] »

wjnc wrote: post #27
lozenge wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transfer to who? All the people who know how to put the assets to good use... are already employed by TomTom. As long as the company provides value to shareholders and customers, why wind it down? Not everything had to be about growth, growth, growth.

Let me be the first to say that hardcore capitalism isn't my usual purview. And that exactly the diversity of stakeholders is why I like this question. TomTom obviously offers no value to shareholders (no dividend policy, history of losses, perhaps except those searching for volatily). It's 49% owned by the directors with a 51% float. It clearly offers some value to customers since it has revenues. However, the reven…

[deleted]
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