Report: Tech Firms Get Back to Basics Amid Rising Layoffs - PYMNTS.com

Will 2023 beryllium the twelvemonth Big Tech companies deliberation little big?

A study Saturday (Jan. 14) by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) argues that tech firms are taking a much “back-to-basics” strategy pursuing a twelvemonth successful which much than 153,000 workers successful that assemblage mislaid their jobs.

Many were employees hired by companies who wrongly assumed that the pandemic-era roar would outlive the pandemic, the WSJ said. However, respective workers who mislaid their jobs were longtime staffers moving connected projects that were extracurricular their companies’ expertise oregon simply “fiscally irresponsible.”

“Stop doing anserine stuff,” is the proposal Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman told the Journal helium would springiness companies if helium could spell backmost successful time.

His institution was among the firms slashing jobs past year. The online existent property seller announced successful November it was laying disconnected 13% of its workforce and shutting down its home-flipping work RedFinNow.

“We’ll inactive request home-services employees for our concierge work to hole up brokerage customers’ listings, but since that radical spent astir of its clip renovating RedfinNow homes, it volition get overmuch smaller,” Kelman said successful a connection to employees.

The layoffs astatine Redfin — affecting nether 900 workers — were tiny compared to occupation cuts astatine companies similar Meta, which eliminated astatine slightest 11,000 positions past year, and Amazon, which has said it volition cut 18,000 jobs successful layoffs that began past twelvemonth and extended into this year.

In the lawsuit of Meta, capitalist worries that the institution and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been excessively focused connected metaverse projects fueled a 64% driblet successful the terms of the company’s shares past year, starring to thousands of layoffs.

Zuckerberg said successful December that Meta’s concern successful Reality Labs — the part that handles its virtual world and augmented world projects — accounts for conscionable 20% of Meta’s portfolio.

While saying that making ample investments successful the metaverse arsenic the system turned southbound was a “mistake,” helium besides suggested that the wide metaverse propulsion would beryllium doubters wrong.

Overall, 2022 was a rough year for the tech companies tracked by PYMNTS for our CE 100 Index, arsenic PYMNTS reported earlier this month.

“Inflation ran rampant this past twelvemonth and the complaint hikes pressured businesses and consumers alike, starring to Wall Street worries implicit spending, profits and slowing top-line growth, and however the large reopening mightiness impact it all,” PYMNTS wrote.

Among them is Milan Parikh, CFO astatine workplace equity level Syndio.

“We’ve been a precocious maturation institution funded by apical tier task capitalists,” Parikh said, “and [for us] it utilized to beryllium the maturation astatine each costs close present mentality — now, that’s flipped to much of the basics, which is maturation and profitability.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS’ probe shows that CFOs are progressively embracing embedded B2B solutions arsenic past year’s digital transformation fuels this year’s data-driven growth.

“The AR Transformation Solution: Easing And Accelerating Payments From Business Customers,” showed that organizations which update their accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) operations with streamlined and integrated innovations volition beryllium much apt to get a stronger clasp of currency travel management, currency travel forecasting and absorption of moving capital.