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Google is reportedly planning to merge the mapping team of Waze and its own group that is managing the Maps product. The tech firm came up with this plan as it faces pressure to cut costs and simplify its operations.
In a new update, The Wall Street Journal reported that the merge already started on Friday, Dec. 9. Google brought more than 500 employees of Waze to its Geo organization that supervises Google Maps, Earth, and Street View products. The company’s spokeswoman said that the staff of Waze and the company’s mapping service will now start to work together.
As a result of this change, Waze’s current chief executive officer, Neha Parikh, is stepping down from her post. Then again, despite the combining of employees, Google told WSJ that Waze would remain a standalone service.
The best part of the plan is that Google is not considering layoffs even with this reorganization move. However, it was suggested that even though the company is not expecting job terminations, it may still happen due to the economic situation. In fact, many big tech firms are announcing job cuts these days, saying that these decisions are unavoidable.
The combining of Google Maps and Waze employees is a step that will consolidate business processes thus, it will lower costs. It was in 2013 when Alphabet Inc. acquired Waze for $1 billion. It has 151 million monthly active users around the world today, as per Reuters.
"By bringing the Waze team into Geo's portfolio of real-world mapping products, the teams will benefit from further increased technical collaboration," Google’s spokesperson said in a statement.
Meanwhile, it turned out that even before this reorganization, Alphabet’s chief executive officer, Sundar Pichai, has already been discussing about the consolidation of its investments that are overlapping. To solve this, he said that they would work on simplifying the organization, which would also increase the work efficiency of the employees.
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