Qualtrics has laid off 14 percent of its workforce as part of an organizational restructure.
The VoC stalwart follows many other CX tech juggernauts in making layoffs in 2023.
And Zig Serafin, CEO of Qualtrics, told a familiar story when announcing the news: the company’s organizational structure had become too complicated.
After a pandemic-driven business surge, Qualtrics seemingly grew too quickly – and somewhat unsustainably.
Salesforce, Zendesk, and many others have painted a similar picture when announcing their layoffs.
Another example is SAP, which acquired Qualtrics in 2018 and continues to own a majority stake in the company. Earlier this year, it announced plans to lay off 2.5 percent of its global workforce.
Soon after, Qualtrics was acquired by investment firms Silver Lake and CPP Investments for $12.5BN, including SAP’s remaining 71 percent stake in Qualtrics.
Going deeper into the rationale behind the job cuts in a memo to employees, Serafin explained: “Simply put, the organizational structures, work processes, and the way we made decisions previously don’t work for the company we’ve become or the company we aspire to be.
The result is an organizational structure that will enable our teams to work better together, bring new innovations to market faster, and make it easier for our customers and partners to do business with us.
Employees made redundant will receive a minimum of ten weeks of severance pay, health insurance, equity vesting, as well as outstanding quarterly bonuses.
Alongside these layoffs, the company is also planning to relocate hundreds of staff to new roles and locations. The aim is to streamline its go-to-market and product development activities.
Qualtrics is expected to have completed this restricting effort by the end of the year.
Yet, the news may come as a surprise to many after Qualtrics’ promising recent financial results after SAP’s agreed sale of the company.
Indeed, the company reported revenue for the quarter as $409.8 million, representing a 22 percent increase year over year. Moreover, the company reduced its net and operating losses and increased its margin and income per share.
Qualtrics has formed some positive new relationships with organizations, including LinkedIn, Lumen Technologies, ISS Worldwide, PayPal, Dairy Queen, Banco Compartamos, and more.
It has also expanded partnerships in recent times with Twilio, Five9, and Merkle.
Moreover, Qualtrics announced the general availability of its AI insights tools, Qualtrics Automated Summaries for Video Feedback, In-Depth Interviews, and Focus Groups. The suite assists companies in improving research, increasing market share, and meeting customer needs.
Yet, unfortunately, all this innovation was not enough to save the jobs of almost 800 employees as Qualtrics prepares for the future.
For more from Qualtrics, check out some of its other recent news stories:
- Qualtrics Brings Generative AI to “Every Part” of Its Platform
- Qualtrics Launches New Agent-Assist Tools for Contact Centers
- Qualtrics Unveils AI Applications to Assist Frontline Employees
