Trimble’s (NASDAQ: TRMB) transportation group has laid off an undisclosed number of employees amid ongoing challenges tied to the coronavirus pandemic, new business strategies and the company’s electronic logging device (ELD) integration.
Responding to a FreightWaves inquiry, Trimble on Thursday released the following statement:
“We recently implemented strategic changes to the organizational structure of our Transportation sector, including a reduction of a limited number of positions.
“While decisions like these are always difficult, we are confident that these adjustments better enable us to not only continue to support our customers and partners today but accelerate our delivery of innovative solutions to the industry in the months and years ahead. We remain dedicated to achieving our mission of facilitating collaboration across the supply chain between the carriers, shippers and intermediaries we serve.”
Executives declined further comment, a Trimble spokesperson told FreightWaves.
It’s been a tough year for Sunnyvale, California-based Trimble, a provider of technology solutions for trucking companies, freight brokerages and third-party logistics providers.
In January, the company’s PeopleNet ELD experienced widespread outages tied to the transition of the calendar year, dragging down its financial performance. Trimble’s transportation segment produced revenue of $170.6 million during the first quarter of 2020, down 10% from the first quarter of 2019.
The company’s second-quarter earnings report, released on Aug. 5, registered a decline in transportation revenue of $150.9 million, down 24% from the second quarter of 2019.
Other factors affecting Trimble’s logistics division included its acquisition of Kuebix, a TMS provider, as well as executing a subscription business model transition in the company’s enterprise business.
“While we remain convinced of both the long term market opportunity of our supply chain strategy, as well as the viability of our strategy, we are currently performing below our potential in the transportation segment,” said Robert Painter, Trimble’s CEO, in a statement accompanying the second-quarter earnings report.
Painter added that an economic recovery “will take longer than anticipated” because of “suppressed demand” for transportation services.
For that reason Trimble did not provide a financial outlook for the remainder of 2020, the company said.
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John
They laid off all of the technical software workers and promoted the HR people who did the layoffs. Shameful.
Trimble Transportation insider
I work at Trimble Transportation and the laid off over 150 of us, even though our stock is doing better than ever. The subscription model is still in its planning phase by the committee. It is long overdue as our customers are often not willing to put the huge investment in infastructure or an implementation project. Our QA team is too small and struggles testing. If we could rid our products of bugs in a timely fashion we wouldn’t have to keep buying software we already have solutions built for. Our developers stopped coding .NET for good on our best products and all that is left is support. The long term plan and vision of the company is deterred by the “Minnesota Mafia” regime that did the layoffs themselves then received promotions the following week. During such unprecedented times with COVID this was a slap in the face to long-standing employees that got kicked to the curb WITHOUT notice. At least they reinstated our 10% pay cut.
Richard
Exporthub is an international b2b marketplace catering to thousands of globally active manufacturers & suppliers from all industries with its safest trade services.
David
Yes the Kuebix deal really hurt them big time. Spending $201 million on a money losing pseudo transportation software that bleeds cash with no end in sight is hard for anyone to digest. The idea was good. The company they bought was obviously bad.
Trimble needs to spend time fixing the old tech they have first or junk it and buy the newer stuff that everyone wants today. Current customers are already going elsewhere.
PeopleNet is still a good product. But now there are so many more cheaper ELD options for essentially the same service. Same with maps. They should have rolled out their subscription models at least 5 years ago. They’ve wait too long.
The layoffs are a shame as Trimble is very profitable. I hate it when these profitable companies get greedy and lay people off just so they can make even more money. Why would people want to now go and work there if they know how the story always ends there time after time? So short sighted. Good luck to all those now looking for work.
Max Bronovich
I don’t have the scoop on Kuebix TMS, but I know their competition is over-complicated and does everything except for what shippers want it to do. What other TMS could Trimble have bought?