An anonymous reader writes: Yahoo isn't the only one laying off staff today, add AVG Technologies to the list. The below was sent out by JR Smith (CEO of AVG Technologies) at 9:23am CET this morning. One person replied (which was sent to every employee) with the comment "And merry Christmas to everyone."
No further distribution – AVG proprietary and confidential – for AVG internal distribution only
Today we will take some important steps toward realigning AVG’s resources to better position our company for the future. The actions we are taking today are the result of a comprehensive review of our business and an assessment of the overall organization, as well as our operational effectiveness.
As a result of the operational review of our business, today we will start the process of refocusing key personnel on current growth initiatives as well as new and emerging areas of opportunity. In addition we will also streamline other areas of the business to drive efficiency. This means while we will be creating new opportunities, we will also be reducing the size of our overall workforce.
We have made hard choices, and our actions today are vital to achieving the right balance in terms of growth and managing our operating costs. The simple fact is: we must position AVG to acquire, retain and monetize our customer base in line with our corporate strategy and we need to get back to the things we do better than any other security company on earth, the things that differentiate us, the things that have gotten us this far:
The power of Free. Free users are critical to our financial success so we must invest in accelerating user growth to fully capitalize on opportunities.
The power of retention and monetization. We know that loyal users bring us great financial rewards. We have room to improve, and will continue to invest in improving the end-to-end user experience, customer retention, knowledge of our customer base, toolbar and overall monetization efforts, predominantly in the geographies with the most valuable customers and where we have the greatest potential for growth.
The power of the web: Our online distribution, customer support, customer influence and marketing efforts. Our broadest market reach, and most efficient channel to market, comes from our online presence. We will continue to invest in direct, online selling and enabling our channel partners to do the same.
In order to properly streamline our resources and to ensure we have the ability to make the right investments for growth, I have asked our senior leadership team to evaluate their current staffing levels and make hard decisions about projects, people and business objectives. As a result, we will be making a reduction in our workforce today and we will also be reorganizing several parts of the business.
Managers will be meeting the directly impacted employees first thing this morning. We have worked hard to create a generous a separation program and have engaged an outside firm to support impacted employees in finding new jobs outside of AVG.
Employees and team members that will not be impacted by our reduction in workforce are invited to join me and the senior leadership team for the following All-Hands meetings:
1:00pm *Brno: All-Hands Meeting 1, Barcelona meeting room
1:45pm Brno: All-Hands Meeting 2, Barcelona meeting room
2:30pm Brno: All-Hands Meeting 3, Barcelona meeting room
* with respect to the amount of invited employees and the capacity of the meeting rooms, we will run 3 sessions in Brno. Invitation to the individual sessions will be distributed directly to your calendars.
3:30pm Prague: All-Hands Meeting — Video Conference
4:30 pm UK: All-Hands Meeting — Teleconference
5:30 pm US: Town Hall Meeting (12:00 pm EST/9:00 am PST) – ROW invited to join this call. (Zephyr)
Today is a challenging day for AVG, and as a result of our prioritization efforts we will be losing people that have helped with our success. And, at the same time we face an incredibly competitive market, in that AVG must drive growth and entrench ourselves in both current and emerging markets to ensure our success. As a strong growth company, our future is indeed bright, yet we are at an apex, our opportunity requires every ounce of our collective commitment, personal stamp of trust and quality, as well as our ingenuity. We need you to come to work each day with the energy and enthusiasm of a startup, focused on a simple set of priorities, with the determination of success and commitment to execute like a well-seasoned company.
JR
