Gong, an Israeli startup and a unicorn that uses artificial intelligence to transform revenue teams, is set to lay off about 7% of its workforce, or 80 people. And world leading online retailer/reseller warehouse is also making cutbacks, firing several dozen of its 300 employees in Israel. The cuts are a sign of the times as the world is still reeling from the negative effects to financial markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last March. But financial observers have said that the crisis is passing so these cuts may mark the last of the crisis, so people hope.
At least Gong CEO Amit Bendov expects that his company is done with making layoffs. He told Calcalist, “The company is growing, but less than we forecast last year. The macroeconomic conditions are still difficult and we are adapting ourselves to our expected income. The employees being laid off are mainly part of our support and administration teams and aren’t part of the company’s core R&D. I estimate that we will not lay off any more employees this year, even though there is currently a lack of clarity. We are looking ahead and we are experiencing a nice quarter with new clients joining, but the growth is still not as we predicted and will be slower than expected.”
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Founded in 2015 by CEO Amit Bendov and Chief Product Officer Eilon Reshef, Gong states that it enables revenue teams to realize their fullest potential by unveiling their customer reality. The patented Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform “captures and understands every customer interaction, then delivers insights at scale, empowering revenue teams to make decisions based on data instead of opinions.” Over 2,000 innovative companies like LinkedIn, MuleSoft, Paychex, PayPal, Shopify, Slack, Sprout Social, Twilio, and Zillow use Gong to power their customer reality.
“With Gong, customers experience improved win rates, increased deal sizes, and accelerated employee ramp-times.”
Gong explains that today business leaders use static reports, anecdotal evidence, and self-reported information to see what is happening in their business but lack an understanding of why certain outcomes are achieved and how to adapt accordingly. Gong boasts that its Revenue Intelligence Platform captures the full range of a company’s customer interactions, surfaces insights about markets, deals, and employee skills, and recommends the next best steps to progress deals, ensure customer success, and win markets. This enables customer-facing professionals to make proactive decisions informed by unfiltered business reality instead of opinions.
As for eBay, the Israelis are just a small fraction of the 500 employees worldwide that the company is letting go. This represents about 4% of its global workforce. eBay CEO Jamie Iannone explained the firings as having been necessitated by the global macroeconomic situation caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
