Pipedrive plans sweeping cuts and fewer offices

Pipedrive plans to significantly reduce its workforce and operate from fewer locations, with changes expected to affect most of its current positions, ERR reported. The sales software company employs about 800 people, roughly half of them in Estonia.

In a letter to staff seen by ERR, chief executive Paulo Cunha said the company would reduce the number of teams, management layers and locations. The changes and their timing will vary by country because of different employment laws. Pipedrive plans to speak individually with each employee over the next two days about whether their job is at risk and what happens next.

Marketing chief Mariliis Beger could not confirm to Äripäev whether Pipedrive’s Tallinn and Tartu offices would remain, citing differences in labour laws between countries. Cunha said the company plans to propose consolidating its operations into fewer locations, with most core teams based in the same office.

Cunha said the restructuring is intended to help Pipedrive bring products to market faster, understand customers better and focus on the strength and value of its products. The company aims to put more time toward focused work and reduce obstacles, operating more like the startup it began as.

Pipedrive plans to continue investing in its customer relationship management software, with greater emphasis on quality and reliability. It is also developing an artificial intelligence-powered sales system for teams that can record sales conversations, keep data up to date, recommend next steps and handle routine tasks.

The company also wants to rely less on paid search advertising, reduce management layers and meetings, and give employees more time for focused work.

Cunha said small businesses’ software-buying habits and expectations are changing quickly. More are turning to artificial intelligence for recommendations, reducing the free web traffic that has driven Pipedrive’s growth, while paid traffic is becoming more expensive. Customers also increasingly expect software to record activities and data automatically, recommend next steps and complete some work for them.

Pipedrive had already invested more in its product and marketing, reorganised product development, changed its working methods and significantly cut operating costs. Cunha said those steps were right but not enough, and that the company needed a smaller, simpler organisation.