Google combines Maps and Waze teams as pressure mounts to cut costs

Google plans to combine teams working on its Maps product and on Waze, a mapping service acquired by Google in 2013. The merger comes as the search engine giant feels pressure to cut costs and consolidate operations, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Waze's team of 500 employees will report to Google's Geo organization, which oversees Maps, Earth and Street View, from Friday. Neha Parikh, the current CEO of Waze, will step down.

Google told the WSJ that it plans to keep Waze as a standalone service. Waze is known for crowdsourcing information along the way, such as locations of speed cameras, police cars, and traffic accidents.

Google also said it does not expect any layoffs as part of the reorganization. However, layoffs abound in the tech world, whether you're a startup or an Amazon. And they often hit hardest where there are cross-team layoffs. Indeed, Google said it expects the restructuring of the various map services will reduce overlap in map creation.

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said he hopes to make Google 20% more productive by running "with less resources". Speaking at the Code conference in September, the executive said the company had become slower due to over-recruitment and seemed to hint that merging teams working on overlapping products would help the company to stay on top.