Google said Thursday that it plans to reduce the number of roles within the company's sales and marketing organizations by just under 200 globally. "We did look at a number of different options but ultimately concluded that we had to restructure our organizations in order to improve our effectiveness and efficiency as a business. We will give each person time to try and find another position at Google, as well as outplacement support, and provide severance packages for those who leave the company," Omid Kordestani, Senior VP, Global Sales and Business Development wrote at Google's blog.

"Google has grown very quickly in a very short period of time. When companies grow that quickly it's almost impossible to get everything right—and we certainly didn't. In some areas we've created overlapping organizations which not only duplicate effort but also complicate the decision-making process. That makes our teams less effective and efficient than they should be. In addition, we over-invested in some areas in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time," according to Kordestani.

The cuts come a month after Google announced it was getting out of the broadcast radio advertising business. Google also recently abandoned a two-year-old Print Ads program that put the firm's online expertise to work auctioning off space on newspaper pages to bargain-seeking advertisers.