Reliance Communications To Restructure Wireless Business

[Arun 795]

Moneycontrol.com

Sep 05, 2011 at 16:44

Reliance Communications , India's second-largest mobile phone carrier by subscribers, will restructure its wireless business over the next 30 days, a move that a source with knowledge of the matter said could slash 700 jobs.

The debt-laden company, controlled by billionaire Anil Ambani, has reported eight straight quarters of profit drops and is betting on the sale of its telecoms tower business to cut its more than USD 7 billion net debt.

Reliance said in a statement on Monday it would discontinue with its current structure with three regional heads, and would name a new chief operating officer, and create a "leaner and flatter" structure, but declined to comment on possible job losses.

A source with knowledge of the development said the new structure would lead to reduction of a tenth of the wireless business's about 7,000 employees.

"As far as cost reduction is considered, it's positive for the company," said KK Mital, head of portfolio management at Globe Capital in New Delhi.

"But there are other issues as well," he said referring to Reliance Comm's heavy debt and operational performance that has lagged major rivals.

Bigger rival Bharti Airtel restructured its operations in India and South Asia effective Aug. 1 to improve efficiency.

The telco will collapse its existing business units that are carved out geographically - North, South and East - into a single entity reporting to a chief operating officer, who will be recruited from outside by month-end, executives with direct knowledge of the developments told ET.

All support functions such as customer services, IT operations, networks and products, among others, will be moved to a newly-created 'services division'. After restructuring, about 75% of the RCOM's employees will do 'field roles' to drive sales execution as against 60% currently.

RCOM now joins Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices who recently carried out major restructuring exercises by merging business verticals and reducing employee headcount. All telcos are focusing on cost-cutting measures to boost efficiencies as they fight multiple challenges of high debt burdens, slowing growth and high marketing spends amid cut-price tariffs.

RCOM chief executive (wireless) Sayed Safawi said the telco was undertaking a 'structural rationalisation, including organisational de-layering, and making few key changes the leadership team'. "Eventually it may result in significant slimming of the organisation as a whole, especially at the back-end functional level, though the potential number impact is yet to be assessed," he said and clarified that the 'restructuring was not about head count rationalisation, but getting right resources at right places'.

The company's northern region head Nilanjan Mukherjee will head the newly-created services division. Its current head of southern operations CS Rana has opted for 'superannuation', while Vivek Garg , who is incharge of the east, will be assigned a new role internally. Safawi dismissed as 'rumours', the market buzz that Bharti Airtel's former president for mobile services Atul Bindal may be headed to RCOM.

[admirer2000 100]

[santanu@impaq 16]

Aage aage dekho hota hai kya

merging business verticals

[KapilAgrawal 340]

Kuch nahi hoga... Reliance now is having tarrifs like AirTel, CC like BSNL or even worse.

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

^^^^^

Small corrections Kapil ji... Tariffs and forced VAS activations like AirHELL, 2G voice clarity and CC like BSNL...

[KapilAgrawal 340]

Agree with Deepan ji.

[copperco2 24]

you know what.. khali deemag shaitan ka ghar..

So one should always keep busy doing something.. when its done.. undoing... doing again....on and on..

This way people feel busy and satisfied, professionals grow professionally and companies prosper..

[city02 63]

new 'mumbai' circle created [fwd from my source]:

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the following organizational changes in Wireless Business. These changes will help drive Execution Excellence across the organization , help us focus on large / emerging business opportunities like Wireless Data, 3G, M-Commerce, geographic pockets of opportunities etc. Overall, it will yield results by increasing speed-to-market, significant level of decentralization and empowerment at the field and hub level led by an inspired and quality leadership team.

Sh. Mahesh Prasad, Head-Product & Services Group (PSG) is now moving to our Group Company - Reliance Entertainment in a role to evaluate strategies to deliver content through next generation digital networks. He has been associated with RCom for over 9 years in various capacities including Head - ASCG.

Sh. Nilanjan Mukherjee, Regional Head , North will take over from Sh. Mahesh Prasad as Head-Product & Services Group. Nilanjan has been associated with RCom for over 4 years. Prior to his stint as Regional Head, he has worked in the Product & Marketing Function. He brings the requisite field and product experience and skill sets to manage the expanded role of PSG.

Sh. Prakash Bumb, Head - AoP Management will move to Wireless Business as Business Commercial Head. With this movement of Sh. Prakash Bumb, Sh. Manikantan Iyer, CFO - RCom, will take over additional responsibility of AoP Management.

Sh Anurag Prashar, Head Customer Service , will now manage additional responsibility of Wireless BSS in an effort to integrate back end service support . He will be be designated Head Services. Sh. Nihar Rao - Head BSS would work with Anurag as part of the Services Group .

A Chief Operating Officer would be inducted in the Wireless Business who would manage Pan-India Field Operations. The 3 Regional Head structure is being discontinued and all the Hubs will report to the COO. In the interim, Sh. Vivek Garg, Regional Head will be responsible as Regional Head - East, i.e. Bihar/Jharkhand, MP, CG & Orissa, Kolkata/WB & NESA (RTL Hubs) and also take on the additional responsibility for Andhra Pradesh Hub .

The other 8 Hubs would report to Sh. Syed Safawi directly till the COO comes on board .

The number of Hubs will also increase from 11 to 12 nos. with a new Hub created i.e. Mumbai. The objective is to provide enhanced geographic and execution focus , priority on revenue growth areas like 3G, Data etc. and drive execution excellence. The Hub Heads are as follows:

S.No. Hubs Hub Head

1. AP - Nagaprasad Velamuri

2. Karnataka - Hemant Dadlani

3. Mumbai - Sanjay Behl

4. Mah & Goa (M&G) - Shailesh Kantak

5. TN + Kerala - Rakesh Singh

6. Gujarat + Rajasthan - Vinay Chandok

7. Uttar Pradesh + Uttrakhand (UPU) - Saleem Haq

8. Haryana + Punjab + J&K + HP (UN) - Prabhat Aggarwal 9. Delhi / NCR - Khurshed Ahmed

10. Bihar + Jharkhand - Raj Prusty

11. MP, CG, Orissa - R Swaminathan

12. Assam & NE + Kolkata & WB - Sabyasachi Chakraborty

Sh Sanjay Behl, will be designated as Hub Head - Mumbai. This will be in addition to his current responsibilities of Business Head - Home, Corporate Branding & Wireless Marcom and is part of his continued learning and leadership development . Sh. Behl has been associated with the Group for over 6 years. Prior to this stint, he was the Head of Corporate Branding.

Sh Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Circle Head - Punjab will move as the Hub Head - Kolkata/WB & NESA. Sh. Chakraborty has been associated with RCom for over 3 years and this move is in recognition of his performance as a Circle Head and also part of internal career development .

The Circle and Cluster level changes would be rolled out over the next 2 weeks.

The new organization would begin transition with immediate effect, however, would be fully operative w.e.f. Oct 1, 2011.

[abhisathe 8]

A friend working with Reliance Communications told me today that Reliance Comm is going on for a major restructuring of its human resources. Those with high pay packets and age are either being given pink slips or could expect soon. The idea is to chop off dead wood by at least 60 percent. According to this source, Reliance Comm is preparing itself for a take over, in all probability from Mukesh Ambani. Please check.

Edited November 1, 2011 by Arun
<< Topic Merged >>

[abhisathe 8]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/ril-to-ride-on-rcom-for-telecom-foray-may-launch-cheaper-tablets-at-rs-6000/articleshow/10573291.cms

[Venkatagiri 53]

Reliance Communications may cut jobs in fresh rejig

Times News Network - Feb 9, 2012, 10.16AM IST

Mumbai: Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications (RCOM), the second-largest Indian telco by subscribers, is likely to undergo a second round of restructuring, close on the heels of the departure of its chief executive Syed Safawi.

The debt-laden telecom major, which had last year trimmed its workforce by 700, may repeat the exercise in the next few months, sources told reporters.

"The process is currently on as far as the second round of restructuring goes. It will result in some top-level changes as well. This, in turn, will mean downsizing of headcount as teams will be realigned," said a person with direct knowledge of the development . The number of job losses is likely to be in the same range as the initial restructuring . The latest restructuring, sources added, could come into effect by April this year.

On February 1, Syed Safawi, president of its wireless business , exited RCOM. People familiar with the development said RCOM's performance under Safawi's leadership did not match up to expectations. Therefore , his contract - which expired in Dec 2011 - was not renewed . Shamik Das has been appointed as the joint president and COO of the company. This will be an interim arrangement and a new CEO will be coming on board soon, RCOM said.

"With definitive changes in industry landscape, rapid emergence of newer business opportunities like 3G, mobile broadband data, etc, and evolving regulatory framework, RCOM continues to actively evaluate and execute the most relevant organization structure to address the market opportunity ," an RCOM spokesperson said when contacted.

Source: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-02-09/news/31041860_1_rcom-syed-safawi-wireless-business

[supernova 47]

Reliance needs to focus on customers ; its the only bet to save company