Anil Ambani-headed Reliance Communications (RCOM) plans to slash 37 per cent of its 15,000-strong workforce by the month-end by outsourcing its call centre and shared services operations in a bold restructuring move aimed at exiting non-core businesses and cutting costs to boost profitability.
India's fourth-largest telco will shortly ink deals worth a total of nearly Rs 700 crore with two thirdparty service providers to outsource its BPO and shared services operations, which will result in some 6,000 employees exiting RCOM's rolls.
Nearly 4,500 of them are currently involved in RCOM's call centre operations while the rest make up its shared services teams. After the outsourcing deals are finalised, "these 6,000-odd employees will migrate to the rolls of the two third-party service providers, which will lower RCOM's employee count to well under 10,000," a top company official told ET. He declined to name the two companies on "confidentiality grounds".
"The BPO and shared services businesses were highly inefficient and not adding any value to RCOM's bottom line, which is why we decided to outsource them and purely focus on core telco issues like customer acquisitions, sales, distribution, marketing and brand building to create a leaner organisation that is more cost-efficient," the official said.
Outsourcing these functions will trigger "nearly Rs 200 crore savings in RCOM's annual staff salary bill alone," said another company executive with direct knowledge of the matter. An RCOM spokesperson declined to comment.
Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications plans to cut 37% workforce by month end - Economic Times
