Reliance Comm to merge three divisions, 10 % staff to be redundant

Reliance Communications, India's second largest telecom service provider by subscribers, is merging its three business divisions, a move that will make about 10 per cent of its 7,000 executives redundant and result in redeployment of another 2,000 employees to 'field functions'.

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, The Economic Times reported, quoting executives with direct knowledge of the development.

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

Earlier, the newspaper had reported merging of business verticals by Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices, a move that was feared to reduce employee count.

Reliance Communications chief executive officer (wireless) Sayed Safawi said the Anil Ambani group company 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'.