Orange to cut 450 jobs in customer-services drive

Orange plans to cut up to 450 jobs and some of its offshore Indian call-centre work as part of a shake-up aimed at improving customer service and efficiency.

The jobs are due to go in administration, management and support operations in an effort to streamline the workforce to "improve responsiveness" and "remove duplication".

But the mobile and broadband operator also plans to add up to 500 jobs to its customer service and retail workforce by the end of the year, with around 60 new stores also planned.

Further boosting its retail options, Orange will include laptops as part of a "totally connected" product line.

New Orange chief executive Tom Alexander, who joined from Virgin Mobile last year, said the company wants to build on recent momentum to improve customer service and combine mobile and fixed broadband more effectively.

As part of this, the company will stop expansion of its offshore customer-service operations in India, returning some to the UK. An Orange spokeswoman said there will be no reduction in the number of third-party staff working for Orange in India, but some will be reassigned to work on other back-end projects.

In terms of infrastructure, the company plans to accelerate its high-speed data-network rollout. Around 450 new 2G base stations will be rolled out, while there will be further investment in the company's 3G and HSDPA networks.