Optus to cut 750 jobs in restructure
After the completion of an internal review, Optus has announced plans to cull 750 management, back-office and support roles.
The redundancies come as part of a restructure of Optus' business, with the creation of a customer division, a new marketing and sales division and the centralisation of commercial, human resources and strategy divisions. Optus said that the removal of the 750 of the 9726 full-time equivalent roles in the telco giant will reduce duplication, and that the company will incur a one-off charge of $37 million.
The majority of the roles, according to Optus, will come from senior and middle management, operations, back office and support.
Newly appointed chief executive officer of Optus Consumer Australia Kevin Russell said that the change came because Optus needs to remain competitive and deliver value to customers.
"By creating a more efficient organisation with a renewed focus on the customer, we will be able to compete more effectively. When combined with our reinvigorated Optus brand, and stronger mobile network, these changes will put us in an even stronger position to provide our customers with an exceptional and rewarding experience, while at the same time driving sustainable growth for our business," Russell said in a statement.
The job cuts, first revealed by ZDNet Australia in March, come after Optus' parent company SingTel announced a massive restructure that will see the company divided into three divisions: a Consumer Group, a Digital Life Group and an ICT Group, with Optus CEO Paul O'Sullivan heading up the Consumer Group.
O'Sullivan remains the head of Optus as well, with new COO Kevin Russell to be the CEO of the Australian Consumer unit, while John Paitaridis will be the MD of Optus Business.
Optus this week announced a "free" broadband offering of a fixed-line service with 50GB per month if customers purchase a mobile plan of $89 per month. Goldman Sachs said that while Optus is seeking to address the negative momentum in the fixed-line business, and attack Telstra's dominance in the market, the company risks cannibalising its own subscriber base in the process.