Reliance Communications to go outsourcing, axe 37% workforce

Reliance Communications, a part of Anil Ambani's Reliance group, plans to slash 37 per cent of its 15,000-strong workforce by the end of this month by outsourcing its call centre and shared services operations.

This is part of a restructuring move aimed at exiting non-core businesses and cutting costs, according to an Economic Times report.

India's fourth-largest telecom company will sign deals worth a total of nearly Rs700 crore with two third-party service providers to outsource its BPO and shared services operations – a move that will result in some 6,000 employees getting pink slips.

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", the newspaper cited an unnamed top company official as saying.

"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.