The Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia is restructuring its organisation in India and is reportedly going to cut around 250 jobs, eliminating key job profiles like CFO, CTO and legal affairs head, and creating three business groups. Nokia India employees about 17,000 people across functions.
The company also announced Tarun Chhabra as the new country manager for India.
In October 2023, Nokia had decided to reduce its cost base and increase operational efficiency and the programme is expected to lead to a 72,000 – 77,000 employee organisation compared to the 86,000 employees.
Finnish telecommunications’ plan to cut up to 14,000 jobs came following a plunge in third-quarter earnings at the time. President and CEO Pekka Lundmark, said, “The most difficult business decisions to make are the ones that impact our people. We have immensely talented employees at Nokia and we will support everyone that is affected by this process. Resetting the cost-base is a necessary step to adjust to market uncertainty and to secure our long-term profitability and competitiveness.”
The new country manager Chhabra will be replacing Sanjay Malik who is to retire on March 31. The firm, in a statement, said Chhabra will continue in his role of head of mobile networks market India in addition to assuming India country manager responsibilities.
“India is such an important market for Nokia and I believe that, in this new role, I will be able to help our customers to benefit from Nokia’s leading technology across our portfolio, at a time when technology is playing vital role than ever before in the lives of organisations, firms, individuals and societies,” said Chhabra.
He has three decades of diverse leadership experience in sales, pre-sales, business development and operations in leading companies including Nokia, Siemens and Motorola, as well as some start-ups.
Chhabra will be taking on a newly defined role for Nokia, one that has been created as part of a new way of working and operational model announced in October 2023.
Read More: Tarun Chhabra to lead Nokia as country head – India