TELSTRA’S struggling directories arm, Sensis, has cut 80 jobs as the company continues its quest to offset the decline of its print business with digital sales.
Following a round of 120 redundancies in February, Sensis has now cut a total of 200 jobs this year as part of chief executive Bruce Akhurst’s transformation of the business into a more digitally focused company.
“To compete in this market we need to focus on creating sustainable revenue growth by building on the unique value proposition our customers have embraced this year,” Mr Akhurst wrote in an internal memo to staff obtained by The Australian.
“As we said in our March briefing to investors, this growth, combined with a careful focus on managing costs, will help us maintain our strong position in the market well into the future.”
As part of that push, Sensis will attempt to secure long-term profit growth through the launch of mobile sites and applications, increased use of social network applications and bundled offerings with internet search providers such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.
In this latest round of job cuts, 80 staff from Sensis’s corporate support services division, which includes finance, IT, marketing and corporate affairs staff, have been made redundant. Staff were advised yesterday. “About half of the affected people are leaving Sensis this week, with the remainder over the coming months,” Mr Akhurst wrote to staff. “We will fully support staff impacted by these changes, including the potential to seek redeployment, generous redundancy provisions and full outplacement support services.”
A Sensis spokesman declined to say if the company planned more redundancies in the next six months, but said it would continue to do what was necessary to complete its digital transformation.
“We’ll continue to support our digital transformation by making sure we have the right resources in the right areas. That may mean new opportunities are created in areas that support the digital strategy,” the spokesman said.
At Telstra’s full-year earnings results in August, Sensis warned that it would take three years for the company’s digital revenues to offset the declines in its print division.
Mitchell Bingemann – 16 November 2011
theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/digital-vision-sees-sensis-job-cuts-to-offset-losses-from-print-business/story-fn91v9q3-1226196019790
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