Switzerland’s Sunrise to cut 9% of staff

Swiss service provider Sunrise has announced plans to cut 175 staff, some 9% of its total workforce of 1,890, in a bid to “simplify its structures and processes.”

The operator said that it plans to merge its business and residential units, with a new commercial organisation to look after all customer groups under a single leadership – a move designed to improve “cross-divisional efficiency and to avoid duplications.”

Operations for residential and business customers will also be united into one customer service organisation, though in-store customer service staff and sales advisors will not be affected.

Sunrise said that the cuts will help “strengthen customer focus” and improve its “competitive cost structure” and will be implemented by the end of the month.

“The Swiss telecommunications market is constantly evolving. In order to compete successfully, Sunrise has started already in Q1 2015 an initiative to streamline and simplify its products and processes. Sunrise is now adapting its organisation to further meet its customers’ evolving needs for efficiency, simplicity and quality,” the company said.

Sunrise claims that it will incur one-off costs of CHF21.0 million (€19.3 million) until the end of 2015, but will drive quarterly savings of CHF5.5 million from Q4 of this year.