As of: March 26, 2024, 1:38 p.m
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Vodafone wants to save a total of 2,000 jobs.
© Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
The upheaval at Vodafone Germany continues - with drastic consequences for many employees.
The austerity program was announced by the boss, who is himself on the run.
Düsseldorf - Vodafone is tightening its austerity program in Germany.
The Telekom competitor will save and relocate around 2,000 jobs, the group announced in Düsseldorf.
Vodafone has around 15,000 employees in Germany, around a third of them in the North Rhine-Westphalia state capital.
This means that 13 percent of employees would be affected by the program.
Overall, Vodafone plans to save around 400 million euros over the next two years with the package of measures.
The “transformation program” was announced by outgoing company boss Philipp Rogge, who himself will vacate his desk at the Düsseldorf headquarters at the end of the month.
In a farewell speech to the employees, Rogge tried to create a spirit of optimism.
Vodafone has begun to realign itself - and has returned to growth with improved networks and offerings in recent quarters.
“Vodafone therefore wants to make itself even simpler, faster, leaner and therefore more powerful in the next two years.”
Difficult legacy and challenges
Rogge took over a difficult inheritance from his predecessor Hannes Ametsreiter in the summer of 2022.
During the Corona pandemic, the whole of Germany went online.
And this meant that the Internet lines that Vodafone had taken over with Kabel Deutschland and Unitymedia were suddenly full to capacity.
But even after the end of the pandemic, despite significant investments in the overloaded network, Vodafone was barely able to keep up with the increased demands of customers who wanted to work from home without network stutters or stream videos at the end of the day.
When it comes to cable networks, Vodafone is not only responsible for delivering the promised gigabyte speeds.
A major challenge also arises from the loss of the so-called additional cost privilege for cable television for tenants in apartment buildings.
From July 1, 2024, the costs for the cable TV connection may no longer be charged to the tenant in the additional rental costs.
As the largest cable network operator in Germany, Vodafone is particularly affected by this because at least part of the TV business will no longer remain with Vodafone, but will be taken over by new competitors such as Waipu.tv or Zattoo.
However, we also hear from the company headquarters in Düsseldorf that the loss of the additional cost privilege was already taken into account in the company budget before the current round of savings and is not a reason for the new cost-cutting efforts.
Investments in digitalization, network expansion and new products
The “transformation program” is not just a savings program, because at the same time fresh money is being invested in digitalization, expanding networks, improving customer service and developing new products.
The “simpler products and services” being considered will reportedly also include a new streaming stick for the television, such as that offered by arch-rival Deutsche Telekom as the MagentaTV stick or by Google as the Chromecast TV.
Other initiatives concern the backend.
Among other things, previously separate customer support systems for cable connections and mobile communications are to be brought together there.
At the same time, Vodafone wants to reduce its energy costs and the associated CO2 footprint.
This should be achieved, among other things, by modernizing network elements and IT systems.
Rogge promised that Vodafone would proceed in a socially responsible manner when making personnel changes.
Certain manual tasks would be carried out through increased automation in the future.
Vodafone also wants to hire new people in other areas.
Growth areas such as the cloud business and “customer-related positions, especially in the corporate customer area” are to be strengthened with experts.
dpa