DT moves to clarify T-Systems strategy

Following reports that Deutsche Telekom is cutting 10,000 jobs from its T-Systems division, the operator thought it was time to make an official statement.

Late last week the news leaked out that DT’s global services division was going to lose a quarter of its workforce. The division has apparently been struggling for a while and Adel Al-Saleh was brought in as CEO at the end of last year to sort things out. As is so often the case, it seems the first part of his strategy is to slim down his organisation and have a general reshuffle.

“Our strategy is in place: We are aligning ourselves to eleven portfolio units, we have initiated four change initiatives and are now implementing the plans,” said Al-Saleh. “This will turn T-Systems into a digital service provider for our customers. We will spend triple-digit millions per year on the growth areas, because the transformation of the company must not jeopardize our success where we are strong.”

The strategy has been somewhat paradoxically named ‘investing while saving’. This sounds a bit like what Ericsson has been saying for a year or two about returning to profitability while being careful to keep investing in R&D. This is a tricky but important balance as you can’t just cut your way to long-term growth; you need to sow the seeds for the future too.

Continuing the doublespeak theme the announcement confirmed that 10,000 jobs worldwide will be ‘affected’, with 4,000 ‘relocated’ and 6,000 ‘reduced’. The underlying narrative is all around efficiency, simplification and sorting the wheat from the chaff, including the elimination of no less than five management levels. The mere fact that T-Systems is able to do that speaks volumes about how badly-run it has been to date.