Nokia India sees leadership change and layoffs due to a global restructuring

nokia India

Tarun Chhabra, head of mobile networks and senior vice president at Nokia, has taken over as the company's new India head in an organisational restructuring that also initiated rationalisation across functions, including sales and marketing, resulting in job cuts.

The changes align with the company’s global restructuring, announced in October last year, under which the company plans to slash 11,000-14,000 jobs globally.

Chhabra succeeds Sanjay Malik, senior vice president, who will remain in the company till March 31, 2024. Malik, who led the Indian market operations for almost eight years, was part of India's global customer experience or sales vertical, reporting to Rick Corker, Nokia’s chief customer experience officer.

Chhabra, who reports to Tommi Uitto, president of Mobile Networks at Nokia, would have a dual role wherein he would look after the Indian market besides being responsible for the mobile networks group's India business.

In a statement, Nokia India confirmed that Chhabra has been appointed as the new country head of the India market, effective April 2024.

“Malik has decided to retire from Nokia effective 31st March 2024. He will transit the role to Tarun during this period,” the statement added.

“In Nokia India, the proposed changes are made in accordance with global guidelines across all the markets, focusing on customer centricity and business excellence,” Nokia India said in a statement to Moneycontrol.

Global changes

On October 19, 2023, Nokia announced strategic and operational changes to its business and a program to reset its cost base to position the company for longer-term growth and navigate the current market uncertainty.

Under the restructuring, Nokia has provided its business groups with increased operational autonomy globally and is streamlining its operating model by embedding sales teams into the business groups besides resetting the cost base to protect profitability, the company had then said officially.

Layoffs in India

The restructuring has eliminated all central functions, such as customer experience or sales and marketing, among others.

Several employees in central functions and business groups at Nokia India were affected, company sources said, who added that those impacted were asked to resign. Many employees, including senior executives, left the company independently due to role changes.

“Those affected were asked to resign and were promised a severance package,” a person privy to the matter told Moneycontrol.

This happened despite a stellar financial performance last year due to substantial 5G contracts from the top two private Indian telecom operators.
The growth, however, is subsiding due to a slowdown in deployment by Indian telcos. On January 25, 2024, Nokia reported a 33 percent decline in net sales in the Indian region, amounting to 379 million euros in October-December 2023.

“Many account managers servicing telecom operator customers lost their jobs—some good ones who performed also left. The frustrating part is that sales and marketing are important functions across companies, and here these were impacted severely,” another senior executive said anonymously.

These layoffs started after the global announcement in October and were executed till December-end. Many of those who got laid off are still in the system and will leave by mid-March.

The total number of exits could not be ascertained.

The structure

Nokia has three business groups: Mobile Networks, Network Infrastructure and Cloud Network Services (CNS).

Mobile Networks is Nokia's leading business, driving much of its revenue in India and globally. The Network Infrastructure business group takes care of IP, optics, fixed, and enterprise, while the CNS group is responsible for the software and services business.

These business groups are P&L-responsible and have their individual sales and marketing teams under the new arrangement. In India, Prashant Malkani is head of the Network Infrastructure Business Group and Arvind Khurana is head of the Cloud Network Services business.