Nokia Siemens to cut staff strength

Hyderabad, Nov 4: Due to the drop in revenue and profits of Nokia Siemens, parent company Nokia has announced sweeping revamping and cost cutting of the networking unit that will result in layoffs of up to 5,700 workers globally.This major restructuring from Nokia will also include decreasing the existing five business units into three. Nokia had reported a loss of $ 836 million in its third quarter, sources here said on Wednesday. The Nokia Siemens unit, cobbled together in 2007 after a series of corruption scandals in the Siemens operation, has suffered along with most other large telecom infrastructure companies.

"As our customers make purchasing decisions, they want a partner who engages in issues well beyond traditional discussions of technology. Business models, innovation growth, and transformation are now very much front and center when it comes to the selection of a technology partner - and our planned new structure will position us well in this changing market," said a top executive of the company.The new business units will consist of customer-oriented business solutions, which will be led by Jurgen Walter; fixed and mobile infrastructure supplier Network Systems, to be led by Marc Rouanne; and outsourcing, services, and support provider Global Services, to be led by Ashish Chowdhary.

Nokia Siemens Networks had submitted bids for some operations of bankrupt Nortel Networks, including its LTE/CDMA operation, but lost it to Ericsson, which paid $1.3 billion for the unit. Even though Nokia lost this auction, Nokia Siemens has a strong presence in Long Term Evolution (LTE), the emerging next generation of wireless infrastructure. Now that Nortel is out of the picture, Nokia is expecting tough competition from Ericsson and Alcatel Lucent.In spite of planning downsizing in workforce and production overhead, Nokia Siemens said it will seek to beef up its business through partnerships and acquisitions. It noted that it has a strong partnership already with Juniper Networks in carrier Ethernet. "We recognize that we are operating in a market where customer needs are evolving fast," another senior executive said. "We see acquisitions and expanded partnering as important tools to help meet these needs in the fastest, most efficient way possible," he added.