Zain Nigeria has announced that it would restructure its operations, in line with Zain Group’s growth strategy aimed at improving service delivery to customers and creating value.
The new business model, called “Drive2011”, will enable Zain operations to focus on key customer facing activities through a combination of managed outsourcing, standardization and centralization.
As part of the process Zain Nigeria plans to transfer the services of about 450 employees to strategic partners under managed Services agreements, and will offer a further 300 exit packages.
Although this move is billed as purely being part of the restructuring exercise, the market could see it as signs of trouble for the company in the current negative. Other players in the mobile industry, like Nokia, have recently been forced to cut jobs because of decreases in sales, turnover and profit due to the economic downturn.
Since 2005 Zain has invested more than US$12 billion in Africa and will make further investments of up to US$2 billion in 2009. In Nigeria, Zain has invested nearly $3 billion in its network.
