Samsung is all set to fire over 1,000 employees in India amid the rising competition from Chinese rivals.
India smartphone market has always been known and driven by its price-sensitive nature of consumers. As Chinese smartphone manufacturers are flooding the market with devices tagged with highly competitive price, Samsung has started cutting corners. Getting rid of over 1,000 employees in India could just be the first step of the big overhaul the Korean giant may have planned for the future.
The sources of EconomicTimes have reported that the list of the employees that are not meeting the targets and failing to bring expected results is already framed. This may account for about 10% of Samsung’s total workforce in India. So, this provides additional strength to the expectations of employees being fired soon.
The list includes the people from varied departments including sales, Research & Development, Human Resource Development and Finance. So, this would be a ‘makeover’ in terms of bringing better opportunities for the employees that perform well, by replacing the underperforming team players. Samsung holds a big team of about 20,000 employees in India alone.
Apparently, they also have manufacturing units in China and Vietnam. Hence, by minimizing the workforce from the Indian units, Samsung would be trying to increase the profit ratios by enhancing its productivity and overall efficiency.
But, what forced the electronics giant to take such a major step?
Tough Competition to Face Recently:
For a very long time, Samsung dominated the smartphone market in India. In the last few years, however, the Chinese rival Xiomi has tried to change the dynamics of the market by offering better technical configurations at much lower prices than Samsung in entry and mid-segment smartphone market. On the other hand, OnePlus is threating the dominance of Samsung in India’s high-end smartphone segment too.
The influence of Chinese smartphone manufacturers on Indian consumers could be well understood by the fact that 7 out of every 10 smartphones that are shipped in India every quarter are from Chinese vendors.
‘Cost rationalization’ through cutting down the underperforming employees:
Samsung is a giant in the consumer electronics market and it has several other ventures and products. So, the top management in Seoul, South Korea would be keen on making the right investments and also the right corrective measures to avoid future losses.
Samsung is continuously losing its online sale as well since the last year. Again, the overall graph of overheads through the new recruitments and expansions in the recent past is growing. These might be the major reasons behind this decision to cut the costs by firing underperforming employees.
If Samsung implements the decision in the same way as it is being predicted, about 1,000 employees are going to lose their well-paid jobs with an employer that is well-known to provide better growth prospects. At the same time, this is not going to be the end of the story. In fact, the trend of firing the underperforming employees is said to be spread across the units in the other countries of Samsung as well.
