MAJOR North East employer Orange is to halt the expansion of its call centres in India.
Jun 5 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal
The France Telecom-owned firm, which has 5,000 staff at call centres on North Tyneside and in Darlington, said it intends to eventually ensure all of its UK customer queries are answered in the UK.
It made the announcement as part of a major shakeup unveiled by the new Orange chief executive Tom Alexander, who said 500 call centre and shop jobs will be created, but up to 450 posts are to face the axe.
The company, which employs 2,500 call centre staff in North Tyneside and 2,500 in Darlington, said it was too early to say where the administrative, management and support role redundancies would be, but no single region would bear the brunt. Orange employs around 12,500 people in the UK. In addition to its North East staff, it has 2,000 people at its Bristol head office, 1,500 customer service staff in Plymouth, 500 in London and 350 in St Albans, Hertfordshire. There are 300 staff in Leeds and 200 in Solihull, West Midlands, plus additional posts at more than 300 shops around the country. Mr Alexander said: “We’re proposing to change the shape of the organisation and the way the business works to serve the 21st Century customer.
“These changes are designed to stop duplication within our organisation, and to ensure we are agile, and able to deliver and react quickly to customers’ needs. And they’ll also make staff more accountable while generating greater financial and operational efficiencies.” Orange, which has 15.8 million mobile customers and 1.1 million broadband users in the UK, said the new jobs would be spread across its call centres and shops. It plans to open a further 40 stores over the next year and improve its online customer service.
A spokesman said the additional jobs were “positive” news for the North East but he was unable to say how many would be created in the region. He was also unable to confirm whether any of the new Orange stores would be opened in the North East. In the first three months of the year, Orange posted revenues of 1.44bn (£1.14bn) in the UK, a 9.5% rise on the same period last year before the impact of the pound’s fall in value against the euro took effect. France Telecom posted overall revenues of 13bn (£10.3bn) for the first quarter. It has 172 million customers on five continents.
We’re proposing to change the shape of the organisation and the way the business works.
