Siemens Enterprise Communications Announces Job Cuts, Exits Hardware

Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co KG (SEN), a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens AG, will undergo a major restructuring in a bid to transform itself from a hardware supplier to a software and solutions provider to fit changed market conditions. Siemens AG confirmed that it is also seeking to find a suitable partner for SEN.


"We will begin accelerating the reorientation of SEN and the related restructuring activities under the control of Siemens to ensure that personnel measures associated with these changes will be as socially compatible as possible.", Siemens CFO Joe Kaeser said.


Planned sales or solutions involving a third party would affect roughly 3,000 employees worldwide, of whom about 1,200 are in Germany. In addition, Siemens plans to cut 3,800 jobs worldwide, including up to 2,000 in Germany. In Germany, SEN's headquarters and other administrative and support functions are expected to be affected the most.


Siemens also confirmed that the transformation into a software and solutions provider will necessitate SEN giving up its own manufacturing operations. In Germany, plans call for the SEN plant in Leipzig, which currently has about 530 employees, and the telecommunications cable business, with some 60 employees, to be sold or funneled into solutions involving a third party. In addition, SEN is seeking a partnership with an IT provider for around 570 employees involved in direct sales to customers for small and mid-sized systems.


For its international operations, SEN intends to sell or find partners for its facilities in Thessaloniki (Greece) and Curitiba (Brazil), which have 270 and 470 employees, respectively. The possibility of a facility being closed down cannot be ruled out. Order call centers in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which employ a total of about 1,100 people, are not part of SEN'S core portfolio and are slated to be sold.http://www.siemens.comhttp://www.enterprise-communications.siemens.com