Ride-hailing platform Ola Electric has undertaken a restructuring exercise that will impact around 500 of its employees. The intent of the layoff is to focus on profitability and improve margins for the company.
This is as per a Moneycontrol report. In June this year also, there were reports that the ride hailing platform was trying to cut around 400-500 roles. The move was being taken by the company ahead of its IPO.
Speaking to the Economic Times, a source said that new hirings might replace some of the impacted employees as the cost would be cheap. However, the overall headcount would be less.
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The company conducted a restructuring plan in July 2022 as well. Following this, around 1,000 employees were affected, as per media reports. To add to it, the company also decided to shut down three of its segments, which include used cars, cloud kitchens, and grocery delivery.
Another restructuring was announced by the company in September 2022. As part of the restructuring, the company promoted YS Kim, an industry veteran, by broadening his responsibilities to include overseeing sales and direct-to-consumer (D2C) operations.
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This comes at a time when Ola Electric was recently under heavy criticism for improper functioning of its service centers. The issue got triggered when there was a verbal spat between comedian Kunal Kamra and Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal.
It started with a post by Kamra on X where he posted an image of the overcrowded service center and wrote, “Do Indian consumers have a voice? Do they deserve this? Two wheelers are many daily wage workers lifeline.
Soon after this, Aggarwal suggested that since Kamra cares so much, he should help them out. “I’ll even pay more than you earned for this paid tweet or from your failed comedy career,” wrote Aggarwal.
After this, in October this year, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued a show cause notice to Ola Electric for alleged violations of consumer rights and unfair trade practices. Following this, the company was given a 15-day deadline to solve the issue.
Following this, Ola Electric has claimed that it has solved 99.1 percent of consumer complaints. However, media reports suggest that the claim isn’t proven. Now, the CCPA has started a detailed investigation into it, as per Business Today.
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