Barco has announced a restructuring plan to 'align the organisation with changing market demands and growth opportunities while enhancing the company’s long-term profitability'. The statement also reveals that program 'might affect' 240 jobs across Barco, of which around 55 are based in its native Belgium. The aim is to cut Barco's costs by €20m by 2020.
The plan addresses specific aspects of Barco’s organisational, particularly in product management, and commercial and service delivery processes. The plan also includes the re-investment of cost efficiencies towards certain growth initiatives, innovation and further business expansion in target geographies.
"To bolster Barco’s fitness to lead in an ever more global and dynamic market with rapidly evolving customer demands, it is imperative that Barco becomes more organizationally agile, responsive and customer service focused," said Jan De Witte, CEO, Barco.
Over the course of 2019, the program might affect around 240 positions across the organisation, of which around 55 are based in Belgium. Production worker positions are not impacted. In addition to enhancing business effectiveness, Barco expects to reduce its indirect expense-level by approximately 20 million euro by 2020, net of re-investments in strategic growth initiatives. As a result, Barco expects to record a restructuring charge in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018.
"We are engaging with the employee representatives in the different geographies where we operate to start a constructive dialogue on this plan and expect to be able to find appropriate solutions in the interest of employees that could be affected," concluded Mr. De Witte.