C&W rejigs its channel for fourth time

Job losses and substantial management changes for UK branch of telco

Despite admitting that it had been inconsistent with the channel just three months ago, Cable & Wireless (C&W) has again restructured its business.

The firm has changed its channel organisation as part of the restructure, the fourth time in five years it has done this.

"There have been some fairly substantial management changes, including the board of directors and about half of the UK management team," said Fraser Douglas, director of partner channels at C&W UK.

"As part of this, all of the channel business in the UK has been put under my control. Several jobs were affected."

Terry Mckeever, formerly director of solution partners at C&W, is one of the more high-profile departures from the firm. He has recently gone to work for rival provider Colt Telecom.

Steve Brazier, chief executive of analyst Canalys, said C&W was "a classic dotcom boom and bust scenario".

But he added: "It seems to have handled the bust relatively well. It realised hosting was not going well and got out of the US.

"The UK business is, and was, still relatively sound, simply because it was pre-dotcom. It should not necessarily get much praise for all this, but at least you can see it surviving now."

The service provider radically improved its results in the six months to 30 September, cutting losses by £4.426m, compared with the same period in 2002.

C&W disposed of its stake in PCCW, its US business, for £229m during the half year to 12 September. In a statement which accompanied the results, new chief executive Francesco Caio said the company had exited eight US data centres and cut 1,000 of its 2,700 US workforce.

"We announced a transformation plan for the UK that would take three years to implement. The performance we have seen in the six months since then is consistent with our objective," he said.