Vodafone cuts 450 senior management positions, declares store staff more important than managers

It looks like the British arm of the world’s largest wireless operator is getting ready to seriously push the mobile data plans that helped boost its 3Q 2007 earnings by 35.5%. Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) UK has given 450 of its senior managers their walking orders, choosing to instead invest resources into in-store staff.

Vodafone says that the move will help increase sales of data plans and features (text, email, pictures). Instead of concentrating their efforts on bumbling managers, it seems that Vodafone will be hiring 330 “retail advisers” to help sell more data products, with an additional 130 employees to handle various other in-store sales and services. The online sales and customer service departments will also be getting a boost with help of 30 extra hired hands.

The move makes it obvious that Vodafone values boots-on-the-ground more than the rear-echelon-MFs. And, with data revenue driving Vodafone’s bottom line, it makes sense to push data more and more. Let’s see if the coming quarters’ finance reports show increased data sales.

[Via: MocoNews]