KCom to cut 80 jobs

The job cuts will account for around 10 per cent of the staff that support the KCom brand across its offices in Hull, Wakefield, Brighton, London and Hemel Hempstead. A company spokesman confirmed that the cuts would occur across a range of roles in multiple locations. KCom managing director Stephen Long said the restructuring “reflects KCom’s quest for more annuity-based managed services contracts that run over a number of years”.

He added: “At KCom, we’ve been implementing new ways of working designed to support our focus on the provision of longer-term, annuity-based managed services in the enterprise market. We’ve been simplifying our business, reducing the time and resources we have associated with volume-based activities and re-sized the organisation for the level and type of customer activity we are anticipating. Sadly, this has meant reducing the number of roles we currently have. We are working closely with those employees affected by these changes, including looking for other opportunities elsewhere in the KCom Group.”

KCom Group said future revenue will be affected by insufficient new business orders at its KCom brand.

The group has introduced cost reductions to support full-year earnings and plans are in place to accelerate changes in this part of the business. The group said it had strong cash-generation and it will raise the full year dividend by 10 per cent a year over the next two years. It said it is well positioned to exploit profitable growth opportunities in most of its target markets.

Bill Halbert, the chief executive, said the group was moving towards an integrated business structure.

He added: “The group continues to make progress in terms of its strategic objectives, in spite of overall revenue performance continuing to be challenged in some specific activities. We’re particularly pleased with the overall performance in KC brand, most notably in the consumer channel. Fibre services continue to see strong levels of uptake, well above the UK average.”