Ola, a ride-hailing app, is likely to fire 500 people from several ANI technology software verticals.
According to CNBC-TV18 reports, many of these individuals are thought to have worked on various components of the Ola app. The move, according to the article, follows a decline in sales of the Ola Electric scooter.
Ola has been going through the restructuring process for the past few months. Ola introduced its electric scooter in December of last year. Employees belonging to various teams from the product, marketing, sales, supply, technology, business, and operations departments all have been affected.
These layoffs were related to Ola closing down Ola Dash, a rapid commerce company, and Ola Cars, a used automobile company.
After Ola announced ambitions to grow the business with 500 new dark stores across 20 cities in January, the quick delivery operation was shut down.
In the past two years, more than 30 senior officials, including members of Bhavish Agarwal’s leadership team, have put down their papers.
Ola, in a statement, said, “Ola Electric, India’s largest EV company, has been increasing its focus on non-software engineering domains with a clear focus on building engineering and R&D capabilities across – vehicle, cell, battery, manufacturing and automation, autonomous engineering streams. The company currently has around 2,000 engineers and aims to increase its engineering talent pool to 5,000 over the next 18 months. In light of these efforts, the company is centralizing operations and is undertaking a restructuring exercise to minimise redundancy and build a strong lateral structure that strengthens relevant roles and functions”.
Last week, on Twitter, Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal wrote, “Opening up experience centres across the country. 20 already, more than 200 by March!”
By March 2023, electric vehicle manufacturer Ola Electric hopes to establish more than 200 experience centres spread out around the country. Customers will essentially be able to try out products at these experience centres before making a purchase.