It is no secret that Sprint has not been having the best year so far. The company has been seeing increasing pressure from the likes of T-Mobile, while also having to deal with less than ideal quarterly results and slipping profits. In fact, the company has already announced a number of cost-cutting measures that they are bringing in, to try and swell the losses that seem to be continually popping up for Sprint.
Sprint did announce their latest quarterly results this morning and the takeaway was that they did note an improvement. Although, the improvement in reality is a very small one with the same overriding issues present. In fact, depending on which way you look at it, if you focus more on the announced per-share loss (than the churn rate), then this morning’s quarterly results highlighted a worse than expected quarter. Either way, the consensus is that the future is not one which is going to be plain sailing for the company or its employees.
Following the latest announcement, Sprint’s CEO, Marcelo Claure has been speaking about what the future holds and more specifically, what will be happening with these cost cutting measures going forward. In terms of the layoffs, Claure makes it clear that he wants as many of these to be completed by Jan 30th. One of the reasons being given for this is that employees who leave at this early stage of 2016 are likely to benefit more from the severance packages, as these are also said to be seeing refining later in the year. For the employees that do remain, Claure notes that he wants them to take on an “owner’s mentality” with how they spend company money, expensive or resources. Highlighting the example, Claure notes one way they have already began ‘better using’ resources is the use of a 15-second television spot, which gets the same message across in the same way that may have required a 30-second spot before.
Claure knows that such a topic is not one which anyone really wants to take about, but does seem to make it clear in his latest comments that the best way to approach this, is to do so as straightforward as possible. According to Claure, “The way you beat that is being very honest and transparent.” It is unclear of how successful these cost-cutting measures will be in the future, however, it does seem clear that Sprint are becoming very focused on cutting costs as a means to changing the currently Sprint climate. Claure sums up this point neatly by saying “We have a very clear plan to return Sprint to profitability.”