Ola Lay Offs: Ride-hailing platform Ola is likely to lay off around 200 employees across different software verticals of ANI technologies. Many of these employees are believed to have been working on different aspects of the Ola app, sources told CNBC-TV18. According to the report, the move comes on the heels of declining sales of the Ola Electric scooter.
Ola, which launched its electric scooter in December last year, has been carrying out a restructuring exercise for the past few months. Employees across teams including product, marketing, sales, supply, tech, business, and operations were affected. These layoffs were linked to Ola shutting down its quick commerce business Ola Dash and used car business Ola Cars. The closure of the quick delivery business comes after the company announced plans of expanding it with 500 new dark stores across 20 cities in January.
More than 30 senior officials, including members of Bhavish Agarwal’s leadership team, have quit in the last two years.
In a statement, the company 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, Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal had tweeted “Opening up experience centres across the country. 20 already, more than 200 by March!”
Electric vehicle maker Ola Electric is looking to have more than 200 experience centres across the country by March 2023. These experience centres will basically allow customers to get a feel of their product before purchase.
The announcement by the company comes amid falling sales of its flagship Ola S1 Pro scooter. The company, which has been in the electric vehicle market for nine months now, has been facing many customer complaints about the software, battery performance, and service issues. From 12,691 scooters sold in April, the company’s sales have been declining every month. According to the vehicle registration data, Ola sold a little over 3,351 vehicles in August, the lowest in the last six months.
These centres will have facilities like product demos, test rides as well as after-sales service for the customers. This is being done to grab the attention of the customers.
It has also announced plans for its electric car which is slated to go on sale in the country by 2024. The company has made bold claims for its battery-powered four-wheeler. The car would be able to do an estimate of 500 km of range on a single charge and will have quick 0-100 km/h acceleration timing of 4 seconds.
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