BT Engage IT sharpens the axe for more job cuts

A fresh round of redundancies at BT Engage IT has seen sales director Nick Wiltshire and commercial director Allan Mulliner leave the firm along with 12 sales account managers.

This takes the total headcount reduction close to 150 positions since chief executive Martin Balaam came on board in October.

A spokesperson at BT Engage IT confirmed it, "like many other businesses" had reviewed the operations.

"This has resulted in a small number of redundancies in the business," said BT. "We are advising all staff of this and working with those affected to ensure that they are treated appropriately."

It added that Mulliner had left on 12 March but it did not comment on the departure of Wiltshire, who was placed on gardening leave weeks ago.

Job cuts are not the only de-motivating issue that sales staff have been confronted with; a new commission structure will be introduced that sources say cuts down the money staff  can make.

BT said: "We annually review our commission structure and as a result of the latest review we will be making some changes to ensure it supports the overall business strategy."

Sources believe the commission structure will be capped at £60,000 per year but BT insisted there will be no such mechanism in place.

The departure of long serving directors Wiltshire and Mulliner follows the resignation of former BT Engage IT boss Nick Gorringe and the exit of Paul Edgeley, who ran Lynx Technology which was BT's second reseller acquisition.

Other changes have seen BT make job cuts across field engineering, customer services and the closure of recruitment arm Red and Blue.

In January, BT Engage IT also stopped reselling IT Site Manager and laid off some staff involved in that operation.