THOMAS Cook is to save £20 million over the next five years after agreeing a new back-office finance, personnel and IT outsourcing deal with Accenture.
But the move will result in the loss of up to 240 staff who currently work on the Thomas Cook account for Accenture.
The 10-year deal is an extension of the original 2002 contract, when 400 Thomas Cook staff moved to Accenture.
Accenture aims to redeploy some of the 240 staff, based in Peterborough, Bradford and Manchester, on to its other accounts. The company said all staff over 50 will be offered early retirement, while staff not offered another post will get enhanced redundancy packages.
Around 80% of the job losses will come from Accenture’s Peterborough office.
Speaking of the new deal Thomas Cook chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa said: “We operate in an increasingly competitive market, where new entrants such as the dotcom companies and no-frills airlines work on a significantly lower cost base than ours.
“We need to keep focused on driving our costs down and revenues up at every opportunity.”
Meanwhile, Thomas Cook is confident it can find roles in the company for 86 staff whose positions have been made redundant in the restructure of its call centre and foreign exchange businesses.
The operator has shut its Bradford-based call centre, which employed 44 staff. But the company said there are vacancies in its customer and trade relations department in Bradford, and it expects to be able to redeploy all the affected people.
A further 42 roles have been axed with the integration of the 120-store foreign exchange business with the retail division. The decision, which sees bureau managers reporting to regional sales managers, has meant the scrapping of 15 area bureau managers and 27 customer service manager positions.
The restructure is part of Thomas Cook’s overhaul of its high-street management team (Travel Weekly October 22). It aims to improve underperforming stores with the introduction of two regional heads of sales.
- Former TV Travel Shop trading director Paula Lacey starts work at Thomas Cook on November 15 as head of sales south in a new role under the ‘evolution’ banner focusing on high-performing shops.
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