Symantec to slash enterprise security portfolio and cut 1,200 jobs
May 31, 2016
Shah Sheikh (1294 articles)
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Symantec to slash enterprise security portfolio and cut 1,200 jobs

Symantec is cutting 1,200 staff and simplifying its enterprise security portfolio as part of plans to shave $400m (£277.5m) off its annual costs.

The security vendor, recently shorn of its Veritas information management business, set out details of its efficiency programme alongside its Q2 results, which showed revenues declining six per cent to $873m.

On an earnings call, Symantec CFO Thomas Seifert said the vendor is targeting nearly $100m in savings by removing layers of management, consolidating operations and rebalancing some posts to lower-cost regions.

These changes will see net headcount fall by 1,200 positions, Seifert said.

A further $50m in savings are being targeted by simplifying the enterprise security portfolio, including reducing the number of SKUs.

The remainder of the $400m savings being targeted comprise $130m from squeezing out “stranded costs” relating to the Veritas divestiture, $100m in procurement savings and $35m from real estate utilisation.

Symantec’s enterprise security sales fell four per cent during the quarter, but the vendor said the drop was partly due to the shift to subscription revenues among customers.

As part of its efforts to streamline its enterprise security business, Symantec said it will invest in solutions that accelerate its unified security strategy, an area in which outgoing CEO Michael Brown claimed the vendor has an advantage over rivals such as FireEye.

“Many companies offer the potential of security analytics, but only Symantec offers an unparalleled amount of data, upon which to run these analytics,” Brown said on the call, a transcript of which can be found here. “Many of the network security vendors in the market today, such as FireEye and Palo Alto, only provide threat protection offerings [and] these offerings are focused on keeping bad actors out of the network, and do not provide protection for the data itself.”

Symantec is adding 20 per cent more quota-carrying field reps and is also boosting rewards for partners that focus on Symantec through its Secure One programme, Brown added.

The company said the restructuring efforts would lead it to absorb charges of between $230m and $280m over the next two years.

Source | ChannelWeb