Girnar Software to cut 136 jobs in restructuring exercise

Consumer internet firm Girnar Software, which runs auto portals CarDekho.Com, Gaadi.Com and Zigwheels.Com, is slashing 136 jobs as part of a restructuring exercise to cut costs.
The company, which has been on an acquisition spree over the past two years, is cutting the jobs in order to keep its commitment to the board to become a profitable firm by the first quarter of the next fiscal and reduce "dependence on external investor funds".
"Achieving this meant changes and optimisation of various costs...But a crucial and unfortunate outcome of the exercise was that we had to take a decision to part ways with 136 members of Girnar family," Girnar Software CEO and Co-founder Amit Jain said in a letter to employees.

Stating that employees in businesses with "structurally negative unit economics" were identified for the retrenchment exercise, he wrote there was a "need to restructure teams so that the business can structurally be profitable in future. This has led to some of the best guys we know in the company get impacted".
He further wrote: "Lot of businesses ran independently and had created parallel similar structures and teams. We have combined these teams to create synergies. This led to redundant profiles of many talented folks, who would have not had any meaningful work and growth within the group under the new structure".

When contacted for comments, Jain said in an e-mailed statement: "As a business that has a number of complementary businesses under its umbrella; we have reached a stage where they need to be synergised and consolidated on the technology and operations front.

"Unfortunately, right-sizing requires the tough decision to pare down jobs, which means losing colleagues and parting with friends. 136 colleagues or less than 5 per cent of our workforce will be impacted with this decision."
He further said extended severance package and support from internal HR teams to help them find new jobs are being extended to the affected colleagues.

"This isn't a performance related decision hence all of them are eligible for re-hiring per relevant opportunities in the future," Jain said.
In his letter to the employees, Jain wrote on the timing of such a retrenchment exercise: "We wanted to minimise the impact and give as much time as possible to find jobs for our impacted members. Least anxiety was our aim. Had we done this in April we may not have been able to give them extended notice periods.
"In the current situation we will be giving them 2.5 months to find a new job. All impacted members will continue to come and work as normal."

Jain wrote that Girnar had committed to the board that it would be a profitable company by April-June quarter 2017 and after the job cuts exercise "we will be placed profitably at over Rs 130 crore of revenue run rate at the start of the next financial year and will be profitable (net of marketing) by next quarter)".
In July 2016, GirnarSoft made its ninth deal in the last two years with the acquisition of Valueserve Management Consultants. Earlier it had made strategic investment in Advanced Structures India. It had also acquired Volob, Connecto, Help on Wheels, Zigwheels.Com, Gaadi.Com and BuyingIQ.

The company's investors include Google Capital, Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Tybourne, HDFC Bank, Times Internet and Ratan Tata.