Scicon Plc, as reported briefly (CI No 1,538) restructured has necessitating 120 redundancies which, as the company flacks always say, went from that non-specific region across the board. Furthermore, another 40 vacancies will not be filled. The company has restructured into three major market groups with a group director reporting directly to the managing director Ray Waite. These market groups are: industry (which includes such categories as discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, oil and petrochemicals), utilities and transport, government and defence. On top of these are two groups with horizontal skills consultancy, software products and facilities management. The market groups will concentrate on systems integration and systems development in their sectors and the company is looking for an improvement in accounts management and in developing long-term relationships with clients. Strangely enough the new structure looks uncannily like the old. Computergram was told that the main difference lies in the management structure which has been flattened, but apparently that does not mean that a layer of middle management has been removed. Another difference is that there is now no special group for networking and communications although the company says it has retained these skills which will be fed into accounts from the horizontal groups. Although the restructuring may look a bit like the emperor’s new clothes, the emperor assures us that there is a huge internal business difference before and after. For a start the structure now has groups as opposed to businesses, and it is flatter in some indeterminable way. Mysterious steps have also been taken to make the company more discriminating when it comes to fixed price contracts – these steps involve a strong management structure and unspecified but nevertheless new management procedures. The changes are designed to give SD-Scicon a stronger return to profitability in 1991. The shares fell to an all-time low of 30 pence on the announcement, where they remain.
