Byju's massive restructuring to affect 3,500 employees

Edtech giant Byju's is undergoing massive restructuring in order to reduce costs and ensure better cash flow management under the leadership of new CEO Arjun Mohan, according to a spokesperson of the company. The restructuring will have an impact on 3,000-3,500 jobs, Fortune India has learnt.

"We are in the final stages of a business restructuring exercise to simplify operating structures, reduce the cost base and better cash flow management. BYJU'S new India CEO, Arjun Mohan, will be completing this process in the next few weeks and will steer a revamped and sustainable operation ahead,” says Byju’s spokesperson. Mohan, who succeeded BYJU’s founding partner Mrinal Mohit, worked as the chief business officer at BYJU’s for 11 years.

The development comes after the company appointed Mohan as the new CEO of the company last week. While job positions that will be impacted cannot be ascertained, a source told Fortune India that as many as 1,000 employees are already serving the notice period, whereas the other 1,000 employees have been put under the performance improvement plan (PIP). "The rest 1,500 employees could be impacted," says the source.

According to the source, the company is looking to trim down job roles across several subsidiaries of Think & Learn Private Limited, the parent company of BYJU’s, as the process has not been done in the past two years. 

In October last year, the company, which is already facing valuation cuts by US-based investors amidst a funding winter, announced trimming 2,500 job roles or 5% of its 50,000 workforce to achieve profitability by March 2023. The company then said Byju's India K-10 business, which includes Toppr, Meritnation, TutorVista, Scholar, and HashLearn, will now be consolidated as one business unit, other than Aakash and Great Learning that will continue to function as separate organisations.

The company, which has been touted as the fastest-growing ed-tech unicorn, is yet to announce its financial results for FY23. In June this year, the company’s auditor Deloitte Haskins & Sells quit ,citing a long delay in the edtech startup's financial statements for the year ended March 31, 2022. Days later, three board members of the company stepped down citing differences from the founder. In July this year, US-based investor Prosus called out BYJU's for not evolving sufficiently in its reporting and governance structures.