SPH Media lays off staff amid tech division restructure

SPH Media has laid off 34 employees as it restructures its company's technology division.

The cuts will affect technology workers across various teams and ranks, and account for about 10% of employees in the technology division, according to an internal email broadcast sent to staff by SPH Media chief operating officer Loh Yuh Yiing and chief technology officer Kaythaya Maw.

"Following the media restructuring in December 2021, we had to urgently and aggressively ramp up out capacity and investment across tech," the email read as seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE. 

"It has not been easy for our colleagues, executing and delivering on all fronts of tech these past three years," it added.

"Having spent the past three months reviewing our tech operations and cost structures, we sought first to rationalise and tighten non-payroll expenditures where possible," it said. it added that despite the fact that payroll-related expenditure makes up nearly two-thirds of its technology spend, it could not avoid making adjustments on the people front to bring them to a more sustainable stead-state.

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"Even as we did so, we prioritised streamlining and reducing our reliance on contract resources where our business needs have evolved, and considered job redundancies only as a last resort," it said. 

It added that the company was committed to supporting the affected employees and providing them with severance packages that adhere to tripartite guidelines. It will also be providing affected employees with career coaching, job placement assistance and counselling support to help ease their transition.

It explained that there are currently no plans for further exercises of this nature and that moving forward, its focus is to steady the ship as it transits towards a more sustainable level of tech operations and expenditure. 

The email added updates to the organisation which include the tech infrastructure and operations, cybersecurity and corporate system functions being brought together. 

"Their focus will be on reaping the gains on our transformation thus far, streamlining operations to be fit-for-purpose and finding opportunities for resource optimisation," it said. 

Product and engineering will be led by Maw moving forward. Comprising the digital media products team led by Rajiv Malhotra, head of product at SPH Media and the engineering team led by George Irwin, director of engineering, they will continue to partner newsrooms and commercial teams closely to drive the digital transformation of SPH Media's products, it said. 

This comes shortly after SPH Media named Chan Yeng Kit, who is permanent secretary for health and formerly the chairman of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), as CEO as Teo Lay Lim retired

According to an article on SPH Media’s flagship newspaper The Straits Times earlier this year, SPH Media chairman Khaw Boon Wan said Chan is committed to SPH Media’s mission to “help inform and unite people via quality journalism”.

“Against the competitive pressure from social media, he will support the newsrooms to tap digital platforms to reach new audiences and build a sustainable commercial model,” said the chairman. He also thanked Teo for kick-starting digital transformation.

Early this year, SPH Media also acquired technology media company Tech in Asia (TIA). Willis Wee, CEO, and founder of TIA said in a post at the time that he was happy to share that the deal was officially concluded and added that he is convinced that the momentum and partnership with The Business Times (BT) will push TIA closer to its mission of building a vibrant tech community.

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