Sega Reorganizes in West, Forms Digital Group, Lays Off 73 - News
source: http://ugdb.com/news/view/sega-reorganizes-in-west-forms-digital-group-lays-off-73/
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IndustryGamers has learned that Sega West has just implemented a major restructuring of its business in North America and Europe. Consequently, the company has “made the reluctant decision to reduce headcount by 36 employees in the San Francisco offices and 37 in London.” This represents a 15 percent workforce cut in North America and 10 percent in Europe (so roughly 12 percent overall for Sega West). Why is this happening? Sega is now looking to put much more emphasis on the growing digital sector, Sega West President Mike Hayes told us. The San Francisco office will now serve as the Digital division, while Europe will continue to focus on traditional video games.
“We've been going through the planning process the past 6 months, taking a look at the future of the market and where we think our investments need to be. It's no surprise that the share of digital is growing as an overall part of the video game business, so we decided we have to invest more in that specific area,” Hayes explained. “And notably, we had to get our business groups appropriately sorted to provide the right focus. Traditionally, Sega of America and Sega Europe had been running a dual company where both would look at traditional goods and both would look at the digital side. What we decided to do is to make San Francisco the kind of hub for our digital efforts, and therefore make London the hub for the traditional packaged goods part. I would stress, however, that this is very much administrative reorganization, because clearly we want to be very successful with digital globally. Likewise, we want to continue to be successful with traditional goods. So the reorganization allows us to be much more efficient in terms of our costs, but probably more importantly in the way that we can look at the future business.”
“We've been going through the planning process the past 6 months, taking a look at the future of the market and where we think our investments need to be. It's no surprise that the share of digital is growing as an overall part of the video game business, so we decided we have to invest more in that specific area,” Hayes explained. “And notably, we had to get our business groups appropriately sorted to provide the right focus. Traditionally, Sega of America and Sega Europe had been running a dual company where both would look at traditional goods and both would look at the digital side. What we decided to do is to make San Francisco the kind of hub for our digital efforts, and therefore make London the hub for the traditional packaged goods part. I would stress, however, that this is very much administrative reorganization, because clearly we want to be very successful with digital globally. Likewise, we want to continue to be successful with traditional goods. So the reorganization allows us to be much more efficient in terms of our costs, but probably more importantly in the way that we can look at the future business.”
