DAN has announced 11% of staff cuts that will affect seven markets including Singapore and China in the region.
The cuts in Singapore are likely to affect the local operations as well as the regional headquarters. Other affected markets are Australia, Brazil, the UK, Germany and France.
The cuts will see a 3% reduction in DAN’s international headcount and represent a saving of almost £100 million annually.
The restructure was initially announced last month, coinciding with a revenue decline of 12.3% in quarter three of FY2019 due to “no green shoots of recovery” in the China and Australia markets.
The news that this restructure will also involve redundancies comes as DAN downgrades its forecast for the fiscal year ending December 31, which was made on August 7.
DAN said the Japan business’ performance has been “in line with our expectations”. There are no changes to the Japan business forecast.
“Within the international business, there are a small number of large, complex and challenged markets that have reported ongoing underperformance over recent quarters,” DAN said in a statement.
“This has continued into the fourth quarter, resulting in a downward revision to our full-year performance expectations. In order to future-proof the business, a number of planned strategic initiatives are being introduced in these markets to enable us to deliver sustainable growth in FY2020 and beyond.
“This restructuring will accelerate the implementation of the new business model and deliver improvements and efficiencies for our business and our clients.
“We remain committed to these markets to enable their long-term success but must ensure they are structured appropriately to drive operating margin improvements, deliver revenue growth, and achieve a better service for our clients and experience for our people.”
In yet another high profile exit at DAN, chief creative officer of Dentsu Aegis Network Asia-Pacific Ted Lim has left the agency. He will play an advisory role at DAN until the end of June 2020. Lim had most recently taken charge of the DAN Singapore in addition to his mandate as the creative head of Asia-Pacific, following the departure of Andy Greenaway earlier this year.
Lim had first joined DAN in 2013 moving from Leo Burnett Singapore where he was chief creative officer. He had also worked for over two decades at Naga DDB Malaysia. His exit comes during a year-long series of changes, restructuring and high profile departures at the network.
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