Bijenkorf cuts jobs at head office

Dutch retailer De Bijenkorf continues to cut costs further: after giving up its international online business, the department store chain now plans to cut jobs at its head office as well.

Investing in front end

De Bijenkorf plans to reorganise its head office, cutting fifteen jobs in the process. In a press release, the retailer said it wanted to invest as many resources as possible in the front end of the organisation, particularly the physical and online stores. This will allow some departments in the head office, that have a lot of overlap in activities and budget, to be organised more efficiently. The management still stresses that it considers this an “extremely painful process”.

It is not the first cost-cutting exercise at the department store chain: a fortnight ago, de Bijenkorf announced that online activities in the German- and French-speaking markets would be discontinued due to rising costs. The company plans to focus entirely on the Dutch-speaking markets, where the sales trend is positive.