Why Konga Sacks Workers Every Six Months

Nigeria’s online marketplace, Konga has said its business
development strategy remains the underlying cause of
reducing its workforce every six months.
Konga stated this after disengaging another set of
employees penultimate week.
Recall that in January this year, Konga sacked 80
employees, about 10 per cent of its workforce. At the time,
the company blamed it on the prevailing tough economic
situation. It stated that the decision to let some
employees go was not ‘taken lightly.’
“The decision to restructure and realign our company’s
focus to be more agile in the prevailing local economic
conditions is not one that was taken lightly,” Konga had
said. It added: “With this restructuring and by taking
advantage of new innovations and upcoming retail
opportunities in the market space, we are optimistic that
we are on the path to grow an even healthier and more
sustainable business, whilst delivering best-in-class
service to our customers.”
However, six months down the lane, Konga disengaged
another undisclosed number of employees, but this time, it
did not blame the economy but instead said it had been
the marketplace’s business strategy over the past two
years. According to the company, this strategy had worked
very well for the company over the past two years. It
added that “even the sacked workers usually move to
other companies to accomplish great things.”
“Nigeria’s largest online mall, Konga.com, will lay off
some of its employees, as part of its business
development strategy whereby it reviews staff strength
every six months. Konga has been doing this consistently
over the last two years and usually let go of staff that still
go on and do great things elsewhere.”
In the statement, Konga’s Chief Executive Officer, Shola
Adekoya stated that, “The restructuring which also entails
workforce reduction is a prudent and necessary step for
the long term success of the company. The reorganizing
will also impact the business model as we continue to do
retail but only focus on the products that customers really
like with high throughput in the warehouse and that will
leave other products to strategic merchants that will take
over some of the products in a marketplace fashion.”