Fabfurnish is axing workforce and hiring without clear roles

Representational Image Reuters

In a bid to refurbish the present business model, home furnishing ecommerce firm Fab Furnish has axed its workforce by one fourth. Having fired almost 50 of its employees, the Rocket Internet funded Fab Furnish is vacating warehouses as part of a business restructuring, as per a news report by The Economic Times. According to sources that the company said it has "undertaken a resource optimisation exercise" and is "hiring a talent pool ideal for our new business positioning".

Weeks after German Rocket Internet have replaced the management at FabFurnish. Cofounders Vikram Chopra and Mehul Agrawal have moved out of day-to-day responsibilities and senior directors Ashish Garg and Ankita Dabas has taken over the reins.

"The chief technology officer has left and the whole marketing team has been laid off," a source told the ET, while talking on the development. He said he has already interviewed several of the sacked employees for possible jobs at his firm. While this person put the number of employees who lost job at 50, another person said the company fired around 70 people. FabFurnish had around 200 people on its pay role.

"The situation was chaotic. While people who had been hired just two to three months ago were being asked to go and simultaneously more were being hired without any clear or defined roles," a person who had resigned from FabFurnish within 10 days of joining.

"There was much confusion… we have had to rejig headcount to bring fresh talent and perspective,” Ankita Dabas told the financial daily. In an emailed response to queries she said: "Our technology and marketing team are very much intact. We are currently hiring for key positions in both the teams aggressively."

In coming months, FabFurnish will reduce its inventory and move towards a marketplace-heavy company, Dabas said. It plans to bring its inventory level down to 20-30% from about 50% at present.