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News - Jasper Hart
June 30, 2020
Many offices closed as comms provider searches for efficiencies in wake of COVID crisis
Technology solutions provider Chess ICT is closing offices and making a number of its mobile division staff redundant due to the effects of the COVID crisis.
An industry source familiar with Chess said branch offices have closed with the exception of the Herts Borehamwood location (pictured) and Burnley distribution centre and that as many as 70 staff are undergoing a 45-day consultancy period. Other Chess offices are in Alderley Edge in Cheshire, Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, and in Glasgow.
Chess ICT director Richard Btesh told Mobile News:
“We’ve closed offices in accordance with government guidelines. Everyone is in working from home mode. We’ve had to take a view and it’s on that basis we’ve made redundancies. We’re in a consultation process so we don’t know how many we are going to make redundant. We have made some. We’re out out of step with what other companies are doing.
“Mobile is a small, but important, part of out business. And we’re growing it and investing in it. But some areas are suffering because of Covid. In common with our peers we have had to make more efficiencies. Covid has helped businesses focus on areas of profitability and we’re still in growth mode.”
Chess was hit last September by cash clawbacks from O2 following the demise of one of its dealers, Future Communication Specialists. Future went bust after Chess allegedly halted commission payments to the company due to irregularities in the connections Future was pushing through.
Future founders Lewis Tribble and Joe Stickler were accused in a BBC programme of mis-selling contracts by telling prospects they would receive extra SIM cards for “friends and family”. But the “free” SIMs incurred separate monthly charges.
