By Cara Sievers

Sprint director of indirect channels, Steve Rowley, will be leaving the company at the end of this year. Jaime Jones, senior vice president for general business and public sector, confirmed that Sprint announced a labor force reduction on Nov. 9, “with a goal of really getting to about $350 million in annualized labor savings, and that was through internal employees as well as through external labor costs,” he said. Jones said the announcement outlined the plan to eliminate between 2,000 and 2,500 positions, one of which was Rowley’s.

Jones said there are no plans to replace Rowley after he officially leaves the company on Dec. 31. In addition to direct sales operations, Jones will preside over indirect sales, a role he has been filling as Rowley’s supervisor since Jan. 1.

Jones said Sprint has been working to modify its indirect channel by aligning indirect channel operations into the same reporting structure as the business-direct operations, which has more of a geographic structure with three regional vice presidents. Jones said that while the organizational structure beneath Rowley pretty much stayed the same, the elimination of his position will streamline communications between the partner managers and the regional vice presidents. Jones feels this will greatly increase Sprint’s overall responsiveness.

“We have, over the last four weeks, reached out to all of our partners and took them through our strategy and the changes being made and the feedback has been outstanding,” said Jones. “I think they’re very comfortable with our approach.”