State telecom enterprise TOT plans to cut almost one-third of its 83 divisions and reduce its existing senior executive vice-president (SEVP) positions from 14 to nine as part of its restructuring in preparation for a merger with CAT Telecom early next year.
The restructuring, which also includes a 15% cost reduction, is due to start in October.
The merger of the state telecom enterprises into National Telecom (NT) is scheduled to be completed in January 2021. The date was postponed from July this year because of the impact of the pandemic and the volume of paperwork between local agencies and international creditors.
TOT plans to position itself as an infrastructure sharing provider while turning its competitor into a business partner.
"TOT will create mutual benefits among parties in this new economic era," said TOT acting president Morakot Thienmontree.
He said TOT has gradually adjusted its organisational structure over the past decade.
In 2010 the company had 24,000 staff with 39 divisions, but now it has 12,000 staff.
TOT's 83 divisions cover a wide variety of businesses as part of a strategy to tap new opportunities.
The company's management aims to reduce the number of divisions to around 60, Mr Morakot said, with several divisions likely merging.
"This is the proper time to undergo organisational restructuring," he said. "Two SEVPs retired last year, and another four will retire on Sept 30 this year."
The restructuring was discussed with remaining SEVPs and they all agreed with it, Mr Morakot said.
The infrastructure sharing business is meant to ward off infrastructure investment redundancy in the telecom industry.
"We hope to serve all related parties in terms of telecom towers and networks, particularly in the 5G broadband era," Mr Morakot said.
At February's 5G spectrum licence auction, TOT secured four slots of the 26GHz range and CAT won two slots of the 700MHz range.
The two state enterprises joined the auction to obtain spectrum slots to provide 5G-related solutions for the public interest under the initiative of Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta.
In the initial phase of NT management, the company will have two co-presidents, one of them the CAT president and another acting TOT president, according to Mr Buddhipongse.
CAT and TOT are in talks with private companies for strategic partners in 5G service.