From melty camshafts to borderline financial deceit, the news surrounding KTM has gone from bad to abyssmal over the past couple of years. Sure, its bikes are still the things of teenage poster dreams, but plenty of people have a problem with the company, not the products. And thanks to KTM's new owner, Bajaj, folks might start looking a lot more kindly on the company.
KTM is in a hole, and as the new owners, Bajaj wants to swiftly dig the brand out of it. The plan is to cut overheads by 50% and streamline white-collar roles, all while safeguarding the staff who physically produce the units. The Indian company also plans to revamp the management team and strengthen domestic and export sales, which, combined with the massive cut in overheads, will help stabilize and restore confidence in the orange brand, or at least, that's what Bajaj hopes.
As most of you know, cutting overheads and "streamlining" any type of role means folks are losing their jobs. That's not nice, and I can tell you firsthand that, after being part of a "restructuring" myself, getting laid off sucks for everyone. But for some people, it's even worse. Blue-collar workers, often living paycheck to paycheck, are losing jobs to automation, so when there are talks about layoffs, targets are usually set to find more financially efficient machine alternatives; that's not the case with these layoffs, however.
