Adidas’s technology hub in Gurgaon was built five years ago to bring more technology work in-house; today’s cuts suggest that decision is being reconsidered. Whether AI is a factor, as it has been in developer cuts across the industry, remains an open question adidas has not addressed.
Adidas confirmed on Wednesday that it has cut jobs inside its India technology organization, but the company’s own account of the reduction and what employees are describing internally point to very different versions of how deep the cuts run.
In a statement issued Wednesday, adidas said the changes affect “less than 20 percent of our India Technology organization,” part of what it called an effort to simplify operations. The company did not disclose how many roles were eliminated. Its own website lists close to 650 employees across its two India technology hubs, in Gurgaon and Chennai.
That is the extent of what adidas has confirmed on the record.
Separate reporting, citing people familiar with the matter, describes a far sharper cut concentrated at the Gurgaon hub alone. Those accounts put the reduction at close to half of a roughly 700-person team, or somewhere between 300 and 350 employees, a scale not confirmed by adidas and not reflected in the company’s own percentage figure.
Two versions of the same cut
The unconfirmed reporting adds specifics adidas has not addressed on the record. It describes a town hall on Sept. 15 at which staff were split into two groups: one that received exit letters immediately, and another asked to remain through Dec. 15 to hand over responsibilities. The roles affected are said to include software engineers, data scientists and data engineers, the kind of positions adidas hired for when it opened the Gurgaon hub in 2021 to build and support its own technology products in-house.
adidas has described the move in broader terms, saying it is working to “simplify parts of our organization” while strengthening what it calls critical technology capabilities. The company has also said India remains a strategically important market and that the hub continues to play a central role in its operations.
A hub built for a different moment
adidas was among a broad group of consumer brands that expanded internal technology capabilities during the pandemic years, as companies across retail and sporting goods invested more heavily in digital products, data platforms and e-commerce infrastructure.
adidas’s move adds fresh scrutiny to that premise.
Across retail and consumer goods, companies continue to revisit the technology organizations they expanded during the pandemic. While investment remains strong in data, automation and AI-related capabilities, workforce reductions are increasingly concentrated in mature software and support functions as companies seek greater efficiency.
What happens next
adidas has not said whether further cuts to the India Technology organization are planned, or whether this reduction is tied to a specific project rather than a broader reshaping of its global technology function. What is confirmed is that Gurgaon and Chennai remain part of the company’s operations, and that adidas has said the hub will continue to matter to how it builds and supports its technology going forward.
