[acdha]

That’s really the key part: if the managers who created the problem are still there, layoffs will just make it worse. There are cases where getting out of a dubious business line can lead to long-term benefit but I’ve seen that a handful of times compared to losing useful people while the bad managers failed upwards.

[AlotOfReading]

That's basically the story of Philips. They go through a tough period and choose to divest a "dubious" line of business to focus on higher margin products. The new company, freed of Philips management, goes on to surpass the revenues of the parent. That's how ASML and NXP were born. Signify (Philips lighting) is getting reasonably close.