Mittal said at a CII event on Thursday, “When Vodafone (India) and Idea Cellular merged, I said it wouldn’t work because you have two different cultures put together, and That’s exactly what happened with the company.”
He added that the Vi merger did not work because “the UK’s Vodafone is a multinational company with a very open culture, while Birla” is a large business enterprise rooted in India with a financial-results orientation.
“Vi should have been a great company,” Mittal said, noting that at the time of the merger (in August 2018), it had the largest network in the country, the largest fiber network and the largest market share at 42%. Was too. But instead it became “a classic case of mix-and-match culture not working”.
V did not respond to Mittal’s comments at the CII event.
But a person familiar with Vi’s thinking, however, dismissed these comments.
“Many people who are part of the Airtel culture have moved on from my company… These negative comments have been made well before the Vi merger took effect, and at some point, the company found itself creating a cocoon and Decided to ignore all about it,” he told ET.
This person said that while there were genuine apprehensions about Wei’s merger, “it had nothing to do with culture … the concern was layoffs”.
To this end, Mittal said that credibility of governance also plays a big role in fundraising, noting that V has been struggling to raise funds for the past two years, it took only six months to raise billions of dollars for Bharat Airtel. There were phone calls. period of crisis.
However, an executive familiar with Vi’s strategy countered Mittal by saying once again that Vi’s fundraising faced challenges due to the credibility of the regime, but because the telco failed to create value in its 4G services. Used to be. This, he said, was the result of a lengthy merger process that the two erstwhile companies – Vodafone India and Idea Cellular – had gone through.
It took a total of about three years, from the announcement to the full amalgamation of the two companies.
“Meanwhile they (VI) failed to build and expand their 4G base, which meant that investors were not seeing value in the company,” he told ET.
Focusing on the emerging geopolitical scenario amid the pandemic and the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war, Mittal said that in a departure from global supply chains, the world is increasingly moving into the era of reliable supply chains. Many companies, he said, were, in fact, shifting their supply chains out of China, opting for reliable supply chains, even at the risk of higher costs.
“I think unlike the global supply chain we’re going to have reliable supply chains and that’s a big, massive change that you’re going to see. And if that means more pain, more costs with suffering, So be it,” he said.
Mittal, however, expects India to benefit from these innings and get tremendous tailwinds if he plays his cards well. The major advantage of India, he said, is that it is “a continent of consumers endowed with its own markets, its own resources. More importantly, India is also a reliable source, and democracy of supply chains and There is a possibility of coming in open societies.
He said that “the era of globalization is over,” but India can take advantage of these changes by growing its semiconductor manufacturing business, strengthening its defense gear manufacturing capabilities, given the constraints posed by geopolitical tensions with China. In addition to, the war between Russia – Ukraine.
No comments:
Post a Comment