Reliace Communications Gets A New A-Team

[Himanshu Singh 19]

Reliance Communications, India's second-largest telecom company by subscribers, is fortifying its management structure to improve performance in a fiercely-competitive market by poaching scores of top executives from rivals.

RCOM has roped in Venugopal Ramanathan from Wipro Technologies to head its Internet Data Center business and Alpana Doshi from Mahindra Satyam as chief information officer. Bharti Airtel's CEO for Maharashtra & Goa, Manu Talwar, is set to join RCOM soon, according to HR consultants.

The latest additions follow other appointments such as those of Anuraj Prashar, who heads RCOM's customer services, and Naresh Gupta, president of Reliance Globalcom, the offshoot that serves international customers comprising over 1,200 enterprises and 200 carriers across 50 countries. RCOM had poached Mr Prashar recently from Airtel where he was national head of the fraud prevention unit and Mr Gupta from Vodafone Essar where he was serving as director and CTO till November.

Clearly, RCOM is looking to put a more efficient team to run its mobile operations on both the CDMA and GSM platforms as it primes itself to face competition in a market where cut-throat tariffs are the order of the day.

"Despite having a robust network, RCOM's revenues were not increasing," said BK Syngal, senior principal with Dua Consulting and former chairman of Reliance Telecom. "RCOM has realised it needs professional hands, who are experienced in running the business to improve its average revenue per user and also get higher-end customers on its networks."

RCOM saw a 51% drop in quarterly profit in the September 2009 quarter. Indeed, the ongoing tariff war has sharply cut profits of all 13 cellular operators in India. With three more companies due to launch services by next year, the battle for the Indian wireless market, which has some 515 million subscribers, is expected to get fiercer. Given this backdrop, the new team at RCOM has its task cut out.

"We are in the process of putting together a top-class leadership team from within and outside the organisation," said Syed Safawi, Wireless Business CEO, RCOM.

The Mumbai-based telco had appointed Mr Safawi himself only in December after a three-year search, as reported first by ET. Mr Safawi was executive director at Bharti Airtel before that.

RCOM's new structure will see Mr Safawi reporting to Reliance-ADAG group managing director Satish Seth. The hunt for a CEO became imperative after the former president for wireless operations, SP Shukla, was freed to head the telco's international operations.

RCOM has also elevated six of its top executives to be part of the new leadership team that will report to Mr Safawi. Former RCOM president Mahesh Prasad who headed the company's data business and was in charge of Big TV - the DTH arm - will now oversee all marketing initiatives. The leadership team includes financial controller Manikantan Iyer, IT & BSS operations head Nihar Rao, HR vice-president Vinod Chaturvedi, customer service head Anuraj Prashar and business CTO Dipak Kumar Ghosh, people aware of the development told ET.

An RCOM circular to employees said the rejig would lead to "better defined clarity in role, responsibility, accountability, performance orientation", adding that the new structure offered good growth prospects

for individuals.

RCOM's latest moves come as Bharti announced last week that it was moving CEO Manoj Kohli to the role of spearheading the global expansion. From April 1, Mr Kohli will head a newly-created international business division while current deputy CEO Sanjay Kapoor will be CEO for India and South Asia.

Edited January 20, 2010 by sachinrocks

[Greatest 55]

I hope the new guys do something about data in India....

[::Hitesh:: 1,763]

^^^

Same here,

Hoping for some magic from new A team.

[csmart 472]

data and also some good handsets on RCDMA... curretnyl tehy are loosing big time on handsets..

[raccoon 53]

RCOM has roped in Venugopal Ramanathan from Wipro Technologies to head its Internet Data Center business and Alpana Doshi from Mahindra Satyam as chief information officer. Bharti Airtel's CEO for Maharashtra & Goa, Manu Talwar, is set to join RCOM soon, according to HR consultants.

The latest additions follow other appointments such as those of Anuraj Prashar, who heads RCOM's customer services, and Naresh Gupta, president of Reliance Globalcom, the offshoot that serves international customers comprising over 1,200 enterprises and 200 carriers across 50 countries. RCOM had poached Mr Prashar recently from Airtel where he was national head of the fraud prevention unit and Mr Gupta from Vodafone Essar where he was serving as director and CTO till November.

Clearly, RCOM is looking to put a more efficient team to run its mobile operations on both the CDMA and GSM platforms as it primes itself to face competition in a market where cut-throat tariffs are the order of the day.

"Despite having a robust network, RCOM's revenues were not increasing," said BK Syngal, senior principal with Dua Consulting and former chairman of Reliance Telecom. "RCOM has realised it needs professional hands, who are experienced in running the business to improve its average revenue per user and also get higher-end customers on its networks."

RCOM saw a 51% drop in quarterly profit in the September 2009 quarter. Indeed, the ongoing tariff war has sharply cut profits of all 13 cellular operators in India. With three more companies due to launch services by next year, the battle for the Indian wireless market, which has some 515 million subscribers, is expected to get fiercer. Given this backdrop, the new team at RCOM has its task cut out.

"We are in the process of putting together a top-class leadership team from within and outside the organisation," said Syed Safawi, Wireless Business CEO, RCOM.

The Mumbai-based telco had appointed Mr Safawi himself only in December after a three-year search, as reported first by ET. Mr Safawi was executive director at Bharti Airtel before that.

OMG... now they are enlisting people from Airtel!! I fear things might only get much worse... I feel like running from RCom now!

And Robust network? Do these people see only mirages at work? RGSM needs a lot of improvement in all ways, and RCDMA is no good for texting; and coverage out of city is not good... though I dunno if they have improved as of now.

And along with this so called top-class leadership team, what about top-class customer care? Right now its almost non-existant, as getting thru to customer care is only possible late in the night. At all other times it is permanently busy.

Edited January 20, 2010 by raccoon

[nayasaroj 14]

yes .i think airtel people will do like airtel. costly call charges. like airtel.

[raccoon 53]

Make that - costly call charges + lowest class network & customer care + top class ways of cheating = Airtel Edited January 20, 2010 by raccoon

[Himanshu Singh 19]

Let it do anything.It wont improve any further.It has to go downhill from here.Customer satisfaction is a distant dream.

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

Airtel people in RCom .. But let us hope +ve, they (Ex-Airtel guys) may take steps in improving CC , than increasing tariffs

[vvinayakpai 26]

I really hope that RCOM does not commit foolish mistakes to just copy airtel or imitate what Airtel has been doing all these years.

We must remember that when Airtel was indulging in these so called tricks there was no mention of MNP etc. They enjoyed monopoly for some years before actual competition started coming in. Also customers had to latch on to their numbers at any cost.

But now the market dynamics have changed. MNP might be coming in at least 2 years from now (I really hope so), also 3G services might be launched by private players too (shall i say in 5 years?)

At this point of time if RCOM tries to copy airtel, they are going to dent even further their already low reputation among customers and subscribers.

Hope RCOM does not try to do an Airtel, at least all in one Go

[raccoon 53]

But I have noted something funny - though in my experience Airtel is worse than RCom in most ways (even RCom's tariffs are way better), consumer perception seems to be that it is RCom that seems to have the lowest reputation. Many of my friends have Airtel, but only one has a R mobile. I have even heard of things like - they are the biggest telco... how can it not be the best? Consumers can be really funny...  

[ACS 130]

But now the market dynamics have changed. MNP might be coming in at least 2 years from now (I really hope so), also 3G services might be launched by private players too (shall i say in 5 years?)

Which world are you living in ?

MNP is few months away & 3G in maybe a year's time.

[Greatest 55]

@jayanth, as per the ongoing process the govt is taking and the delays, etc.. it is better to accept what vvinayakpai has to say..

[vvinayakpai 26]

@jayanth

I really hope that i am proved wrong and you are proved right regarding the timeframe for MNP and 3G. Its been too much of a delay so far!!!!!!!!!

Edited January 21, 2010 by vvinayakpai

[ACS 130]

^^^^ Hehe..

But anyways we should be sure on MNP atleast..