Ben Verwaayen, The new chief executive of BT Group

Voice&Data Exclusive

New Delhi: 15 Septmeber, 2004 - At a time when British Telecom, one of the early foreign entrants into the Indian telecom space, was thought to be loosing interest as well as business in India, Ben Verwaayen, the new chief executive of BT Group, not only surprised the industry by a high profile visit, but also announced in an exclusive interview to Voice&Data, that, “ India is crucial for us”. He said that those who firmly believe that the model in the world is to get best in class, in this digital network economy, then India offers the best in class in terms of entrepreneurship knowledge, business process outsourcing, R&D and software development. Venwaayen's praise makes lots of sense because BT's customer-base in India are primarily its MNC customers, and it is logical to follow the customers. Admitting that BT had perhaps arrived in India a little ahead of time, Verwaayen said that “I would like to increase our exposure in India”. BT already has 6000 people working in India directly through Mahindra BT, and indirectly through companies like Infosys. Verwaayen said he hoped that this number will go up.

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Sounding very positive about the telecom industry in general, he said that there is a huge opportunity and the key lies in empowering the customers. 

In his very hectic schedule, Verwaayen met the telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran. Without disclosing what were the discussion points with the minister, Verwaayen said “I think this is a market that needs further reform, regulation.” According to him BT takes the regulators and regulations very seriously. “Regulation is here to stay. Every body is saying get rid of regulations, but that is not the reality in this market”. The BT chief also address a NASSCOM gathering of software and BPO organization, some of which are big BT customers. Originally a Dutch, Ben Verwaayen earlier had top level stints at equipment vendor Lucent, and Dutch operator KPN, before taking charge of debt ridden and share market beaten British Telecom. He says his single focus at BT is to turn the company around. 

Ibrahim Ahmad
Voice&Data