Talking to TOI on his first go to to India after he took over as chairman & CEO of Verizon in 2018, Hans Vestberg stated that over 20 years, the India GCC has metamorphosed right into a microcosm of Verizon’s world operations.”We began doing a little easy duties right here over 20 years in the past. However in the present day, they’re part of delivering in each facet of our enterprise, each from our community viewpoint in addition to buyer viewpoint. It is a mini-Verizon right here as a result of they’re mainly doing all of the duties we’re doing in the present day they usually’re truly an important piece of our supply,” he stated.
“The massive affect they’ve on Verizon is mainly being a part of the supply of the community within the US and being a part of delivering the shopper expertise within the US. The brand new merchandise we’re launching within the US, a lot of these are completed right here in India. So it is an important piece of our supply system and an vital a part of our complete firm,” Vestberg added.
Verizon India – which began only a yr after Verizon Communications was arrange in 2000 following the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE – has been rising headcount at a gentle clip, with plans to develop by 15% in 2024. In the present day, it homes round 3,200 folks in Chennai, 3,100 in Hyderabad and the remainder in Bengaluru.
Vestberg stated the corporate has continued to double down on its investments in India due to the boldness and supply it sees popping out of right here on the expertise in addition to innovation entrance. “We’ve got been hiring a whole lot of individuals yearly in India and proceed to put money into expertise,” he stated, stating that whereas 1,000 had been employed in 2023, one other 650 have already been recruited to this point this yr.
The India GCC, whichstarted out as an IT backend help hub, has grown to play an important function in R&D, knowledge analytics, buyer help in addition to creating cutting-edge options for its 5G community and enabling new purposes based mostly on applied sciences comparable to GenAI.
“The groups listed below are doing every little thing you’ll be able to think about, together with GenAI. Our IT hub is mainly right here in India. They’re doing supply techniques for billing, they’re additionally doing community monitoring, community integration of merchandise. So I’d say there isn’t any facet of Verizon’s enterprise, which is a world chief in telecom, that isn’t completed right here in India. We even have some conventional back-office work with finance, authorized, amongst others, right here,” he stated.
When requested about Verizon’s plans for acquisitions, significantly in India, Vestberg stated the main focus was on natural progress and hiring the proper assets.
“I do not see any acquisitions for us. We like this natural progress the place we will have a really organised means of ramping up our assets. We’ve got gone by means of fairly a giant transformation and we’re proud of it.”
“You would possibly keep in mind we owned Yahoo, AOL, Huffington, Tumblr and had been promoting them off. We purchased a variety of different issues. So now we’re coming along with all of the belongings we’ve got and really feel that we’ve got the proper belongings proper now to serve our buyer base,” he stated. He additionally dominated out any plans to enter the Indian telecom market or make any strategic investments in it. “We expect it is (India) a incredible market however weren’t planning to get into it. “
