Uninor on war footing; Brekke rallies troops

On February 2, the Supreme Court had squashed 122 telecom licences, but companies like Uninor promised to fight back. The company has a lot at stake with over Rs 40,000 crore investment, employee base of 17,500 and 42 million telecom subscribers.

Uninor added more than 4 lakh customers, the highest amongst all telecom companies during February 2012 in Gujarat circle. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Sigve Brekke choose to kickoff the company’s Fight Back campaign from the state soon after Uninor’s review petition was dismissed by the Apex Court. Uninor is likely to file a curative petition to the Supreme Court and Sigve Brekke, the man at the helm of affairs, has taken it upon himself to reassure employees and vendors about the company’s commitment to India. Even though their future remains uncertain, the employees of Uninor are not willing to walk away. Their battle cry of ‘Halla Bol’ expresses their anguish and anger, but who do they fight against - the company, the government or the courts. While normally you would expect the MD of a company whose business is at stake to conduct high level closed door meetings, Sigve Brekke the MD of Uninor has a different plan. Below is an edited transcript of his interview with Malvika Jain. Also watch the accompanying videos. Q: What brings you to the streets? Your company is in great difficulties. Wouldn’t you rather sit in office, think over it deliberate, network with the government and find a way out of this situation? A: You know we have to do two things at the same time. We are working with the government, we are working with the legal system but at the same time we need to continue fighting the street and this is what all this is about. So what I am doing here is to go out and talk to the customers, get their feedback on how we can improve our service further. And on top of that I am leading the troops, we are all in a very competitive war and then the generals need to be out with their soldiers. Q: What has been the response so far? Has your team been receptive because considering the fact that your review petition was actually dismissed yesterday isn’t the moral down? A: No I wouldn’t say so. This team is just incredible, there are staying their course and they are continuing to win every day. And I have asked them to continue to do that and I trying to fix what issues exist. So the team is actually doing even better now than it did before the Supreme Court order came out on February 2nd. So our organization is continuing to do what they came here to do and we are actually taking market share day by day. Q: Is this strategy to acquire as many customers as you can and then actually compel the system. The government to say that okay Uninor you will have to continue and we’ll probably find a way out for you? A: No this strategy is continuing to do exactly the same tomorrow as we did yesterday. We have been on this for almost two years, we have been doing very well and we just need to continue with the same approach. There is no short term strategy, there is no tricky strategy or there is no trying to pump up any numbers. It is just continuing to do the hard work day by day. Q: To continue operations the company needs to ensure that its license remains valid even after June 2nd. It is equally important that Uninor retains its existing customers and retailers. During its Ahmadabad visit Brekke marched with his employees and partners on the streets of Ahmadabad to make a statement. The team interacted with existing and potential customers. Have you been able to develop some new retailers, distributors, customers during this visit? A: You know what is really interesting is that since the Supreme Court came out two months ago we have added more people, more employees, we have added more distributors, we have added more retailers because they really believe in our model. When I walk along the streets and I talk to all the people I see that it really works our marketing campaign because we try to be something for the masses. We try to be something for the ones that can afford having a service from us and it works and you see all these smiles that people are giving back to us. So this is giving me also some confidence that our strategy is actually the right thing and we should just continue to stay the course. Q: You have some competitors who have actually been publishing ads in the newspapers? Do you think that your strategy is working out to be better than theirs? A: I will say that I am quite disappointed by the way the competitors have reacted in this crisis, they have tried to take advantage of our difficulties and they have done what I actually will call unethical behavior. The way they are coming out with tricks in the market is not the way the competition should act. Despite that we have actually taken that to our advantage. It has created anger in the organization which in the next phase is turning to energy and the support I am getting from not only my own people but from our partners and from our customers just shows that those tactics doesn’t work. It makes us even stronger. Uninor’s woes, however, are not confined to the Supreme Court’s 2G cancellation order and how competitors have reacted to it. Its joint venture partners realty major Unitech and Norwegian telecom firm Telenor cannot see eye to eye and want a separation. The Company Law Board has dismissed the telco’s plea and now all disputes related to valuations and transfer of control will be referred to an international arbitration panel. This will delay the divorce between the two companies and also Telenor’s plans to hive up assets of Uninor into a new company. In a statement to CNBC TV-18 Telenor has said, “We will certainly challenge this order in a higher court as we have successfully done on matters earlier. Our intention remains to establish a new company as a platform for the future and transfer all Uninor assets, employees and customers to it.” Telenor has made it clear that it will participate in fresh spectrum auction only with a new partner. Given that arbitration is a lengthy process thinks may or may not proceed as per Telenor’s plan.