Speaking to TOI on his first visit to India after he took over as chairman & CEO of Verizon in 2018, Hans Vestberg said that over 20 years, the India GCC has metamorphosed into a microcosm of Verizon’s global operations.”We started doing some simple tasks here over 20 years ago. But today, they are a part of delivering in every aspect of our business, both from our network point of view as well as customer point of view. This is a mini-Verizon here because they are basically doing all the tasks we are doing today and they’re actually a very important piece of our delivery,” he said.
“The big impact they have on Verizon is basically being part of the delivery of the network in the US and being part of delivering the customer experience in the US. The new products we’re launching in the US, many of those are done here in India. So it’s a very important piece of our delivery system and an important part of our whole company,” Vestberg added.
Verizon India – which started just a year after Verizon Communications was set up in 2000 following the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE – has been growing headcount at a steady clip, with plans to grow by 15% in 2024. Today, it houses around 3,200 people in Chennai, 3,100 in Hyderabad and the rest in Bengaluru.
Vestberg said the company has continued to double down on its investments in India because of the confidence and delivery it sees coming out of here on the technology as well as innovation front. “We have been hiring hundreds of people every year in India and continue to invest in talent,” he said, pointing out that while 1,000 were hired in 2023, another 650 have already been recruited so far this year.
The India GCC, whichstarted out as an IT backend support hub, has grown to play a crucial role in R&D, data analytics, customer support as well as developing cutting-edge solutions for its 5G network and enabling new applications based on technologies such as GenAI.
“The teams here are doing everything you can imagine, including GenAI. Our IT hub is basically here in India. They’re doing delivery systems for billing, they’re also doing network monitoring, network integration of products. So I would say there’s no aspect of Verizon’s business, which is a world leader in telecom, that is not done here in India. We also have some traditional back-office work with finance, legal, among others, here,” he said.
When asked about Verizon’s plans for acquisitions, particularly in India, Vestberg said the focus was on organic growth and hiring the right resources.
“I don’t see any acquisitions for us. We like this organic growth where we can have a very organised way of ramping up our resources. We have gone through quite a big transformation and we are happy with it.”
“You might remember we owned Yahoo, AOL, Huffington, Tumblr and were selling them off. We bought a lot of other things. So now we’re coming together with all the assets we have and feel that we have the right assets right now to serve our customer base,” he said. He also ruled out any plans to enter the Indian telecom market or make any strategic investments in it. “We think it’s (India) a fantastic market but were not planning to get into it. “