BT to increase its Indian exposure: CEO

At a time when British Telecom (BT), one of the early foreign entrants into
the Indian telecom space, was thought to be losing 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 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 is 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, he said,
"I would like to increase our exposure in India".

BT already has 6,000 people working in India directly through Mahindra BT,
and indirectly through companies like Infosys. Verwaayen said that he hoped that
this number would go up.

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.

Verwaayen also 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 addressed 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. According to him, his single focus at BT is to turn the company
around.

IBRAHIM AHMAD

(CyberMedia News)