CEO采访 - 紧急突破

FOR MOST OF HIS FOUR YEARS AS chief executive of British wireless communications giant Vodafone Group, Arun Sarin has been under siege.

He had barely settled in as the successor to Sir Christopher Gent, best known for his takeover of German rival Mannesmann, when Vodafone had to declare a loss of £22 billion ($41 billion). Shareholders demanded that Sarin take quick steps to boost the stock price, from slashing costs and nixing emerging-markets expansion to selling Vodafone’s 45 percent stake in U.S. carrier Verizon Wireless (which won’t pay shareholder dividends until at least 2009). Investors owning 9 percent of the company’s shares voted against keeping Sarin as CEO at Vodafone’s annual general meeting last year. As recently as October rumors surfaced that he was about to step down.

53岁的Sarin抵制了Rash动作的呼吁，并追求了最终含有水果的测量周转。11月13日，沃达丰发布了固体六个月的结果，向伦敦证券交易所汇款7.5％。在前一年期间，收入增长了9％，收益7％，数据收入的49％飙升49％，并将其作为土耳其和萨林本土的印度此类新兴市场的销售增长40％。

首席执行官仍然集中在沃达丰的巨大欧洲现金流量上，并将其投资于更快的增长，竞争力的市场。其中一个最有前途的企业是一个名为M-PESA的产品，这使得发展中国家的居民通过在零售店使用他们的手机来转账。它可能是移动电话钱包型服务的前身在全球范围内推出两年内。

在上个月在纽约的访问期间，Sarin与机构投资者助理管理编辑Justin Schack坐下。亚博赞助欧冠

亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者: How did it feel to be targeted by activist shareholders?

Sarin: That’s the price of leadership. If you’re a leader, you have to have a strong point of view as to where you’re taking the company and stay the course. People will be shooting at you from every direction, because either they disagree, they don’t understand, or they’ve got some other objectives. And that’s fine. You can’t lead by watching polls or being sensitive to two or three people. The vast majority of the shareholders voted in favor. Everyone focuses on the 9 percent who voted against.

好吧，他们是最响亮的。

没关系。有些股东觉得他们的特权是造成很多噪音，我同意他们的权利。不同意这很好。但在美国，态度会是“如果你不喜欢你的听力，卖股票。”在U.K.人们喜欢持有他们的股票和谈话，而不是让他们的购买或销售进行谈话。

你说你想向你的欧洲行动带来一些你搬入的新兴市场的一些实践。你能详细说明吗？

Outsourcing networks, IT and becoming much more focused on the front-end, customer acquisition relationship side of the house. That’s very prevalent in India. The cost structure there is very low. Part of it is explained by low wages, but part of it is also just different business models that they use that we can bring back to Europe.

什么样的型号？

在印度，我们不会在许多细胞网站上使用空调。我们的设备在欧洲工作也可以在那里工作，我们一直在运行我们的交流发电机。所以你说，“你为什么不关闭它，看看会发生什么？”有类似的基本的东西，然后还有更先进的东西，如外包IT基础架构和网络。

What are your long-term plans in the U.S.?

随着时间的推移，我们将从Verizon无线股权获得股息，这将是两个大公司之间共享的非常好的资产。超出那个，谁知道从现在开始发生的五年或十年。

为什么不追求控制投资，或者至少少数股权会有一些股息，而在等待看到发生的事情是长期发生的？

Our bid for AT&T Wireless four years ago was our best opportunity to accomplish something like that. The price got out of hand. We are a financially disciplined lot, so we said no. T-Mobile is not a seller. Sprint is going through Sprint-itis, or whatever they’re going through, right now.

You’re now testing the M-PESA money transfer service in Kenya. Will you take it to other developing nations?

在我们把它带到印度然后，我们基本上测试了那里的平台。在所有这些国家，你对来自农村的人们迁移到城市地区，并且没有有效的方法可以将钱汇回到家庭在农村地区离开的家庭，同时他们在城市赚钱。我们正在使用我们为预付卡提供的非常基本的技术。如果您有该服务，您可以前往印度的40万商店之一并发送或收到金钱。如果你在德里，你想把钱寄给你的村庄，你会去这些地方中的任何一个，说：“这是500卢比。”商家拿钱并为您提供PIN码。你短信给你的家人留言，并说出这两个地方的另一个地方。他们出现并提供了PIN码并获得了500卢比。没有新技术 - 只是一点点认证，所以没有作弊。

那个地方怎么样？您是否会出现房地产或入住费用？

我们的位置是此会议表的大小。这家伙正在销售香烟，洗发水，苏打水，一切。他是一般商人，我们正在为货架添加一个其他产品。

这个收入流有多大？

It’s so early stage right now. But it will help us attract and retain customers.

互联网内容提供商和手机制造商正在进入您的业务。你是如何回应的？

Our core business is mobile communications. There are other companies whose core business is the Internet or entertainment. My view is, let’s bake a big pie and we’ll all take whatever revenue share we can, depending upon what assets we bring to the table. If we bring more assets to the table, terrific. We’ll take more of the share. If someone else does, they will. But there’s no reason to bake a small pie. Let’s bake the biggest pie possible and duke it out in the marketplace.

Will there be consolidation between services, handset and content companies?

那一天很遥远。有人问为什么我们don’t get into Google’s business. That would require us getting into search technology. How much sense does that make? How much sense does it make for us to get into operating systems? Should we take search and operating systems and entertainment and mobility and put them all together? Yes. But we will remain independent companies doing partnerships to bring those things together. We don’t need to merge.

是否有其他金融服务应用程序为无线手机？

Your phone could easily be a wallet. You go to the grocery store and pass your phone over a reader and it deducts the money from your account. No writing checks, taking out a card or swiping. None of that.

我们对此有多近？

It’s happening in Japan already. It’s a couple of years away from becoming mainstream in Europe and in America.

Are you talking with financial institutions as potential partners for such a service now?

Yes, but very early stage.

你工作中最难的部分是什么？

Continuously finding profitable growth opportunities around the world. Our market cap is roughly $200 billion. For us to increase our share price by 10 or 15 percent, we’ve got to add $20 billion to $30 billion of value every year. Where do you find those opportunities, and how do you execute on them? It’s something all large-cap firms face. When I chat with my peers, this is the common thing we always talk about. That’s the reason we’re all going to India and China and South Africa and getting into these new spaces — because we’re constantly hunting for new profit streams that are material enough for our companies.

Super-Cap Ceo有全球支持小组吗？

[笑]。不，我们在一个论坛或另一个论坛中互相遇到。所以你从时刻迎接人们，我们都对世界发生的事情以及我们如何运行我们的公司以及我们发现有趣的东西。我们都面临着类似的挑战。我们都在不同行业做同样的事情。首席执行官没有支持小组。你几乎是你自己的支持小组。