Mukesh Ambani’s telecom company – Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) is set to recruit 500 professionals at various positions as it aims to strengthen its backline in time for a September 2014 launch. The Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) owned entity has been creating waves in the telecom sector since news first broke that they had acquired pan-India 4G licenses. A source inside RJIL said that around 300 lateral hires will be placed in senior positions. Also, the company is negotiating with several candidates to hire circle heads, i.e., persons who are going to be heading a city, state or in a few cases, a group of provinces. So far, it has managed to hire seven circle heads.
One of the most critical decisions from an organizational perspective that RJIL took was to go with a very centralized organizational structure. This means that all major decisions will be taken from the company’s headquarters in Mumbai. The key personnel here include Chairman Mukesh Ambani, ManojModi, a close confidant, Group President Sandip Das and Managing Director Sanjay Mashruwala. Others include AVP Kiran Thomas and Matthew Oomen, President of Strategy. The company is also looking for two more hires – an Indian with considerable knowledge of the Indian Telecom Market and an expat who could advise the company on their international operations.
Road to the Top:
RJIL has come a long way since starting off many years back. The company has secured pan-India 4G licenses for Rupees 12,847 Crore. Also, with a view to expand operations, RJIL has signed agreements with other majors in the telecom sectors such as Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel and Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications on inter-city and intra-city optic fibre sharing, as well as telecom towers. Under the pact, RJI will be able to utilise multiple fiber pairs across RCom’s 1,20,000 km inter-city fiber optic network to provide 4G services. RJI started first trial of its 4G services in Delhi, Mumbai and Jamnagar. The Department of Telecom (DoT) has allocated 22 million numbers for launch of its services.
Many analysts believe that RJIL’s ascent to the top could signal a fresh tariff war in the already competitive Indian telecom market. The most obvious beneficiaries of this would be the consumers and many analysts expect RJIL to have a profound impact on the market as a whole.