WE WILL PLEASANTLY SURPRISE THE MARKET ON DIGITAL

HE HAS SEEN IT all. Sunil Bharti Mittal is among the earliest pioneers in connecting hundreds of millions of Indians and laying the foundation for a massive digital backbone across the country. In a rare interview, the Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises opens up to Business Today’s Global Business Editor Udayan Mukherjee about overcoming challenge after business challenge in his journey to emerging as one of the most successful entrepreneurs of this generation. Welcoming the recent measures to support Indian telecom service providers, the telecom czar says the next frontier for him is OneWeb—a company that aims to deliver broadband satellite internet services worldwide. Edited excerpts:

- Udayan Mukherjee

UM: I often think that if you were not in telecom, you would be a boxer or a wrestler. That fighting spirit... where did you get it from?

SBM: Perhaps because we are fighting all the time, [it] looks like we are surviving and fighting continuously. The cycles have been such in our industry that one has to deftly manoeuvre the surroundings, the markets and technology. But I would say it has been a great effort of the team that we were able to pull [through] each time we faced adversity. You do your business, you fight in the market, you lose market share, gain it, the profits go up and down, but the life of Airtel has been very challenging, to say the least. I am glad that we are here today—much stronger, much sharper in our focus towards customers, and a reasonably healthy balance sheet.

UM: Well, you have come up on top, but on a bad day do you feel that ‘I could have chosen any sector and made a success of it’?

SBM: It is true... when you reflect on a life well-lived. I guess everybody is dealt certain cards and all we can do is make the most of the ones that have been dealt to us. I came into telecommunications way back in 1982, when the private sector was not a part of it. It was [the] bastion of public sector units—ITI factories producing equipment and DoT running fixed-line services. Phones were a rarity—if you got one out of turn it [meant] a great deal of celebrations. I have walked this journey right from the early days of telecom reforms. This is what I have learnt and this is why I am sticking with it.