India central to Ericsson's global plans

Beginning with a repair workshop for telegraph instruments in downtown Stockholm in 1876, Lars Magnus Ericsson’s company — Ericsson — has come a long way in becoming one of the world’s leading telecommunication companies.

The Stockholm-based company, with a 40% and 38% market share in GSM globally and in India, respectively, now has a presence in 140 countries.

Girish Johar, vice-president, People and Culture, MU (India & Srilanka), Ericsson, talks about the journey and the company’s transition over the years from an equipment supplier to an end- to-end provider of telecom solutions, in an interview with ET. Excerpts:

How has been the transition as an employer since 1876, when it was founded?

Ericsson has come a long way since then. Today, we are a 66,000 employees strong and have transformed from a pure equipment supplier to a company that is end-to- end provider of telecom solutions.

Though, it won’t be correct to say we haven’t faced issues relating to hiring and retention of talent, given the high rate of attrition in India, but being a leader in the field of technology has certainly helped us. Our attrition rate of 10-12% is far below the average industry figure at 18-20%.

How important is 2,500-employee strong Ericosson India in Ericsson worldwide operations?

India is certainly very important for Ericsson in its global scheme of things. The rich talent pool of competent employees makes India a very attractive destination.

Over the last couple of years we have set up equipment manufacturing facility which is the 4th facility for Ericsson globally, a global services delivery centre and an R&D centre in India. With the explosive growth that India is witnessing even Sony Ericsson has decided to bring cellphone manufacturing to India through Flextronics.

You are quite upbeat about your internal job market. How do you think it helps you in succession planning?

Ericsson today spans infrastructure, services, multimedia, R&D, manufacturing, global services delivery, which provide diverse growth opportunities for employees.

Competent people leverage change for fulfilling their growth needs, and this is met by our ‘Internal mobility initiatives’. Team members can move across verticals, geographies and functions to gain experience, to fulfill their professional needs and to sharpen and expand their competencies.

And such diverse mix of experience and competencies helps us build experts and leaders for tomorrow. We incubate majority of our experts and leaders in house. This helps us to in creating an internal talent pool for the future.

What percentage of your employees are women in India?

Currently, women form nearly 10% of our Indian workforce. We are constantly striving to increase this, however, being a networks company, most of our work is outdoors in countryside, smaller towns and cities and is round the clock operation, where we find a challenge to attract more women employees.