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For Global Economy Industry, Governments And Civil Society Must Work As A Coalition: Mukesh Ambani

While addressing the Qatar Economic Forum, the Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Mukesh Ambani stated that for the global economy industry, governments, and civil society must work as a coalition.

He also spoke about the major challenges for the industry as the world trying to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mukesh Ambani further added, “Well, I think that one of the challenges is to make sure that we get rid of the vaccination divide. The bulk of the developed world must be vaccinated by the end of the year. I think we in India have taken a lot many steps, and we expect that by the end of this year or by the first quarter of next year, we will do very well. We have to make sure that we
are in this all together”.

“The second challenge for all of us, particularly in the more developed countries, is to make sure that we bring back the economies, which have not had the benefit of stimulus, which have not had the benefit of government money, by really supporting the whole global economy to come back and grow,” Ambani said.

“We must be able to grow the whole world sustainably and not only bring back the developed economies. And towards that all of us — the industry, governments, and civil society — will have to work as a coalition, not only for our own company, not only for our own country but for the global economy,” Ambani added.

Upon asked how business has changed post the pandemic, he said “I think that trade along with purpose and compassion is the way forward. And that is going to get all of us, as humanity, together to integrate and make sure that collectively we can deal with global problems as one, and help each other moving forward. To my mind, this for the global economy is a fork in the road, and gives us an opportunity that together we can achieve a lot more.”

On digitalization, Ambani said that connectivity and communication have become necessities like food, clothing, and shelter, and fundamental rights of humankind.

“We never realized this as acutely as we did in the corona pandemic. Even in India, our Prime Minister had given a call for Digital India, and I was privileged, with our digital services company called Jio, to roll out a 4G network. We were lucky that we rolled out the network across the length and breadth of India by 2018. We have always wondered what we could have done without a 4G network across India in facing the corona crisis.

“So yes, the digital infrastructure was very useful in work from home, in vaccinating all our people, in making sure that our children learn at home and learn online. And I think that this trend of digital-physical will be the new normal and in the future, we will deliver most of our health and education services in a digital-physical sense,” Ambani said.

On sustainability in business, he said that as a society or as a business, it is imperative to adopt the sustainable business model. Embracing the model of clean energy is essential for growth, and to ensure that Reliance Industries have adopted the change whole-heartedly and is trying to transform each of our businesses to be sustainable, circular, recyclable, and fully transparent with the environment, social, and governance standards.

I think that is a prerequisite for every business to survive as we go forward. It will mean transforming our businesses and integrating them with the future”, he further added.

Hyderabad, September 1: Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Indian IT vendors are struggling, having been affected considerably over the last few months. However, Mukesh Ambani-led Jio Platforms has transformed into a tech juggernaut during this hour of crisis.Global technology companies have seen a surge in their valuation over the past six months – with the most notable example being Apple passing the USD 2 trillion mark in market capitalization (MCap) value.

On the other hand, many Indian IT vendors are struggling as they have been largely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. While traditional Indian IT services giants have been waiting to tide over the impact of the pandemic, Jio Platforms has transformed into a tech powerhouse. A study by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, stated that while it may be difficult for others to replicate what Jio has achieved, the interest in Jio will definitely augur well for other Indian technology companies at a time when enterprises across the world are gearing up for digitization.

Nishant Singh, Director of Technology at GlobalData, said that while Indian IT vendors seeing such stark contrast to global counterparts is unfortunate, this is just the nature of the IT services business model, which, in contrast to software, needs projects in the pipeline. “With the COVID-19 outbreak, enterprises halted all non-critical expenses, including plans to upgrade or transform their IT infrastructure. This has had an impact on Indian IT companies, since most of their revenues are from IT services”, Singh said.

He added saying that a lot of the faith in global technology companies comes from the fact that they have a pretty robust suite of intellectual property, including hardware, software and ecosystems that serve consumers and enterprises alike. “The growth in stock prices merely reaffirms that technology companies – primarily ‘Big Tech’ companies – are well poised to tide over the pandemic-induced recession”, he said.

A report by news agency ANI stated that big IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL have traditionally been IT services giants. The report adds that unlike their counterparts in the software space, IT services companies typically do not have a large stash of intellectual property, making it slightly difficult for the market to distinguish between the IT services companies. Despite these struggles, the near future should see the market showing more confidence in the traditional Indian IT vendors.

Singh further added saying with enterprises across the world now gearing up for digitization, Indian IT services vendors are set to witness a lot of action. Coupled with the market euphoria witnessed for Jio, the technology landscape in India will witness a drastic revival in investor confidence.

Jio Platforms Limited is an Indian digital services company. It is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited which was established in 2019. The company owns India’s largest mobile network operator Jio and other digital businesses of Reliance. On 8 May 2020, Jio Platforms was reported to be the fourth largest Indian company by market capitalization. Since April 2020, Reliance Industries has raised Rs 152,056 crore (US$21 billion) by selling 32.97% equity stake in Jio Platforms.