Amid rising questions on Vodafone Idea’s (VI) future as a telecom player in India, the company’s hiring activity shows a tilt towards maintaining operations and staffing to provide products and services to government projects. Leading data and analytics company, GlobalData’s Job Analytics database reveals that job postings soared from 26 in September 2020 to 391 in August 2021. Interestingly, 37% of the total listings during the period were in Mumbai and Pune.

VI’s postings grew steadily in 2021, listing around 2,200 jobs between September 2020 and August 2021.  The company is significantly hiring in West India that includes cities like Mumbai and Pune. Listings in the two cities between during the period were around 800 jobs. During the same period, the company listed 569 roles in other leading metro cities of New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai, and Hyderabad.

Ajay Thalluri, Business Fundamentals Analyst at GlobalData, says: “VI’s hiring comes at a time when the company is looking to maintain its market share of 21.9% total mobile subscriptions in 2021, close to Airtel India’s 27%, according to GlobalData’s India Telecom Operators Country Intelligence Report. The company is focusing on major cities to expand 4G network capacity and efficiency. Additionally, Pune is one of the cities allocated to the company by the Government of India to conduct 5G trials.”

VI’s corporate office in Mumbai manages its operations from where it is also creating products and services. The Internet of Things (IOT) in industrial, commercial, and consumer space is one of the key aspects where VI is creating products and use cases. A September 2020 role for ‘GM-Head NPD (CIoT & Smart Mobility)’ shows the company is developing innovative solutions around CIOT, smart mobility and automotive.

In the capital city of India, VI bagged a project from the Government of India’s Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) to deliver five million IoT SIMs and total content value of INR4,000m (USD54.3bn), AGM – Lead IoT Strategic Projects role shows. The company was appointed by Assam government to implement Guwahati Smart City initiative. For Hyderabad, VI looks to engage with government, SMEs and public sectors to support multiple propositions across connectivity and collaboration, ‘AGM-Solution Manager Govt & SME’ role shows.

Mr Thalluri adds: “The company is looking to build sales network and have more retail franchise outlets in tier 2 cities such as Kolhapur, Solapur, Ludhiana, Haridwar, and Mohali.”

Interestingly, the company is creating a digital store and plans to set up a new API platform to sell partner products and services as customized or white-labelled products, ‘AGM – Product & GTM Lead Digital Store’ role shows. With a goal to monetize the platform, VI is targeting OTT, insurance/fin-tech services, digital security, cloud, ed-tech, and digital health categories to develop such products.

Mr Thalluri concludes: “Recently, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) announced a relief package that provides a four-year moratorium on payment of government dues. Going by the company’s interventions, contracts, and operational focus areas, cash strapped VI could get a new lease of life.”