Krish Prabhu:
Yes, good question. Our key strength, especially in Europe, is we have feet on the
street, so to speak. We have hundreds of people who can provide top-notch
services in terms of maintenance and operations and at the end of the day the
technology in all these networks is more or less the same. It's the service aspect
that's going to make the difference between how many customers you pick up and
how many customers you lose.
Alex Threlfall:
Let me go back to something Kate was talking about - acquistions, profitability. Your
chairman has said that the time for big acquisitions is over. Clearly there were some
worries following the Genesys acquisition, that this might be dilutive on earnings.
How soon are you expecting to return to a profitability and get that share price up?
Krish Prabhu:
We are, as you know, we are profitable. The question has always been the level of
profitability and we have identified a well-defined plan that gets us to certain high
levels of profitability by the end of 2000. We are on track for the plan. We will meet
our guidance [sic]...unfortunately, I can't talk too much because we are in the quiet
period as we will announce our results for the third quarter on November 10th.
Kate Bulkley:
I just want to ask you one last question, Krish, before we go back. US - now a year
ago, you didn't even have any sales in the US market. Where are your sales now
and why is that so important?
Krish Prabhu:
Yes, we did have some sales in the US market, Kate, but in the last five years we
have taken our sales from nearly 500 million to nearly 5 billion. Today the US is our
top market with 20% of the sales coming from the US. The action is all in the US, the
trends are being set there, the technology is being tested there, the mindset is being
created there, so it's extremely important for us to make sure that we're very active in
the US.
Kate Bulkley:
And basically you can stand that against your competitors - the Lucents and
everyone else?
Krish Prabhu:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Kate Bulkley:
Krish Prabhu, COO of Alcatel and CEO of Alcatel US.
Krish Prabhu:
Thank you. |
