Ambani says Jio was biggest risk of his life

New Delhi: Billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani described his 2016 return to the telecom industry with Reliance Jio as the "biggest risk" of his life, saying that even if analysts' predictions of financial failure had come true, it would still have been worth it for the role it played in transforming India digitally.

In an interview with McKinsey & Co, the richest Asian said Reliance Industries was investing its own billions of dollars in rolling out 4G mobile networks -- which some analysts thought might not work out financially as India was not ready for the most advanced digital technology.

"But I told my board, 'In the worst case, we will not earn much return. That's okay because it's our own money. But then, as Reliance, this will be the best philanthropy that we will have ever done in India because we will have digitised India, and thereby completely transformed India'," he said.

Since its launch in 2016, Jio has revolutionised the Indian telecom market by providing free voice calls and extremely low-cost data, compelling competitors to cut prices and driving rapid digital adoption across the country.

Before Jio's arrival, mobile internet in India was relatively expensive and inaccessible to large sections of the population. Its entry led to a price war that significantly reduced the cost of data, making internet access affordable to millions of Indians, including those in rural and underserved areas.

The result was increased internet penetration -- India now has over 800 million internet users, making it one of the largest online markets globally. It hastened digital inclusion as affordable data has helped bridge the digital divide, bringing first-time internet users -- many from low-income households -- online and fuelling growth of digital services like e-commerce, fintech, edtech, and entertainment.

"We've always taken big risks because, for us, scale is important. The biggest risk we have taken so far was Jio. At the time, it was our own money that we were investing, and I was the majority shareholder. Our worst-case scenario was that it might not work out financially because some analysts thought India wasn't ready for the most advanced digital technology," Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Ltd, said.

Jio today is the country's largest telecom operator, with over 470 million subscribers and a growing footprint in 5G, cloud, and AI services.

"We are believers that, at the end of the day, you come without anything into this world, and you leave without taking anything with you. What you leave behind is an institution," he said.

He went on to recall words of his father and legendary industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani. "My father said to me, 'Reliance is a process. It's an institution that should last. You have to make sure that Reliance lasts beyond you and me.' That's my commitment to him -- that Reliance will last beyond us. In 2027, Reliance will celebrate its golden jubilee. But I want Reliance to continue to serve India and humanity even after completing 100 years. And I am confident it will." Ambani said the mindset has to be to believe in the businesses of the future.

"If you think about the Reliance of the 1960s and '70s, or of the 2000s and 2020s, it's a completely different organisation now. That's because the world changes every five or 10 years. It goes against everything that we learned in business school, such as not integrating across the value chain.

"We have challenged all of those things. What has also happened is that, as we chase the opportunities of technology into the future, some of these opportunities become bigger than our existing opportunities. And we cannot leave them alone," he added.

On risk management, he said the principle is whether one can survive in the worst-comes-to-the-worst situation.

"You start off by thinking in terms of what the worst is that could happen, and then you have to survive that. This has been one of my principles." "About 30 or 40 years ago, I said that another principle I should personally have is to look any of my employees in the eye. At Reliance, we tell our leaders that it's important to have eye contact because then you express your sincerity. I think we can put all our principles to our top 100 leaders by saying, 'These are our principles. We'll do what is right. Whatever we do, we should be able to look at each other and say we are not embarrassed"," he said.

And this is how Reliance built its institutional culture. "And this institutional culture is our best insurance against any kind of risk."