Adapting the Requisite Organizational Model

At the end of the last chapter, a requisite organizational model for Vodafone’s global business relationship with Ericsson was in place.1 Following the merger with AirTouch, and then the successful hostile acquisition of Mannesmann, cost synergies targets leveraging the newfound global scale were publicly declared.2 Thomas Geitner was appointed as executive director on May 15, 2000, to “be responsible for the development and introduction of pan European products and services and the achievement of revenue and cost synergies between the operating companies (or “OpCos” as they were known) within the European Region of Vodafone AirTouch”3; they (the companies) being Vodafone equity interests ranging from wholly owned, through majority owned, to a minority or affiliate position. I was appointed as director, global supply chain management on Thomas’s team effective July 1, 2000, to “strengthen our ability to put synergies in place across the Vodafone Group.” Vodafone was to later announce that the “Mannesmann synergies, calculated on a proportionate after tax cash flow basis, exceeded the target of £600 million set for the year ended 31 March 2004.”4 The globalized aggregation cost synergy contribution for mobile network infrastructure discussed in this book was included in that result, contributing both global capital expenditure savings and local (operating) cost savings arising because of the global scale.