KEY POINTS:
The arrival of Vodafone worldwide chief executive Arun Sarin in New Zealand this week must have been something akin to a royal visit for Vodafone NZ's 1600 workers.
With a full Maori welcome, a head office walkabout on Wednesday morning and buses laid on to ferry Manukau staff
into the city for a mass address, his presence is certainly a big deal for this small outpost of the world's biggest mobile phone company.
But, says Sarin, New Zealand is one of the most important stops on his latest tour of the empire.
OK, let's back up a bit. That's what every eminent visitor says when they visit these shores isn't it?
In this country not declaring New Zealand to be "really special" is a cultural faux pas up there with patting the Queen on the bum.
But Sarin seems genuine - or at least he can provide some evidence to back up his claim.
"New Zealand is very important because two years ago we changed our strategy from being a mobile only company to being a mobile plus broadband, plus internet company."
Vodafone NZ - which bought internet service provider ihug about 18 months ago - is at the front end of this strategy. If successful, it will provide a model for the wider group, he says.
"New Zealand is leading the parade within the Vodafone family in terms of taking us to the world we are going to," says Sarin.
"Part of the reason I'm here is to listen to all the ideas and stories about products and who we are selling to and I'm taking that back with me.
"In fact five minutes after we finish here I'll be emailing back to my guys on the other side of the world and saying `fellas this is what I'm hearing'."
It's only the second time Sarin has visited the country. The last visit was 2004.
He spent less than 48 hours here this week - on what he describes as one of his global "talkabouts" - but in that time managed to fit in meetings with Prime Minister Helen Clark and Telecommunications Minister David Cunliffe.
Indian born and raised, Sarin began his career in the US, before taking on Vodafone's top job, based in London.
It's a cultural mix that gives him a very global accent - well-heeled Indian English with a smattering of Americanisms. It is with an American turn of phrase, for example, that he describes Telecom's new chief Paul Reynolds as a "good guy". Sarin knows Reynolds well from his days as head of BT's wholesale divisions in the UK and has plenty of respect for him.
So is it a case of friendly competition with Telecom New Zealand?
"Well ... [long pause] I wouldn't exactly call it friendly." In fact Sarin believes competition with Telecom is about to get far more serious. There is the Vodafone move into the ISP market which opens up a new battleground in the post-unbundling environment.
But Sarin expects to see Telecom fighting back hard in the mobile market where he believes the local incumbent is finally getting its product offering sorted.
"For a long time Telecom was just on the wrong mobile technology," he says. He is referring to Telecom's move from a CDMA phone network to the GSM technology already used by Vodafone.
Telecom decided to go with CDMA in 2000 when it was still widely used in the US and in Australia.
"I call it wrong just in a VHS versus Betamax sort of way," says Sarin.
"It's taken them a long time to come around, as it were. That's fair enough. We're going to have a more competitive scenario."
Sarin, like everyone this year, has been watching the economic meltdown in the US closely. He is concerned about the prospect of recession there but doesn't see it as a disastrous turn of events for the telecommunications sector.
"We are the largest mobile company in the US. Are we seeing material change to that business? No ... Are we resilient? Yes."
"The telco sector already had its bubble burst in 2000," he notes. "We've been through a period of boom and bust, now its the financial services' turn."
So after several years of consolidation the sector is in fundamentally good shape. And Sarin doesn't believe a recession will stop people using mobile phones.
"Mobile phones have now become absolutely part of the standard issue for everyone. On the margin you might buy a cheaper phone, on the margin you might spend a little less on calls."
"But is there a macro-economic effect occurring in the US? The answer is absolutely yes. But remember China is growing at 10 per cent, India is growing at 8 per cent. Europe is still growing."
Despite the possibility that consumers may have less cash to spend on the frilly add-on technologies for their mobile phones, Sarin remains very excited about the high-tech end of the sector.
There is still room for growth in terms of moving customers on to internet enabled phones, he says.
"We're making all our phones really fast phones, 3G plus."
The future will be one where you can carry your most-used web pages with you wherever you go, whether that be Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or the latest news.
The next big step in mobile technology is adding location-based service - like GPS - to phones so you can network with friends and get alerts whenever they are nearby, Sarin says.
Normally this is the point in the discussion of new services where telco executives head off into the arcane world of techno-jargon.
But Sarin - perhaps offering a clue to why he's made it to the top - keeps it all beautifully simple.
"GPS on your Facebook account so you can know where your mates are around you. It's tremendously important to know - so you can go have a beer with them."
ARUN SARIN
Vodafone world CEO
* Age: 53
* Education: BSE Indian Institute of Technology, MSE and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.
* Career: Joined Pacific Telesis Group in 1984 and has served in several executive positions. Director of AirTouch from July 1995, president and chief operating officer from February 1997 to June 1999.
* Chief executive officer for the Vodafone United States and Asia Pacific region until April 15, 2000, when Vodafone's US business was merged into Verizon Wireless. Chief executive of InfoSpace from 2000 to 2001, and of Accel-KKR Telecom based in San Francisco from 2001 to 2003, while serving as a non-executive director of Vodafone.
* Became Vodafone world CEO in 2003.New Zealand is leading the parade within the Vodafone family
