In Greek mythology, when Achilles was a baby, it was foretold that he would die in battle from an arrow in the foot. To prevent his death, his mother Thetis took Achilles to the River Styx which was supposed to offer powers of invincibility and dipped his body into the water. But as Thetis held Achilles by the heel, his heel was not washed over by the water of the magical river. Achilles grew up to be a man of war who survived many great battles. In the war against Trojan's to win back Helen of Troy, an arrow shot at 'Mighty' Achilles heel ended his life.
Since then "Achilles Heel" is refered to "a deadly weakness in spite of overall strength, that can actually or potentially lead to downfall". It is a seemingly small but actually crucial weakness.
Relating it to Reliance Communications:
(1) R.Com is a company passionatly promoted by Reliance group.
(2) It was a dream child of Mukesh Ambani
(3) During partition, after their late father Dhirubai ambani, Anil Ambani inherited it.
(4) Post partition, Anil was really busy brandinga new identity of his company: Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, popularly known as ADAG. It comprised of R.Com, RNRL, Rel Energy, Rel Capital. He later launched R.Power. Apart from this ADAG owns media company like Adlabs, Big Cinema and Reliance Media works.
(5) Though R.Com debuted the indian telecom space with lots of vision, Anil's passion to be the wealthiest person along with his proximity to politicians and lack of focus on his companies seem to have doomed his fortunes.
(6) Anil was primarily PRO of Reliance Group. He is good at stage. He is good at events. He is good at sports and jogging. He is good at mass motivation. He reaches out well to media. But Business is beyond all these things.
(7) The kind of hype created around Reliance Power IPO was phenomenal. Had he lived up to the expectations, he would have been invincible.
(8) Coming to R.Com : compounding to the competition (+) huge loan book of about Rs.30000 crores (+) huge cost incurred for dual licence : GSM and CDMA (+) 2G Scam have been R.Com's headache. Compounding to this is the Number protability issue, which gave Indian mobile phone users the option to retain your phone number while you can switch your operator. As a result dissatisfied customers are free to switch over to some other company. We had indicated in our article dated 26-Nov-2010, that R.Com would be likely casulity of this new option thrown open for mobile phone users. (To read this article, CLICK HERE)
(9) Rather than satisfying existing customer with better quality and facility, R.Com was busy selling new, cheap model mobile phones. And they were busy adding up number of subscribers, only to see them switch to to other companies due to poor services. There was a basic logic why these telecom companies hunted for new subscribers. (CLICK HERE TO READ RELATED ARTICLE)
(10) Now a report states that less than 5 million cellular subscribers (nearly 1% of the customer base) had opted to switch carriers using the mobile number portability option. Of these, a net 1,92,761 customers switched to unlisted Vodafone Essar, while Idea Cellular was next, with net gains of 1,50,789 customers. Bharti Airtel gained a net 1,48,215 customers, but Reliance Communications was a net loser of 3,06,417 customers.
Unless otherwise R.Com redefines its vision and regains the confidence of customers, it would be difficult for the company to bounce back. Probably it may even trigger desperate strategic partnership.
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