Three Alphabets, Three Clicks

He was snuzzled in a quaint, but lavish, room at PatniTop, a renowned hill station nestled in the Himalayas. One could see the stunning view outside the large window. But CMA Rajneesh Jain, President & CFO, Reliance Jio Infocomm, was not interested in talking about the towering mountains, or the brilliant sunrises and sunsets that the place is known for. “The connectivity is good here. It was excellent throughout the journey. This proves the power of Jio’s connectivity, which aims to cover 99% of the country,” exudes Jain.

But this kind of connectivity does not happen in isolation. The vision and diligence of Chairman Mukesh Ambani, the brain behind the Jio digital revolution, is important. The secret still lies in the innovative organization that he built. Jain explains that one of the differences is not to conceive of ‘Finance’ in a conventional sense, which is related to costs, payments, audits, tax, and other core traditional functions. It was to widen the concept to think of ‘Finance’ as a profit center, and as a business enabler. To achieve this, Jain embedded finance in every division of the company, be it procurement, administration, sales & distribution, construction, even regulatory compliances.

Finance was, therefore, split into two sets within the organization. The first is headed by a Financial Controller, whose team handles the typical functions that it needs to handle. The team includes experts, who understand the nuances of finance as a cost-control center, with its obligatory responsibilities such as payments, treasury, audits, and mandatory reporting and compliances. This is what a finance head does in almost every business entity in the country.

Then there is Embedded FCA. This operates at two levels. First, there is an embedded finance person in centralized operations such as administration, projects, business and procurement of equipment. At another level, Jio Finance comprises thousands of local Jio Centers that are localized, and split as per geographies. These have local teams to handle network, sales, and other functions. The Enterprise function was headed by FCAs incorporating diverse roles like Real Estate, Compliance etc.. “The Leadership asked us to have 1,000 positions instead of  10,000+ odd positions”. The concept of JC FCA in each local center helped achieve the same”, says Jain.

It was obvious that a qualified cost accountant or CA would neither join as a local FCA, nor stay for long for two reasons. One, the operations are geographically limited and restricted, which reduces the scope of responsibilities. Two, the salary band of a FCA is relatively much lesser than what is offered to qualified CA professionals. “I recruit people from outside the finance domain – from FMCG, and telecom – but those who are interested in finance, and can assume leadership roles. In addition, we pursue the son/daughter-of-the-soil concept. Our FCAs are mostly locals, who understand the specific conditions in each geography. She/he knows the area, speaks the language, and understands the unique issues,” explains CMA Jain.

This helps Jio in several ways. Jain gives the example of the problems the group faced to get the right-of way to lay the optical fibers and pipes for the ubiquitous connectivity it has. In one of the meetings, the Chairman expressed his unhappiness with the speed of getting right-of-ways, and wanted to catapult it to 3x of the existing rate. “He gave a challenge to me (and the finance team), and asked if we can achieve this target,” remembers Jain. He took it up. As he jokingly says, he did not have a magic wand like Harry Potter, but he had the JC FCAs.

Since the FCAs, the sons/daughters-of-the-soil, have in-depth and intricate local knowledge, they can coordinate with the local authorities to get the right-of-way. They can also work with residents, and other owners of private and public land. Such local understanding, and ability is critical to lay fibers, even if the state government has given its nod for the purpose. Over time, Jain’s finance team got further integrated, looking after areas like real estate, supply chain and procurement.

This approach, to make finance stand above business, and different units, to transform finance into a profit center and business enabler, and to embed finance in every division is the twenty-first century version of what a CFO needs to do. She/he needs to behave and think like a CEO. Finance is no longer a standalone entity, which is perceived to be an obstacle that regulates payments, questions procurement prices, and maintains compliances. Finance is the main engine of growth, as well as a driver of new, bold, and innovative strategies. In CMA-speak, finance is a function of integrated thinking.

In fact, according to Jain, the translation of Mukesh Ambani’s digital vision into a reality, which has unleashed a digital revolution in the country, is because of his strategy to push finance as a business enabler. Jio had 100 million subscribers in 170 days. China Mobile and Verizon took years, and Airtel took a decade to achieve the same milestone. More than a decade ago, the Chairman had laid out his ambitions to the senior leaders, – indicating that after the grand and global successes in oil (refinery and petrochemicals), the next target was Jio.

Way back in 2013, remembers Jain, Mukesh Ambani was crystal clear that Jio is not a telecom company or group. He asked his managers to never utter the word telecom. Jio was a digital company. This required a drastic change in mindset. Telecom provided the foundation, but the operations were larger. It was to use telecom connectivity to graduate to platforms and digitization. The ambition to create a Digital-first company aligned with the Digital India vision of PM Narendra Modi. It was a “killer combination.” Mukesh Ambani made a few more prophecies in connection with Jio. The first was that it would be among the top 50 in the Fortune 500 Global List. The second was that the group would enter the top 10 in the List. Within nine years, it was ranked 48 in the Fortune List.

Such visionary claims, and the ability to achieve them, helped people like Jain to formulate strategies, and translate them into reality. For instance, he was not quite content with the IT frontend, which needed to be completed in three clicks. The figure of three was sacrosanct, as it came from an expert that if the process took more than three clicks, it would not work. “It took six months to create the three-click process, which is famous in the finance fraternity, and is the new norm across sectors. Similarly, the Integrated Reliance Compliance Management System tracks the status of every compliance – 1-1.5 million are needed for telecom towers. We started with 70-80 dashboards, which is now 15-20,” explains CMA Jain. He mentions that Jio FCA has had a transformative journey, and he has plans laid out for Finance 2.0, for instance, deeper integration of newer technologies like GenAI and increased role in the ESG initiatives.