Vodafone: We have prepared in advance for slowdown

Vodafone, the second-largest player on the Romanian mobile telephony market, started to take efficiency-oriented measures as early as three years ago, when the company was recording significant growth, which allows the operator to avoid making much more "painful" adjustments at a time of stagnating or declining markets, Liliana Solomon, CEO of Vodafone Romania told ZF in an interview. Vodafone pursued a prudent human resource strategy, enabling the operator to cope better with the impact that the economic slowdown, the maturing of the telecom market and competition have had on its revenues and profitability. "We started changing at a time when it wasn't not obvious that the market would change, because we knew that at one point growth would slow down, and then, whether there was an economic crisis or not, it would be very important for us to have a company which functions efficiently and which knows exactly what its money is spent on," she said.