Origins
A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE VODAFONE CULTURE IN THE MID-1990s.
Summary
What most clearly needs to be conveyed is the history, structure and culture of the organisation called `Vodafone`, because unless you were actually there, it is difficult to believe such events could have occurred. At this stage we may simply summarise.
With the advent of mobile telephony in the 1980's, two companies were empowered by the government of the day. One was the vast bureaucracy of British Telecom, the incumbent telephone provider, and the other was called Racal, essentially a `defence` industry organisation with close ties to government. (In the world of that time `Defence` industry was, by the way, more generally associated with the business of killing people.)
Racal begat Racal Vodafone begat Vodafone .
The key to understanding all of the events which followed, is the organisational and social structure that was imposed at the beginning of Vodafone. The structures actually date from at least as far back as the Industrial Revolution. Despite the social advancements since that time, the fundamental elements of social control remained intact at the end of the twentieth century in a small market town in southern England.
The first real 'head' of Vodafone was a man called Gerald Whent. An article in a business newspaper was very perceptive and very accurate. It noted that Gerald Whent was not really interested in mobile phones, or communications, but was most concerned with power. In the greatest boom industry of that time, the phenomenal growth of mobile telephony, there was power. In one building there was a computer system that continuously recorded new connections to the network, the total relayed to Gerald Whent at regular intervals. A few years later, at an Annual General Meeting, a man named Mclaurin stared at a video screen that evidenced that Vodafone were involved in the communications of over one hundred million people. Power.
As a more practical illustration, Vodafone was described as the offspring of a nineteenth century manufacturing factory, and a quasi-governmental bureaucracy of a defence industry supplier. There was an extreme regime of hierarchies and levels, fear and obedience. A man from one of Vodafone`s suppliers much later described the department with which he had to negotiate. He roared with laughter, and said “do you know, all the desks were lined up facing the front, where the manager sat surveying them. They were not allowed to talk to each other, unless it was concerned with the work in hand! “When I first joined Vodafone, I was informed that although the lunch hour was anytime between 12 o'clock and 2pm, nobody went to lunch before 12.30, and nobody returned after 1.29pm. Some years later, a woman said that she had recently joined Vodafone. "They said to me” we never go to lunch until 12.30 "…
What must also be made clear is that ‘Vodafone’ did not sell phones. Or fones. It simply owned the network licence. The legislation of the day, in an attempt to avoid concentration of power, insisted that neither the incumbent British Telecom or Racal Vodafone, could sell products or services to the public. Instead this was to be undertaken by independent '‘Service Providers’. No matter. From this central network licence, a small number of middle-aged white males in Vodafone discovered they had won every lottery.
The `Business Systems` department of Vodafone was part of a larger department called `Commercial Services`, an unusual choice of label for a department that had no sense of commerce and prided itself on not providing services. It was essentially an `I.T.` department concerned mainly with ancient and antiquated Billing Systems. All attempts at change, enhancement, or new products had to go through the `Business Systems` department. This was ideal, as in place as `head` of the Business Systems department was the Psychotic who had the most terrible fears, and was completely dependable to be totally obedient. Commercial Services could therefore use Business Systems to ensure that anything they did not want to do, fell at the first hurdle.
The `Business Systems` department was further logically part of the central Vodafone organisation. It was supposed to be responsible for the design and implementation of all of Vodafone`s new products and services, working with all other Vodafone areas, from the Network designers to Accountants to Service Providers , to ensure a successful and efficient development.. It was though unfortunately owned by 'Commercial Services' who had a vested interest in ensuring that as little as possible actually got approved.
Of the other departments, everybody had a hatred of `Marketing` (except the humans who were categorised in that `department` of course.) Everybody really, really hated a division called `Vodata`. Forget Marketing, Vodata were the real enemies. Out of curiosity, I tried to discover why everybody hated Vodata. The reasons seemed to range from they were political opportunists, to the bizarre fact that they didn`t actually own the text messaging platform. Never mind, let`s hate them.
All of this was overshadowed by a hatred of `Service Providers` (the retailers ). These were organisations that would defraud Vodafone at every opportunity, and were beneath contempt. I found this particularly strange, as these were the organisations that actually did the real work.