“Credibility is needed to rekindle investments,” says Telefônica Brasil’s CEO

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – However, given the context experienced today in the country, with the drastic worsening of the pandemic, at this moment the vaccination of the population becomes the major priority, leaving the rest as secondary, says the CEO of Telefônica Brasil, owner of the Vivo brand, Christian Gebara. “That should be the focus,” he says.

For the executive, Brazil is a natural focus of investments for companies from all over the world, but it is necessary to create the conditions for this. “And that means fiscal credibility, credibility to carry out reforms, and vaccination credibility,” he says.

Brazil is going through a period of great economic difficulty. What can be done at this moment to guarantee the country’s growth?

Tax reform is fundamental. In our specific case, it is necessary to consider that the country needs digitalization in order to be accessible to people and for companies to have the breath to keep investing in a country of continental dimensions.

For this, it is necessary to have a vision that telecommunications cannot be taxed excessively and also to see the sector as an essential infrastructure vehicle for the development of Brazil. This is the first step. But also important are all kinds of reforms that can help activate the economy, which depends on consumption.

The moment people lose purchasing power, when unemployment rises, the impact is immediate on the consumption of services. All initiatives to reactivate the economy are essential for our sector. Our sector, on the one hand, is the enabler of this economic development, through digitalization, but it needs consumption to continue investing.

Besides tax reform, administrative reform is also a necessary vector for dynamizing the economy. Every topic of economic growth that comes through privatization and other stimuli that can be done by the government we certainly support and are optimistic about what this can bring.

Besides the reforms, what else can be done for a faster recovery?

Vaccination is the main point. Everything else starts to become secondary in view of the problem we are facing now. It should be the focus. I believe that we now have good news from new laboratories and vaccine suppliers. Brazil has a recognized logistical capacity for vaccination.

I think that is the main way back. This recent lockdown news has a direct impact on our business, direct impact on the safety of our employees, direct impact on everyone’s mood.

Vaccination is the only way out we have right now in the face of the pandemic. We believe that we have to work in this direction. We are following the evolution of other countries with vaccination advances, and the answer is there. The United States are evolving, with a more accentuated fall in infections and deaths, and a faster reactivation of their economy.

This movement of closing commerce, closing schools, is not beneficial for our services. We don’t have the interest that people stay home to connect more. The more the economy is back, the more the companies’ spirit of investment rekindles, the more jobs grow, and consumption grows in the same proportion.

How do you evaluate the government’s conduct in fighting the pandemic?

The way out of the pandemic and the health crisis is through vaccination in an accelerated course throughout the country. There are efforts in this direction, but we have a huge sense of urgency and we are millions of Brazilians. Besides, all protection and prevention measures require a single policy, of total alignment between the federal, state, and municipal levels.

What was the impact of the pandemic on the company’s plans?

We had an acceleration of paths. We have a pillar that we call “There is everything at Vivo”, so that the customer sees Vivo as a technological partner that goes beyond telecommunications. We want the customer, through the company, to solve all his technological life. And this is related to our purpose.

Digitize to get closer means to create connection, to create digitalization, but also to distribute digital services, to relate digitally with this customer. These two aspects the pandemic has made us accelerate. Distributing digital services, we have the entertainment ones, like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus and several others, we accelerated several partnerships.

In financial services, we launched Vivo Money, which is a lending platform for people. We are now, with studies well advanced, to have a health service. We already believed that telemedicine was the future, but the pandemic made people see telemedicine as something more real, concrete and necessary. So, we are working, because of the pandemic, in a more accelerated way to create some health services.

Would this be through a partnership?

Yes, but we don’t have anything closed.

What is behind this strategy?

It is the idea that you have everything at Vivo. Taking advantage of the capillarity that we have, in the physical channel and online. The customer base, the relationship they have with Vivo, they are constantly in contact with our company. The strength of the brand.

And, finally, the power to charge these customers. We have clients who don’t have credit cards, so the Vivo invoice is a means of payment that we have to explore. In financial services, we are studying the creation of a Vivo wallet. Customers already put money to use in prepaid cellular services. Why wouldn’t they put in money to buy other things, since they already have this relationship? This is another area that we are accelerating after the pandemic.

There were plans, but they are accelerating. And education, we would like to create partnerships in education. We have done a lot of things with universities, with plans for students who would study remotely, but shouldn’t we also move forward in a joining of a plan with educational content?

The 5G technology has been pointed out as fundamental to accelerate digital services in the country. How close are we to deploying this technology?

The public notice is out from Anatel and will be sent to TCU. We still do not know the values of the obligations that will be related to the auction. The volume of frequencies that will be auctioned, in our experience, is adequate, they will use frequencies that are favorable for 5G.

The 5G ecosystem is still very limited of devices – it’s not that 5G is happening everywhere in the world… The big change that 5G will bring is a reduction in latency, the responses will be immediate to the command, which generates a new range of services, the internet of things, which is the big change that there will be, that things can be connected. This is still evolving.

Considering that we will have an auction in the next few months, I hope that this auction is not a collection auction, but that there are obligations that help in the digitalization of the country, that the prices are reasonable and allow companies to invest in Brazil. But, for this, we cannot have such a high tax burden. And the regulation of the sector needs to be more favorable so that we can move forward with digitalization.

Is there interest from foreign investment in Brazil?

We have just signed the constitution of a fiber company, with an international partner, one of the biggest infrastructure funds in the world, the (Canadian) CDPQ. This will allow Vivo to build a neutral, independent fiber network, which will allow us to reach more cities, and also allow other operators to use this route. This will allow for competition, the digitalization of more cities, and these digitalized cities will also increase economic activity.

Like CDPQ, there are several groups that want to enter a country like Brazil, continental in size, lacking infrastructure, with such a large consumer market. These are conditions that we have to create in Brazil, so that companies like this, or even local entrepreneurs, have the will to invest.

But it is important that the will to invest in the companies that are here, and those that are not yet here, be rekindled. And this means fiscal credibility, credibility to carry out reforms, and vaccination credibility. Brazil is a natural destination for investments.

Source: Época Negócios