Antonio Coimbra, the man who dared to give up football… and lived to tell about it
However, explaining this strategy can serve as a starting point to understand its character. -stubborn, persevering and innovative in equal parts– and its weight in the reinvention of the operator, a change of course that over time has proven successful and that other competing companies have even launched. Antonio Coimbra resigned from football as the first step in a complete restructuring of Vodafone, an adjustment for the new times of low cost that went through reducing costs and launching an ERE that laid off a thousand people. It was the company’s third ERE in the last six years after two cuts in staff, in 2013 and 2015. The first ERE was carried out due to the drop in business and margins due to the blows of the economic crisis and affected 900 employees of the 4,300 that it had then. The second occurred after the integration of It and affected 1,057 workers in total. On this occasion -in 2019- it also completely restructured its corporate area and launched a new business model to try to recover ground in low cost without losing focus on high-value customers. He defended the refoundation of the company and endured the downpour of those who asked for his departure, but the roadmap did not change It was the last step for digest the purchase of ONO for 7,200 million euros in 2014. An acquisition that has marked his entire management. Never has an operator paid so much for another teleco in Spain and the effects have been felt in successive years. Coimbra he fought against some accounts usually in the red, but he knew how to recover. The CEO of Vodafone will be remembered for trying to bear the cost of buying IT, for giving up football, but also for being the first to launch 5G in Spain, for launching unlimited data rates before anyone else and being the pioneer in bundling its television service. marked by football In February 2018, Coimbra officially confirmed that it was giving up buying sports. Since then, in each appearance, Coimbra has defended that his company can earn more money -or not lose as much- if it does not have football and the data from its last fiscal quarter (the first of this year) seem to confirm that it was not so wrong . The CEO of Vodafone Spain He defended the refoundation of the company and endured the downpour of those who asked for his departure, but the roadmap did not change. Two years later it was winning customers again and being the television that earns the most subscribers despite not having sporting events on its grid. The beginning of the end of Way of the cross of a Coimbra that has had to carry out very tough decisions in the last 31 months. The onslaught of low cost from the hand of Other and the converging offers of the cheapest packages began to disrupt everything and generate a commercial war that left very touched Vodafone.
