Following several years of transition, Hughes Network Systems LLC established itself as an independent entity in January 2006. Since then, Chairman and CEO Pradman Kaul has found that life free of the demands of a corporate owner brings a mixed set of circumstances.
“It’s made things much more focused and simple, but it’s more difficult because you don’t have the bigger entity protecting you,” he says. “You don’t have the ability to hide under somebody else if things don’t happen like you expected them to. Instead, you are totally exposed to the world. We tend to like this. We would much rather be judged on our own performance.”
The best part of independence has been the ability to make decisions with the best interest of Hughes in mind, Kaul says. In the past, he has seen plans sometimes trumped by the interest of others.
“When we were part of Hughes Electronics and then DirecTV we were 100 percent owned by those entities,” he says. “What that really meant was that we not only had goals and targets we set for ourselves, but we had goals and targets that were set by the parent corporation. We now get to operate independently, with the primary focus being improving value for our shareholders. We don’t have to make a decision that may not be in the best interest of Hughes but rather in the best interest of a sister division.”
Hughes has suffered from these decisions in the past, such as when DirecTV took the Spaceway-1 and Spaceway-2 satellites — key components of Hughes’ planned broadband offering — and modified them to provide high-definition TV services. “From a Hughes Network Systems perspective, it was a big blow,” Kaul says. “We lost Spaceway for a couple of years.”
Provided there are no more unexpected delays, such as the January failure suffered by Sea Launch which forced Hughes to switch launch providers, Hughes is set to launch its broadband service with Spaceway-3 in the 2008 first quarter.
Kaul spokes with Via Satellite Editor Jason Bates about the transformation of Hughes and the launch of Spaceway-3.
VIA SATELLITE: Who do you report to today, and are they happy with your performance throughout the past year?
KAUL: If you look at the different communities we serve, first, of course, are our shareholders. They are looking for a better return and more value. They measure us by stock performance, and our stock has performed very well. So our shareholders should be happy.
The second most important community is our customers. We are continuously coming out with new technology, new offerings, new services and new platforms, and we have been getting a really good reception. I think our customers’ satisfaction level in our enterprise business is the highest it has ever been. I believe that constituency is very happy.
The third community is our employees, and we are hiring new employees every day. The opportunities for employees to grow have improved dramatically, so that constituency is very happy.
You take our shareholders, our customers and our employees, and I think all three constituencies feel better about Hughes today than they did a year ago.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
