WRITE-UP

Transformation of Bharti Airtel

About the company: Bharti Airtel, is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 19 countries across South Asia, Africa, and the Channel Islands. It is the fifth largest telecommunication network in the world, while being the leader in India. Founded: 7 July 1995 Chairman and MD : Sunil Bharti Mittal CEO : Sanjay Kapoor Employees : 25,543 (2009) Airtel is the market leader in India with about 31.18% market share of 481 million GSM mobile connections as of August 2010. Issues concerned: Upstream & Downstream of company. (outsoursing,quality check and marketing) Global Exposure (mergers and acquisitions) Re-branding (to cater the changes in terms of demand, market)

Competencies of Airtel: Innovative plans and services (being more and more customer centric) Leadership (First network to rollout pan India network, and lifetime validity plans, hellotune service etc)

Airtel in highlights (year 2009-2010) 2009 Bharti Airtel signed a five-year managed services deal with Alcatel- Lucent for its fixedline and broadband operations. Bharti Airtel launched the 'Airtel Advantage' initiative. The initiative is aimed at offering the added advantage to Airtel customers to be in touch with each other at an affordable rate of 50 paise per minute, be it a national long distance call (STD) or a local call. In order to create products and services for the small, medium and large enterprises, Bharti Airtel and Cisco announced a strategic business alliance. The alliance would combine the strengths of Airtel's network service and Cisco' Internet Protocol (IP) technologies. Airtel and mChek announce milestone of 1 Million users and introduce a broad range of new mCommerce services.

2010 On 14, February 2010, Zain Ghana issued a resolution to accept a $10.7 billion buyout offer from Bharti Airtel Limited (Bharti) to enter into exclusive discussions until 25 March 2010, regarding the sale of its African unit, Zain Africa BV. Bharti Airtel has partnered with US-based software maker VMware Inc. It has done this in order to focus on the cloud-based managed computer services market. On May 18, 2010, Airtel won 3G spectrum in 13 circles for Rs. 12,295 crores. Bharti Airtel wins broadband spectrum in four circles: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and Kolkata for Rs. 3314.36 crores. On 8, June 2010, Bharti Airtel completed a deal to Zain Telecom's businesses in 15 African countries for $10.7 billion. On August 11, 2010, Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire 100% stake in Telecom Seychelles for US$62 million taking its global presence to 19 countries. On 20 September 2010, Bharti Airtel said that it has given contracts to Ericsson India, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Huawei Technologies to set up infrastructure for providing 3G services in the country. On 18, November,2010, Bharti Airtel announced a re-branding campaign wherein, they would be referred as airtel, with a new logo.

VALUE CHAIN:
Focusing Upstream: Procuring: It is known for being the first mobile phone company in the world to outsource everything except marketing and sales and finance. Its network (base stations, microwave links, etc.) is maintained by Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Network and Huawei., business support by IBM and transmission towers by another company (Bharti Infratel Ltd. in India). Ericsson agreed for the first time, to be paid by the minute for installation and maintenance of their equipment rather than being paid up front. This enabled the company to provide pan-India phone call rates of Rs. 1/minute (U$0.02/minute). Call rates have come down much further. During the last financial year [2009-10], Bharti has roped in a strategic partner Alcatel-Lucent to manage the network infrastructure for the Telemedia Business. Allocating: The company is structured into four strategic business units - Mobile, Telemedia, Enterprise and Digital TV. The Telemedia business provides broadband, IPTV and telephone services in 89 Indian cities. The Digital TV business provides Direct-to-Home TV services across India. The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national and international long distance services to telcos. In January 2010, company announced that Manoj Kohli, Joint Managing Director and current Chief Executive Officer of Indian and South Asian operations, will become the Chief

Executive Officer of the International Business Group from 1 April 2010. He will be overseeing Bharti's overseas business. Current Dy. CEO, Sanjay Kapoor, will replace Manoj Kohli and will be the CEO, effective from 1 April 2010.

Quality Check: Bharti Airtel is the first Indian telecom service provider to achieve this Cisco Gold Certification. To earn Gold Certification, Bharti Airtel had to meet rigorous standards for networking competency, service, support and customer satisfaction set forth by Cisco.

Marketing & Promotion: The signature tune of Airtel is composed by Indian musician A. R. Rahman. The tune became hugely popular and is the world's most downloaded mobile music with over 150 million downloads.A new version of the song was released on 18 November 2010, as part of the rebranding of the company. This version too was composed by Rahman himself. On May 9, 2009 Airtel signed a major deal with Manchester United Football Club. As a result of the deal, Airtel gets the rights to broadcast the matches played by the team to its customers. Bharti Airtel signed a five-year deal with ESPN Star Sports to become the title sponsor of the Champions League Twenty20 cricket tournament. The tournament itself is named "Airtel Champions League Twenty20." New international identity has been specially crafted to appeal to a more dynamic & demanding audience Research & Development: It is 6th most valued brand according to an annual survey conducted by Brand Finance and The Economic Times in 2010. R&D department continuously works on improving the quality of services, implementing new technology and other things. The Apple iPhone 3G was rolled out in India on 22 August 2008 by Airtel & Vodafone. Both the cellular service providers rolled out their Apple iPhone 3GS in the first quarter of 2010. However, high prices and contract bonds discouraged consumers and it was not as successful for both the service providers as much as the iPhone is successful in other markets of the world.

Bharti Airtel said that it has given contracts to Ericsson India, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Huawei Technologies to set up infrastructure for providing 3G services in the country. These vendors will plan, design, deploy and maintain 3G-HSPA (third generation, high speed packet access) networks in 13 telecom circles where the company has won 3G licences.

Feedback: The company keeps a track of feedback by consumers and various other medium, it takes the feedback in consideration while planning new moves and taking corrective measures wherever required. There has been lot of criticism about Airtel for its unauthorised VAS activation. Many of its services were activated automatically according to a complaint forum. In return Airtel launched STOP/START 121 services for such issues.

Value Chain Of Bharti Airtel

Services delivery and management, with help by IBM

Marketing is done by advertising agency rediffusion.

Quality of service is monitored, by company itself and cisco etc.

Procuring / Outsourcing (Ericsson, Huawei for network infrastructure)

Distribution of sim cards, collection of bills, problems are sought out at airtel outlets. And it helps act a centre to take feedback.