Incorporated on July 7, 1995, Bharti Airtel Ltd is a division of Bharti Enterprises. The businesses of Bharti Airtel are structured into two main strategic groups -Mobility and Infotel. The Mobility business provides GSM mobile services in all 23 telecommunications circles in India, while the Infotel business group provides telephone services and Internet access over DSL in 15 circles. The company complements its mobile, broadband, and telephone services with national and international long-distance services.
The company also has a submarine cable landing station at Chennai, which connects the submarine cable connecting Chennai and Singapore. Bharti Tele-Ventures provides end-to-end data and enterprise services to corporate customers by leveraging its nationwide fiber optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed-line and mobile circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and landing station. All of Bharti Tele-Ventures’ services are provided under the Airtel brand. As of September 2005, Bharti Tele-Ventures was the only company to provide mobile services in all 23 telecom circles in India.
By the end of October 2005, Bharti Tele-Ventures was serving more than 14. 74 million GSM mobile subscribers and 1. 10 million broadband and telephone (fixed line) customers. The equity shares of Bharti Tele-Ventures are currently listed on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE) and the Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE). As of September 30, 2005, the main shareholders of Bharti Tele-Ventures were: Bharti Telecom Ltd (45. 65%), a subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises; Singapore Telecom (15. 69%), through its investment division Pastel Ltd; and, Warburg Pincus (5. 5%), through its investment company Brentwood Investment Holdings Ltd). Other shareholders with more than a 1% stake were: Citi Group Global Markets Mauritius Pvt Ltd (2. 99%); Euro pacific Growth Fund (2. 04%); Morgan Stanley & Co International Ltd (1. 93%); CLSA Merchant Bankers Ltd A/C Calyon (1. 33%); Life Insurance Corporation of India (1. 34%); and, The Growth Fund of America Inc (1. 11%). Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder-chairman of Bharti Enterprises (which owns Airtel), is today, the most celebrated face of the telecom sector in India.
He symbolizes the adage that success comes to those who dream big and then work assiduously to deliver it. Sunil Bharti Mittal began his journey manufacturing spare parts for bicycles in the late 1970s. His strong entrepreneurial instincts gave him a unique flair for sensing new business opportunities. In the early years, Bharti established itself as a supplier of basic telecom equipment. His true calling came in the mid 1990s when the government opened up the sector and allowed private players to provide telecom services.
Bharti Enterprises accepted every opportunity provided by this new policy to evolve into India’s largest telecommunications company and one of India’s most respected brands. Airtel was launched in 1995 in Delhi. In the ensuing years, as the Airtel network expanded to several parts of India, the brand came to symbolize the very essence of mobile services
- Product and Services Airtel provides a host of voice and data products and services, including high speed GPRS services. Airtel also offers a wide array of ‘postpaid’ and ‘prepaid’ mobile offers, with a range of tariff plans that target different segments.
A comprehensive range of value-added, customized services are part of the unique package from Airtel. The company’s products reflect a desire to constantly innovate. Some of these are reflected in the fact that Airtel was the first to develop a ‘single integrated billing system’ Airtel comes to you from Bharti Airtel Limited – a part of the biggest private integrated telecom conglomerate, Bharti Enterprises. Bharti is the leading cellular service provider, with an all India footprint covering all 23 telecom circles of the country.
It has over 21 million satisfied customers. Bharti Enterprises has been at the forefront of technology and has revolutionized telecommunications with its world class products and services. Established in 1976, Bharti has been a pioneering force in the telecom sector with many firsts and innovations to its credit. Bharti has many joint ventures with world leaders like Singtel (Singapore Telecom); Warburg Pincus, USA; Telia, Sweden; Asian infrastructure find, Mauritius; International Finance Corporation, USA and New York Life International, USA.
Bharti provides a range of telecom services, which include Cellular, Basic, Internet and recently introduced National Long Distance. Bharti also manufactures and exports telephone terminals and cordless phones. Apart from being the largest manufacturer of telephone instruments in India, it is also the first company to export its products to the USA. Airtel’s journey to leadership began in Delhi in 1995. Since then, Airtel has established itself across India in sixteen states covering a population of over 600 million people.
Airtel will soon cover the entire country through a process of acquisitions and green field projects. With a presence in over 1,400 towns, Airtel today has the largest network capacity in the country. In the last nine years Airtel has achieved many firsts and unique records: it was the first to launch nationwide roaming operations, it was the first to cross the one million and the five million customer marks. It was also the first to launch services overseas. There are other ‘firsts’ credited to Airtel – many of them in the area of innovative products and services.
Today, Airtel innovates in almost everything that it presents to the market. An excellent example is Easy Charge – India’s first paperless electronic recharging facility for prepaid customers. As evidence of its fine record, Airtel has also been conferred with numerous awards. It won the prestigious Techies Award for ‘being the best cellular services provider’ for four consecutive years between 1997 and 2000 – a record that is still unmatched. And in 2003, it received the Voice & Data Award for being ‘India’s largest cellular service provider’, amongst others.
Organization Structure: BUSINESS & MARKETING STRATEGIES
Some Marketing and Business Tools Adopted By AIRTEL As To Promote Its Activities: Seminars: seminars are conducted at different places by the expert time by time to make people aware. Publicity: publicity is done through various media. Stalls at famous places: they conduct their stall after a particular period of time on the famous and public place to attract them towards themselves.
- DSA (Direct Sales Agency)
- Print media Hoarding
- Banners
- Advertisement
- Leaflets
- Follow ups
- By KNOP
- Mobile Strategy Capture maximum telecommunications revenue potential with minimum geographical coverage to maximize its revenues and margins. Build high quality mobile networks by deploying state-of-the-art technology to offer superior services. Use the experience it has gained from operating its existing mobile networks to develop and operate other mobile networks in India and to share the expertise across all of its existing and new Circles.
Attract and retain high revenue generating customers by providing competitive tariffs, offering high quality customer support, proactive retention programs and roaming packages across all of its mobile circles. Provide affordable tariff plans to suit each segment of the market with a view to expand the reach, thereby increasing the mobile customer base rapidly.
THREE TYPES OF SALES:
1. Primary Sales – Organization to Distribution of Prepaid, Postpaid Cards, Coupons, easy recharge etc. 2. Secondary Sales – Distributor to Retailers 3. Tertiary Sales – Retailer to Customer.
PROCEDURE OF ACTIVATION OF PREPAID CONNECTION: Dealer: – (Confirms on 570) FOS: – (Saw that the form is completed and has Accessory papers Distributor: – (Activates the card)
PROCEDURE OF ACTIVATION OF POSTPAID CONNECTION: Dealer (Collects of Cash and facilitates in Competition) FOS (Collects the Form) Distributor (Activates the card) Supply chain Differentiation for service VS Manufacturing Supply chain for service sector Differences
- In service supply chain human labor forms a significant component. Not entirely possible to have standardized and centralized procedures and control in service SC as many of the decision is taken locally and the variation and uncertainties in output are higher because of the human involvement.
- Focus of efficiencies in service supply chains is on management of capacity, flexibility of resources, information flows, services performance and cash flow management.
Similarities
- Demand management
- Customer relationship management
- Supplier relationship management
INDIVIDUAL CUSTOMIZATION An important trend in our society is agility or mass individualization.
Consumer behavior is much more volatile, much less predictable and increasingly concerned with instant gratification. The expectation is that in due course this trend towards individualization will become a more important factor in the emerging markets too, particularly in the urban areas. As well as setting quality standards for products, this attitude also demands delivery at the right time and in the right place. At any moment, wherever the consumer may be, it has to be possible to satisfy his or her requirements; it is a question of the consumer as a “moving target” and how we can increase our chances of “scoring a hit”.
In modern thinking about categories of consumers, every consumer has something of this instant consumer in his or her make-up, alongside other possible descriptions, such as “rational”, “social” and “responsible”. What’s more, this can vary according to the product category. One moment, moreover, this instant consumer will be demanding products on the basis of flavor, convenience or cheapness, and in the next breath will be voicing concerns about the environment, animal welfare or his or her own health.
The likelihood is that in the long term health, the environment and animal welfare will be significant factors in the concept of quality, as safety already is. Changes in consumption patterns are an important factor in this development. While the retail trade is evolving from supermarket to household service provider in response to mass individualization, consumers are increasingly also obtaining their food through other outlets: company canteens, take-away meals, snack bars, old people’s homes etc. Young couples” in Europe is rapidly moving towards the situation that already exists in the United States, where 50% of the food consumed is prepared outside the home. This places different demands on products in terms of keeping qualities (shelf life), convenience and presentation. Consumer-driven technology development These trends in the market and among consumers generate a demand for a more differentiated and more rapidly changing product range and also call for a different approach to technology development (dedicated production systems).
In the future there will have to be product development that takes the dynamic of the market and the divergent wishes of the consumers as its starting point and uses the technologies of the future: biotechnology, separations technology, sensor technology and modern information technology (IT). To achieve this, product development will have to be tackled in a more structured way, and knowledge deriving from different areas of research will have to be integrated more effectively. The development of sensor technology in the agro sector, for instance, requires the integration of materials technology, biotechnology and process technology.
New scientific developments also provide interfaces through which the sector may respond to wishes relating to health: both the information about genetic aspects and the new insights into bioactive components – substances that, in low concentrations, affect human health – offer interesting prospects of made-to-measure food! In the future, “made-to-measure food” will also mean “food produced in a way that the public finds socially acceptable”. Such aspects as the environment, animal welfare etc. will play a major role.
This will have to be specifically taken into account in the development of technology. Supply chain Differentiation and telecom Complexity Differences * Both direct and indirect Buying as in Manufacturing * Value added services and content Buying concept works on the “Right to Use “. * Co creation and co ownership concepts * Focus on the value vs. cost * Customer experience is critical * Huge CAPEX costs * Asset Management becomes key portfolio Similarities: – Critical * Demand mangement * Customer relationship management * Supplier relationship management
Chapter-5 Distribution System A proper distribution system is very important for every company because now days the customer wants full service without any pain. Airtel has a deep penetration in the market of prepaid cards, coupons, easy recharge and postpaid cards. I also saw in the market the happy faces of customers and retailers of Airtel because of the easy availability of Airtel cards and coupons.
BENEFITS OF GOOD DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM
- 1. Easy availability
- 2. Satisfied customers
- 3. Competitive advantage
- 4. Better market reputation
- 5. Saves time
DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM FLOW OF AIRTEL
1. Organization (C&FA’s)
2. Distributor
3. Retailer
4. Customer Airtel Supply chain Innovation
“CELLULAR MOBILE PRICING STRUCTURE AND TRENDS”
For Successful growth and diffusion of mobile communication services, Airtel is focusing greater attention on how mobile relates to fixed networks. Testing the demand for new pricing structures can be left to the market. Successful growth and diffusion of mobile communication services is focusing greater attention on how mobile communication relates to the Internet and electronic commerce.
This report reviews and benchmarks the pricing of emerging services such as short message services. These services are the harbingers of Third generation Information services over mobile networks and policy makers need to review current regulatory frameworks to enhance pricing innovation and competition in the provision of these services. From chains to flexible networks As well as imposing requirements in terms of technology development, trends such as mass individualization call for a responsive answer to a sharply fluctuating market demand.
This places considerable demands on the organization of agricultural production chains. The full vertical integration of links in a chain can mean a loss of flexibility. It would appear to be more efficient to opt for a continuation of the development of the chain concept; leading to responsive networks that combine the advantage of co-ordination with the flexibility of more loosely linked organizations. These independent organizations work closely together in the flow of goods along the chain in order to achieve the desired “customer value” at the lowest possible cost.
People * Process * Productivity * PEOPLE *
Brand Airtel was born free, a force unleashed into the market with a relentless and unwavering determination to succeed. A spirit charged with energy, creativity and a team driven “to seize the day” with an ambition to become the most globally admired telecom service. Airtel, after just ten years, has risen to the pinnacle of achievement. As India’s leading telecommunications company Airtel brand has played the role as a major catalyst in India’s reforms, contributing to its economic resurgence.
Today they are connected to people’s lives with our Mobile services, Telemedia services, to connecting India’s leading 1000+ corporates. We also connect Indians living in USA with our callhome service. * Corporate Responsibility at Bharti Airtel At Bharti, CSR is a way of life. Each department and employee strives to be sensitive to the stakeholders and environment within their work context. Bharti encourages employees to take decisions and design business-linked processes that are sensitive to communities and environment.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Bharti encompasses much more than only social outreach programs. It is an integral part of the way Bharti conducts its business. The essence of Bharti’s commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility is embedded in the ‘Corporate Values’, which stem from its deepest held beliefs. These Values are: · To be responsive to the needs of our customers · To trust and respect our employees · To continuously improve our services – innovatively and expeditiously · To be transparent and sensitive in our dealings with all stakeholders They encourage our employees to take decisions and design business processes, keeping in mind the following: * Ethics, fairness and being correct · Meeting and going beyond compliances and legal requirements · Showing respect and sensitivity towards stakeholders and communities, and · Nurturing the environment They practice our CSR beliefs and commitments through a three-pronged approach: · Engaging with stakeholders · Ensuring stakeholder sensitive policies and practices · Undertaking programs for our employees, community and environment Bharti Airtel sensitizes its employees towards CSR issues at various forums.
They feel that it is important that each employee should understand the importance of environmental, social and economical aspects while taking business decisions. At Bharti, each employee is sensitized towards CSR issues and thus operations at the ground level are influenced. Such sensitization exercises have resulted in many socially and environmentally sensitive decisions on the ground. For example, Confidence Plan for hearing impaired people, covers noise-making DG sets at extra cost, investing in consumer awareness campaigns to ensure safe use of mobile are some examples of the above. People They have developed the habit of thinking in terms of the people inside and outside of your business who are responsible for every element of your sales and marketing strategy and activities. It’s amazing, for them, their ability to select, recruit, hire and retain the proper people, with the skills and abilities to do the job they need to have done, is more important than everything else put together. Many of the best business plans ever developed sit on shelves today because the [people who created them] could not find the key people who could execute those Plans.
So, employees play an important role in company performance. * Employees They believe that one of the most important drivers of growth and success for any organization is its people. At Bharti Airtel, our ‘Mantra’ for employee delight focuses on 5 Ps – People, Pride, Passion, Processes and Performance. Bharti Airtel has been recognized among the Best Employers in the Country for two successive years – being 14th in 2003 & jumping ahead of several other large conglomerates to an enviable position of the 2nd Best Employer in the Country in 2004.
This is a clear demonstration & acknowledgement of the robust, progressive, people as well as business aligned Human Resource practices, which the organization has developed and implemented remarkably in a very short span of time. Bharti Airtel follows an “open door policy” to approach the management, which helps resolve issues with mutual agreements. We encourage people to stand up against any unfair treatment for which we have the Office of the Ombudsman, where employees can raise any issues regarding business and workplace conduct.
Bharti ensures transparency through the various communication policies, strategies and plans. . Regular Employee Communication Forums provides a platform for the employees to raise issues that require resolution. Their leaders strongly believe in facilitating and initiating activities that help employees manage their health and well-being. Our focus always remains to redefine leadership; we develop leaders who enable performance and inspire their people to unleash their potential.
Their people orientation reflects in their vision of being “targeted by top talent”, and a key aspect of our business focus “building a best-inclass leadership team that nurtures talent at every level. ” Employee friendly HR policies have been put in place, which amply reflect the organization’s concern for its people. Some typical examples of these policies and practices include a family-day at office, half day leave for birthdays, gifts for anniversaries, compulsory 10 days off, festival celebration with family, no official meetings on weekends, five day weeks, concierge services, call center engagement programs etc.
These “care” policies and practices are applied across the organizational levels without any discrimination. From self-management workshops to aerobics sessions, yoga classes to provision of relaxation/meditation rooms, we ensure that every employee keeps a check on his/her fitness. Tie-ups with leading health service organizations enable our employees to undertake periodical health check-ups depending upon their age. This facility is also extended to employee family members at discounted rates.
The company provides Flexible Group Mediclaim insurance to all employees, covering all kinds of illnesses, accidents and hospital coverage for serious ailments. Apart from these specific engagements, we regularly organize health check up camps, eye check-up camps and stress management sessions. Some of their offices have opened gymnasiums/fitness facilities to ensure that the fitness fanatics do not have to worry about time constraints to remain fit. At many of their locations, they have hired psychologists who undertake personal counseling sessions for employees.
Bharti Airtel offers a flexible compensation structure to its employees wherein the employees have the flexibility to structure their fixed component of their compensation according to their requirements within the ambit of legislation. “Even a sweeper in the corporate office must understand that, if he does not keep the office clean, the visiting shareholders could question the company’s ability to manage a business if they cannot manage their premises well” * Target customers Naturally, the target customer was clearly defined: elite, upmarket professionals and entrepreneurs. We positioned Airtel as an aspirational and lifestyle brand, in a way that trivialised the price in the mind of the consumer. It was pitched not merely as a mobile service, but as something that gave him a badge value
PROCESS
Customer-defined business process, Airtel Marketing Strategy · Process innovations and continuous improvement through people involvement · Problem investigation by Fact based – Root Cause Analysis * Based on customer specifications, Airtel have webbed many business processes on the following concepts: · Delivery time Turn around time · Lead – time · Time to market · Other performance indicators
Result Oriented Approach: Each process has been designed by first planning the desired result. The targeted results are then arrived at through identification of the following: · The next-customer and end-customer expectations · Quantifiable purpose of the process and key result areas · Past experience of “what went wrong and can go wrong” SupportSoft, Inc. a provider of software and services that make technology work, announced that Bharti Airtel Limited, a leading telecommunications provider in India, has successfully rolled out three new services to its Airtel broadband customers using SupportSoft software.
Bharti launched these services under the “NetXpert” brand, offering India’s first ever automated broadband self-care technology including automated installation and enhanced customer care to its approximately two million broadband subscribers across India. Bharti is using SupportSoft SubscriberAgent™ software to provide Airtel customers with the “Airtel NetXpert Agent. Installed on each customer’s personal computer with their permission, SubscriberAgent’s built-in software intelligence can help diagnose problems and provide automated resolutions to top issues that the subscriber may experience, including possible connectivity, browser and e-mail related problems. Extending on solution, Bharti Airtel will also use the NetXpert Agent as a marketing and revenue generating tool by providing links to Bharti’s Value Added Services (VAS) as theyll as sending out scheduled alerts on topics ranging from new plans to billing reminders to their subscriber base.
Bharti has also rolled out the “Airtel NetXpert DTL” using SupportSoft Intelligent Assistance™ software, which provides a set of remote diagnostics tools to Call Center executives. This allows analysts the ability to diagnose technology problems quickly and easily by reducing both the time consuming and manual steps involved in solving problems, leading to increased first call resolution, decreased call handling times, and decreased field visits.
Lastly, Bharti Airtel is leveraging SupportSoft’s LiveAssist™ software to support its “Airtel NetXpert Chat” service, whereby Airtel customers can have an online “conversation” with a Bharti customer service representative to respond to questions or issues in real time. Customers simply click on the “Chat with an Xpert” icon on the Bharti Airtel Theyb site to quickly get connected to an agent, and they can save a transcript of the chat for future reference. LiveAssist can enable a customer service representative to chat online with up to four customers at one time, helping reduce customer wait time and speed anstheyrs to subscriber questions.
As industry leaders, they at Airtel are constantly taking initiatives to offer the best in class services that seek to enhance customer experience. With the introduction of the upgraded NetXpert platform, our customers will now not only be able to troubleshoot connectivity related issues themselves but also avail updated billing information, thereby taking customer convenience to new levels,” said Srinivas Rao, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Telemedia Services. They are extremely happy to be partnering with SupportSoft in this endeavour that will set new standards of service care delivery, helping further the uptake of broadband services in the country.
“Forward-thinking service providers like Bharti understand that superior customer care from the start can lead to more loyal customers and increased adoption of new and additional services,” said Josh Pickus, president and CEO of SupportSoft. They are proud to be the driving force behind Bharti’s innovative line of services to provide its customers with convenience and peace of mind, while providing Bharti with measurable benefits to the bottom line. ”
Airtel supply chain model
Airtel Supply Chain Innovation in productivity Airtel Supply Chain Innovation in productivity includes mainly three approaches * Phased approach to ramp-up Phase 1 includes managed services, network electronics, switching equipments, SIM card, Cables & Ducts, communication peripheral equipments such as modem and telephone instrument.
Phase 2 (shared services center) includes bandwidth management, management of infrastructure equipment, networking equipment such as routers servers with the help of national services contract, managing marketing items. * National rate contracted items/partner * Selection at sub-family level Continues improvement to cover more volume and value one the basis of review, analyze, improve
INDIVIDUAL CUSTOMIZATION
An important trend in our society is agility or mass individualization. Consumer behavior is much more volatile, much less predictable and increasingly concerned with instant gratification.
The expectation is that in due course this trend towards individualization will become a more important factor in the emerging markets too, particularly in the urban areas. As well as setting quality standards for products, this attitude also demands delivery at the right time and in the right place. At any moment, wherever the consumer may be, it has to be possible to satisfy his or her requirements; it is a question of the consumer as a “moving target” and how we can increase our chances of “scoring a hit”.
In modern thinking about categories of consumers, every consumer has something of this instant consumer in his or her make-up, alongside other possible descriptions, such as “rational”, “social” and “responsible”. What’s more, this can vary according to the product category. One moment, moreover, this instant consumer will be demanding products on the basis of flavor, convenience or cheapness, and in the next breath will be voicing concerns about the environment, animal welfare or his or her own health.
The likelihood is that in the long term health, the environment and animal welfare will be significant factors in the concept of quality, as safety already is. Changes in consumption patterns are an important factor in this development. While the retail trade is evolving from supermarket to household service provider in response to mass individualization, consumers are increasingly also obtaining their food through other outlets: company canteens, take-away meals, snack bars, old people’s homes etc. Young couples” in Europe are rapidly moving towards the situation that already exists in the United States, where 50% of the food consumed is prepared outside the home. This places different demands on products in terms of keeping qualities (shelf life), convenience and presentation. Consumer-driven technology development These trends in the market and among consumers generate a demand for a more differentiated and more rapidly changing product range and also call for a different approach to technology development (dedicated production systems).
In the future there will have to be product development that takes the dynamic of the market and the divergent wishes of the consumers as its starting point and uses the technologies of the future: biotechnology, separations technology, sensor technology and modern information technology (IT). To achieve this, product development will have to be tackled in a more structured way, and knowledge deriving from different areas of research will have to be integrated more effectively.
The development of sensor technology in the agro sector, for instance, requires the integration of materials technology, biotechnology and process technology. New scientific developments also provide interfaces through which the sector may respond to wishes relating to health: both the information about genetic aspects and the new insights into bioactive components – substances that, in low concentrations, affect human health – offer interesting prospects of made-to-measure food!
In the future, “made-to-measure food” will also mean “food produced in a way that the public finds socially acceptable”. Such aspects as the environment, animal welfare etc. will play a major role. This will have to be specifically taken into account in the development of technology. From chains to flexible networks As well as imposing requirements in terms of technology development, trends such as mass individualization call for a responsive answer to a sharply fluctuating market demand.
This places considerable demands on the organization of agricultural production chains. The full vertical integration of links in a chain can mean a loss of flexibility. It would appear to be more efficient to opt for a continuation of the development of the chain concept; leading to responsive networks that combine the advantage of co-ordination with the flexibility of more loosely linked organizations. These independent organizations work closely together in the flow of goods along the chain in order to achieve the desired “customer value” at the lowest possible cost.
