Marketing strategies of BSNL

By Shri G S Grover Director (C &M), BSNL. Shri N K Srivastava CGM ALTTC Ghaziabad. Shri Sunil Kumar DDG Marketing BSNL CO. Synopsis.
This article deals with the miracle shared vision can do to the organization. Vision concept and philosophy at an individual as well as organization level has been discussed. It also covers importance and driving force of vision in Marketing strategies, Selling, Business Development, Market share etc. Various marketing trends have been mentioned. It is an effort to share vision with one and all.

1. Introduction.

Our visions begin with our desires.

- Audre Lorde
We all have some visions of ourselves and our future, and that vision creates consequences. More than any other factor, vision affects the choices we make and the way we spend our time.

Visions drive consequences. Principles drive results. Key is to base vision on principles.
Stephen R Covey.
It is true for individuals as well as organizations. The strongest form of vision / motivation is to base vision on What Legacy we want to leave. And to achieve it we must take a principled centered path. History is full of examples that many organizations have vanished grown and vanished overnight as their path to achieve vision was not based on principled way. Vision of the organization can only be translated into reality, if it is shared by one and all. The best way to implement is to involve them in formulation. But even if it is conceived by higher management then it has to be explained to each and every individual of the organization, otherwise it may remain as a showpiece. Marketing vision of the BSNL has to be based on overall mission and vision of the organization. The mission of BSNL is i. To provide world class State-of-art technology telecom services on demand at affordable price. ii. To provide world class telecom infrastructure to develop country's economy.

And the vision of BSNL is i. To become the largest telecom Service Provider in Southeast Asia.

In dynamic environment anything permanent is CHANGE. So we must revise and review so that focus is never lost.

Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.

2. Marketing Objective.
The ultimate objective of any marketing activity is to satisfy the customers and today even a step ahead i.e. delighting the customers, for which customers are offered something beyond their expectations from the service or the product. The objective being to acquire and retain the customers, who should continually feel that they are getting more value of the money, they are departing with. Marketing is the establishment, development, maintenance and optimization of long-term mutually valuable relationships between consumers and organisation. Successful Marketing focuses on understanding the needs and desires of the customers and is achieved by placing these needs at the heart of business by integrating them with the organisation strategy, people, technology and business processes. At its most basic, Marketing involves customers, organisations and relationships and the combination creates the need for the management. Marketing is about creating a competitive advantage by being the best at understanding, communicating, and delivering and developing existing customer relationships in addition to creating and keeping new customers. The concept of the product life cycle is giving way to customer life cycle, focusing on developing products that anticipate the future needs of existing customers and creating services that extend the existing customer relationship beyond the mere transaction. The customer life cycle will focus on lengthening the life span of the customer with the organisation rather than the endurance of a particular product. Customers have changing needs as their life styles alter- the development and provision of products and/or services that continuously seek to satisfy those needs is good Marketing. The Marketing will focus greater attention on how to deliver customer satisfaction and organisation will begin to structure itself around customer segments and not product lines. A good Marketing Strategy will take the business vision and apply it to the customer base. According to the Dictionary of Marketing Terms, 2nd edition, published by the American Marketing Association, c1995, Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. Once marketing is understood, we can define marketing management process as analyzing marketing opportunities, researching and selecting target markets, designing marketing strategies, planning marketing programs, and organizing, implementing, and controlling the marketing efforts. In simple words it implies a buyer, a seller, bonded by the mutual need, satisfying offer and a medium/process to exchange the offer.

Kenneth Hildebrand.

3. Marketing Process.
We often talk of marketing & Sales and often use it interchangeably without understanding the difference in it. Marketing is everything we do to get and leverage a client relationship. Marketing process is broad and includes all of the following: Discovering what product, service or idea customers want. Producing a product with the appropriate features and quality. Pricing the product correctly.

Promoting the product; spreading the word about why customers should buy it. Selling and delivering the product into the hands of the customer.

Selling is one activity of the entire marketing process. Selling is the act of persuading or influencing a customer to buy (actually exchange something of value for) a product or service. Marketing activities support sales efforts.

4.

Contrasting the Sales Concept with the Marketing Concept:-

We Sell Confidence.
The concepts surrounding both selling and marketing also differ. There is a need for both selling and marketing approaches in different situations. One approach is not always right and the other always wrong it depends upon the particular situation. In a marketing approach, more listening to and eventual accommodation of the target market occurs. Twoway communication (sometimes between a salesperson and a customer) is emphasized in marketing so learning can take place and product offerings can be improved. A salesperson using the sales concept, on the other hand, sometimes has the ability to individualize components of a sale, but the emphasis is ordinarily upon helping the customer determine if they want the product, or a variation on it, that is already being offered by the company. In the sales approach, not much time is spent learning what the customer's ideal product would be because the salesperson has little say in seeing that their company's product is modified. Furthermore, they aren't rewarded for spending time listening to the customer's desires unless they have a product to match their desires that will result in a sale.

The 7Ps for service marketing (Product, price, place, promotion, physical evidence, people & process) are the means to attain, nurture, & retain the customers and not the end.
5. Mission & Vision.

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you are alive, it isnt.
Richard Bach.
Most of the big companies have a Vision & Mission statement so as to guide their all energy, efforts to realize it. BSNL also has a vision To become the largest Telecom Service provider in South East Asia. Firstly we need to understand the parameter for being the largest. Is it revenue, ARPU, profit, subscribers, Network (no of exchanges, BTS etc)? From monopoly to multi operator scenario, BSNLs market share is bound to reduce. But how much down we will let it? There are lot of similarities between British Telecom & us. One must keep watch on market share in monthly growth and take timely action. To improve our share, we need to acquire more than 50% of new acquisitions while maintaining earlier. This is quite challenging in this dynamic environment. Today landline base is reducing across globe, but why? Europe defines an operator with 25% or more market share as Significant market Power (SMP), while they intend to increase it to 40%. BSNL has been the largest operator and we must strive not only to maintain but enhance it. We need to act fast. Timely action is an essence.

What should be our marketing Vision, will it help us in inspiring to achieve higher. Can it be something such as To retain the highest market share, build highest brand equity and maximizing the profits?

6. Brand Equity.
We may think what is Brand equity? In simple words it is how far people are willing to pay if we increase our prices i.e. premium for our services. We may feel happy to say there is lot of black marketing of our SIM cards. Is it a healthy sign? We reduce prices when competitors launch new schemes. Does it imply poor brand equity? Brand Equity can be built with good equity of quality of services at the affordable price. Continuous innovation in product and delivery of services with the appropriate pricing is the key strategy for developing the trust in customer so that he keeps his loyalty with BSNL. We have to be first mover in our efforts for product and price differentiation. Presently the market is in growth phase and price could be a differentiating factor, but how long? Is any scope left for further cuts? Ultimately it is the quality, customer care, and timely availability apart from price, which will matter. Quality depends on many parameters such as tangibles (like physical facilities, Appearance of personnel, Tools or equipment used to provide service, Physical appearance of service, Other customers in the service facility), Reliability, Responsiveness, Competence, Courtesy, Credibility, Security, Access, and Communications with customer, Understanding etc. Quality definitely commands premium. Why are people willing to pay more for Raymonds or Adidas or Sony when comparable offers exist in market? One may say that customer perception of quality is not built overnight; it may require a brand and brand building investments apart from a quality product. How many brands do we have? Our investments get diluted with more number of brands. Even Airtel merged the Touchtel brand with more popular one. Cant we have just one brand i.e. BSNL? Have we ever tried to examine our revenue breakup? While majority of the revenue comes from landline (DELs plus PCOs), how many people know of Bfone? CellOne happens to be more popular. So where should our marketing & sales effort be more? Wholesale, retail or corporate! What means do we need to use to promote our products and in what proportion? Advertising, PR, Franchisees, 24x7 customer care, business development etc. What activities should be taken up by Corporate Office, Circles and SSAs? In advertising there is need to synergize our activities at Corporate, Circle and SSA level. In this regard Corporate office has issued division of work guidelines. There is also a need to have good relation with our advertising agencies and simultaneously their performance need to be monitored for taking quality output from them. What is USP (Unique Selling Proposition) for BSNL? A Government company which delivers. A government company which gives service better than private could be a deadly combination, which no competitor can copy.

7. Social Responsibility.
We were the most trusted telecom brand in year 2003 & 2004. We have been given Golden Peacock award for Best Corporate Social responsibility. How can we leverage these distinctions? These achievements need to be highlighted through public relation exercise like press meet. This will help us in building our marketing image. In sales and distribution front though we have over one-lakh retailers, 1000 franchisees, 3300 CSCs, 36000 exchanges why are we not visible like others? Why cant we utilize all possible space? Cant we leverage our franchisee and STD-PCO strengths? Can we make these outlets as our core strength? Why our recharge coupons, India Telephone Cards are in shortage when there is no capacity constraint? Does it imply that our planning for printing, inventory management, logistics, and supply chain and of course franchisee management is inefficient? Do we have targets for these just like DELs & CellOne? Why cant we leverage this huge network for better customer care and improve collection efficiency? We must realize that with waiver of security deposits, no OYT schemes, no advance rentals, adjustment of landline security for CellOne, we dont get fixed deposits to meet our funds requirements. Everything has to be met from Operating revenues. We need to improve collections, realize bills early, not on the last day of payment and reduce bad debts. We need to provide 24X7 culture in our organization, though we have been providing operation and maintenance on 24X7 basis in the past and we

will continue to provide in future too, but what about provisioning customer care and marketing on 24X7 basis?

8. Business Development.
Business development units have been given the task to develop and nurture long-term relations with corporate houses. Many MoUs have been signed. Bulk bills are being issued. One-point payments are being realized for multiple service locations. Key Account Manager concept has been introduced. All this requires change of mindset in addition to the skills of marketing & sales. Do we have skilled manpower? Is our organization setup apt for better results? The staff expense to revenue ratio could be a good indicator. No doubt our revenues are up. Profit has increased. But consider the marketing budget we have in comparison to others. Even with this little budget many circles are unable to utilize it. We need to probe ourselves. Corporate office has permitted delegation of upto 70% of Circle budget to SSAs. Does it mean that our budget planning is wrong? How should we allocate marketing budget and which parameter to weigh? Per DEL/Mobile Acquisition cost Life time value Competitor spend Growth targets

9. Life Time Value

You cant give people pride, but you can provide the kind of understanding that makes people look to their inner strength and find their own sense of pride.
Charleszetta Waddles.
Let us understand what is the lifetime value of our customers? Paying commission of Rs 100-200 to franchisee is not a cost considering the future flow of revenue from the customer. How many of our decisions are based on scientific analysis of the precious customer data we already have such as calling pattern, payment habits, usage profile etc? How many surveys we do, how much customer research we carry out? Net growth in mobile is high but what about churn? Cant we analyze & reduce it? Acquisition cost is usually said to be 5-8 times the retention cost. It is high time we learn fast, groom ourselves, improve our mindset and act fast. Business perspective is equally important as excellence in Telecom operations, maintenance, and installations & planning. Our core competence should be telecom business acumen and not just traditional expertise developed over the years. It is usually much easier to sell additional things to existing customers than to add new customer. Let us try to upgrade each customer by RS 20 RS 50 by offering them more add on relevant services.

10. Summary
Vision is set in the Boardroom but realized in the battlefield. Each and every employee has to continuously lead this battle to be victorious. The corporate office is always willing to provide all resources. Together we can realize our vision.

My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for next moment.

-Oprah Winfrey. Back