Good Morning Everyone

Here we are to present the Strategic Management of Airtel.

Before starting let me introduce you to our team:
Sachin Rane, Ashish Dubey, Bhavesh Jain, Abhijeet Patil and Sayali Murudkar.
Unfortunately, Abhijeet and Sayali are not present in the lecture, but they have
been helpful in the whole process.

Moving on… Let’s have some introduction about the Telecom Giant – Airtel

SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS

1. Renowned Telecom company: Airtel has 19+ years of rich experience in

telecom industry they have travelled far to become world’s 2 nd largest
telecom operator overseas with operations in nearly 20 countries.
2. High Brand Equity: It is one of the pioneer brands in telecommunication
having a high brand recall and with an increasing subscriber base. In
month of June 2021 airtel subscription was increased by 38.1 lakh
3. Extensive infrastructure: With the formation of Indus tower & due to its
partnership with Idea & Vodafone, the infrastructure of Airtel
has extended in all parts of the country resulting into nationwide
penetration.
4. Strategic Alliances: The Company has top notch stakeholders,
namely Sony Ericsson, Nokia, SingTel, and in 2019 Apple. Such strategic
alliances boost the brand equity and the bottom line of the company.

WEAKNESSES

1. Outsourced Operations: Outsourcing operations helped Airtel in

lowering its cost. But on the other hand, they are running the risk of
being dependent on some other companies which may affect its
operations.
2. Venturing into African operations: Although it’s been 11 years that
Airtel has acquired Zain’s Africa business which cover’s 15 countries in
Africa, but Airtel is still struggling to turn around the unit which was
bought at 10.7 billion dollars.
 3. High Debt: With its acquisitions turning out to bad investment, and
credit being high and margins being low, Airtel group is under high debt.
Airtel does not have as deep pockets as Vodafone.

OPPORTUNITIES

1. Strategic Partnership: Partnering with smart phone companies is going to

be a smart strategy as far as MNP (mobile number portability in India) is
concerned. This will ensure fixed cash flows in the future and a higher
customer base.
2. Market Development: With aggressive competition in the telecom
industry & shrinking margins, venturing out in new markets/developing
economies will prove fruitful for the company.
3. Untapped geography of the current market: Although airtel is currently
providing 4G services, but these services are limited to specific
geographical locations. Expansion of these services to most of its regions
where its quality of network is low can be improve which will help the
company get more margins and customers.
4. LTE: The whole wireless world is moving towards LTE (long term
evolution or 4G). LTE for mobile broadband can be a good solution for
India where fixed broadband penetration is otherwise low. Airtel has
taken the lead with this version of LTE in 4 cities, but
deployment needs to catch up pace. Despite a weak LTE ecosystem in
India, Airtel should portray itself as the surround of that technology.

THREATS

1. Government Regulatory Framework: Due to less spectrum (signal

towers) and change in the government policies on a regular basis, it is a
potential threat to the stability & existence of this industry thereby
affecting the players.
2. Competition: Price war in the home market and declining margins due
to this is adversely affecting the overall business of the group.
3. MNP (Mobile number portability): MNP gives the customer
independence to change the service provider while retaining the number
and as Airtel charges are premium over other service providers, it can
reduce the subscribers of the company.
 6 P’s of MARKETING MIX TO INCREASE PROFIT OF AIRTEL

Product
Airtel provides a wide variety of services in the field of telecom. The summary
of the products in the marketing mix of Airtel are described as below:
 Mobile Services: - Airtel provides both voice and data service to its
customers. Currently Airtel has got the largest customer base in India
crossing over 358 million. Airtel was the first one to provide 4G services
in India. Also Airtel provides variants of cost plans for its voice and data
services. Airtel mobile service can be classified into:
 Prepaid service Eg. Recharge offers, roaming packs, blackberry packs,
Family share pack, Handset pack etc.
 Postpaid service Eg. Bill payment, My Plan, Roaming plans, other
special offers etc.
 Other value added service Eg. SMS, MMS, Hello tunes, Airtel Money,
Airtel Live, 2G 3G 4G internet, voice mail, DND services etc.
 Telemedia Services: - Airtel provides broadband services across 87
cities in India. Some of the products offered are 4G homes internet
services, broadband internet connection, Dongle and routers for 4G
and 3G services.

Price
 Airtel follows a competitive pricing strategy because of the huge
competition in telecom segment in India from competitors like
Reliance Jio, Vodafone etc. The pricing strategies of all telecom
companies are monitored by Telecom Regulation Authority of India to
ensure fair prices are being charged to all customers.
 Hence, despite regulation, the most important aspect in the pricing
strategy in the marketing mix of Airtel is based on competitive pricing
strategy.
 Airtel provides flexibility to its customer to choose and customize their
plan according to their preference and pay tariff according to chosen
pack.
  The aim of Airtel’s pricing strategy is customer retention by providing
them with combo offers to boost revenue. Airtel pricing strategies in
broadband segment is also of very low cost and attracts huge customer
base to avail affordable plans.
 Airtel faces tough competition in terms of price war with other telecom
companies like Reliance Jio and the customer loyalty for any telecom
company is nearly zero and entirely dependent on price of services, so
Airtel offers its basic product like call, data, SMS and other value added
services at a cheap rate.

Place
 Airtel sells its service through distributors and retailers, which form the
basis of place strategy in the marketing mix of Airtel. Airtel has got a
wide distribution network which spans across 20 countries. Airtel’s
intensive distribution network enables it to cover the remotest area.
 Airtel uses retail stores, convenient stores, roadside stalls etc to make
its service available to customers.
 Airtel makes its service available through businesses like paan shops,
chemist’s shops, groceries shops etc.
 Airtel has also launched ‘Project leap’ in the year 2015 to expand its
coverage to over 5 lakh villages. Under this project, Airtel will spend 60
thousand crores over a period of next three years to expand its
network and make its services available across India.
 Airtel also offers dedicated 24 customer support service teams which
can be reached online or through telephone to report any issue or
solve customer queries.

Promotion
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Airtel marketing strategy is as
follows:
 Airtel is an established and well known brand in telecom sector. Airtel
organizes strong promotional campaigns for its services utilizing all
media channels from TV, print, events, social media etc.
 Hence the promotion strategy in the marketing mix of Airtel is
extremely comprehensive i.e. they do a 360 branding. Airtel has used
 all the big celebrities to endorse their services like Shahrukh Khan, AR
Rehman, Sachin Tendulkar, Vidya Balan etc.
 Airtel has also organized some famous marketing campaigns to target
youth audience and build its brand like ‘Har Ek friend Zaroori hota he’
and ‘Jo Tera Hain Wo Mera Hain’. Airtel also sponsors various events
like Cricket matches, Grand Prix etc and organized events like Airtel
Delhi Half Marathon etc under their community development
programme and brand promotion.

People
 Airtel focuses on ‘Win with people’ approach for its effective business
strategy.
 Airtel has got an employee base of 18179 with a commendable
employee engagement score of 79%.
 Airtel invests heavily in the training and development of the skills of its
employees. In 2016, Airtel invested 168 million to nurture talent within
its organization and build high performance culture.
 Airtel also focuses on developing a healthy work culture and efficient
functioning of its cross functional teams. Airtel’s Talent First Strategy
focuses on building entrepreneurship and leadership skills in
employees. The people strategy in the marketing mix of Airtel focuses
on hiring the right talent, training them and rewarding them.
 Airtel also promotes gender diversity in its organization by promoting
women friendly working policies. Airtel promotes itself as a learning
organization where all employees follow a learning development plan
based on their career aspiration.
 Airtel also gives rewards and recognition to indentify and retain talent
within organization.

Process
 Airtel process for providing service to its customer is very easy and
streamlined. Airtel process focuses on providing a reliable and
responsive service to its customers. To get a plan or new connection
the customers can directly go to any Airtel’s service centres or contact
the support service to activate/deactivate a plan.
 Airtel’s customer can get their queries resolved 24*7 by contacting the
customer support number from anywhere across India. Airtel also
opened India’s first Open network initiative under Project Leap that
displays network strength across India.
 This transparent policy allows customer to check network strength and
coverage and report any issue easily.
 Airtel also allow its customer easily to identify various plans and pick
the most suitable plan. Airtel customers are free to evaluate the
services and then can carry on or switch to a different brand using
number portability.
 Airtel focuses on delivering optimal services without loss of quality
through their commitment towards its customers.