An Assignment

On
Approaches of Strategic management in Airtel

Submitted to:
Md. Kamrujjaman
Assistant Professor in MGT
Department of Business Administration
Manarat International University
Gulshan-2, Dhaka-1212
jeweldu57@yahoo.com

PREPARED BY:

SL NAME ID Remark
NO
1 Jannatun Nisa Tazree 1439BBA03011
2 Zannatul mawoa Rafi 1439BBA02929
3 Nur Jannatul Bindu 1439BBA02957

MANARAT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Submission of Date: 06-08-2017

 Introduction

Company Profile

Name Bharti Airtel Limited.

It is established in July 07, 1995, as a Public Limited Company.

Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 17

countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks
amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the
company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed
line services, high speed home broadband, DTH, enterprise services including national &
international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G,
4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 379 million customers across
its operations at the end of June 2017.

Airtel is a global brand of Bharti Enterprise of India- world’s third largest mobile
phone operator in terms of subscriber base. Axiata Group of Malaysia and Bharti
Enterprise of India had agreed to merge their respective operations in Bangladesh on
January 28, 2016. Robi as the merged company began its commercial operation from
November 16, 2016. Following the merger of Robi and Airtel, Robi was granted
license to use Airtel brand in Bangladesh for the customers having 016 number
series.
Robi Axiata Limited is a joint venture between Axiata Group of Malaysia, Bharti
Airtel, of India and NTT Docomo Inc., of Japan. Axiata holds 68.7% controlling
stake in the entity, Bharti holds 25% while the remaining 6.3% is held by NTT
Docomo of Japan. It is the second largest mobile phone operator of Bangladesh with
approximately 32.2 million active subscribers as of October, 2016. The company
provides widest network coverage to 99% of the population with over 13,900 on-air
sites of which over 8,000 are 3.5G sites. Robi is the first operator to introduce GPRS
and 3.5G services in Bangladesh. The company has introduced many first of its kind
digital services in the country and has invested heavily in taking mobile financial
services to the underserved communities in the rural and semi-urban areas. Robi, as
a socially responsible brand, has taken up a number of flagship Corporate
Responsibility initiatives in the areas of ICT-Education, Health and Environment
with a view to contribute towards the sustainable development of the country.
Vision, objectives & values:
They are consistently fine-tuning our strategies and strengthening our innovative core to
anticipate and lead change in the global digital landscape

Vision:
Their vision is to enrich the lives of our customers. Our obsession is to win customers for life
through exceptional experience.
Objectives:
Grow market share profitably. Accelerate non-mobile businesses.
Values:
alive, inclusive, respectful.

Strategic Management Process in AIRTEL

Company’s strategy is an important and secret subject. All the time the company doesn’t want
to disclose the information. So it is very difficult to know about the strategy of the company.

But when we finding the information about our subject we see that there is not any fixed
strategy, the market condition and the competition rapidly change so the strategies are also
changes, though they AIRTEL follow the following strategy:
Strategies Adopted By AIRTEL

1. Corporate Level Strategy

Bharti Airtel has been divided into distinct business units, as follows:
Airtel offers GSM mobile services in all the 23-telecom circles of India and is the largest mobile
service provider in the country, based on the number of customers. It provides numerous value
added services such as mobile apps, hello tunes, m-commerce, wireless internet etc.
The Airtel Telemedia Services division provides high speed broadband internet and related
services. It also provides landline service in 93 cities across India. It also launched its DTH
services in 2008 and is present in more than 150 cities now.
The Enterprise Services division provides a diverse portfolio of services to large Enterprise
and Carrier customers. This division is further divided into two unite: Carrier business
unit and corporate business unit.
The Corporate Business Unit
The Corporate Business Unit provides end to end telecom solutions to India's large corporate. It
specializes in providing customized solutions to address the unique requirements of different
industry verticals.
The Carrier Business Unit
The Carrier Business Unit provides long distance wholesale voice and data services to carrier
customers as well as to other business units of Airtel. It is present in significant capacity in the
International arena as well.

2. Business Level Strategy

Airtel cellular service follows a cost leadership strategy. The market focus is broad- with the
firm catering to 137 million customers as of FY10. Further, since differentiation is very short
lived and immediately imitated by competitors; firms attempt to maintain a cost advantage over
their competitors. Airtel has maintained its cost leadership by reducing its operational costs and
its unique business model- which outsources all major functions except, sales, marketing and
finance. Differentiation is also attempted with the help of value added services. While there are
several player in the market, including the new entrants, Bharti-Airtel, Rcom and BSNL are the
only players to gain a differential advantage on the account of existing infrastructural capability.

3. Competitive Advantage
Airtel has the following competitive advantages:

Strategic alliances: Acquisitions and JVs

Airtel has been entering into various JVs and acquisitions to increase its footprint as well as
global presence. The firm has stake in JT mobiles, Sky Cell etc. With the acquisition of Zain and
other players, Airtel has used this strategy effectively to become a global player
Business Process Outsourcing

Airtel has a clear outsourcing strategy. It outsources all its functions except marketing, sales and
finance; this has helped the firm focus on its core competencies. Further due to its market
leadership position and volume of its operations, there are multiple bidders; which has ensured
high quality service/products for Airtel
 Airtel follows the strategy of outsourcing the non-core activities and focus on the core.

 Airtel is known for being the first mobile phone company in the world to outsource
everything except marketing and sales.

 The firm outsources many of its most fundamental functions and

infrastructures, including its information technology (IT) operations to IBM, Nortel.

 Its communications networks to Ericsson and Nokia Siemens; and

 Its contact centre operations to Nortel and Wipro and recently with Cisco and Servion to
provide hosted contact centre services.
Supplier Relationships
Airtel has strong relationships with its suppliers. It relies on Bharti Infratel for towers, IBM for
IT systems etc. It is able to sustain its innovative business model ,by focusing on relationship
management with vendors

4. Strategy in Innovation of Value Added Services

 Separate value-added service

Airtel’s online desktop for airtel broadband users provides free online space for storing , editing
and sharing data .

 Provide Free antivirus

It also provides free antivirus package, free software and updates on rental basis for small
businesses and this is one of the VAS which is not provided by other service providers.

 M-Commerce

 Airtel has an idea of introducing m-commerce as one of its value added service.

 According to its CEO Sanjay Kapoor there is an 80 to 85 per cent of the population which is
still unbanked and looking to do financial transactions using mobile technologies.

 By providing m- commerce Airtel plans to bring a revolution by making mobile phones

work as ATM machines.

 Network 

 Airtel packs a punch when it comes to network coverage. The aim of Sunil Bharti Mittal was
to create a network which is clear even when in the basement. Airtel has done just that
and beyond.

 Declining ARPU

 With more than 10 million subscriber additions a month, the Telecom Sector continues to
maintain its growth momentum.

 Due to the entry of new players in the market a high level of competition prevails and this
has lead to a decrease in the Average Revenue Per User.

 Thus in order to sustain its competitive position Airtel has started focusing on increasing the

revenue from Minutes of Usage MoU
5. Porter’s Five Models

Threat of New Entrant

• 12 major number of players in India

• The concept of per second billing brought in bt Tata docomo

• Uninor’s variable pricing has left feathers ruffled

• Challenges have also been posed by inclusion of 3G technology

Power of Suppliers

• There is a large number of equipment makers around which dilutes the bargaining power
of suppliers

• There is monopoly with the government in allocation of bandwidth

• The system lacks transparency which leads to several losses

• The limited pool of talented managers and engineers

Power of Buyers

• The end user is the happiest as the price wars are prevalent

• Telecom in the present day holds low brand loyalty

Availability of Substitutes

• Advent of internet into the domain of mobile

• Due to high speed internet on mobiles the role of phone calls and short messages has
diminished

• Chief source of revenue is the inclusion of internet

Competitive Rivalry

• Indian telecom is a big pie being shared by many people

• The impact made by newer companies has led to a major price war among all the players

• The changes being brought forward are too many and those who adapt will survive
• Competitors of Airtel are flanking it from the side by trying out newer ways to woo the
customer

• Airtel works very similar to a bank which likes to have more money coming in through
valued customers rather than low cost urban connections.
 Recommendation

 Airtel can leverage to become market leader in 4G segment. Primarily the strategies focuses
to
 Increase 4G adoption among customers
 Changes required in market communication to attract 4G data users
 Overcoming barriers to 4G adoption and leveraging first mover advantage in 4G technology
to gain market leadership in 4G
 Winning customers for life (customer retention & increasing customer-lifetime value).
 Changing market communication to attract 4G data users.
 Associate Airtel 4G with F1 racing & sponsor other racing events.
 To capture market share in new phone purchases:
 Key partnerships with e-tailors, smart phones retailers (multi-brand) and mobile
manufacturers.
 Connecting with school going students early on, as they are the next, potential new phone
buyers.
 Strategies to Overcome these Barriers:
• Airtel can forge strategic partnership with mobile manufacturing companies to promote
Airtel 4G in Mobile device Exchange schemes, besides purchases of New Mobile phones
by providing opportunity to o Subscribe to (purchase) Airtel 4G USIM card (Non Airtel
Customers) o Switch to Airtel 4G USIM card.
• Airtel needs to take aggressive approach to promote 4G, to gain first mover advantage
and capture highest market share, before the competitors enter the market. For that Airtel
can o Offer free 4G data to its existing 2G and 3G customers (primarily 3G customers)
for a month and for longer period to customers having high 3G usage to make them
switch to 4G.

o Efficiently using the first mover advantage to convert its technological leadership into
Market leadership Airtel can:
• Come up with advertisements focusing on the benefits of 4G along with the price of 4G
which is similar to that of 3G.

Conclusion

Out of India’s over 1 billion mobile user base, only a little over 350 million users enjoy internet.
But this is set to change. India is on course to overtake US in terms of mobile users with 402
million users by the end of 2016. If the above-mentioned strategies are followed, Airtel stands
chance to capture a major chunk of this ever-growing mobile internet user base. Also Airtel can
also emerge as a pioneer in bringing 4G technology in India. Similar to India, Airtel, with a well
thought strategy, can capture Africa’s over 1 billion population as its prospective subscribers.
Till now, Airtel has well-established strategies to ‘Win Customers for Life’. A proper OGST
model helps companies realize its objectives and Airtel is one of those companies.