Airtel: Ringing in the revolution

Introduction: Airtel is Indias largest integrated and the first private telecom
services provider with a footprint in all the telecom circles of India. Bharti
Airtel since its inception has been at the forefront of technology and
has steered the course of the telecom sector in the country
with its world class products and services. The businesses at
Bharti Airtel have been structured into Four individual strategic
business units (SBUs) - Mobile Services, Airtel Tele media
Services & Enterprise Services, Digital TV Services
Mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services
using GSM technology across telecom circles.
Airtel Tele media Services business offers broadband &
telephone services in 94 cities.
Enterprise services provide end-to-end telecom solutions
to corporate customers and national & international long
distance services to carriers.
Digital TV services provides Direct to Home Television
Services.
All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. For the
purpose of the study we will concentrate on Mobile Business
only.

Bharti Airtel Limited is an Indian global telecommunications services

company based in New Delhi, India. It operates in 18 countries across South
Asia and Africa. Airtel provides GSM, 3G and 4G LTE mobile services, fixed
line broadband and voice services depending upon the country of operation. It is
the largest mobile network operator in India and the third largest in the
world with 400 million subscribers. Airtel was named India's second most
valuable brand in the first ever Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and WPP
plc.

Airtel is credited with pioneering the business strategy of outsourcing all of its
business operations except marketing, sales and finance and building the
'minutes factory' model of low cost and high volumes. The strategy has since
been adopted by several operators. Airtel's equipment is provided and
maintained by Ericsson and Nokia Solutions and Networks whereas IT support
is provided by IBM. The transmission towers are maintained by subsidiaries and
joint venture companies of Bharti including Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers in
India.
Airtel was founded by Mr. Sunil Mittal who is the current MD and chairman
of the company. The company recorded a profit of $800 million in year 2016
with an operating revenue of $14 billion. There are more than 25,000 employees
working with the company.
When Airtel commenced their operations in India, price of outgoing call was as
high as 30 rs/min and even the incoming call was chargeable, Airtel continued
to record a significant growth due to its well-crafted and implemented
strategies. All these strategies helped Airtel to become a market leader.
Mission Hunger to win customers for life.
Vision- Our vision is to enrich the lives of our customers. Our obsession is to
win customers for life through an exceptional experience.
Tagline The smartphone Network.

Competitive advantage in the Marketing strategy of Airtel With the

formation of Indus tower & partnering with Idea & Vodafone for Indian
Operations, Airtel has extended its infrastructure in the extreme parts of the
country for nationwide penetration, creating competitive edge over other players
in terms of low operational cost, better network connectivity, coverage, low call
drops & better customer service.

Airtel developed a sustainable advantage through its excellent network of

telecom towers. In many locations, newer entrants found it cheaper to rent
Airtels existing infrastructure rather than setup new towers. Also, spending
extensively on advertising & promotions helped it to become a market leader.
Word of mouth is one of the strongest forms of promotions & Airtel has
completely leveraged that. Airtel is always known for its innovation and some
of its products were the lifetime

SEGMENTATION OF AIRTEL:
On the basis of Demographic variables
AGE
From age group 16 to 35
35 and above
 INCOME
Prepaid and postpaid
Geography
As it is mentioned above calling rates in India were too high at the initial days
so, during those days Airtel targeted affluent customers such as high class
professionals, businessmen etc. and when cellular services started penetrating
more and more in India they started focusing on other segments also, such as
students or youth. They launched special student plans and for youth they
launched a plan named FRIENDS.
Different geographic regions are handled independently and different campaigns
are run according to the preferences of people in each region.

Distribution strategy in the Marketing strategy of Airtel It has wide spread

simple and effective channel structure. Company uses 2-Tier & 3-tier
distribution network system.

Under 2-tier distribution network, company appoints UD (urban distributors) &

RS (Rural Suppliers). UD distribute the items to retailers according to the
demand & transfer easy balance to retailer through FOS (Field officer Sales)
SIM who work under UDs.

Under 3-tier distribution RS (rural supers) distributes the items to RD (Rural

Distributors) & transfer easy balance into RDs SIM, who then distribute it to
Retailers.

Apart from all these company also uses Airtel Relationship centres under
franchised model & company officials for corporate sales.

Five Forces Model of Indian Telecom Industry:

Competitive Rivalry:

The Competitive Rivalry in India is high and will continue to increase as

new players enter the industry.

The Competition is price and quality based. The entry of every new
customer brings with competition.

Supplier Power:
 Network Equipments: There Nokia Siemens, Ericsson, Huawei suppliers
the power of these suppliers are high and may impact the growth plan of
the operators if supplies are not smooth.

Tower Providers: Though the new share Towers but still the coverage
remains a problem due to few Tower providers Bargaining power of
Tower providers is High.

Handset Suppliers: Moto, Samsung, LG, Sony, iPhone and numerous

other players. The bargaining power of Handset Suppliers is less as they
are also competing amongst themselves

Overall, we can make out that the key supplies powers are high for Mobile
Industry

Buyer Power:

Switching cost is low: Number portability

The Voice and message based services are moving toward a commodity
as the competition now depends mostly on the prices as the services are
similar across the operators.

Buyers want more and more value-added service at cheaper prices

Threat of Substitutes:

The VOIP is getting popular for E.g. Skype, WhatsApp etc.

Video Conferencing is also getting popular

CDMA is another threat to GSM players

The threat of substitutes is high as alternate modes are much cheaper with
the similar quality and service
Potential for New Entrants:

The sharing business has reduced the capital requirement and thus
bringing down the capital requirement for new player.

The potential for new entrant is also high.

Even though there is a tough competition in the industry, Airtel still manages to
stay on the top of the ladder because of two main reasons: Its strong
connectivity and its adaptability and the way it fights with the competitors.