International Business

Assignment

Bharti Airtel in Africa

Submitted to
Prof R Sugant

Ankita Pawar – 17103

Jishnu Sudarshan – 17112
Saurav Rakshit – 17134
Shrinidhi M – 17136
Suman Kumar - 17138

Batch: 2017-19
1.Outline the staffing policy adopted by Bharti Airtel in Africa. What
are the advantages and disadvantages of adopting this policy?

Ans- At first, Bharti Airtel decided to move experienced Indian employees to Africa. They
basically followed the ethnocentric staffing approach. They felt that what they followed in
India would be beneficial in Africa as well. Later, gradually they planned to move towards
polycentric staffing approach.

In the long run, however they wanted the Africa business to be run primarily by Africans. But
they encountered a lack of skilled talent across the continent, though few Africans were exceled
in this particular area but they were rare and expensive. So Bharti Airtel decided to bring Indian
expats who can transfer their knowledge to the Africans and help develop local talent. The
company set up a partnership with business schools and other institutions, in order to train fresh
graduates in IT and Networks and middle managers in leadership, marketing, human resources
and other areas. They also implemented buddy programs between India and Africa, and sent
its African employees to India on short assignments and yearlong exchange programs, in order
to expose them to Indian distribution, partnership, and outsourcing models.

Advantages:
 Working with same kind of talent would result in effective coordination among the
management. There will be better alignment of interests and perspective of the home
office with the African subsidiary.
 Highly talented and skilled people will result in positive working environment where
they can train local employees and increase their efficiency.
 Communication would also become easier because there should be no language and
cultural barriers among the expertise and decision makers.

Disadvantages:
 Indians were reluctant to work in Africa, so it was difficult to convince them by paying
mobility-related packages, which was again a costlier affair.
 Cultural differences – African employees felt that Indians were used to putting in long
hours and working weekends, while people in Africa had more of a European mind-set,
and preferred a great balance between their professional and personal lives. The Indian
work culture, they felt, was one of multitasking, while in Africa, like Europe, people
preferred to focus on a single project at a time.
 Communication styles also differed across the regions. Bharti’s leaders felt that Indian
style of workplace communication was more direct than what the African team was
traditionally accustomed to.
 Movement of employees across the continents was time consuming and also very
expensive as several places lacked direct flights.
 Differences between Bharti’s Anglophone culture and its seven Francophone countries
also prevailed. The company relied on bilingual senior management to bridge the
language gap between its English-speaking leaders and its French-speaking employees.
All the above disadvantages led to several difficulties such as brand building,
miscommunications, disintegration of activities etc. The company had to customise its policies
in order to overcome these challenges.

2. Did the strategy of transferring people from Airtel and Zain

headquarters succeed in Africa? Justify your answer.

Ans- No, the strategy no transferring people from Airtel and Zain headquarters was not
successful in Africa.
The reasons for the failure was:
 Most of the Indian employee's dream of moving to Europe or America with promotion
but the decision of moving to Africa was quite difficult for them to the belief. They
become demotivated because of they are in fear that their career growth might slow
down with the transfer in Africa because most of the people in India think that Africa
was an underdeveloping nation.
 The Indian employees who were transferred to Africa did not involve in the operations
in Africa. They always talk among themselves in the native languages which created
difficulties for the African employees to understand. The Indian employees call anytime
to the African employees they don’t care about the local time in Africa.
 There were many cultural differences among the employees of Africa and India like
African employees don’t like to talk in a direct manner but the Indian employees
generally talk in a direct way or Indians generally focus of one work at a time but the
African employees are multi-tasking. So this kind of cultural difference usually
demotivated them to work.
 The leadership style of Indian employees and African employees are different which
create some misunderstanding between them.
 The mentality of the Zen employees are totally different from African employees as
Zen is from the Middle East.

3. What are the reasons for failure of foreign employees in Africa?

Ans- Foreign Employees especially the Indians did not find it quite exciting to move to Africa
in spite of America or Europe. Local Technical applicants for IT and other posts were limited
due to shortage of adequate skilled worker. If found a few Africans who excelled in the
previously mentioned area, they would charge exorbitantly high similar to foreign employees.
Yves Mayilamene, Chief HR of Airtel Africa suggested Indian employees to train the Africans
and help develop them but they faced various challenges for the proper functioning of the
Organization and that led to the failure of foreign employees in Africa. The reasons are stated
below-
 a) Work Culture Difference- Some Bharti executives felt that Indians were used to
putting in long hours and working weekends, while people in Africa had more of a
European mind-set, and preferred a greater balance between their professional and
personal lives. The Indian work culture, they felt, was one of multitasking, while in
Africa, like Europe, people preferred to focus on a single project at a time.
b) Communication Style Difference- Bharti’s leaders felt that the Indian style of
workplace communication was more direct than what the African team was
traditionally accustomed to. The Africans, they found, had a more emotional style of
communication. If an African is not enjoying his work environment, he will escape,
even if he has numbers to achieve. In Africa, if you connect emotionally with
somebody, he will give a hundred percent of himself, and will go the extra mile for you.
You will be able to keep him in the office overnight, without a problem. Africans have
strong pride, and if they are admonished in public, they will resign even if they do not
have a job.
c) Misunderstanding Due to Language- Bharti’s Indian employees in Africa preferred
to speak to each other in their native language, Hindi, in the initial days, unconsciously
shutting their African colleagues out of communications. African employees
complained about their Indian colleagues disturbing them early in the morning, and not
being sensitive to the differences in time zones between East and West Africa.
d) Extra responsibility- In almost all cases, the responsibilities of expats in emerging
countries will be larger than they are used to overseeing. Given the nature of emerging
countries in Southeast Asia, expatriates may supervise 5 to 10 times more people than
ever before.
e) Lack of interest to move to Africa- Foreign Employees especially Indian Executives
did not find it exciting to move to Airtel’s Africa Office. Indians always aspired to go
for Europe, USA etc for high payed jobs instead of Africa.

4. What are the factors that are responsible for success of a home
country employee in the host country?

Ans- One of the ways to reduce expatriate failure is by using Expatriate selection in which
there was improved selection procedures to select the most appropriate candidate by screening
out inappropriate candidates. The HR manager should consider few important aspects of human
nature while adapting to the work. It is not necessary for a person to perform the same in foreign
country as he does in the domestic country. According to Mendenhall and Oddou research,
there are 4 dimensions state the factors responsible for success of a home country employee in
the host country

 Self-orientation- Expatriates with high self-esteem, self-confidence, and mental well-

being are were more likely to succeed in foreign countries.
 Others-orientation- The more effectively the expatriate interacts with host-country
nationals the more likely he or she is to succeed.
  Perceptual ability- Expatriates who lack this ability tend to trea foreign nationals as if
country nationals. It is important to understand why people of other countries behave
the way they do.
 Cultural toughness- Expatriates who can adjust faster with unfamiliar and
uncomfortable cultures are the best fit for foreign postings.

b) The global mind-set- employees having a global mind-set will contribute to the
fundamental attribute of a global manger. Such managers can deal with high levels of
complexity and ambiguity and are open to the world. -

 Training for expatriate managers for the following areas which can even solve
problems for both managers and their spouses.
 Cultural training
 Language training
 Practical training

Based on the case, the measures which Barathi Airtel took are

 After the acquisition, the newly-formed Airtel Africa, led by Kohli, conducted a
workshop for 120 managers from across the continent, in Kampala, Uganda. They
worked with the ex-Zain team to co-create a vision for the continent, and identified and
recruited talent from within the company, into leadership positions. These individuals,
along with a team of approximately 80 expats transferred from India and 45 from Zain’s
headquarters at Bahrain, and a few others recruited from the outside, formed Bharti’s
core Africa team.

 Kohli and his team traveled around 16 African countries, including existing operations
at Seychelles, communicating their vision to all employees, and meeting with
government officials, distributers, financers, and other stakeholders. They streamlined
and integrated backend functions like accounting, quality assurance and human
resources on a common platform across South Asia and Africa. Finally, they began
efforts to outsource the company’s network, IT and customer service operations and
build a unified global brand, Airtel, across India and Africa.

 Mayilamene encouraged Indian expats to transfer their knowledge to the Africans and
help develop local talent, and incorporated people development as an important
component of performance appraisals. The company, in partnership with business
schools and other institutions, set up academies to train fresh graduates in IT and
Networks; and middle managers in leadership, marketing, human resources, and other
areas. Bharti also implemented buddy programs between India and Africa, and sent its
African employees to India on short assignments and yearlong exchange programs, in
order to expose them to Indian distribution, partnership, and outsourcing models. By
end 2011, over 200 African employees had visited India.

To eradicate cultural difference

 Bharti’s Human Resources team organized activities for people to get to know each
 other outside the workplace. They encouraged Indian executives to take their African
counterparts out to make them open up.

 The company also created a competitive compensation and bonus strategy,

benchmarking itself with global companies.

 These measures increased comfort and trust within the organization, and the stigma
associated with Indian employers being poor compensators has gone. The expectations
of the workforce were fair, honest and transparent. Even though the cultural integration
took longer than expected, the acceptability of the people to an Indian company has
been a positive surprise. Despite many initial challenges, in 18 months, there has been
a high degree of cultural integration.