Customer Preference for mobile phone services in the city of Thiruvananthapuram

Study Conducted At

BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LIMITED Thiruvananthapuram

Submitted by

VISHNU VS 1012pgdmib058 Project submitted in partial fulfillment for the award of the Degree of Post Graduate Diploma in Management

INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISE, HYDERABAD 500 007

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this Project Report titled Customer Preference for mobile phone

services in the city of Thiruvananthapuram submitted by me to the Institute of Public

Enterprise is a bonafide work undertaken by me and it is not submitted to any other University or Institution for the award of any degree diploma/certificate or published any time before.

Signature of Student

Vishnu V.S

ABSTRACT
Customer behaviour during taking new mobile connections is a vast topic to study. In order to analyse the subject minutely the topic is being divided into three parts. First part of my project is all about designing a suitable questionnaire so that the various variable factors that the customer behaviour and their effectiveness in moulding the same can be studied. The next part is dedicated to selection a suitable sample size of customers using mobile connections and taking their feedback through the questionnaire. Well in the last part of my study is devoted on doing the analysis and interpretation from the feedback collected from the respondents. Then application of suitable statistical tool is decided on to arrive at some results. Based on these results, a conclusion will be drawn thereafter which will stand as an ultimate result of my study in the concerned field so called CUSTOMER PREFERENCE FOR MOBILE PHONE SERVICES IN THE CITY OF THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

The services structure can be renewed based on the provide suggestions and recommendations which can help to increase the client base and increase the market share in the concerned field as the findings will basically revolve around the most favoured services by the investors and locate the core areas where the services can be improved further according to the market demand.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To complete a task all you required is some hard work and efforts, but with a blend of these two you also need the support of many. So first of all I would like to thank my greatest source of support, my GOD for giving me the strength and confidence to complete the same. Im truly thankful to him for showering his blessings on me time to time. I express my sincere gratitude to Mr.Babu (Divisional Manager, BSNL) for giving me this opportunity to work in the organization as well as for providing the necessary infrastructure and facilitating me with adequate information for the successful completion of the project. Next, I would also like to thank Prof. RAMA KRISHNA, Institute of Public Enterprise in a special way for giving his valuable time and inputs to the project. His encouragement and ideas helped me to continue my work without any hassles and also come out with new ideas about the project.

Vishnu V.S

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Chapter I
INTRODUCTION OF THE TOPIC i) Abstract 1 ii) Introduction Of Topic iii) Customer Buying Behaviour iv) Customer Buying Process v) Marketing Research Process

II. Chapter II
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE OF THE COMPANY i) Background of the Company ii) Position of BSNL in Telecom sector iii) SWOT Analysis iv) Balance Sheet Of Telecom Industry- Service Providers v) History of the BSNL vi) Organisational Chart vii) Products Offered viii) Marketing Strategies ix) Present & Future Of BSNL x) Competitors

III. Chapter III i) Research Methodology ii) Tools and techniques of analysis iii) Limitations of the Study iv) Data Analysis & Interpretation IV. Chapter IV
i) Findings ii) Suggestions iii) Conclusion

V. ANNEXURE
i) Questionnaire 1 ii) Questionnaire 2 iii) Bibliography

LIST OF TABLES

i. Customer preference towards service providers ii. On the basis of marital status iii. On the basis of Educational Qualification iv. On the basis of Occupation of the respondents v. Influencing factors of purchasing mobile connection vi. On the basis of purpose for purchase of mobile connection vii. On the basis of influencing factors for purchasing mobile viii. Customers attitude towards importance of having mobile ix. On the basis of income (per month) x. Customers satisfaction on the performance of the service providers xi. On the basis of usefulness of mobile connection xii. On the basis of periodical offers given by the service providers

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
As the title of my project is Customer Preference for the mobile phone services in the city of Thiruvananthapuram first of all we need to understand that What is customer buying behaviour? Before business can develop marketing strategies, they must understand what factors influence buyers behaviour and how they make purchase decisions to satisfy their needs and wants. Buyers are moved by a complex set of deep and subtle emotions. Their behaviour result from deeply held values and attitudes; their perception of the world and their place in it, from common sense, impulse or just plain whimsy. There are also several stages through which the customer exhibit before deciding to purchase goods or services. These include 5 steps which are: problem or need recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase and post-purchase evaluation.

OBJECTIVE 1. To ascertain the attributes which influenced the customers in selecting a particular cell phone services provider. 2. To study the consumers satisfaction towards different cellular service providers. 3. To assess the general problems faced by the cellular service users. 4. To offer valuable suggestions to improve the customer base of BSNL.

Need of the study: Exchange of information becomes the necessity of life to a common man. In the modern world an individual tends to communicate anything to everything right from the place where he/she stands. Even while riding a vehicle he / she wants to communicate within a fraction of second at quick speed with clear voice, without any disturbance like line crossing, out of order, etc. ; most of which lack in the connectivity given by the department of telecommunication. Cellular service providers emerge as a boon quench such a thirst, thus by providing facilities, which a common man cannot imagine. Though the telecom industry has its origin in the recent past and the growth has been excellent. Day by day many new competitors enter the market with new attractive schemes, provide additional facilities, add new features to existing ones, reduce the

charges of incoming and outgoing calls, introduce varieties of handsets, models a healthy competition that benefits the subscribers. Hence in this context, it is important to study the various attributes or factors which shape the customers mind during taking or switching over to new mobile connections. In terms of value- addition to the organization, this study will definitely help the Company to grow in future. As, we all are aware of the fact that a fierce competition is going on, in order to stay alive in the market place. In this situation, one competitor tries to penetrate through the loop holes of the other competitor. This project will visualize all sorts of loop holes which the BSNL possesses right now and will also give a complete insight to all types of problems such as, whether the products & services are competent enough to fight back their competitors products & services or not. Scope of this study: The present study is contained to Thiruvananthapuram and it is decided to consider Airtel, BSNL and other cell phone service rendered to the customers. In Thiruvananthapuram there are nine cellular services available - Airtel, Aircel, BSNL, Tata Indicom, Vodafone, Reliance, Idea, Virgin and Uninor. The main objectives of this study is to analyse the customer behaviour during taking new mobile connections and customers of different cellular service providers of Thiruvananthapuram city has been taken for the current research work. Statement of problem In our country the growth of service marketing especially telecom industry is still in its infancy stage, as compared to the industrially advanced countries. It is for the fact that the economy of our country has been in the developing stage. There are various cellular service services providers in our country and they are playing an essential role in fulfilling the needs of the customers. Now-a-days, the customers are more dynamic. Their taste, needs and preference can be changing as per current scenario. Hence the development of cellular industry mainly depends on the customer satisfaction. However the following questions may arise regarding customer satisfaction 1. Does the cell industry satisfy the social responsibility? 2. What are the expectations by the customers regarding service provided by the cell phone service provider?

3. Whether the service provided by cell phone industry is satisfying the customers? 4. Are the facilities available adequate to satisfy the customers?

IMPORTANCE OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION The needs to satisfy customer for success in any commercial enterprise is very obvious. The income of all commercial enterprise is derived from the payments received for the products and services supplied to its customers. If there is no customer there is no income and there is no business. Then the core activity of any company is to attract and retain customers. It is therefore no surprise that Peter F Drucker the renowned management Guru, has said to satisfy the customers is the mission and purpose of every business. Satisfaction of customer is essential for retention of customers and for continuous sales of the products and services of the company to customers. This establishes the needs for and the importance of customer satisfaction. The satisfaction of customers is different from one to another. Became, each customer has the different behaviour in their life. So, the marketer satisfies the customer, he must very well know the behaviour of customer. CUSTOMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR Customer behaviour refers to the mental and emotional process and the observable behaviour of customers during searching, purchasing and post consumption of a product or service. Customer behaviour involves study of how people buy, what they buy, when they buy and why they buy. It blends the elements from psychology, sociology, socio-psychology, anthropology and economics. It also tries to assess the influence on the customer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups and society in general. Buyer behaviour has two aspects: the final purchase activity visible to any observer and the detailed or short decision process that may involve the interplay of a number of complex variables not visible to anyone.

FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMER BUYING BEHAVIOR Customer buying behaviour is influenced by the major three factors: Social Factors

Psychological Factors Personal Factors.

Social Factors Social factors refer to forces that other people exert and which affect customers purchase behaviour. These social factors can include culture and subculture, roles and family, social class and reference groups. Example: By taking into consideration Reference group, these can influence/ affect the customer buying behaviour. Reference group refers to a group with whom an individual identifies herself/ himself and the extent to which that person assumes many values, attitudes or behaviour of group members. Reference groups can be family, school or college, work group, club membership, citizenship etc. Reference groups serve as one of the primary agents of customer socialization and learning and can be influential enough to induce not only socially acceptable customer behaviour but also socially unacceptable and even personal destructive behaviour. For example, if fresher student joins a college / university, he/she will meet different people and form a group, in that group there can be behaviour patterns of values, for example style of clothing, handsets which most of group member prefer or even destructive behaviour such as excessive consumption of alcohol, use of harmful and addictive drugs etc. So, according to how an individual references him / her to that particular reference group, this will influence and change his/her buying behaviour. Psychological Factors These are internal to an individual and generate forces within that influence her/his purchase behaviour. The major forces include motives, perception, learning, attitude and personality. Example: Attitude is an enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of our environment. Customer form attitude towards a brand on the basis of their beliefs about the brand. For example, customers of Sony products might have the belief that the products offered by Sony are durable; this will influence those customers to buy Sony products due to this attitude towards the brand.

Personal Factors These include those aspects that are unique to a person and influence purchase behaviour. These factors include demographic factors, lifestyle, and situational factors.

Example: Lifestyle is an indicator of how people live and express themselves on the basis of their activities, interests, and opinions. Lifestyle dimension provide a broader view of people about how they spend their time the importance of things in their surroundings and their beliefs on broad issues associated with life and living and themselves. This is influenced by demographic factors and personality. Example: A CEO or Manager is likely to buy more formal clothes, ties and shoes or PDAs and less informal clothes like jeans as compared to a Mechanic or Civil engineer. So according to their lifestyle and profession, the buying behaviour of people differs from one another.

CONSUMER BUYING DECISION PROCESS Consumer buying decision process is the processes undertaken by consumer in regard to a potential market transaction before, during and after the purchase of a product or service. Consumer decision making process generally involves five stages-: Problem Recognition, Information Search, Alternatives evaluation, Purchase Action, Post-purchase Actions

Problem Recognition Purchase decision making process begins when a buyer becomes aware of an unsatisfied need or problem. This is the vital stage in buying decision process, because without recognizing the need or want, an individual would not seek to buy goods or service. There are several situations that can

Example: Its when a person recognizes that she cannot make a call from her mobile phone thats when she recognizes that her phone has been damaged i.e. the phone has hardware problems and needs to be repaired or buying a new piece. Information Search After the consumer has recognized the need, he / she will try to find the means to solve that need. First he will recall how he used to solve such kind of a problem in the past, this is called nominal decision making. Secondly, a consumer will try to solve the problem by asking a friend or goes to the market to seek advice for which product will best serve his need, this is called limited decision making.
Sources of information include:

Personal sources Commercial Sources Public sources Personal experience

Example: (continuing from previous) The user of the phone after recognizing that his phone is damaged, he will eventually try to find out how she can repair her phone. If he cannot repair it himself he will ask a friend to help out, if the friend cannot solve the problem he will go to mobile repair shop, if they also cannot repair it then he will try to find which mobile phone is good and that can serve his need. In this process of information collection it will yield awareness of set of brands of mobile connections he can buy. Alternatives evaluation Customers evaluates criteria refer to various dimension; features, characteristics and benefits that a customer desires to solve a certain problem. Product features and its benefit is what influence customer to prefer that particular product. The customer will decide which product to buy from a set of alternative products depending on each unique feature that the product offers and the benefit he / she can get out of that feature. Example: (continuing from previous) When that user got enough information concerning the different brands of mobile connections available in the market, she will decide which kind of a mobile phone and brand shes going to buy depending upon her need for that particular mobile, either a mobile for multimedia and entertainment, Smartphone or classic phone. Purchase Action This stage involves selection of brand and the retail outlet to purchase such a product. Retail outlet image and its location are important. Customer usually prefers a nearby retail outlet for minor shopping and they can willingly go to a far away store when they purchase items which are of higher values and which involve higher sensitive purchase decision. After selecting where to buy and what to buy, the customer completes the final step of transaction by either cash or credit. Example: (continuing from previous) After selecting brand of the phone and model from different alternatives of mobile connections, she will make a final decision of where to buying that phone and make the final transaction procedures.

Post-purchase Actions Customer favourable post-purchase evaluation leads to satisfaction.

Satisfaction with the purchase is basically a function of the initial performance level expectation and perceived performance relative to those expectations. Customer tends to evaluate their wisdom on the purchase of that particular product. This can result to customer experiencing post purchase dissatisfaction. If the customers perceived performance level is below expectation and fail to meet satisfaction this will eventually cause dissatisfaction, and so the brand and/ or the outlet will not be considered by the customer in the future purchases. This might cause the customer to initiate complaint behaviour and spread negative word-of-mouth concerning that particular product. Example: (continuing from previous) If she decided to buy a multimedia phone she will try to compare the quality of music it provides and pictures taken if they meet her expectations. If she will find that her expectation are meeting she will be satisfied, if she found that there are more additional features that she did not expect this mobile phone to have, she will be delighted, otherwise, she will be dissatisfied. Since my title is Customer behaviour during taking new mobile connections, I need to do the survey of existing/new customers of the service of different cellular service providers. Hence, my project is totally based on comparative analysis of different attributes shaping the customer behaviour during taking new mobile connections. Till date I have completed the survey of 150 customers of different cellular service providers and I got many Suggestions & Recommendations from the customers.

MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

1. Define the problem 2. Determine research design 3. Identify data types and sources 4. Design data collection forms and questionnaires 5. Determine sample plan and size 6. Collect the data 7. Analyse and interpret the data

8. Prepare the research report

Problem Definition The decision problem faced by management must be translated into a market research problem in the form of questions that define the information that is required to make the decision and how this information can be obtained. Thus, the decision problem is translated into a research problem. For example, a decision problem may be whether to launch a new product. The corresponding research problem might be to assess whether the market would accept the new product. The objective of the research should be defined clearly. To ensure that the true decision problem is addressed, it is useful for the researcher to outline possible scenarios of the research results and then for the decision maker to formulate plans of action under each scenario. The use of such scenarios can ensure that the purpose of the research is agreed upon before it commences.

Research Design
Marketing research can be classified in one of three categories:

Exploratory research Descriptive research Causal research

These classifications are made according to the objective of the research. In some cases the research will fall into one of these categories, but in other cases different phases of the same research project will fall into different categories.

Exploratory research has the goal of formulating problems more precisely, clarifying concepts, gathering explanations, gaining insight, eliminating impractical ideas, and forming hypotheses. Exploratory research can be performed using a literature search, surveying certain people about their experiences, focus groups, and case studies. When surveying people, exploratory research studies would not try to acquire a representative sample, but rather, seek to interview those who are knowledgeable and who might be able to provide insight concerning the relationship among variables. Case studies can include contrasting situations or benchmarking against an organization known for its excellence. Exploratory research may develop hypotheses, but it does not seek to test them. Exploratory research is characterized by its flexibility.

Descriptive research is more rigid than exploratory research and seeks to describe users of a product, determine the proportion of the population that uses a product, or predict future demand for a product. As opposed to exploratory research, descriptive research should define questions, people surveyed, and the method of analysis prior to beginning data collection. In other words, the who, what, where, when, why, and how aspects of the research should be defined. Such preparation allows one the opportunity to make any required changes before the costly process of data collection has begun. There are two basic types of descriptive research: longitudinal studies and cross-sectional studies. Longitudinal studies are time series analyses that make repeated measurements of the same individuals, thus allowing one to monitor behaviour such as brand-switching. However, longitudinal studies are not necessarily representative since many people may refuse to participate because of the commitment required. Cross-sectional studies sample the population to make measurements at a specific point in time. A special type of cross-sectional analysis is a cohort analysis, which tracks an aggregate of individuals who experience the same event within the same time interval over time. Cohort analyses are useful for long-term forecasting of product demand. Causal research seeks to find cause and effect relationships between variables. It accomplishes this goal through laboratory and field experiments.

Data Types and Sources

Secondary Data Before going through the time and expense of collecting primary data, one should check for secondary data that previously may have been collected for other purposes but that can be used in the immediate study. Secondary data may be internal to the firm, such as sales invoices and warranty cards, or may be external to the firm such as published data or commercially available data. The government census is a valuable source of secondary data. Secondary data has the advantage of saving time and reducing data gathering costs. The disadvantages are that the data may not fit the problem perfectly and that the accuracy may be more difficult to verify for secondary data than for primary data. Some secondary data is republished by organizations other than the original source. Because errors can occur and important explanations may be missing in republished data, one should obtain secondary data directly from its source. One also should consider who the source is and whether the results may be biased. There are several criteria that one should use to evaluate secondary data.

Whether the data is useful in the research study. How current the data is and whether it applies to time period of interest. Errors and accuracy - whether the data is dependable and can be verified. Presence of bias in the data. Specifications and methodologies used, including data collection method, response rate, quality and analysis of the data, sample size and sampling technique, and questionnaire design.

Objective of the original data collection. Nature of the data, including definition of variables, units of measure, categories used, and relationships examined.

Primary Data Often, secondary data must be supplemented by primary data originated specifically for the study at hand. Some common types of primary data are:

Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics Psychological and lifestyle characteristics Attitudes and opinions Awareness and knowledge - for example, brand awareness Intentions - for example, purchase intentions. While useful, intentions are not a reliable indication of actual future behaviour. Motivation - a person's motives are more stable than his/her behaviour, so motive is a better predictor of future behaviour than is past behaviour.

Primary data can be obtained by communication or by observation. Communication involves questioning respondents either verbally or in writing. This method is versatile, since one needs only to ask for the information; however, the response may not be accurate. Communication usually is quicker and cheaper than observation. Observation involves the recording of actions and is performed by either a person or some mechanical or electronic device. Observation is less versatile than communication since some attributes of a person may not be readily observable, such as attitudes, awareness, knowledge, intentions, and motivation. Observation also might take longer since observers may have to wait for appropriate events to occur, though observation using scanner

data might be quicker and more cost effective. Observation typically is more accurate than communication. Personal interviews have an interviewer bias that mail-in questionnaires do not have. For example, in a personal interview the respondent's perception of the interviewer may affect the responses.

Questionnaire Design
The questionnaire is an important tool for gathering primary data. Poorly constructed questions can result in large errors and invalidate the research data, so significant effort should be put into the questionnaire design. The questionnaire should be tested thoroughly prior to conducting the survey.

Measurement Scales
Attributes can be measured on nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales:

Nominal numbers are simply identifiers, with the only permissible mathematical use being for counting. Example: social security numbers. Ordinal scales are used for ranking. The interval between the numbers conveys no meaning. Median and mode calculations can be performed on ordinal numbers. Example: class ranking Interval scales maintain an equal interval between numbers. These scales can be used for ranking and for measuring the interval between two numbers. Since the zero point is arbitrary, ratios cannot be taken between numbers on an interval scale; however, mean, median, and mode are all valid. Example: temperature scale Ratio scales are referenced to an absolute zero value, so ratios between numbers on the scale are meaningful. In addition to mean, median, and mode, geometric averages also are valid. Example: weight

Sampling Plan
The sampling frame is the pool from which the interviewees are chosen. The telephone book is often used as a sampling frame, but has some shortcomings. Telephone books exclude those households that do not have telephones and those households with unlisted numbers. Since a certain percentage of the numbers listed in a phone book are out of service, there are many people who have just moved who are not sampled. Such sampling biases can be overcome by using random

digit dialling. Mall intercepts represent another sampling frame, though there are many people who do not shop at malls and those who shop more often will be over-represented unless their answers are weighted in inverse proportion to their frequency of mall shopping. In designing the research study, one should consider the potential errors. Two sources of errors are random sampling error and non-sampling error. Sampling errors are those due to the fact that there is a non-zero confidence interval of the results because of the sample size being less than the population being studied. Non-sampling errors are those caused by faulty coding, untruthful responses, respondent fatigue, etc. There is a trade off between sample size and cost. The larger the sample size, the smaller the sampling error but the higher the cost. After a certain point the smaller sampling error cannot be justified by the additional cost. While a larger sample size may reduce sampling error, it actually may increase the total error. There are two reasons for this effect. First, a larger sample size may reduce the ability to follow up on non-responses. Second, even if there is a sufficient number of interviewers for follow-ups, a larger number of interviewers may result in a less uniform interview process.

Data Collection
In addition to the intrinsic sampling error, the actual data collection process will introduce additional errors. These errors are called non-sampling errors. Some non-sampling errors may be intentional on the part of the interviewer, who may introduce a bias by leading the respondent to provide a certain response. The interviewer also may introduce unintentional errors, for example, due to not having a clear understanding of the interview process or due to fatigue. Respondents also may introduce errors. A respondent may introduce intentional errors by lying or simply by not responding to a question. A respondent may introduce unintentional errors by not understanding the question, guessing, not paying close attention, and being fatigued or distracted. Such non-sampling errors can be reduced through quality control techniques.

Data Analysis - Preliminary Steps

Before analysis can be performed, raw data must be transformed into the right format. First, it must be edited so that errors can be corrected or omitted. The data must then be coded; this procedure converts the edited raw data into numbers or symbols. A codebook is created to document how the data was coded. Finally, the data is tabulated to count the number of samples falling into various categories. Simple tabulations count the occurrences of each variable independently of the other

variables. Cross tabulations, also known as contingency tables or cross tabs, treats two or more variables simultaneously. However, since the variables are in a two-dimensional table, cross tabbing more than two variables is difficult to visualize since more than two dimensions would be required. Cross tabulation can be performed for nominal and ordinal variables. Cross tabulation is the most commonly utilized data analysis method in marketing research. Many studies take the analysis no further than cross tabulation. This technique divides the sample into sub-groups to show how the dependent variable varies from one subgroup to another. A third variable can be introduced to uncover a relationship that initially was not evident.

Marketing Research Report

The format of the marketing research report varies with the needs of the organization. The report often contains the following sections:

Authorization letter for the research Table of Contents List of illustrations Executive summary Research objectives Methodology Results Limitations Conclusions and recommendations Appendices containing copies of the questionnaires, etc.

CHAPTER - II ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE

ABOUT BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LIMITED

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. formed in October, 2000, is World's 7th largest

Telecommunications Company providing comprehensive range of telecom services in India: Wire line, CDMA mobile, GSM Mobile, Internet, Broadband, Carrier service, MPLS-VPN, VSAT, VoIP services, IN Services etc. Presently it is one of the largest & leading public sector units in India. BSNL has installed Quality Telecom Network in the country and now focusing on improving it, expanding the network, introducing new telecom services with ICT applications in villages and wining customer's confidence. Today, it has about 46 million line basic telephone capacity, 8 million WLL capacity, 52 Million GSM Capacity, more than 38302 fixed exchanges, 46565 BTS, 3895 Node B ( 3G BTS), 287 Satellite Stations, 614755 Rkm of OFC Cable, 50430 Rkm of Microwave Network connecting 602 Districts, 7330 cities/towns and 5.6 Lakhs villages.

BSNL is the only service provider, making focused efforts and planned initiatives to bridge the Rural-Urban Digital Divide ICT sector. In fact there is no telecom operator in the country to beat its reach with its wide network giving services in every nook & corner of country and operates across India except Delhi & Mumbai. Whether it is inaccessible areas of Siachen glacier and North-eastern region of the country. BSNL serves its customers with its wide bouquet of telecom services. BSNL is numero uno operator of India in all services in its license area. The company offers vide ranging & most transparent tariff schemes designed to suite every customer. BSNL cellular service, CellOne, has 55,140,282 2G cellular customers and 88,493 3G customers as on 30.11.2010. In basic services, BSNL is miles ahead of its rivals, with 35.1 million Basic Phone subscribers i.e. 85 per cent share of the subscriber base and 92 percent share in revenue terms. BSNL has more than 2.5 million WLL subscribers and 2.5 million Internet Customers who access Internet through various modes viz. Dial-up, Leased Line, DIAS, and Account Less Internet (CLI). BSNL has been adjudged as the NUMBER ONE ISP in the country. BSNL has set up a world class multi-gigabit, multi-protocol convergent IP infrastructure that provides convergent services like voice, data and video through the same Backbone and Broadband Access Network. At present there are 0.6 million Data One broadband customers. The company has vast experience in Planning, Installation, network integration and Maintenance of Switching & Transmission Networks and also has a world class ISO 9000 certified Telecom Training Institute.

Scaling new heights of success, the present turnover of BSNL is more than Rs.351, 820 million (US $ 8 billion) with net profit to the tune of Rs.99, 390 million (US $ 2.26 billion) for last financial year. The infrastructure asset on telephone alone is worth about Rs.630, 000 million (US $ 14.37 billion). The turnover, nationwide coverage, reach, comprehensive range of telecom services and the desire to excel has made BSNL the No. 1 Telecom Company of India.

VISION
To become the largest telecom Service Provider

MISSION
To provide world class State-of-art technology telecom services on demand at affordable price.To Provide world class telecom infrastructure to develop country's economy.

HISTORY
Telecommunication is one of the most important infrastructures required for the modern life. Telephone instrument, which has the capability of practical use, has been introduced in 1876. The first telephone exchange was established at New Haven, in 1878. After that, two telephone companies arose and they are: The Oriental Telephone Company Limited and the Anglo-Indian Telephone Company. By 1881, Government of India granted original oriental Telephone Company, the license to open Telephone exchanges at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Karachi and Ahmedabad. The first telephone exchange with 17 connections was commissioned on 19/08/1881 at Chennai. By the end of the year 1881 the telephone exchange expanded to 24 lines with 40 subscribers. The direct exchange lines moved from 24 in 1882 to only 350 in 1910. At the time of renewal of license in 1922, the Government laid three conditions:o The business should pass in to local company. o The system should be modernized. o The rates have to be raised. Under the first objective a RUPEE Company was formed in 1923 in the name of MADRAS TELEPHONE COMPANY LIMITED. Since then, the direct exchange line rose to 1244 lines,

apart from 1224 subscribers, public call offices were also opened at five places namely, Central station, Egmore station, Madras Harbor, Salt Cotars. To overcome the problem of overhead lines, underground cable network were laid up to Guindy in 1923 and extended to Perambur, Royapuram and Harbour in 1932 and the exchange lines also raised to 1832. Due to the automation of telephone services and its use for business promotion, the demand for telephone connection spread over the South Madras area. In 1929, a satellite automatic exchange of 200 lines capacity was commissioned at Mount Road exchange In 1932 the exchange was further expanded Perceiving a galloping growth in future, the Madras Telephone Company conceived a New Mount Road with 1500 lines in 1933 that was commissioned only in 1947. Due to the increase in the demand for more telephones in South Madras area, the company decided to open one satellite exchange in the Mambalam area. A Satellite exchange of 500 lines capacity was commissioned during 1937. In 1944, a 100 lines satellite exchange was commissioned at St. Thomas Mount. The Chennai Telephones organization consisting of 115 telephone exchanges with a total equipped capacity of 9, 68,243 lines are spread over an area of 1,105 sq. km. The management responsibility is vested with the Chief General Manager, Telephones. He is assisted by 6 General Managers: G.M. (Development, GM (North), GM (South), G.M. (Central), G.M (Telephone Exchanges) and G.M. (Finance) 33 Deputy General Managers in the common functions and 5 directors in the area of Financial Advice and Accounting. The Exchanges and the external plants are maintained by specially trained Divisional Engineers, Sub Divisional Engineers, Junior Telecom Officers and Technical Staff, who receive purpose oriented training in Telecom training centers situated in different parts of the country. They are also given refresher training from time to time to update their knowledge and skills in the changing technologies increasingly brought into the Telecom Services.

Telephone systems in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay were taken over directly by the Indian Posts and TeleCHARTs department. The exchange at Calcutta has been named as Central Exchange. On 30.6.1882 it had 93 numbers of subscribers. In 1985, Indian P&T was bifurcated and the control of telephone has been transferred to Department Of Telecom. Now recently in 1999, DOT was further bifurcated into DOT and DTS service provider, which was incorporated as BSNL from 1.10.2000.

Particulars of organisation

Date of incorporation: Incorporated on 15.9.2000, vide Registration No.55-107739, dated the 15th September, 2000 and became entitled to commence business with effect from 19th September, 2000. The Company (BSNL) took over the .business of providing telecom services and network management throughout the country except the metro cities of Delhi and Mumbai of the erstwhile service providing departments of the Govt. of India, i.e., the Departments of Telecom Services and Telecom Operations w.e.f. 1.10.2000 pursuant to a MoU signed between the BSNL and the Govt. of India.

Type of Company:Government Company under Section 617 of the Companies Act, 1956.

Administrative Ministry:Govt. of India, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Department of Telecommunications.

Details of Disinvestments:The entire share capital of the Company is held by the Govt. of India.

Shareholding pattern: Government of India is holding 100% of the share capital of the Company.

Listing with Stock Exchanges: Not applicable, as the BSNL is an unlisted company.

ShareCapital: Authorised CapitalRs.17, 500 crores, divided into 1,000,00,00,000[One Thousand Crores] Equity Shares of Rs.10/- each; and 750, 00, 00,000 [Seven Hundred and Fifty Crores] Preference Shares of Rs.10/- each. Paid Up Share Capital - Rs.5, 000/- crores of Equity Shares and Rs.7, 500/- crores of Preference Share Capital Objectives of the Company: As set out in the objects clause of the Companys Memorandum of Association. BSNLs POSITIONING IN TELECOM INDUSTRY To understand and suggest how strategic management can help BSNL the first thing is to understand the Telecom industry environment and the stakeholders involved. Apart from having to cope with the change in structure and culture (government to corporate), BSNL has had to gear itself to meet competition in various segments basic services, long distance (LD), and

International Long Distance (ILD), and Internet Service Provision (ISP), and Mobile services. With the advent of competition the private operators have been impacting the strategic matrix by influencing regulatory bodies, adopting intelligent media strategies, and by targeting the creamy layer of customers. While, political control over the public sector remains a contentious strategic issue in the country; with the formation of a company, the internal strategy of the BSNL board will be of gaining considerable autonomy. Labour unions are powerful internal stakeholders, as are the middle managers/ other staff that have the primary responsibility for customer care. The following stakeholders diagram gives an insight about the changing telecom industry environment for BSNL DEPARTMENT OF TELECOM (DOT) Governments policymaking, Licensing and co-ordination of matters relating to telephone service, international relations, promotion of private investment in telecom. Frequency management in radio communication, Nodal department for TRAI, control of ITI and HTL etc BSNL (DTS) DTS is the part of the old DOT, which is responsible for providing telecom services in India. The main function include: - Planning, Engineering, Installation, Maintenance Management, and Operation of voice and Non-voice Telecommunication Services all over the country.

DOTS MISSION IS BETTER COMMUNICATION DOT is committed to provide latest in telecommunication technology and the best of the services to its esteemed customers. Madras Telephones covers an extensive area of approximately 1,105 sq. kms. The total area is served by 115 telephone exchanges with a total equipped capacity of 9,68,243 lines of the capacity of EIOB, 15395 lines of EWSD, 133480 lines of AXE-10, 340484 lines of OBC, 25000 lines of FITEX and 78992 of 5ESS. DOT/BSNL is the biggest telecom service provider of the country. It is having a vast telecom network, spread throughout the country. All the cities (300) and Towns (4689) in the country as per 1991 census have access to the telephone network through telephone exchanges. STD connectivity is provided to all the District Headquarters and it is planned to extend the same to cover all the SubDivisional headquarters/Tehsil Head Quarters. About 19000 places in the country have STD codes/access. The network is equipped with the state of the art technologies. Now all the exchange in urban and rural areas of country is of Electronic Digital type. In rural area almost all telephone exchanges are of Electronics Digital type.

The Network of BSNL can be segmented in to following networks: Telephone Network or Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) Telex and TeleCHART Network Transmission Network Leased Line Network Data Network Satellite Based Network

ORGANISATION CHART
The Organizational hierarchy with respect to the Department of Telecommunication BSNL is

MAIN SERVICES OFFERED

1. BASIC AND LIMITED MOBILE TELEPHONE SERVICES BSNL is the leading service provider in the country in the Basic Telephone Services. As of now more than 35 million Direct Exchange Lines & more than 2.2.Million telephones in the Limited Mobile telephone Services are existing. BSNL has provides a number of attractive tariff packages & Plans which shall further strengthen its subscriber base.

2. CELLULAR MOBILE TELEPHONE SERVICES BSNLs GSM Technology based Cellular Network reached a long way, covering 20,836 cities/towns with a subscriber base of over 4.67 Crores as on 31st March 2010 out of which 4.31 crores cellular telephone are in pre-paid segment

3. INTERNET SERVICES BSNL offers Dialup Internet services to the customers by Post-paid service with the brand name Netone, and pre-paid service with the brand name Sancharnet. The post-paid service is a CLI based access service, currently operational in 100 cities. Sancharnet is available on local call basis throughout India to ISDN and PSTN subscribers. The Internet Dhaba scheme of the Company aims to further promote Internet usage in rural and semi urban areas. To keep pace with the latest and varied value added services to its customers, BSNL uses IP/MPLS based core to offer world class IP VPN services. MPLS based VPNs is a very useful service for Corporates, as it reduces the cost involved as well as the complexity in setting up VPNs for customers networking. As on 31.03.2005, your Companys total Internet customer base was 17,98,089 and total Internet Dhabas were 4143. A total of 708594 dial up Internet connections have been given during 2004-2005, against a target of 7 lakhs. BSNL plans to give 1215980 more dial up connections during the year 2005-06. As on 31.1.2006, there were 2367404 internet subscribers working in BSNL net work.

4. Intelligent Network Intelligent Network Services is a service that incorporates several value added facilities, thoroughly designed to save time and money, and enhance productivity. At present, your company offers Free Phone (FPH), Premium Rate Service (PRM), India Telephone Card (ITC), Account Card Calling (ACC), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Universal Access Number (UAN) and Tele voting IN services. With the commissioning of five numbers of new technology IN Platforms (Four General

purpose and One Mass Calling) at Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad, the India Telephone Card facility and new value added services are being provided throughout the country. Activation of these new IN platforms had increased the sale of ITC Cards taking the figure to Rs.265 crores in 2004-05 alone.

5. BROADBAND SERVICES BSNL has launched its broadband services under brand name BSNL BROADBAND on 14-0105. This offers High Speed Internet Access with speed ranging from 256 Kbps to 8 Mbps. Ever since its inception BSNL is continuously expanding its broadband network in response to ever growing demand of broadband service throughout India Present customer base is 3.56 million, with equipped capacity of 6.1 million. BSNL Broadband service is available in more than 3800 cities & 83000 villages The services provided are: High Speed Internet Connectivity (up to 8 Mbps) Band width on Demand (planned) Virtual Private Network (VPN) service over broadband Dial VPN services to MPLS VPN customers IPTV services (at present available in 66 cities) Games on Demand Service Video tutoring service VOIP Video Surveillance service

Entertainment portal. Products

BSNL LANDLINE BSNL MOBILE
POSTPAID PREPAID UNIFIED MESSAGING GPRS/WAP/MMS DEMOs TARIFF

BSNL WLL INTERNET SERVICES

NETWORK BROADBAND WI-FI CO-LOCATION SERVICE BSNL WEB HOSTING DIAL UP INTERNET SMS& BULK SMS

BSNL BROADBAND BSNL MANAGED NETWORK SERVICES BSNL MPLS-VPN ISDN LEASED LINE INTELLIGENT NETWORK

o o o o o o o o

FREE PHONE SERVICE PREMIUM RATE SERVICE INDIA TELEPHONE CARD VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK (VPN) VOICE VPN UNIVERSAL NUMBER UNIVERSAL PERSONAL NUMBER TELE VOTING

o o o o
o o o

VIDEO CONFERENCING AUDIO CONFERENCING TELEX/ TELEGRAPH EPABX

EPABX FREE EPABX CENTREX

Marketing strategies of BSNL

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 To provide world class State-of-art technology telecom services on demand at affordable price. To provide world class telecom infrastructure to develop country's economy.

and the vision of BSNL is: 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. - Kenneth Hildebrand.

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 customers 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 analysing 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.

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.

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. Two-way 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. Mission & Vision Your mission on earth is finished:

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?

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.

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?

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

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 100200 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 analyse & 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 mind-set 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. PRESENT & FUTURE OF BSNL

BSNL (then known as Department of Telecom) had been a near monopoly during the socialist period of the Indian economy. During this period, BSNL was the only telecom service provider in the country (MTNL was present only in Mumbai and New Delhi). During this period BSNL operated as a typical state-run organization, inefficient, slow, bureaucratic, and heavily unionised. As a result subscribers had to wait for as long as five years to get a telephone connection.The corporation tasted competition for the first time after the liberalisation of Indian economy in 1991. Faced with stiff competition from the private telecom service providers, BSNL has subsequently tried to increase efficiencies itself. DoT veterans, however, put the onus for the sorry state of affairs on the Government policies, where in all state-owned service providers wererequired to function as mediums for achieving egalitarian growth across all segments of the society. The corporation (then DoT), however, failed miserably to achieve this and India languished among the most poorly connected countries in the world. BSNL was born in 2000 after the corporatisation of DoT. The efficiency of the company has since improved. However, the performance level is nowhere near the private players.

The corporation remains heavily unionised and is comparatively slow in decision making and implementation. Management has been reactive to the schemes of private telecom players. Over the past five years BSNL's management is not able to absorb Group A(ITS) officers, who are working in BSNL as borrowed staff. This has considerably reduced the ability of management to take risks and get rewarded in open telecom field. Though it offers services at lowest tariffs, the private

players continue to notch up better numbers in all areas, years after year. BSNL has been providing connections in both urban and rural areas. Pre-activated Mobile connections are available at many places across India. BSNL has also unveiled cost-effective broadband internet access plans (DataOne) targeted at homes and small businesses. At present BSNL enjoy's around 60% of market share of ISP services.

2007 has been declared as "Year of Broadband" in India and BSNL is in the process of providing 5 million Broadband connectivity by the end of 2007. BSNL has upgraded existing Dataone (Broadband) connections for a speed of up to 2 Mbit/s without any extra cost. This 2 Mbit/s broadband service is being provided by BSNL at a cost of just US$ 11.7 per month (as of 21/07/2008 and at a limit of 2.5GB monthly limit with 0200-0800 hrs as no charge period). Further, BSNL is rolling out new broadband services such as triple play. BSNL is planning to increase its customer base to 108 million customers by 2010. With the frantic activity in the communication sector in India, the target appears achievable. BSNL is a pioneer of rural telephony in India. BSNL has recently bagged 80% of US$ 580 m (INR 2,500 crores) Rural Telephony project of Government of India.

On the 20th of March, 2009, BSNL advertised the launch of BlackBerry services across its Telecom circles in India. The corporation has also launched 3G services in select cities across the country. Presently, BSNL and MTNL are the only players to provide 3G services, as the Government of India has completed auction of 3G services for private players.BSNL shall get 3G bandwidth at lowest bidder prices of Rs 18,500 crore,which includes Rs 10,186 crore for 3G and Rs 8313crore for BWA.[One crore is 10 million.]BSNL management has paid this money under protest seeking refund.

BSNL has also launched an Entertainment Portal called BSNL Hungama Portal from where subscribers could download contents like music, music videos for free and also download or play various games online. Only Tamil, Kannada, Telugu & Hindi are provided at present. Hopes are there that the database could be expanded. BSNL charges a fixed monthly subscription fee for this function.

DETAILS ABOUT THE COMPETITORS

AIRTEL
Formerly known as Bharti Tele-Ventures LTD (BTVL) is an Indian company offering telecommunication services in 18 countries. It the largest cellular service provider in India, with more than 135 million subscriptions as of May 2010. Bharti Airtel is the world's third largest, single-country mobile operator and fifth largest telecom operator in the world in terms of subscriber base. It also offers fixed line services and broadband services. It offers its telecom services under the Airtel brand and is headed by Sunil Bharti Mittal. The company also provides telephone services and broadband Internet access (DSL) in over 89 cities in India. It also acts as a carrier for national and international long distance communication services. The company has a submarine cable landing station at Chennai, which connects the submarine cable connecting Chennai and Singapore. It is known for being the first mobile phone company in the world to outsource everything except marketing and sales. Its network (base stations, microwave links, etc.) is maintained by Ericsson and Nokia SiemensNetwork, business support by IBM and transmission towers by another company Ericsson agreed for the first time, to be paid by the minute for installation and maintenance of their equipment rather than being paid up front. This enables the company to provide pan-India phone call rates of Rs. 1/minute (U$0.02/minute).

The company is structured into four strategic business units - Mobile, Telemedia, Enterprise and Digital TV. The mobile business offers services in 18 countries across the Indian Subcontinent and Africa. The Telemedia business provides broadband, IPTV and telephone services in 89 Indian cities. The Digital TV business provides Direct-to-Home TV services across India. The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national and international long distance services to telcos.[6] Globally, Bharti Airtel is the 3rd largest in-country mobile operator by subscriber base, behind China Mobile and China Unicom. In India, the company has a 24.6% share of the wireless services market, followed by 17.7% for Reliance Communications and 17.4% for Vodafone Essar. In January 2010, company anonced that Manoj Kohli, Joint Managing Director and current Chief Executive Officer of Indian and South Asian operations, will become the Chief Executive Officer of the International Business Group from 1 April 2010. He will be overseeing Bharti's overseas

business. Current Dy. CEO, Sanjay Kapoor, will replace Manoj Kohli and will be the CEO, effective from 1 April 2010.

Worldwide presence Airtel is the 5th largest mobile operator in the world in terms of subscriber base and has a commercial presence in 18 countries. Its area of operations includes: 3 countries in the Indian Subcontinent: - Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka 15 countries in Africa: - Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Airtel owns 70 % of Warid Telecom in Bangladesh through a joint venture. Bharti Airtel Limited will take management control of the company and its board, and will re-launch the company's services under its ownAirtel brand. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission approved the deal on January 4, 2010.

Mobile Services
Airtel is the name of the company's mobile services brand. It operates in 18 countries providing. It is the 5th largest mobile operator in the world in terms of subscriber base. Airtel's network consists of 3G and 2G services depending on the country of operation. In India, the company's mobile service is branded as Airtel. It has nationwide presence covers 71% of the current population (as of Financial Year 2007). On 19 October 2004, Airtel announced the launch of a BlackBerry Wireless Solution in India. The launch is a result of a tie-up between Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited and Research In Motion (RIM). The Apple iPhone 3G was rolled out in India on 22 August 2008 via Airtel & [[Vodafone Essar]. Both the cellular service providers rolled out their Apple iPhone 3GS in the first quarter of 2010. However, high price and contract boundation again made it nearly impossible for both the service providers to make it a success as much as the iPhone is successful in other markets of the world. As of May 18, 2010, 3G spectrum auction has ended and will pay the Indian government Rs. 12,295 crores for spectrum in 13 circles, the most amount spent by an operator in this auction. Airtel won 3G licences in 13 telecom circles of India: Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (West), Rajasthan, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, North East, Jammu & Kashmir. It plans to launch 3G services in the October 2010.

Subscriber Base in India The Airtel subscriber base according to COAI - Cellular Operators Association of India as of January 2010 was: Chennai - 4,656,675 Delhi - 1,822,208 Mumbai - 3,003,201 Kolkata - 2,746,100 Madhya Pradesh - 6,212,992 Gujarat - 5,112,601 Andhra Pradesh - 12,425,791 Karnataka - 12,153,094 Tamil Nadu - 8,033,771 Kerala - 3,076,728 Punjab - 4,581,187 Maharashtra - 6,518,134 Uttar Pradesh - 3,653,016 Uttar Pradesh East - 8,462,726 Rajasthan - 9,925,141 West Bengal & Andaman and Nicobar Islands - 5,070,213 Himachal Pradesh - 1,273,922 Bihar - 10,338,828 Orissa - 3,836,091 Assam - 2,194,310 North East. States - 1,357,383 Jammu and Kashmir - 1,804,047

The total is 131,714,243 or 32.86% of the total 404,349,733 GSM mobile connections in India till December 2009; and presently the Number 1 operator in India.

VODAFONE
Vodafone, the worlds leading international mobile communications company, has fully arrived in India brand will be lunched in India from 21st September onwards. The popular and endearing brand, Hutch, will be transitioned to Vodafone across India. This marks a significant chapter in the evolutic brand change over the next few weeks will be unveiled nationally through a

high profile campaign covering all important media. Vodafone, the worlds leading mobile telecommunication company, completed the acquisition of Hutchison Essar in May 2007. Asim Ghosh, managing director, Vodafone Essar, said We have had a great innings as Hutch in India and today marks a new begin that created Hutch, but an acceleration into the future with Vodafones global expertise.. the Vodafone mission is to be the communications leader in an increasingly connected world enriching customers lives, helping increased by delivering their total communication needs. About Vodafone Essar Limited:

Vodafone Essar in India is a subsidiary of Vodafone Group plc and commenced operations in 1994 when its predecessor Hutchison tele Vodafone Essar now has operations in 16 circles covering 86% of Indias mobile customer base, with over 34.1 million customers. Over the year, Vodafone Essar, under the hutch brand, has been named the Most Respected Telecom Company, the Best Mobile sender effective advertiser of the year. Vodafone is the worlds leading international mobile communications company. It now has operation network with over 200 million customers worldwide. Vodafone has partnered with the Essar Group as its principal joint venture partner. The Essar Group is a diversified business corporation with interests spanning the manufacturing and service sectors like steel, energy, construction. The group has an asset base of over Rs.400 billion and employer over 20,000 people.

IDEA CELLULAR
Idea Cellular is a wireless telephony company operating in all the 22 telecom circles in India based in Mumbai. It is the 3rd largest GSM company in India behind Airtel and Vodafone and ahead of state run player BSNL. The company has its retail outlets under the "My Idea" banner. The company has also been the first to offer flexible tariff plans for prepaid customers. It also offers GPRS services in urban areas. Idea Cellular won the GSM Association Award for "Best Billing and Customer Care Solution" for 2 consecutive years. IDEA Cellular has been recognized as the 'Most Customer Responsive Company' in the Telecom sector, at the prestigious Avaya Global Connect Customer Responsiveness Awards 2010.

Holding Initially the Birlas, the Tatas and AT&T Wireless each held one-third equity in the company. But following AT&T Wireless' merger with Cingular Wireless in 2004, Cingular decided to sell its 32.9% stake in Idea. This stake was bought by both the Tatas and Birlas at 16.45% each. Tata's foray into the cellular market with its own subsidiary, Tata Indicom, a CDMA-based mobile provider, cropped differences between the Tatas and the Birlas. This dual holding by the Tatas also became a major reason for the delay in Idea being granted a license to operate in Mumbai. This was because as per Department of Telecommunications (DOT) license norms, one promoter could not have more than 10% stake in two companies operating in the same circle and Tata Indicom was already operating in Mumbai when Idea filed for its license. The Birlas thus approached the DOT and sought its intervention, and the Tatas replied by saying that they would exit Idea but only for a good price. On April 10, 2006, the Aditya Birla Group announced its acquisition of the 48.18% stake held by the Tatas at Rs. 40.51 a share amounting to Rs. 44.06 billion. While 15% of the 48.14% stake was acquired by Aditya Birla Nuvo, a company in-charge of the Birlas' newbusiness initiatives, the remaining stake was acquired by Birla TMT holdings Private Ltd., an AV Birla family owned company. Currently, Aditya Birla Group holds 49.1% of the total shares of the company. Malaysia based Axiata controls a 14.99% stake in the company. Subscriber base Idea's subscriber base as at the end of May 2010 according to this as follows Maharashtra and Goa - 9,754,424 Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh - 7,800,385 Andhra Pradesh - 6,497,952 Kerala - 5,588,865 Kolkata - 604,650 Gujarat - 5,527,480 Uttar Pradesh (West) & Uttarakhand - 6,019,347 Delhi - 2,751,588 Haryana - 2,236,132 Uttar Pradesh (East) - 3,985,584 Rajasthan - 2,404,693 Himachal Pradesh - 267,763

Mumbai - 1,562,675 Bihar & Jharkhand - 3,237,896 Tamil Nadu & Chennai - 800,053 Odisha - 604,876 Punjab (Spice) - 3,406,761 Karnataka (Spice) - 2,802,370 Rest of Bengal - 664,427 Assam - 96,542 Jammu & Kashmir - 71,874 North East except Assam - 40,465

Totaling to 66,726,802 or 15.02% (Approx.) of the total 444,295,711 mobile connections in India.

AIRCEL

Aircel is a mobile phone service provider in India. It offers both prepaid and postpaid GSM cellular phone coverage throughout India. Aircel is a joint venture between Maxis Communications of Malaysia and Apollo Hospital Enterprise Ltd of India. UTSB has a 74% stake in Aircel and the remaining 26% is with Apollo Hospitals. It is Indias fifth largest GSM mobile service provider with a subscriber base of over 27.7 million, as of October 31, 2009. It has a market share of 12.8% among the GSM operators in the country. As on date, Aircel is present in 18 of the total 23 telecom circles (including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar & Jharkhand, Chennai, Delhi & NCR, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Mumbai, North East, Orissa, Rest of Maharashtra & Goa, Rest of Tamil Nadu, Rest of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West) and with licences secured for the remaining 5 telecom circles, the company plans to become a pan-India operator by 2010. Additionally, Aircel has also obtained permission from Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to provide International Long Distance (ILD) and National Long Distance (NLD) telephony services. It is also a category A ISP. It is also having the largest service in Tamil Nadu.

Aircel Business Solutions (ABS), part of Aircel, is an ISO 9000 certified company. ABS is a registered member of Wi-MAX forum both in the Indian and International Chapters. ABS

product range includes enterprise solutions such as Multiprotocol Label Switching Virtual Private Networks (MPLS VPNs), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Managed Video Services on wireless platform including Wi-MAX. Aircel has won many awards for its services. Aircel was honored at the World Brand Congress 2009 with three awards, Brand Leadership in Telecom, and Marketing Campaign & Marketing Professional of the Year. Aircel was honored by CMAI INFOCOM National Telecom Award 2009 for, Excellence in Marketing of New Telecom Service. Aircel had been selected as the best regional operator in 2008 by Tele.net. Aircel was rated as the top mid-size utility company in Business Worlds List of Best Mid-Size Companies in 2007. Aircel got the highest rating for overall customer satisfaction and network quality in 2006 by Voice and Data.

Aircel is one of the sponsors of the Indian Premier League Cricket Team Chennai Super Kings, which is captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It is also the major sponsors for Chennai Open (the only ATP tennis tournament in India), and Professional Golf Tour of India.

Maxis, Aircel's majority stake holder at that time, raised RM11.2 billions (USD 3.36 billions)for its shareholders(UTSB), making it the largest IPO in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.

Aircel boat. Aircel, placed an actual dinghy lifeboat to a downtown billboard. A rope with a sign reading, In case of emergency, cut rope, held up the branded raft. July 15, 2009 the monsoon arrived and so did Aircel customer service. The dinghy was cut down and pedestrians were safely transported. What Aircel calls Corporate Social Responsibility A Solution. The company was able to generate positive publicity and show customers that they care.

RELIANCE COMMUNICATION

Reliance Communications ,formerly known as Reliance Infocomm.,along with Reliance Telecom and Flag Telecom, is part of Reliance Communications Ventures (RCoVL).Reliance Communications Limited founded by the late Shri Dhirubhai H Ambani (1932-2002) is the flagship company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group currently has a net worth in excessof Rs. 64,000 crore (US$ 13.6 billion), cash flows of Rs. 13,000 crore (US$ 2.8 billion), net profit of Rs. 8,400 crore (US$ 1.8 billion).The Equity Shares of RCOM are listed on Bombay Stock Exchange Limited

and National Stock Exchange Limited. The Global Depository Receipts and Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds are listed on Luxembourg Stock Exchange and Singapore Stock Exchange respectively. Reliance Communications is India's truly integrated telecommunications service provider. The Company has a customer base of 105 million including over 2.5 million individual overseas retail customers. It ranks among the Top 5 Telecom companies in the world by number of customers in a single country. Reliance Communications corporate clientele includes 2,100 Indian and multinational corporations, and over 800 global, regional and domestic carriers. A pan- India, next generation, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network that is capable of supporting best-of-class services spanning the entire communications value chain, covering over 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages has been established by Reliance Communications. Reliance Communications owns and operates the next generation IP enabled connectivity infrastructure "The world's largest next generation IP enabled connectivity infrastructure". Retrieved 2010-04-14. comprising over 190,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable systems in India, USA, Europe, Middle East and the Asia Pacific region. Main Subsidiaries

Reliance Telecommunication Limited (RTL) In July 2007, the company announced it is buying US-based managed ethernet and application delivery services company Yipes Enterprise Services for a cash amount of Rs. 1200 crore rupees (equivalent of USD 300 million). The deal was announced of the overseas acquisition, the Reliance group has amalgamated the United States-based Flag Telecom for $210 million [roughly Rs 950 crore (Rs 9.50 billion)].RTL operates in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Assam, Kolkata and Northeast offering GSM services.

Reliance Globalcom RGL owns the worlds largest private undersea cable system spanning 65,000 kms seamlessly integrated with Reliance Communications over 110,000 kms of domestic optic fiber provides a robust Global Service Delivery Platform connecting 40 key business markets in India, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the U.S.

Reliance Communications Infrastructure Limited (RCIL) RCIL provide Internet Data Centre (IDC) services located in Mumbai and Bangalore. RCIL currently has IDC capacity of 304,000 sq ft with the market share close to 60%.

Reliance Big TV Limited Reliance Big Tv launched in August 2008 and thereafter acquired 1 million subscribers within 90 days of launch, the fastest ramp-up ever achieved by any DTH operator in the world. Reliance Big TV offers its 1.7 million customers DVD quality pictures across a bouquet of over 200 channels using the latest, state-of-the-art MPEG 4 technology.

Reliance Infratel Limited (RITL) RITLs business is to build, own and operate telecommunication towers, optic fiber cable assets and related assets at designated sites and to provide these passive telecommunication infrastructure assets on a shared basis to wireless service providers and other communications service providers under long-term contracts.

VIRGIN MOBILE INDIA

On March 1, 2008, Virgin launched the Mobile brand in India through a franchise arrangement with Tata Teleservices. This is Virgins seventh launch globally and its largest. However on March 29, 2008, the Department of Telecom (DoT) cleared the deal after clarification from Tata Teleservices indicated that Virgin had not entered India as an MVNO. Virgin Mobile India Virgin Mobile brand is Indias first national youth-focused mobile service. Virgin Mobile branded services are being offered to the Indian customers by Tata Teleservices through a brand franchise with Virgin Mobile. Virgin Mobile India will provide Tata Teleservices with experience and expertise in designing, marketing and servicing of Virgin Mobile branded products for the youth segment. The Virgin Mobile Revolution Evolution Virgin Mobile, a leading branded venture capital organization, is one of the world's most recognized and respected brands. Conceived in 1970 by Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Mobile Group has gone on to grow very successful businesses in sectors ranging from mobile telephony, to transportation, travel, financial services, leisure, music, holidays, publishing and retailing. Virgin Mobile has created more than 200 branded companies worldwide, employing approximately 50,000 people, in 29 countries. Its revenues around the world in 2006 exceeded 10 billion (approx. US$20 billion). Tata Teleservices Limited Tata

Teleservices Limited spearheads the Tata Groups presence in the telecom sector. The Tata Group had revenues of around US $62.5 billion in Financial Year 2007-08, and includes over 90 companies, over 350,000 employees worldwide and more than 3.2 million shareholders.

Tata Teleservices is the pioneer of the CDMA 1x technology platform in India. It has embarked on a growth path since the acquisition of Hughes Tele.com (India) Ltd [renamed Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited] by the Tata Group in 2002. It launched mobile operations in January 2005 and today enjoys a pan-India presence through existing operations in all of Indias 22 telecom Circles. The company is also the market leader in the fixed wireless telephony market. The companys network has been rated as the Least Congested in India for last five consecutive quarters by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India through independent surveys.

Tata Teleservices Limited now also has a presence in the GSM space, through its joint venture with NTT DOCOMO of Japan, and offers differentiated products and services under the TATA DOCOMO brand name. TATA DOCOMO arises out of the Tata Groups strategic alliance with Japanese telecom major NTT DOCOMO in November 2008.

TATA TELESERVICES
Tata Teleservices is part of the Tata Group. Tata Teleservices spearheads the Groups presence in the telecom sector. Incorporated in 1996, Tata Teleservices was the first to launch CDMA mobile services in India with the Andhra Pradesh circle. The company acquired Hughes Telecom (India) Limited [now renamed Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited] in December 2002. With a total Investment of Rs 19,924 Crore, Tata Teleservices has created a Pan India presence spread across 20 circles that includes Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Gujarat, J & K, Karnataka, Delhi, Maharashtra, Mumbai, North East, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Bihar, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (E), Uttar Pradesh (W), Kerala, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. Having pioneered the CDMA 3G1x technology platform in India, Tata Teleservices has established 3G ready telecom infrastructure. It partnered with Motorola, Ericsson, Lucent and ECI Telecom for the deployment of its telecom network. The company is the market leader in the fixed wireless telephony market with a total customer base of over 3.8 million. Tata Teleservices bouquet of telephony services includes Mobile services, Wireless Desktop Phones, Public Booth Telephony and Wireline services. Other services include

value added services like voice portal, roaming, post-paid Internet services, 3-way conferencing, group calling, Wi-Fi Internet, USB Modem, data cards, calling card services and enterprise services. Some of the other products launched by the company include prepaid wireless desktop phones, public phone booths, new mobile handsets and new voice & data services such as BREW games, Voice Portal, picture messaging, polyphonic ring tones, interactive applications like news, cricket, astrology, etc.

Tata Indicom "Non Stop Mobile" allows a pre-paid cellular customer to receive free incoming calls. Tata Teleservices Limited along with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited have a subscriber base of 36million customers (as of April 2009) in more than 5,000 towns. Tata Teleservices has also acquired GSM licenses for specific circles in India. Tata Telelservices is an unlisted entity. Tata Group and group firms own the majority of the company, NTT docomo holds 26% while investor C. Sivasankaran holds 8%. Tata Teleservices Provides mobile services under 3 Brand names: Tata Indicom (CDMA Mobile operator) Tata DoCoMo (GSM Mobile operator) Virgin Mobile (CDMA Mobile operator) Virgin Mobile (GSM Mobile operator) Tata Sky (DTH Satellite TV provider)

UNINOR
The company Unitech Wireless was until 2009 a subsidiary of Unitech Group, holding a wireless services licence for all 22 Indian telecom circles since 2008. In early 2009, Unitech Group and Telenor agreed on a majority take-over by Telenor of Unitech's wireless business, including Unitech Wireless' national-wide mobile licence. By March, May and November, Telenor acquired a 33%, 49% and 60% stake in Unitech Wireless, respectively. In September, the mobile operation changed its name to Uninor. On October 19 the Indian Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) announced that it has approved Telenor's acquisition of up to 74% in Unitech Wireless, and the shareholder's agreement sets a 67.25% Telenor ownership in Uninor. The uninor service is currently available in 13 circles out of 22 as of 7 June 2010: Uttar Pardesh (West) and Uttrakhand Uttar Pradesh (East)

Bihar and Jharkhand Karnataka Andhra Pradesh Tamil Nadu Kerala Orissa Kolkata Rest Of Bengal Gujarat Mumbai Maharashtra and Goa

Uninor is India's eighth nation-wide mobile operator, in a competitive landscape of 13 nation-wide or regional mobile operators. The company is targeting an 8 % pan-Indian market share, and the opening of one million retail points and breaking even on EBITDA within three years. It will provide mobile communication and Value Added Services.

In order to reduce time-to-market, Uninor will outsource infrastructure and back-end services to partner organizations with established core competencies. The operational model is low-cost with a gradual network-build up, infrastructure sharing, GSM equipment at competitive cost, full-scale IToutsourcing and a long term cost and capex efficiency.

To quickly launch mobile services only nine months after the foundation of the new company, Uninor has entered into network and base station service agreements with partners. Tower sharing agreements are concluded with Wireless-TT Info Service Limited and Quippo Telecom Infrastructure Limited. Telecommunications, network and radio equipment is to be supplied by Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei Technologies India, Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson. The company's IT services and infrastructure is to be shared with Wipro Technologies.

CHAPTER III PRESENTATION OF DATA AND ANALYSIS

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research is a systematic effort to gain new knowledge. Research methods: Those methods which are used by the researcher during the course of studying a research problem are termed as research methods.

Research methodology: The research methodology, not only the research methods are but also consider the logic behind the methods. They are in the contest of our research studied. And explain why we are using a particular method or techniques and we are not using others.

Descriptive research design: In includes surveys, and facts finding enquires of different kinds. The major purpose of descriptive research is description of state of affairs as it exists at present. The main character of this method is that the researcher has no control over the variables. He can report what has happened? Or what is happening?

Nature of data: In this study primary data are used.

Collection of data: The data were collected from the respondents through the distribution of questionnaire.

Area of the study- This study covers Thiruvananthapuram city only.

Sample size - The sample size covered for the purpose of this study is 180.

DEVELOPING THE QUESTIONNAIRE: The following four questions need to be answered in designing an effective set of questions or a questionnaire: 1) Will the respondent have the information/knowledge needed to answer the questions? 2) Will the respondent understand the questions? 3) Will the respondent likely to give a true answer? 4) Will the formulation of the question bias the response Basically in the beginning some sample questionnaires were developed and where administered directly on the clients. This was the trail method included for pilot testing and the final questionnaires were prepared thereafter assessing the feedback and result of the test.

Tools for analysis: Tables Percentages Bar-charts Limitations of the study

Though the detailed investigation is made in the present study, still there are following limitations.

This study is restricted only to Thiruvananthapuram. So, the results may not be applicable to
other areas.

This study is based on the prevailing customers satisfaction. But the customers
satisfaction may change according to time, fashion, technology, development, etc.

As per the population of the study is huge, a sample size of 180 sample respondents is only
covered till now.

Lack of awareness about the Companys products & services among the customers may
hamper the primary data collection.

Data collection of exact data for the research is not possible because there is a gap
between what respondent say and what they actually do.

Information provided by the customers may not be accurate. They may hide some of the
information at the time of filling up the questionnaires.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Table No:1
CUSTOMER PREFERENCE TOWARDS CELL PHONE SERVICE PROVIDERS
S.NO NAME OF THE CELLULAR SERVICE PROVIDER Airtel BSNL Vodafone Reliance Idea Aircel Tata Indicom Uninor Virgin NUMBER OF RESPONDENTS PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Total

38 34 23 28 16 12 18 6 5 100

21.11% 18.89% 12.78% 15.56% 8.89% 6.67% 10.00% 3.33% 2.78%

180

BSNLs SWOT ANALYSIS

The changing external environment for BSNL can be well captured by the Potters model diagram which shows that the industry structure has become bit unfavourable. In such an environment BSNL definitely requires to redefine its strategies. What is required is to identify the potential opportunities and threats implied by this changing environment for the BSNL. In changing trends, situations, and events gaining an accurate understanding of BSNLs strengths and limitations will help in better strategic management of organization. The SWOT analysis for BSNL is as follows:

STRENGTHS
Pan-India reach Experienced telecom service provider Total telecom service provider Huge Resources (financial & technical pool) Huge customer base Most trusted telecom brand Transparency in billing Easy deployment of new services Copper in last mile can be used for easy broadband deployment Huge Optical Fibre network and associated bandwidth

WEAKNESSES Non-optimization of network capabilities Poor marketing strategy Bureaucratic organizational set up Inflexibility in mind set (DOT period legacies) Limited number of value added services Poor franchisee network Legacy of poor service image Huge and aged manpower

 Procedural delays Lack of strategic alliances Problems associated with incumbency like out-dated technologies, unproductive rural assets,
social obligations, political interference,

Poor IT penetration within organization Poor knowledge Management OPPORTUNITIES

Tremendous market growing at 20 lac customers per month Untapped broadband services Untouched international market Can capitalize on public sector image to grab governments ICT initiatives ITEB service markets Diversification of business to turn-key projects Leveraging the brand image to source funds Almost un-invaded VSAT market Fuller utilization of slack resources Can make a kill through deep penetration and low cost advantage Broaden market expected from convergence of broadcasting, telecom and entertainment industry

THREATS Competition from private operators Keeping pace with fast technological changes Market maturity in basic telephone segment Manpower churning Multinational eyeing Indian telecom market Private operators demand for sharing last mile Decreasing per line revenues due to competitive pricing Private operators demand to do away with ADC can seriously effect revenues Populist policies of government like One India rates

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS, CONCLUSION & SUGGESTIONS

INTRODUCTION:
This chapter is allocated to express the findings and conclusions in this study. Statistical tools are applied to analyze the data. It includes the result of each and every tables, charts and tests.

FINDINGS FROM PERCENTAGE ANALYSIS: On the basis of customer preference, majority of the customers prefer Airtel (21.11%). On the basis of marital status mostly unmarried respondents are using mobile connections than married respondents. On the basis of educational qualification, most of the graduates are using mobile connections. On the basis of occupation, the employees are only who use mobile connections in more level. And students are next in the list. On the basis of family income, 13.89% of the respondents are using cell connections, which get the income of less than Rs.5, 000. And on the income basis 30.56% of the respondents are using mobile, which get the income of 15000-20000. Majority of the peoples buy the cell connections by influencing their friends. 5.56% of respondents are only influenced by the dealers. Majority of the respondents are using cell connections for personal usage. Majority of the respondents are using cell connections for both incoming and outgoing. Majority of the respondents are seeking brand image, for their service provider. And then service charges are next in list. On the basis of performance, only two and three people are highly satisfied with Aircel and Uninor respectively. Only 4 respondents are dissatisfied about the performance of Vodafone service provider. On the basis of periodical offers, majority of the peoples highly satisfied in Airtel. And 18.87% of customers are highly satisfied with BSNL On the basis of customers attitude, majority of the people are states that mobile connections are necessity to all. 5.00% of the respondents are only states that cell connections are luxury.

SUGGESTIONS
BSNL and Vodafone should try to expand their customers network. Vodafone and BSNL should try to attract the young people. (Up to25years) All the service providers are made good advertisements for their service. Because, advertisements are take little part for influencing the customers. The service providers should try to increase post paid users. 75% of the peoples are unaware about the various services rendered by their service provider. So the service providers should try to make awareness of their customer services to their customers. BSNL should attract the customers by reducing their price. BSNL customers are highly dissatisfied about the performance of the service provider. So they should try to add some advanced features towards their services. BSNL and Vodafone should give periodical offers to their customers. So that more customers are attracted towards the service providers. BSNL should decrease their outgoing call charges. BSNL should improve their network and the connectivity problem with other service providers as there is several number of competitors in the market. The signal strength is weaker in interior places: service provider should increase the signal strength. As the competitors are more in this town the company can formulate appropriate marketing strategy to retrain existing customers and to attract new customers.

CONCLUSION
This is an information era significance of information cannot be over emphasized. This study attempts to find out the factors effecting customer behavior and the satisfaction of customer regarding cell phone service providers. This decade, most of the peoples using cell connections. So, service providers are increasing in more level. So service provider are should over come another ones competition. So, it leads to adding new features, schemes, periodical offers to their service. So, the customers get maximum benefit from their service provider. Now-a-days, cell connections are a necessity to all. Because, along with bridging the communication gap it has given a sense of safety to the men and women also. And only few persons feel that cell connections are luxury one. India is rapidly evolving on the lines of other developed countries in the sphere of telecom service, so if BSNL wants to leverage this opportunity it should give due attention on increasing its customer base rapidly. By introducing new plan at less cost and reduced call rates.

ANNEXURE

ANNEXURE QUESTIONNAIRE:

Dear Sir/Madam, I am conducting a survey on customer (existing/new) behaviour while taking new mobile-connections. Kindly spare some of your valuable time to go through the questionnaire & give your views on this topic. The information provided by you would be kept confidential & be used only for improving customer service.

1) Please name the cellular service/connection you are currently using. a) Airtel b) B.S.N.L c) Vodafone d) Tata Indicom e) Reliance Comm. f) Aircel g) Idea h) Virgin i) Uninor

2) What factors influenced you in purchasing the cellular brand you are currently using. Rate the factors on a scale of 1-4. a) Price/Tariff plan/ Offers b) Brand name c) Availability in store d) Signal Strength

3) While purchasing your preferred brand of cellular connection what sort of features you look forward in your cellular service brand? a) Network coverage b) Tariff c) Price-Validity ratio d) Value added services

4) What is your preference? a) Post-paid b) Pre-paid

5) For what reasons you opted for the above plan a) Convenience/Handset c) Value added services b) Cost control d) Discounts/Attractive schemes

6) How satisfied are you with the cellular service brand you own. Please tick the appropriate option s given below. a) Extremely satisfied c) Somewhat dissatisfied b) Somewhat satisfied d) Dissatisfied

7) Did you experience any problem with your preferred cellular service brand? a) Yes b) No If yes please specify ______________________________________

8) If yes, then was the problem effectively taken care off immediately? a) Yes b) No

9) Did you switched over to any other network .if please specify the number of times. 1.Yes a) 1 b) 2 c) 3 d) 4 e) more than 4 2). No

10) How likely you are to recommend your preferred cellular service brand to your friends and relatives. a) Very Likely c) Somewhat Unlikely b) Somewhat Likely d) Very Unlikely

11) If you are a existing customer of BSNL then which type of value added services do you want to incorporate in BSNL? ____________________________________________________________________

12) As per your opinion how can you improve the existing brand you are using? Any recommendations for BSNL if any? _____________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ 13) Personal details (Put tick mark () in appropriate box.) a) Name _____________________ ________________________________ ______ b) Age 0-25yrs 25-35yrs 35-55yrs > 55yr. c) Gender: Male Female d) Occupation: _____________________ e) Qualification: Undergraduate Graduate Post-graduate Professional degree (Specify) __ f) Income group Monthly income i) Below 5000 iv) Between 15000-20000 ii) Between 5000-10000 v) Above -20000 iii) Between 10000-15000

Date: Thanking You B.S.N.L

Signature:

QUESTIONNAIRE: 2

Dear Sir/Madam, I am conducting a survey on customer (existing/new) behaviour while taking new mobile-connections. Kindly spare some of your valuable time to go through the questionnaire & give your views on this topic. The information provided by you would be kept confidential & be used only for improving customer service.

1. Please name the cellular service/connection you are currently using a) Airtel b) Aircel c) B.S.N.L d) Virgin e) Vodafone f) Idea g) Reliance h) Tata Indicom i) Uninor

2. Who influenced you to by the particular cell phone service provider? a) Family Member b) Neighbours c) Relations d) Friends e) Advertisement f) Dealers

3. Why do you buy the mobile connection? a) For business b) For personal

4. Which type of scheme is most preferable by you? a) Prepaid b) Post-paid

5. If you have post-paid / prepaid connection mention Scheme, Name & Monthly rental charges. ____________________________________________________________________ 6. For which purpose are you using your mobile connection (Service Provider) mainly for? a) Incoming b) Outgoing c) Both d) SMS Messaging

7. Are you aware of the following details relating in your mobile connection (Pre / Postpaid connection) S. No Aware Neutral Unaware a) Scheme b) Balance of Talk charges c) Periodical offers

8. Are you influenced by the following factors relating in your connection? Aware Neutral Unaware

a) Monthly rental charges b) Charges for cell connections to land lines c) Signal of tower networking d) Cost of scheme e) Incoming (in days) f) Number of outgoing calls g) Outgoings call charges

9. What factor influenced you to decide your Cellular service provider? a) Brand Image b) Availability c) Customer care service d) Service charges

10. Satisfaction level about your cell phone service provider? S. No Highly Satisfied Non-Satisfied a) Price b) Performance c) Schemes d) Periodical Offers e) Out going call Charges

11. Do you face any difficulty in your cell phone connection? a) Yes b) No

12. If yes, please point out the problem? a) Coverage b) Service c) Clarity d) Busy network e) Others

13. You consider owing a mobile connection as a a) Necessity b) Status c) Luxury d) Compulsion

14. What is your valuable suggestion / opinion about your cell phone service provider ? ____________________________________________________________________

15.Personal details (Put tick mark () in appropriate box.)

Name ___________________________________________________________ Age 0-25yrs 25-35yrs 35-55yrs > 55yr.

Gender: Male Female Marital status: Married Unmarried Occupation: _____________________ Qualification: Undergraduate Graduate Post-graduate Professional degree (Specify) Income group Monthly income i. Below 5000 iii. Between 10000-15000 ii. Between 5000-10000 iv. Between 15000-20000

Date:

Thanking You B.S.N.L

Signature:

BIBLOGRAPHY
INTERNET SOURCE

www.google.com www.wikipedia.org www.yahoo.com www.vodafone.in www.bsnl.co.in