Bharti Airtel . .. Express Yourself

 Company Analysis  : Bharti Airtel

Intrroduction 

Airtel : Express Yourself !

• Bharti Airtel commonly known as Airtel is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands. 
• It operates a GSM network in all countries, providing 2G, 3G and 4G services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel is the world's fourth-largest mobile telecommunications company with over 246 million subscribers across 20 countries as of March 2012.
• It is the largest cellular service provider in India, with over 187.30 million subscribers at the end of June 2012.Airtel is the third largest in-country mobile operator by subscriber base, behind China Mobile and China Unicom.

History 

• In 1986,  Bharti Telecom Ltd was incorporated & offered push button telephones .
• In 1995 Bharti Televentures launched its cellular operations in Delhi .
• In 2002 , it went public and the company was listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and   National Stock Exchange of India
• In 2003 , cellular operations were rebranded under single Airtel brand 
• In 2010, Airtel acquired the African operations of the Kuwait based Zain Telecom.
• In March 2012,Airtel launched a mobile operation in Rwanda.

Airtel acquired Zain Telecom

Milestones 

• Operates GSM network & provides telecom services (2G , 3G & 4G) across 20 countries.
• 5th largest telecom operator in the world with 243 million customers 
• Largest cellular service provider in India with over 185  million customers
• First mobile phone company in the world to outsource all of its business operations except marketing, sales and finance .
• Bharti Airtel is the first Indian telecom service provider to achieve Cisco Gold Certification.On 31 May 2012, Bharti Airtel awarded the three year contract to Alcatel-Lucent for setting up andInternet Protocol across the country.This would help consumers access internet at faster speed and high qualiy internet browsing on mobile handsets.

  Airtel Vision Statement

  By 2015 Airtel will be the most loved brand, enriching the lives of millions.
                                                                                                                                                                    

  Airtel Mission Statement

We will meet the mobile communication needs of our customers through 

A] Error Free Service Delivery

B] Innovative Products and Services

C] Cost Efficiency and

D] Unified Messaging Solutions

Products and Services

Wide range  of Products and Services

1. 3G

       Airtel had about 3 million 3G subscribers as of May 2011. Airtel plans to cover 1,500 cities across 13 circles by the end of March 2012. The company, which has 3G licences for 13 circles, is also in talks with other service providers to roll out the services in the remaining 10 circles as part of its roaming offerings

2. 4G

       On 19 May 2010, the broadband wireless access (BWA) or 4G spectrum auction in India ended. Airtel paid 33.1436 billion for spectrum in 4 circles: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and Kolkata. The company was allocated 20 MHz of BWA spectrum in 2.3 GHz frequency band.

3. Airtel Money 

        Airtel has started a new mCommerce platform called Airtel Money with collaboration with Infosys. It is launched on April 5, 2012, in Infosys Campus of bangalore. with the help of Airtelmoney,users can transfer money,pay bills and other financial transactions using mobile phone. 

4.  Digital Television

       The Digital TV business provides Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV services across India under the brand name Airtel digital TV. It started services on 9 October 2008 and has about 32.44 million customers as of August 2010. 

5. Enterprise Business Solution  

       There are two kind of solutions offered by Airtel. One is GPRS Based Solutions like mobile applications tools for enterprise, TrackMate, automatic meter reading solutions etc. and the other is SMS Based Solutions like interactive sms, bulk sms, inbound call center solutions.


Organizational Structure  

Airtel Organization Structure

•        The transformed organizational structure will have two distinct Customer Business Units (CBU) with clear focus on B2C (Business to Customer) and B2B (Business to Business) segments. 
•        Bharti Airtel's B2C business unit will comprehensively service the retail consumers, homes and small offices, by combining the erstwhile business units—Mobile, Telemedia, Digital TV, and other emerging businesses (like M-commerce, M-health, M-advertising etc.). 
•        The B2C organization will consist of Consumer Business and Market Operations. It is the largest telecommunication company in India.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

•         Bharti Airtel has more than 246 million customers . It is the largest cellular provider in India,and also supplies broadband and telephone services - as well as many other telecommunications services to both domestic and corporate customers.
•        Other stakeholders in Bharti Airtel include Sony-Ericsson, Nokia - and Huawei, with whom they hold a strategic alliance. This means that the business has access to knowledge and technology from other parts of the telecommunications world.
•        The company has covered the entire Indian rrnation with its network. This has underpinned its large and rising customer base.

 Weaknesses

•        An often cited original weakness is that when the business was started by Sunil Bharti Mittal over 15 years ago, the business has little knowledge and experience of how a cellular telephone system actually worked. So the start-up business had to outsource to industry experts in the field.
•        Until recently Airtel did not own its own towers, which was a particular strength of some of its competitors such as Hutchison Essar. Towers are important if your company wishes to provide wide coverage nationally.
•        The fact that the Airtel has not pulled off a deal with South Africa's MTN could signal the lack of any real emerging market investment opportunity for the business once the Indian market has become mature.

Opportunities

Airtel +Blackberry

•        Global telecommunications and new technology brands see Airtel as a key strategic player in the Indian market. The new iPhone will be launched in India via an Airtel distributorship. Another strategic partnership is held with BlackBerry Wireless Solutions.
•         Despite being forced to outsource much of its technical operations in the early days, this allowed Airtel to work from its own blank sheet of paper, and to question industry approaches and practices - for example replacing the Revenue-Per-Customer model with a Revenue-Per-Minute model which is better suited to India, as the company moved into small and remote villages and towns.
•           The company is investing in its operation in 120,000 to 160,000 small villages every year. It sees that less well-off consumers may only be able to afford a few tens of Rupees per call, and also so that the business benefits are scalable - using its 'Matchbox' strategy.

Airtel offering PCO phones to Farmers

Threats 

•        Airtel and Vodafone seem to be having an on/off relationship. Vodafone which owned a 5.6% stake in the Airtel business sold it back to Airtel, and instead invested in its rival Hutchison Essar. Knowledge and technology previously available to Airtel now moves into the hands of one of its competitors.



Airtel + Vodafone

•          The quickly changing pace of the global telecommunications industry could tempt Airtel to go along the acquisition trail which may make it vulnerable if the world goes into recession. Perhaps this was an impact upon the decision not to proceed with talks about the potential purchase of South Africa's MTN in May 2008. This opened the door for talks between Reliance Communication's Anil Ambani and MTN, allowing a competing Inidan industrialist to invest in the new emerging African telecommunications market.
•        Bharti Airtel could also be the target for the takeover vision of other global telecommunications players that wish to move into the Indian market.