Description
Marketing strategy is defined by Prophet's David Aaker as a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its resources on the optimal opportunities with the goals of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.
MARKETING STRATEGIES OF AIRTEL IN AIRTEL
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Exactly ten years ago, Jyoti Basu in Calcutta called Sukh Ram in Delhi in what was the first mobile phone call in India. Brick sized cell phones used to cost Rs. 45,000 and each call costed Rs. 16.5/minute. Back then, cell phone was a status symbol. Today, there are over 60 million mobile connections in India (expected to double in number in next 12 months). A local call costs around Rs 1/min and a cell phone can be purchased for less than Rs. 2000. Wireless technology has been a boon for India. In a country where setting up wired infrastructure is very expensive and time consuming, wireless is the perfect solution to connect remote villages. The timing was also just right as India escaped the burden of legacy technology and reaped the benefits of latest GSM technology. Cell phones have not been just about technology. They have brought about a cultural change in the country. SMS is the favorite means of communication for everybody today. The revolution in computing in countries like India will also come through mobile phones. What PC did to offices and then to masses in developed countries, mobile phones will do in developing countries. Time was when it took several years to get a new telephone connection in India. Now, there is less pressure than ever before for fixed landlines as mobile phone subscribers appear poised to outnumber those with a fixed line.
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By year's end, India may become one of the few countries where the mobile revolution is complete and the mobile reigns supreme, just ten years after it was first introduced. Every month, India adds another 1.5 million mobile subscribers to the 28 million mobile phone users registered last December. In January 2003, one year before, India had just 10 million mobile subscribers When mobile telephony was introduced in India in 1994, there were just a few service providers, such as AirTel. It was a heavily regulated sector with prohibitive license fees, high call charges of 30 cents per minute, and expensive handsets. Then, only the privileged could use a mobile in India. But in the last four years, call charges have fallen and license fees have become more manageable.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
PREFACE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. INTRODUCTION: I. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2. 3. 4. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. LITERATURE REVIEW COMPANY PROFILE MARKETING STRATEGIES DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION SUMMARY OF FINDINGS CONCLUSION LIMITATION SUGGESTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX (QUESTIONNAIRE)
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INTRODUCTION
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OBJECTIVES
1. To study the importance and development of tele – communication industry in today’s scenario. 2. To understand the various Marketing Strategies which Airtel has adopted to survive in highly competitive cell phone industry. 3. To make a comparative study of the major players in Indian Service Provider.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The methodology adopted for this project is exploratory in nature since there is no hypothesis that has to be tested. The conclusions have been drawn by exploratory research work. There have been two sources of information collected:
a) Primary Sources
I have met retailers of the Airtel of the company and have been able to get first hand information regarding the product, its features and the buying patterns of the product. Their input has been valuable.
b) Secondary Sources
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Secondary source has played a vital role to play in this report. A good amount of data has been collected from various published articles and reports found in magazines and journals. Another vital source has been the Internet and particularly the companies own website.
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CHAPTER I (LITERATURE REVIEW)
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TELECOMMUNICATION MARKET IN INDIA
The Indian telecommunications Network with 250m telephone connections is the fifth largest in the world and is the second largest among the emerging economies of Asia. Today it is the fastest growing market in the world and represents unique opportunities for UK companies in the stagnant global scenario. Tele-density, which was languishing at 2% in 1999, has shown an impressive jump to 9.5% in 2006 and 10.5% in 2007 and is set to increase to 20% in the next five years beating the Govt. target by three years. Accordingly, India requires incremental investments of USD 20-25 bln for the next five years. Private operators have made mobile telephony the fastest growing (over 164% p.a.) in India. With more than 33 million users (both CDMA and GSM), wireless is the principal growth engine of the Indian telecom industry. Given the current growth trends, cellular connections in India will surpass fixed line by late 2004/early 2005. Intense competition between the four main private groups - Bharti, Vodafone, Tata and Reliance and with the State sector incumbents-BSNL and MTNL has brought about a significant drop in tariffs. There has been almost 74% in cell phone charges, 70% in ILD calls and 25% drop in NLD charges, resulting in a boom time for the consumers. The Government has played a key enabling role by deregulating and liberalising the industry, ushering in competition and paving the way for growth. While there were regulatory irregularities earlier, resulting in litigation, these have all been addressed now. Customs duties on hardware and mobile handsets have been reduced from 14 percent to 5 percent. The Indian government has merged the IT and Telecom Ministries to speed up reforms and decision on the Communication Convergence Bill to enable the common regulation of the
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Internet, broadcasting and telecoms will be taken after the new Government assumes responsibilities in may this year. An independent regulatory body (TRAI) and dispute settlement body (TDSAT) is fully functional.
INDIAN CELLULAR MARKET
The Bharti Group, which operates in 23 circles, continues to be the country's largest cellular operator, with 50 lakh subscribers. BSNL, which operates in 22 circles, has a subscriber base of 37 lakh subscribers. Thus BSNL stands second largest cellular operator in terms of subscriber base at the end of the fiscal ending March 31, 2007, displacing Vodafone from the second position. Vodafone, which operates in only eighteen circles, is the third largest operator with a subscriber base of 32 lakh. Unlike fellow public sector undertaking, MTNL, which operates in Mumbai and Delhi, BSNL has been a very aggressive player in the market. "Cellular operators who expected BSNL to go the MTNL way, were taken by surprise and did not take effective steps to counter it, till it was too late in the day," said a telecom analyst.
Belying fears of a slowdown in cellular subscriber acquisitions, the cell club has reported a 7.92% growth, the highest growth in any month so far, during March 2005. Year-on-year, the cellular subscriber base in the country has almost doubled in March 2005, and is expanding at the rate of 25% per year thereafter.
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The cellular subscriber club expanded by 21.31 lakh last month. This is much higher than 5.9 lakh subscribers added in February 2005 and 2.13 lakh in January 2005. Idea, which operates in Seven circles, is the fourth largest operator with a subscriber base of 17.80 lakh, higher than BPL's 11.31 lakh subscribers across four circles. The subscriber numbers per operator drop sharply with the sixth largest operator, Spice Communications, having a subscriber base of 9.40 lakh, followed by Reliance Telecom's 8.9 lakh subscribers. MTNL is the ninth largest operator, with a base of 8.32 lakh subscribers.
While the subscriber base-jumped by 3.38% to 44.39 lakh in the metros, subscriber base of category A circles of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu jumped by 10.18 % to reach 43.64 lakh. Category B circles of Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (West), Uttar Pradesh (East), Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal recorded a jump of 10.69%, with a total base of 33.74 lakh subscribers. Circle C has reported 12.74 % growth with subscriber numbers jumping to 5.08 lakh.
Among the metros, while Mumbai added 1,63,180 subscribers, higher than the 1,58,646 added by Delhi, the Capital's cellular subscriber base of over 80 lakh is still higher than Mumbai's 66.89 lakh. While the cellular industry has been on roll for the first three quarters of the previous financial year with an average of 16.75 lakh monthly additions in the third quarter, the first two months of 2007 had seen the growth slowing down.
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GSM MARKET IN INDIA
Regional Interest Groups - GSM India
With a population of around 1.1 billion growing at roughly 1.7 per cent a year, India is potentially one of the most exciting GSM markets in the world. After two rather difficult years, the past 12 months have seen the region's promise beginning to come to fruition. Much of this success can be attributed to the stabilisation of the licensing and regulatory environment.
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India's telecommunications have undergone a steady liberalisation since 1994 when the Indian government first sought private investment in the sector. More significant liberalisation followed in 1996 with the licensing of new local fixed line and mobile service providers. However, it has been the government's New Telecom Policy (1999) that has had the most radical impact on the development of GSM services. 'The policy's mission statement is 'affordable communications for all', There is a genuine commitment to creating a modern and efficient communications
infrastructure that takes account of the convergence of telecom, IT and media. In addition, the policy places significant emphasis on greater competition for both fixed and mobile services.'
Competition in the mobile sector has already had a visible impact on prices with calls currently costing less than 9 cents per minute. This means that service costs have fallen by 60 per cent since the first GSM networks became live in 1995. It also helps explain why a recent Telecom Asia survey revealed that more than 70 per cent of Indian mobile subscribers felt that prices were now at a reasonable level. One of the challenges facing GSM operators in India is the diversity of the coverage regions -from remote rural regions to some of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the world. India has more than 40 networks, which cover the seven largest cities, over 7000 towns and several Lacs villages. Such depth of coverage has required enormous investment from India's operators. It is estimated that more than Rs200 billion had been invested in India's GSM industry by mid-2000, a figure that is set to be supplemented by a further Rs. 300 billion over the next five years.
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The good news is that subscriber growth is beginning to look healthy. With India's low PC penetration and high average Internet usage -at 14-20 hours a month per user it is comparable to the US -the market for mobile data and m-commerce looks extremely promising. WAP services have already been launched in the subcontinent and the first GPRS networks are in the process of being rolled out. In the year ahead, GSM India will work with its members to realise the potential of early packet services in anticipation of the award of 3GSM licences.
India fastest growing GSM mart India is expected to have 145 million GSM (global system for mobile communications) customers by 2007-08 compared to 26 million subscribers as on March 2005, according to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association. "For GSM, India is a success story. It is one of the fastest growing markets with its subscriber base doubling in 2005. At this pace, the target of 150 million subscribers by 2007-2008 is definitely achievable," Alan Hadden, president of GSA, said at a news conference in New Delhi. Globally, the GSM market reached 1 billion users in February 2005, he said, adding GSM accounted for 80 per cent of the new subscriber growth in 2005."Almost every Latin American operator has chosen GSM. In North America GSM growth is bigger than CDMA (code division multiple access)," he said. Commenting on the raging debate over GSM versus CDMA in mobile services arena, Hadden said: "GSM is the world's most successful mobile standard with over 1 billion users, and is an open mobile standard. It also supports automatic international roaming, which is a major contributor to business plans." India’s GSM mobile firms’ revenue up 30 pct India’s private telecoms firms offering GSM-based mobile services reported a 24 percent rise in revenue in the year to March 2007 but said future growth rates could slow because of heavy
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taxes on the nascent industry. Although India’s mobile sector is the world’s fastest growing major wireless market, it is amongst the highest taxed industries in the country. Mobile carriers pay as much as 25 percent of their revenue as licence fee, spectrum charges and other taxes. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said revenue for fiscal 2003/04 stood at 83.08 billion rupees ($1.86 billion) compared with 64 billion rupees a year earlier. According to T.V. Ramachandran, director general at COAI, “These revenue growth rates cannot be maintained unless there is a concerted effort by the government to cut excessive levies and allow sharing of infrastructure” “But the potential to do much better exists as there is still huge demand in the sector.” Ramachandran said the sector was still losing money but declined to elaborate. Sales jumped because of a doubling of the GSM (Global System of Mobile Communications) user base as more people entered the flourishing market thanks to one of the lowest call rates in the world. But the monthly average revenue per user, a key measure of profitability, declined 17.4 percent to 432 rupees in the fourth quarter compared with 523 rupees in the first quarter due to a cut in tariffs and excessive competition among companies. Growth slowing, demand untapped: The association has not included the financial performance and the GSM-user base of state-run firms Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the second-ranked player, and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, Ramachandran said. There are 150 million GSM customers and more than 96 million users of the rival CDMA-based mobile services in the country. The pace of growth in monthly additions is slowing after just 1.25 million users took up the service in April compared with 1.9 million in the previous month and 1.63 million in February. Ramachandran blamed the slowdown on a majority of small GSM operators being unable to expand networks into rural swathes where demand remained largely untapped.
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“Our surpluses are not enough to cover costs of network expansion and financing charges on loans. We are making money only to cover operating expenses,” he said. Carriers are now subsidising handset costs to woo users into the underpenetrated industry forecast to have more than 250 million customers by 2007. Roughly three percent of Indians own a mobile phone compared with about 20 percent in China. About a dozen firms such as Bharti Airtel Ltd, 28 percent owned by Singapore Telecommunications, Reliance Infocomm Ltd and the Indian GSMunit of Vodafone group battle in the hotly competitive sector.
DOES GSM HAVE THE EDGE?
GSM operators are not the only ones who are worried about the rapid strides made by CDMA mobile players Reliance Infocomm and Tata Indicom in the Indian cellular market?
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The GSM suppliers – both handset and equipment - who incidentally also have their other foot firmly placed in the CDMA pie, are beginning to lose some sleep over what was earlier termed as `niche’ and `minuscule’ data carriage market by the operators . Apart from the strong success of the two CDMA operators whose networks are based on code division multiple access (CDMA), the miserable showing of the four global standard for mobile (GSM) based networks that launched general packet radio service (GPRS) service for data connectivity in last three years, has the vendors worried. Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) now believes that even though India will primarily remain a voice traffic-led market in next two-three years, the data traffic component will grow by 25-30 per cent, an optimism that it’s trying to make GSM operators feel as well.
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THE CDMA CHALLENGE
CDMA players had launched their services with CDMA 2000 1X-based networks, which can give hi-speed, always-on connectivity to the Internet, and other data services. GSM operators, on the other hand, have had to migrate from the frustrating experience of WAP (wireless application protocol) to GPRS, which has not significantly improved the subscriber’s experience of surfing the Net on/from mobile. The top brass of GSA, an organisation comprising Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, Alcatel and Lucent Technologies - met on Tuesday in the capital to persuade the operators to adopt EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) and leave GPRS behind as a dream gone sour. Only Airtel, Vodafone, BPL Mobile and Idea Cellular had launched GPRS, but the data transfer speeds of GPRS have been abysmal. The field trials gave a speed of around 54 kbps, but the actual speeds have not exceeded 14-18 kbps, a major reason why GPRS growth has been so slow. As against the total GSM cellular base of 5.61 crore, the country has between 2,80,000 lakh GPRS users only. In comparison, the two CDMA operators have about 120 lakh connections. All these sets are data compliant. Though no figures are available as to how many use these for data services, the figure is believed to be respectable as a percentage ratio for CDMA.
Bharti is almost there But first, the EDGE! Bharti Cellular is close to commercially launching its EDGE service in Delhi and Mumbai by end May or early June, sources said. The company was the first to conduct field trials in November with its equipment supplier Ericsson. Idea too held EDGE field trials in February this year with its vendor Nokia. Vodafone and BPL are yet to hold the trials. The two
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companies would eventually migrate to EDGE, but perhaps after seeing the response to Bharti’s service. EDGE holds the promise of delivering data speeds of around 170-180 kbps (as against the theoretical speed of around 380 kbps) which, if achieved, promises the launch of many data applications. The scalable cost of migrating from GPRS to EDGE is not too high and mainly comprises software upgrades in case of a modern network such as Bharti and Hutch, claimed chairman of GSA India chapter Rakesh Malik.
Will GSM maintain its headstart?
At the GSM Evolution Forum held in New Delhi, GSA president Alan Hadden predicted that GSM growth will far outstrip CDMA as was happening globally. He felt India could have as many as 200 million GSM subscribers by 2007-2008, up from nine million in December 2004. According to GSA, there are over 1.1 billion GSM subscribers worldwide as against 250 million CDMA customers. The revenue of top 25 global operators from data averages 18 per cent and 22 of these operators run GSM networks. Overall, there are 76 operators in 50 countries that have committed to deploy EDGE. Almost every country has a GSM-based network and even those US operators, which operated on now-defunct TDMA technology, were migrating gradually to GSM, not CDMA, pointed out Hadden at the GSM Evolution Forum. The Forum is a global GSA program to assist the operators for evolution to third generation (3G) technologies. “People are using their phones for much more than voice. Fifteen networks have commercially launched EDGE as it can run 3G like services in the existing spectrum for the operators without needing a 3G license. Even the
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migration to a full-fledged 3G level of Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) will be smooth with EDGE,” said Hadden. “Besides, the automatic roaming provided by GSM networks in almost 200 countries is a power that CDMA doesn’t give you. We know for sure that almost 20-25 per cent of the revenue for some GSM operators comes from roaming customers,” he added. But CDMA is no pushover with Korea and Philippines as the shining jewels in its crown. The first CDMA 2000 1X was commercially deployed in October 2000.
Already, 81 operators have launched 77 CDMA 2000 1X networks whereas nine have launched services based on 1xEV-DO platform across Asia, the Americas and Europe. At least, 16 new 1X and six 1xEV-DO networks are scheduled to be deployed in 2004, according to CDMA Development Group. EV-DO and EV-DV are the next level of evolution on the CDMA 2000 1X platform, capable of delivering services comparable to 3G WCDMA.
Where are the models?
What will matter a lot in this war will be the availability of EDGE compliant handsets at affordable rates. While the two CDMA operators have been giving out handsets that can give hispeed data transfer, same has not been the case with GSM. Even now, GPRS handsets have not become commonplace and GPRS feature is found only in mid and high-end segment handsets.
End sum game
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When the networks deploy EDGE, subscribers can expect the delivery of advanced mobile services such as easy downloading of video and music clips, full multimedia messaging, besides high-speed Internet and e-mail access, provided their handset supports all this. But the real cruncher will be the migration at a later stage to 3G technologies such as WCDMA, EV-DO or EV-DA as and when the government decides what to do with the 3G licences. WCDMA for example promises delivery of a phenomenal 2 megabytes per second (mbps), equivalent to what a leased line in many middle level corporates gives. More importantly, WCDMA will spawn a whole new range of full motion audio-video applications, including video telephony. GSM lobby may continue to remain gung ho over the future of their technologies over that boosted by the American firms Qualcomm and Motorola, but Indian market could well throw an interesting scenario that industry experts will do well to watch. In the coming months, Reliance plans to offer its CDMA subscribers much more than what GSM players intend to deliver through their EDGE for their subscribers.
Who succeeds in this battle for mobile customer’s eyeballs is most difficult to predict. A Korea and Japan may not be waiting to happen in India, but India will probably be more like the Chinese market with both standards co-existing. For now, GSM rules!
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COMPANY PROFILE
Airtel comes to you from Bharti Cellular Limited - a part of the biggest private integrated telecom conglomerate, Bharti Enterprises. Bharti Airtel limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa. The company offers mobile voice & data services, fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, DTH, turnkey telecom solutions for enterprises and national & international long distance services to carriers.
Bharti Airtel has been ranked among the six best performing technology companies in the world by business week. Bharti Airtel had 200 million customers across its operations. Apart from being the largest manufacturer of telephone instruments in India, it is also the first company to export its products to the USA.
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By 2015 Airtel will be the most loved brand, enriching the lives of millions.
"Enriching lives means putting the customer at the heart of everything we do. We will meet their needs based on our deep understanding of their ambitions, wherever they are. By having this focus we will enrich our own lives and those of our other key stakeholders. Only then will we be thought of as exciting, innovation, on their side and a truly world class company."
SERVICES
Bharti Airtel’s product and services portfolio includes mobile services, home phones, broadband, calling cards, DTH, IPTV, MPLS Services, satellite services, data transport solutions and conferencing services.
Airtel Prepaid
Airtel Prepaid, the Ready Cellular Card from Airtel comes to you from Bharti Enterprises, India's leading integrated telecom service provider. Going mobile with Airtel Prepaid is a new way of life. With a host of great features, also simple to use, Airtel Prepaid makes everything that you dreamt and believed, possible.
Airtel Postpaid
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Airtel welcomes you to a vibrant world of unlimited opportunities. More exciting, innovative yet simple new ways to communicate, just when you want to, not just through words but ideas, emotions and feelings. To give you the unlimited freedom to reach out to your special people in your special way.
Airtel Roaming
AIRTEL’s Roaming service allows you to use your mobile phone to make or receive calls from almost anywhere in India and abroad. Airtel Roaming gives you two great options: • • Airtel National - Enjoy roaming in India across 42 partners networks and over 750 cities. Airtel International - Roam across international destinations, in nearly 119 countries including USA, Canada, UK etc. with 284 partner networks.
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Long Distance
Experience complete freedom like never before with Airtel! Our National Long-Distance facility allows you to make long distance calls in India and Overseas from your cellular phone. This service is applicable to both Postpaid and Prepaid customers.
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AIRTEL BRAND
Airtel & Visual Identity
For a brand to be successful, it must build enduring relationships with its different audiences. Integral to this relationship is the visual image of the brand the consumer carries in his/her mind. The Airtel brand image is created through the consistent application of a carefully developed visual identity, which helps Airtel distinguish itself in a cluttered market. Airtel's visual identity helps create instant brand recall and strengthens the relationships that its audiences have with it.
The Airtel visual identity has different elements that work together to create a strong and consistent identity for the brand.
The Airtel Logo
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The new logo is the letter ‘a’ in lowercase, and has airtel written in lowercase under the logo and the word starts with a small 'A'. The unique symbol is an interpretation of the ‘a’ in airtel. The curved shape & the gentle highlights on the red color make it warm & inviting, almost as if it were a living object. It represents a dynamic force of unparalleled energy that brings the brand and its customers closer. The specially designed logo type is modern, vibrant & friendly. It signals the brand’s resolve to be accessible
The Airtel Typographical style
The use of all lowercase is its recognition for the need for humanity. Red is part of the brand’s heritage. It is the color of energy & passion that expresses the dynamism that has made airtel the success it is today, in India, and now on the global stage.
Airtel comes to you from Bharti Tele-Ventures - a part of the biggest private integrated telecom conglomerate, Bharti Enterprises.
(Chairman and Group Managing Director)
Sunil Bharti Mittal
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VISION:
"As we spread wings to expand our capabilities and explore new horizons, the fundamental focus remains unchanged: seek out the best technology in the world and put it at the service of our ultimate user: our customer."
About Bharti Tele-Ventures
Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited was incorporated on July 7, 1995 for promoting investments in telecommunications services. Its subsidiaries operate telecom services across India. Bharti TeleVentures is one of world’s leading providers of telecommunication services with presence in all the 22 licensed jurisdictions (also known as Telecom Circles) in India, and operations in Srilanka, Bangladesh and Africa. It served an aggregate of 207.8 million customers as of December 31, 2010; of whom 199.6 million subscribe to their GSM services and 3.2 million use their Telemedia Services either for voice and/or broadband access delivered through DSL. It is the largest wireless service provider in India, based on the number of customers as of December 31, 2010. They offer an integrated suite of telecom solutions to our enterprise customers, in addition to providing long distance connectivity both nationally and internationally. They also offer Digital TV and IPTV Services. All these services are rendered under a unified brand "airtel".
The company also deploys, owns and manages passive infrastructure pertaining to telecom operations under its subsidiary Bharti Infratel Limited. Bharti Infratel owns 42% of Indus
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Towers Limited. Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers are amongst top providers of passive infrastructure services in India.
Business Strategy
Bharti Tele-Ventures' strategic objective is “to capitalize on the growth opportunities that the Company believes are available in the Indian telecommunications market and consolidate its position to be the leading integrated telecommunications services provider in key markets in India, with a focus on providing mobile services”. The Company has developed the following strategies to achieve its strategic objective: 1. Focus on maximizing revenues and margins; 2. Capture maximum telecommunications revenue potential with minimum geographical coverage; 3. Offer multiple telecommunications services to provide customers with a "one-stop shop" solution; 4. Position itself to tap data transmission opportunities and offer advanced mobile data services; 5. Focus on satisfying and retaining customers by ensuring high level of customer satisfaction; 6. Leverage strengths of its strategic and financial partners; and
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7. Emphasize on human resource development to achieve operational efficiencies.
Mobile Strategy
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Capture maximum telecommunications revenue potential with minimum geographical coverage to maximize its revenues and margins. Build high quality mobile networks by deploying state-of-the-art technology to offer superior services. Use the experience it has gained from operating its existing mobile networks to develop and operate other mobile networks in India and to share the expertise across all of its existing and new circles. Attract and retain high revenue generating customers by providing competitive tariffs, offering high quality customer support, proactive retention programs and roaming packages across all of its mobile circles.
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Provide affordable tariff plans to suit each segment of the market with a view to expand the reach, thereby increasing the mobile customer base rapidly.
Media Strategy
The media planning was done by Madison Media. The primary media used for the rebranding campaign was television and print so that everyone would get to see the ad & this would create an impact in his mind. Later in the secondary media, OOH and digital media was used extensively so that there was an immediate brand recall of the new logo and the brand Airtel.
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JWT was the creative agency that has worked on the new Airtel campaign currently playing out on TV, print, outdoor.
Brand Strategy To understand the brand strategy, let’s first look at the brand building exercise associated with airtel — a brand that repositioned recently to mark its global presence in the market. The new Airtel campaign is not merely rebranding. Its a re-launch. A new positioning. A new brand idea. A new voice. The brand has embarked on an exciting new journey. A journey that seeks to bring people closer to what they love. In the new participation economy, customers are no longer happy being passive viewers. They want to create, comment on and share all that is close to their hearts. Airtel seeks to enable that in every way possible. When the brand was launched, cellular telephony wasn’t a mass market by any means. For the average consumer, owning a cellular phone was expensive as tariff rates (at Rs 8 a minute) as well as instrument prices were steep — sometimes as much as buying a second-hand car. Bharti could have addressed the customer by rationally explaining to him the economic advantage of using a mobile phone. But Sunil Bharti says that such a strategy would not have worked for the simple reason that the value from using the phone at the time was not commensurate with the cost. “Instead of the value-proposition model, we decided to address the sensory benefit it gave to the customer as the main selling tack. The idea was to become a badge value brand,” he explains.
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So the Airtel “leadership series” campaign was launched showing successful men with their laptops and in their deluxe cars using the mobile phone. In simple terms, it meant Airtel was positioned as an inspirational brand that was meant for leaders, for customers who stood out in a crowd. Did it work? Repeated surveys following the launch showed that there were three core benefits that were clearly associated with the brand — leadership, dynamism and performance. These were valuable qualities, but they only took Airtel far enough to establish its presence in the market. As tariffs started dropping, it became necessary for Airtel to appeal to a wider audience. And the various brand-tracking exercises showed that despite all these good things, there was no emotional dimension to the brand — it was perceived as cold, distant and efficient. By 2000, Bharti and his team realized that in a business in which customer relationships were the core this could be a major weakness. The reason with tariffs identical to competitor Essar and roughly the same level of service and schemes, it had now become important for Bharti to “humanize” Airtel and use that relationship as a major differentiation. The brand had become something like Lufthansa — cold and efficient. What they needed was to become Singapore Airlines, efficient but also human. A change in tack was important because this was a time when the cellular market was changing. The leadership series was okay when you were wooing the crème de la crème of society. Once you reached them you had to expand the market so there was need to address to new customers.
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By that time, Bharti was already the leading cellular subscriber in Delhi with a base of 3.77 lakh (it now has 200 million customers). And with tariffs becoming more affordable — as cell companies started cutting prices — it was time to expand the market. How could Bharti leverage this leadership position down the value chain? Surveys showed that the concept of leadership in the customer’s minds was also changing. Leadership did not mean directing subordinates to execute orders but to work along with a team to achieve common objectives — it was, again, a relationship game that needed to be reflected in the Airtel brand. Also, a survey showed that 50 per cent of the new customers choose a mobile phone brand mostly through word-of-mouth endorsements from friends, family or colleagues. Thus, existing customers were an important tool for market expansion and Bharti now focused on building closer relationships with them. That is precisely what the brand tried to achieve through its new positioning under the Airtel “Touch Tomorrow” brand campaign. This set of campaigns portrayed mobile users surrounded by caring family members. Says Bharti: “The campaign and positioning was designed to highlight the relationship angle and make the brand softer and more sensitive.” Airtel positioned itself as a power brand with numerous regional sub-brands reflecting customer needs in various parts of the country and became more humane and more sensitive as a brand. Bharti also understood that one common brand for all cellular operations might not always work in urban markets that are getting increasingly saturated. To bring in new customers, the company decided that it needed to segment the market.
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In 2003, Airtel repositioned its brand with “Express yourself” campaign and changed its logo to give more energetic and younger look .The highlight of the campaign was capability of Airtel’s performance and network coverage and that it was launched in regional language. CURRENT STRATEGY As it looks to expand its cellular services globally— With an eye on the youth in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, Bharti Airtel has rebranded itself as 'airtel' and launched a global campaign that will rebrand its operations across the world. The new brand identity has been created in sync with the launch of the company's third generation (3G) services.
THE AIRTEL RE –DESIGN
Old Logo
New Logo
The new logo for airtel service is designed London-based Brand Union, a WPP agency. Brand Union has done a wonderful job as far as the airtel logo goes. “It’s young and vibrant. Above all, there’s a change in positioning, from a voice company to one that provides data. It enriches lives in other words. The group’s marketing effort has been reinforced with the re-launch of the Airtel brand logo, with a new international and younger look.The idea was to rework the
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brand so that it is relevant to a larger segment of the population as we are now expanding globally. The new brand look will be supported by a Rs 300 crore budget. Basically, Bharti Airtel, the brand owner, which provides the service, has done away with the box in which the word Airtel was placed earlier. This was famously called the flag logo because the look resembled just that — the colours red and white alternating with each other. The word ‘Air’, in black, was placed against a white background, while ‘Tel’, in white, appeared against a red backdrop. To keep the continuity going, the dot of the letter ‘i’ in the word, was also red. Airtel now, is “unboxed” having been freed of its rigid boundaries. In a break from the past, the word airtel has been spelt in lower case. The brand has also recently unveiled its new positioning,
'Dil jo chahe paas laye'
TARGET AUDIENCE PROFILE • The target audience for this ad campaign will be both males and females between the age groups of 15- 45 years. • • A vast Age group has been chosen as nowadays almost every person is using a mobile. The target audience will be all over India as Airtel is a service that is being used by consumers all over. • The target audiences are people who are currently using Airtel Services as well as non Airtel users. • The benefits the target audience would get form the brand Airtel would be a combination of : 33
o Emotional Benefit- The consumer could express his inner most feelings and always stay connected to loved ones. o Social Benefit- Airtel is an International brand now, it would satisfy his esteem needs. • The target audiences’ involvement with the product is very HIGH, as communication is one of the most important aspects in every consumer’s life as it helps him to stay connected to his near & dear ones & also carry on his daily life both professionally & personally. Thus while choosing any such cellular service, he would do a complete analysis & research to find out which service provider would satisfy his needs & may be give even more.
CREATIVE BRIEF
The target audience in this ad campaign is both males and females of the SEC- A. who is intellectual, intelligent & has the rationality to understand the gravity of the ad campaign. Since the objective was to reposition the brand, it was necessary to make the consumer change his perception about the brand which required a strong motivation. This could be done only by connecting with the consumer emotionally & India being a country of emotions, it became necessary & easy to reach out to the consumer & place our brands in their minds in a positive way.
Airtel as a brand had to enhance its image, thus it had to give something more, if not literally then emotionally. Thus came the concept of, 'Dil jo chahe paas laye' which meant you'll never be away from your close ones in airtel’s world.
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Once the consumer has seen the ad campaign, it should create a deep impact in the minds of the consumer, so that if asked about any service provider Airtel should be the brand that should in the consumers TOMA (Top of the mind Awareness). After this ad campaign the consumer would have a higher bonding with the brand. Since the situations shown in the ad campaign are similar to what every consumer can relate to, the consumer after having seen the ad campaign should be convinced that its only Airtel which is a service provider that enables him to convey all that he wants to.
AD ELEMENTS
SITUATION 1 Endless Goodbye
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The first TVC titled, 'Endless Goodbye', shows a couple bumping into each other repeatedly after having said their goodbyes. The TVC begins with a couple who looks very sad as the young man is leaving. However, the very next moment, he finds the girl in a nearby café and is very excited to see her. Later, both walk down a street. They say goodbye to each other and the girl turns away, only to meet the man again, who comes in a cab. The girl hops into the taxi and both of them leave together. Then, the man asks the cabbie to stop the taxi and gets out, bidding adieu to the girl inside. The next instant, the girl comes running towards the man and hugs him. The TVC then shows the couple happily walking across the city. They enter a metro station and once again are very sad, as the young man boards a train. As the train leaves, the girl once again meets the man on the platform and happily hugs him. The TVC ends with a voiceover saying, "In Airtel's world, you'll never be away from your close ones. Dil Jo Chahe Paas Laye."
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SITUATION 2 Street Performer
The second TVC titled, 'Street Performer', opens with a man dancing to the tune of Airtel's official ringtone. Next, a girl walks down the street; she stops as she sees the young man performing interesting dance moves. The girl stays for a while to watch him dancing; but leaves when she checks the time on her watch and realizes that she is getting late. The man, who is still dancing, stops and finds that the girl has left. So, he follows her and catches up with her. He continues dancing while the girl is walking. The TVC ends with a voiceover stating that in Airtel's world, entertainment will never stop, followed by the tagline, 'Dil Jo Chahe Paas Laye'
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Bharti’s Accomplishments
1 The largest private sector integrated telecommunications services group in India in terms of the number of customers.
2
Proven track record of managing growth - both organic as well as by way of acquisitions.
3
First and largest private telecommunications services company offering fixed-line services in India.
4
First private telecommunications company to launch long distance services.
5 First off the block to launch fixed-line services in all the four circles of Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
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Management Structure
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Reach us, Anytime Anywhere
In case you need assistance, dial '121' - our toll-free number, accessible from anywhere in the country, even while roaming. *In case of email, mention your mobile no. like 9810012345 in the subject of the mail for a quicker response.
TARIFF STRUCTURE
Prepaid Tariffs Airtel Prepaid Ready Cellular Card and Recharge Cards are available, all over the city at over retail outlets including 24-hour outlets. Airtel Prepaid Ready Cellular Card and Recharge Cards are available, all over the city at over retail outlets including 24-hour outlets.
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Airtel Prepaid Regular
449 SUK Pulse Rate Price of Pack (Rs.) Free Airtime on Pack (Rs.) Incoming Calls (Rs.) 60 sec Rs.449 Nil Free while in home network Airtel LOCAL RATES (Rs./min) STD RATES (Rs./min) ISD (Rs./min) USA, Canada, Europe (Fixed Line), Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand. Gulf, Europe (Mobile), SAARC countries, Africa & Rest of the world Cuba, Sao Tome & Principe, Guinea Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin SMS (Rs.) Local National International Other Details *Rs 50 Local Airtel-Airtel Mobile talktime per month for 6 months * First month Airtel-Airtel credit within 72hrs of activation & balance credit by 1st week of every month) *The SMS charge as applicable is per 160 characters * Validity- 24 months. Rs.1.00 Rs.1.50 Rs.5.00 Rs.40.00 Rs.9.20 Rs.6.40 Rs.1.20 Rs.2.75 GSM / CDMA (10 Digit) Rs.2.00 Rs.2.75 Rs.2.40 Rs.2.75 Landline / WLL
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POSTPAID Airtel Postpaid allows you to choose from a variety of affordable talk plans, convenient payment options and host of rich features. So get set to enjoy a world of limitless possibilities! Reference Tarif Packages (RTP)
ON TIME CHARGES Activation Charges Membership Fee Security Deposit MONTHLY CHARGES (FIXED) Bill plan Charge Monthly Rental Clip MONTHLY CHARGES (OPTIONAL) Clip
Rs. 600 NA Rs. 500 Rs. 524 Rs. 425 Rs. 99 NA Rs. 99 Airtel GSM Digit) Rs 1.00 / Landline /
CDMA (10 WLL Rs. 1.00 Re.1 Rs 1.00
Local Rates STD RATES 50 – 200 Km 200 – 500 Km 500 + Km ISD USA, Canda, Europe (Fixed
Line), Rs. 7.20
Austalia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, new Zealand Gulf, Europe (Mobile), SAARC Countries, Rs 9.99 Africa & Rest of the world Cuba, Sao tome & Principle, Guinea Rs. 40.00 Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Island, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin
SMS
Local Rs. 1.50 42
National International Value Added Services (Rs.)
Rs. 2.00 Rs. 5.00 Rs. 3.00
Airtel One Standard 150
ONE TIME CHARGES Activation Charges Membership Fee Security Deposit MONTHLY CHARGES (FIXED) Bill Plan Charge Monthly Rental Clip MONTHLY CHARGES (OPTIONAL) Clip Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin SMS Local National Intentional VAS
?
Rs 250 Rs 250 (Converts into security after 24 months) NA Rs. 150 Rs. 51 Rs. 99 NA Rs. 50
Rs 1.50 Rs 2.00 Rs. 5.00 Rs. 3.00
This Bill Plan is also available under Advance Rental of Rs. 900 for 2 years.
Local Pack
Airtel to other local mobiles (non Airtel) At Rs 1 / min
? ?
Monthly rental Rs 25 per months/STD Pack Monthly rental Rs 75 per month/Special offer for Airtel Telephone service customers for availing Airtel Mobile services
Airtel to other mobiles (non Airtel) & fixed lines nos. at Rs 2 / min.
? ?
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If you already have Airtel Telephone service, you can buy a new Airtel Mobile connection under Airtel One Standard 150 Plan.
Benefits:
? ? ? ?
Non security deposit. No membership / activation fee Enjoy calls to your Airtel fixed line no. at just 60 P / min. Monthly rent of Rs 25 for reduced call rates to your Airtel fixed line has been waived off for 1 year.
Advance Rental benefits (1year scheme)
Pay an advance rent of Rs 999 and enjoy Airtel One Standard 150 plan at Zero monthly rental for one year. Advance rental of Rs 999 gives you a rental discount of Rs 150 every month for the next 2 months. All other options and charges are as per the existing Airtel One Standard 150 Plan. AIRTEL ONE STANDARD 249 ONE TIME CHARGES Activation Charges Membership Fee Security Deposit MONTHLY CHARGES (FIXED) Bill Plan Charge Monthly Rental Clip MONTHLY CHARGES (OPTIONAL) Clip
Rs 250 Rs 250 (Converts into security after 24 months) NA Rs. 249 Rs. 150 Rs. 99 NA Rs. 50 Airtel GSM Digit) / Landline /
CDMA (10 WLL
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LOCAL RATES STD RATES 50-200Km 200 – 500 Km 500 + Km ISD USA, Canda, Europe (Fixed
Re. 1.00
Rs. 1.25
Rs. 1.25
Rs. 2.00 Rs. 2.00 Rs. 2.00 Line), Rs. 7.20
Rs. 2.40 Rs. 2.40 Rs. 2.40
Rs. 2.40 Rs. 2.40 Rs. 2.40
Austalia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, new Zealand Gulf, Europe (Mobile), SAARC Countries, Rs 9.99 Africa & Rest of the world Cuba, Sao tome & Principle, Guinea Rs. 40.00 Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Island, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin SMS Local National International Value Added Services (Rs.) Rs. 1.00 Rs. 1.50 Rs. 5.00 Rs. 3.00
You also enjoy 25 FREE local mobile to mobile SMS SENIOR CITIZEN PLAN
ONE TIME CHARGES Activation Charges Membership Fee Security Deposit MONTHLY CHARGES (FIXED) Bill Plan Charge
Rs. 250 Rs. 250 (Concerts into security deposit after 24 months) NA Rs. 150 Rs. 51 Rs. 99
Monthly Rental Clip NA Cuba, Sao Tome & Principle, Guinea 45
Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin SMS Local National International VAS With Senior Citizen Plan You can take 3 Friends and Family numbers:
? ? ?
Rs. 1.50 Rs. 2.00 Rs. 5.00 Rs. 3.00
Airtel to Airtel (1local no.) – Rs. 0.5 / min. Airtel to Airtel (1 STD no.) – Rs 1.5 / min ISD calls to US / Canada / South East Asia / Australia / New Zealand) – Rs. 9.99 / min
You also get FREE alert subscription worth Rs 30 / alert or 3 months on:
? ? ?
News Astrology Health Tips
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The SMS charges as applicable is per 160 Characters.
LIFE TIME PLAN
PRE-PAID card users need not worry anymore about recharging their coupons every month. Company has launched a plan that allows users to take a pre-paid connection with lifetime validity for a one time payment of Rs. 299. Subscribers availing themselves of this scheme will also get full talk time for the recharge coupon they purchase and also have the option to buy Taiwanese manufactured Bird mobile handsets for as low as Rs. 1,399. The move is aimed at stopping the churn in the pre-paid subscriber base. Once a subscriber takes this plan, he will always be an Airtel subscriber whether the mobile is being used or not.
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PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITY (STRATEGY)
Airtel to “Touch Tomorrow” with a new brand vision The Bharti Mobile promoted AirTel cellular service will go in for repositioning of its brand image. The new brand ethos is portrayed in two distinct fashions - the tag line "Touch Tomorrow", which underscores the leading theme for the new brand vision, followed by "The Good Life", which underscores a more caring, more customer centric organization. Aimed at reengineering its image as just simply a cellular service provider to an all out information communications services provider, Touch Tomorrow is meant to embrace the new generation of mobile communication services and the changing scope of customer needs and aspirations that come along with it The new communication is about a new dimension in the cellular category that goes beyond the Internet, SMS, roaming, IVRS, etc but which engulfs the whole gamut of wireless digital
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broadband services that will constitute tomorrows cellular services. The new campaign is in two phases - the first of which will communicate overall brand philosophy and the second products and services. According to Mr. Jagdish Kini, Chief Operating Officer, Bharti Mobile Limited, Karnataka "We are adopting a new brand- platform - Touch Tomorrow - not only to reflect our corporate ethos but also business strategy". The new identity will have the logo in Red, Black and White colours along with lower case typography to convey warmth. AirTel will incorporate the latest branding in all of its communication and will soon be going in for an enhanced promotional drive to establish the brand's presence. MARKET SITUATION At the time of launch The first mover in the market was Airtel which launched its services in Delhi in Aug 1995 (Informal launch). Essar Cellphone followed by launching its services informally in Oct 95. At this point of time, the market was at a nascent stage, awareness level was low and both operators independently tried to spread awareness and educate the people Once the networks were commercially launched, it became a number game with a multitude of schemes being offered to woo customers Initially the cellphone was perceived as a status symbol and utility took a back seat The target segment in Delhi were corporate and the high income group. The average capacity installed was for 1.5 lakh subscribers. This coupled with the steep license fee paid to DOT put pressure on the operators to break-even by rapidly expanding their markets. In the first two years, this led to a number of schemes being offered and prices crashing.
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COMPETITIVE SITUATION Airtel launched its services before Essar and skimmed the market picking up the bulk of the high usage premium clients. This is a very competitive industry with the two companies
differentiating either on value-added services or price. Airtel is perceived as the high quality provider and has a premium image. Essar, on the other hand, is perceived as the lower end service provider. Airtel positions itself as the market leader on the basis of the number of subscribers. Essar is trying to counter this by emphasising on the reach of its network and the quality of its service. However, Essar is somewhat not been very successful largely due to the inconsistency in advertising To promote themselves, both the players have been dependent on tactical advertising However, they have restrained from using comparative advertising Hoardings have been a very popular medium for carrying the advertisements Airtel has also been advertising on television using the Bharti Telecom name.
SALES DEPARTMENT AND STRATEGY A. • • • • • Major Accounts (Direct Channel) Handles corporate (named and famed) accounts Forecasting of sales Mapping the accounts Providing after sales support to the subscribers. Maintaining call reports for records.
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•
Providing Feedback to the marketing department regarding the requirement of the market.
B. IDC (indirect Channel) • • • • • C. 1. Handling distribution Maintaining records and level check of the channel partner Liaisoning between the channel partner and the company. Target achievement Training the executives of the channel Distribution Support Logistics • Monitor handset and SIM card requirements of channel partners and co-ordinate with stores • 2. • • • 3 • • Rental Provide cellular services (SIM cards) on rent. Provide cellular phones on rent Useful for people visiting Delhi for a short interval. Telesales Call customers and generate sales lead. Follow up with the customers, if they need any assistance Settle areas of concerns such as incentive claims of channel partners
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• 4
Pass on the sales lead to the channel department.
Audit • • Consultant to the AirTel showrooms. Monitor the operations at the AirTel distribution outlets Organize training. Retail • • Locate shops to open retail counters. Monitor the retail counters.
5.
MARKET SEGMENTATION Segmentation is beneficial because of better predictability of the target consumer group, minimization of risk exposure, better ability to fine-tune a product / service to the requirement of target buyer and the resultant ease in designing a proper designing marketing mix strategy In this case segmentation is on the bade of income. In evaluating different market segments the company looks at two factors The overall attractiveness of the segments and the company's objectives & resources The present market for Cellular phones, pagers and conventional phones is as follows Premium Upper X X X Lower X X X Middle Upper X X X Lower X X Economy Upper X Lower -
Cellular Phones Pager Conventional Phones
X Market Segment Targeted TARGET MARKET SEGMENT
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Airtel has targeted the premium and upper middle class. The rationale behind it is that only those segments should be targeted who value time and have the paying capacity. It Is also planning to target the business tourists during their stay in the capital About 60% of the clientele are top executives of corporate houses. About 15% are foreign organisations and the rest are professionals and small businessmen. During the introduction stage there was intense pressure to get consumers across to hook up with their brand, because getting them to switch brand loyalty later would be hard So far Airtel marketers have been concentrating totally on the business executive class but now that the basic viable volumes has beer) built up and prices have declined to a certain extent they are planning to venture further a field.
POSITIONING The product is sought to be positioned as a business efficiency tool. a lifestyle revolution and a status symbol The emphasis is to remove misconception that the cellphone is an expensive means of communication and drive home the point that the cellphone is actually a day-to-day utility. PRODUCT POLICY AND PLANNING
The product or service is the heart of the marketing mix. Without a product or a service customers' needs cannot be satisfied. The basic product promise by Airtel is mobility. Airtel's main marketing strategy is to be a first mover all the time. It has recognised the significance of making the first move-- because in the field of Communication & Information Technology changes occur at a tremendous pace.
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Effective product segmentation has to be carried on continuously because basic services can be and will be copied and in time become expected component of the product. Airtel seeks to carry out this segmentation through provision of new information services and making new facilities available. The product policy and planning depends on the stage of the product life cycle. At present the cellular phone market has reached the maturity stage. Since, the premium segment is nearing saturation the company targeting the upper middle and middle-middle class. In order to do so Airtel is trying to optimise the price performance package by offering suitable "product bundling". This involves the selection of the suitable hardware (handset) and its software (its services.) with reasonable price in order to deliver maximum price performance to its customers. In addition, it offers free Airtime services and other concessions to make the prices and thus the product more attractive. It has also opened a 24 hours customer service. Only price doesn't serve as an effective differentiator, value added services become the effective differentiator.
The "Value Added Services" provided from Airtel are:1). Voice Mail service This system is similar to the answering machine - if the user is not able to answer a call for some reason the caller can leave messages in the voice mail box which can be later retrieved by the user. ii) Short Message Service The short message service is like a two-way pager. It gives an option of sending and receiving text messages directly from one mobile phone to another without the intervention of an operator.
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iii) Mobile Fax 1 Data Service This service helps the subscriber to send and receive Faxes, access E-mail, download computer files from other systems and remotely log on to another computer and surf the Internet. iv) Cash Card The cash card is a pre-paid and pre-activated card which allows the buyers to buy air time in advance. All it requires is the payment of an initial amount. This is a useful service for people who travel to Delhi often and those who want to control the expenses on their calls. v) Caller ID Displays calling person's number. vi) Outgoing call restriction To prevent or limit outgoing calls, for example, in peak hours. Also possible to exclude one or several countries, or any geographical region, to permit only local calls, or to limit the outgoing calls to a listed number. viii) Call forward Incoming calls can be forwarded to another fixed or mobile phone. Besides these some other services provided by Airtel are - Call conferencing, Call Broadcast et cetera. It is in the operators -Interest that they not only get many subscribers but also get them to use the mobile facility frequently. In the early stages getting increases to subscribe may be easier than getting them to talk since they will find it costlier to use the mobile phone as compared to a conventional phone [if is believed that initially cellphones would be used buy] viii) Roaming Facility
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Roaming facility is available while the subscriber is travelling. The billing is done in the home network (Delhi). Roaming facility is available manually* as well as semi-automatically. Once a subscriber is In any other city or country, where a GSM network is available, simply insert the SIM card of the local operator Into your handset and start talking.
* **
Manual Roaming means a separate SIM card is provided for each city Semi automatic roaming means one card has the facility for different cities.
AIRTEL'S MARKETING ORIENTATION. Since this is a high-involvement expensive product, the service provider has to fully take care of the customers. a) They take personal responsibility to "get" the answer for any problem faced by the customer b) c) d) e) They anticipate customers' problems and take pro-active steps to prevent them They give answers to the questions & requests, quickly & efficiently. They have a positive tone & manner while interacting with customers. They end the interaction on a positive or a humorous note-making the last 30 seconds count.
Airtel realises that attracting people 'Is easy but converting them into loyal customers is hard, hence emphasis is on maintaining a 'Smiling and a Friendly Atmosphere' to please and retain the customer.
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MARKETING STRATEGY ADOPTED BY BHARTI
Bharti has spent a considerable amount on advertising its mobile phone service, Airtel. Besides print advertising, the company had put up large no of hoardings and kiosks in and around Delhi. The objective behind designing a promotion campaign for the ‘Airtel’ services is to promote the brand awareness and to build brand preferences. It is trying to set up a thematic campaign to build a stronger brand equity for Airtel. Since the cellular phone category itself is too restricted, also the fact that a Cellular phone is a high involvement product, price doesn't qualify as an effective differentiator. The image of the service provider counts a great deal. Given the Cell phone category, it is the network efficiency and the quality of service that becomes important. What now the buyer is looking at is to get the optimum price-performance package. This also serves as an effective differentiator Brand awareness is spread through the' campaigns and brand preference through brand stature. Airtel's campaign in the capital began with a series of 'teaser' hoardings across the city,' bearing just the company's name and without explaining what Airtel was. In the next phase the
campaign associated Airtel with Cellular only thereafter was the Bharti Cellular connection brought up. Vans with Airtel logos roamed the city, handing out brochures about the company
and its services to all consumers. About 50,000 direct callers were sent out. When the name was well entrenched in the Delhiites’s mind, the Airtel campaign began to focus on the utility of Cellphone. In the first four months alone Airtei's advertisement spend exceeded Rs. 4 crores. As of today the awareness level Is 60% unaided. This implies that if potential or knowledgeable consumers are asked to name a Cellular phone service provider that is on the top of his/her mind 60% of them would name Airtel. As for aided it -is 100% (by giving clues and hints etc.). 57
Brand strength of a product or the health of a brand is measured by the percentage score of the brand on the above aided and the unaided tests. The figures show that Airtel is a healthy and a thriving brand. Every company has a goal, which might comprise a sales target and a game plan with due regard to Its competitor. Airtel 's campaign strategy is designed keeping in mind its marketing strategy. The tone, tenor and the stance of the visual ads are designed to convey the image of a market leader in terms of its market share. It tries to portray the image of being a "first mover every time" and that of a "market leader". The status of the product in terms of its life cycle has just reached the maturity stage in India. It is still on the rising part of the product life cycle curve in the maturity stage. The diagram on the left hand side shows the percentage of the users classified into heavy, medium and low categories. The right hand side shows the revenue share earned from the three types of users. Airtel, keeping in mind the importance of the customer retention, values its heavy users the most and constantly indulges in service innovation. But, since heavy users comprise only 15 - 20% of the population the other segment cannot be neglected. The population which has just realised the importance of cellular phones has to be roped in. It is for this reason that the service provider offers a plethora of incentives and discounts. Concerts like the "Freedom concert" are being organised by Airtel in order to promote sales. The media channel is chosen with economy in mind. The target segment is not very concrete but, there is an attempt to focus on those who can afford. The print advertisements and hoarding are placed in those strategic areas which most likely to catch the attention of those who need a cellular phone.
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The product promise (which might cost different 1 higher) is an important variable in determining the target audience. Besides this, other promotional activities (strategies) that Airtel has adopted are . (i) People who have booked Airtel services have been treated to exclusive premiers of blockbuster movies. Airtel has tied up with Lufthansa to offer customer bonus miles on the German airlines frequent flier's programs. (ii) There have been educational campaigns, image campaigns, pre launch advertisements,
launch advertisements, congratulatory advertisements, promotional advertise-ments, attacking advertisements and tactical advertisements.
DISTRIBUTION
Company
Franchisee
Distributor Dealers
Dealer Customer
Customer
The- company whose operations are concentrated in and around Delhi. It 27 Franchisees and 15 Distributors- They also have 8 'instant access cash card counters- Each franchises or distributor can have any number of dealers under him as long as the person is approved by the Airtel authority. Each franchises has to invest Rupees Ten Lakhs. to obtain a franchise and should employ an officer recruited by Airtel. This person acts as an liaison between the company and the franchises. The franchises can it any number of dealers as long as their territories do not
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overlap. But unfortunately Airtel has not been very successful in controlling territorial overlaps of dealers. The franchises can carry out his 1 her own promotional strategy. For this the. company contributes 75% of the money and the franchises contributes 25% of the money. The dealers under the franchisee receive the same commission. The franchises and the dealer obtain the feedback from the customers and they are sent through the liaison officer on a day-to-day basis to Airtel. The dealer has to invest Rupees. One Lakh as an initial investment. The dealer of Airtel are not allowed to provide any other operators' service. Target set for distributors and the dealers is 100 -150 activations per month. Hence the dealers can also go for their own promotions like banners and discounts on festivals etc. The dealer provides service promptly. The consumer on providing the bill of purchase for the handset and proof of residence has only to wait an hour before getting connected. The staff of the dealers and the franchisees are provided training by the Airtel personnel. The complaints encountered by the franchisees and dealers are either handset being nonfunctional or the SIM Card not getting activated. Anything more complicated is referred to the main Airtel office in Delhi.
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DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
DEALER SURVEY
Classification of dealers according to the proportion of business of Air Tel.
Table-1 No. of dealers 22% 88% Responses Airtel Others
This chart show that twenty two percent of dealers believe that Airtel is the most preferred brand while the other eighty eight percent believe that others are alos popular among the costumers.
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1) what types of services customers want? (Multiple response were given) Table 2 Service Airtel Leisure AirTel Business AirTel Standard No. of dealers 03 33 64 Percentage 3% 33% 64%
From the chart, it is clear that the most popular service Among the customers is air tel standard and then airtel business because of their convenient tariff rates. However, each service is suitable for specific class of people depending on their usage.
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2) How would you rate Air Tel’s network in your area? Table-3 Rating Excellent Good Needs improvement No. of dealers 20 3 10 Percentage 60% 10% 30%
The chart depicts that thirty percent dealers are not fully satisfied with the netwok. They nelieve that there is scope for improvement as the signals are sometimes not proper in the interiors. Sometimes even inside trhe house or shop signals get weak.
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3) How knowledgeable is company’s customer service people? Table – 4 Rating Excellent Very Good So-So Dis-satisfied Strongly Dissatisfied No. of dealers 27 6 0 0 0 Percentage(%) 75% 18% 02% 04% 01%
This chart shows that all the dealers are satisfied with the knowledge of the customer service people of Airtel. They understand their problems and give them a reasonable solution.
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4) When phoning at the customer care department how quickly is the call transferred to the customer care executives? Table – 5 Time Immediately Within few minutes (2-3 min) Takes time No. of Dealers 00 03 30 Percentage 02% 10% 88%
Most of the dealers i.e. near about 90% have the problem that when they make a call to the computerized customer care department it takes long time near about 5-10 minutes for their call to be transferred to the customer care executives. 5) How responsive are the customer care executives in returning the phone calls. Table – 6
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Rating Excellent Very Good So-So Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied
No. of dealers 25 5 2 1 0
Percentage (%) 75% 15% 6% 3% 01%
Here most of the dealers are satisfied with the responsiveness of customer care executive in calling back to them if proper solution was not available for the first time.
6) Dealer’s overall rating to the customer care department. Table – 7 Rating Excellent Very Good No. of dealers 5 15 66 Percentage (%) 15% 45%
So-So Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied
12 1 0
36% 3% 01%
As shown above nearly thirty-six percent dealers have low level of satisfied with the department that leaves much needed scope for improvement.
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7) Dealer’s rating to the usefulness of sales representatives visits to them. Table –8 Rating Excellent Very Good So-So Dissatisfied Strongly Dissatisfied No. of dealers 10 7 9 3 4 Percentage (%) 30% 21% 27% 10% 12%
The above chart clearly indicates that a substantial percentage of dealers (27%) have a low level of satisfaction with the company representatives to them. Also 21 percent dealers are not at all satisfied with them.
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8) Dealers rating of the schemes provided by the company for them. Table – 9 Rating Excellent Very Good So-So Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied No. of dealers 0 6 12 15 0 Percentage (%) 03% 15% 36% 45% 01%
From the chart, it is clear that the dealers are not satisfied with the schemes provided by the company. They have the complaint that thought the customers are benefited from the various schemes there are not many schemes for their benefit. Sometimes the schemes are communicated to them slightly late and thus them the benefits from them.
9) Dealer’s satisfaction with the margins or cut-off provided by the company. 69
Table – 10 Level of Satisfaction Excellent Very Good So-S0 Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied No. of dealers 6 12 11 4 0 Percentage (%) 18% 36% 33% 12% 01%
The above chart indicates that near about fifty percent dealers are not much satisfied with the margins given by the company. The possible reason for this is the frequent fluctuations in them. Many times they get less than what is assured. 10) Classification of dealers according to the number of activation’s (average) made in a month. (on the basis of question II) Table – 11 0-10. 10-20. 20-30 30-40 70 40
above No. of Dealers Percentage (%) 3% 1% 8% 0.50% 10% 1% 7% 1% 5% 1%
No. of activations 0-10 10-20
No. of dealers 3 8
Percentage (%) 9.10 24.24
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11) Time within which dealers inform the franchisees about the receipt of activation forms. Table – 12 Time Less than 1 hour 1-2 hours Greater than 2 hours No. of dealers 33 00 00 Percentage 90% 06% 04%
From the chart it is clear that dealers immediately inform the franchisee about the receipt of the activation forms and it all depends on how those forms are passed on to the franchisees for timely activation.
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12) Dealer’s overall level of satisfaction with the company’s services. Table – 13 Satisfaction level Excellent Very Good So-So Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied No. of dealers 5 17 10 0 1 Percentage (%) 15% 51% 30% 01% 3%
The above chart shows that almost half of the dealers (50%) have high level of satisfaction and they should be moved to the highest class. Thirty percent are on the average side this clearly points out the deficiencies in the company’s policies and attitude towards the dealers. Being the most important part of the channel network but that too not under the company’s direct control should be properly considered and policies should be revised. 13) Is it feasible that activations are made directly from the dealer’s office instead of franchisees by setting the required computer network?
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Table – 14 No. of dealers Yes No 18 15 Percentage 55% 45%
Graph-18
45% 55%
Yes No
From the chart it is clear that there is not much difference in the opinion of dealers. Fifty-five percent are agreed to setup the required network while forty-five percent are not. It’s a mixed a bag situation and company has to decide accordingly.
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14) In case of cheque payment do dealers wait for the clearance of cheque before passing on the activation form to the franchisee? (Customer is not known) Table – 15 No. of dealers Always Generally Never 25 05 03 Percentage 61% 30% 9%
Graph-20
9%
Always
30% 61%
Generally Never
Near about sixty percent dealers always wait for the clearance of the cheque. Thirty percent depend on their appraisal of the customer and then decide accordingly. Only ten-percent takes risk pass on the activation, as they don’t want to loose their customer.
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15) Best/Distinctive features of the company. (Multiple responses were given) TABLE-16 Features Brand Image Promotional Strategy Excellent Service Strong Network No. of Dealers 13 4 7 9 Percentage 39% 12% 21% 27%
Graph-21
27% 39%
Brand Image Promotional Strategy Excellent Service
21%
12%
This chart shows the dealers liking about the various features of the company. It is clear their responses that AirTel’s Brand Image is best of the lot, the other features are also important but the brand image is most compelling one for them.
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16) Problems faced by the dealers.(Multiple responses were given) Table – 17 No. of dealers No dealer recognition Promotional strategy Service Fluctuating Margins No response 13 8 6 2 4 Percentage 39% 24% 18% 6% 12%
12% 6% 18%
Graph-21
39%
24%
No dealer recognitio n Promotion al strategy
This chart shows that seventy-five percent dealers are not satisfied with the company’s attitude towards the dealers. Nearly fifty percent are not satisfied with the promotional strategy and Services offered by the company for them. Some of them have given no responses as they consider them a part of every business
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CHAPTER V (SUMMARY OF FINDINGS)
1.
Twenty two percent of dealers believe that Airtel is the most preferred brand while the other eighty eight percent believe that others are alos popular among the costumers.
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2. It is clear that the most popular service Among the customers is air tel standard and then airtel business because of their convenient tariff rates. However, each service is suitable for specific class of people depending on their usage. 3. Thirty percent dealers are not fully satisfied with the netwok. They nelieve that there is scope for improvement as the signals are sometimes not proper in the interiors. Sometimes even inside trhe house or shop signals get weak. 4. All the dealers are satisfied with the knowledge of the customer service people of Airtel. They understand their problems and give them a reasonable solution. 5. Most of the dealers i.e. near about 90% have the problem that when they make a call to the computerized customer care department it takes long time near about 5-10 minutes for their call to be transferred to the customer care executives. 6. Most of the dealers are satisfied with the responsiveness of customer care executive in calling back to them if proper solution was not available for the first time. 7. Nearly thirty-six percent dealers have low level of satisfied with the department that leaves much needed scope for improvement. 8. The substantial percentage of dealers (27%) have a low level of satisfaction with the company representatives to them. Also 21 percent dealers are not at all satisfied with them. 9. It is clear that the dealers are not satisfied with the schemes provided by the company. They have the complaint that thought the customers are benefited from the various schemes there are not many schemes for their benefit. Sometimes the schemes are communicated to them slightly late and thus them the benefits from them.
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10. Near about fifty percent dealers are not much satisfied with the margins given by the company. The possible reason for this is the frequent fluctuations in them. Many times they get less than what is assured. 11. It is clear that dealers immediately inform the franchisee about the receipt of the activation forms and it all depends on how those forms are passed on to the franchisees for timely activation. 12. Almost half of the dealers (50%) have high level of satisfaction and they should be moved to the highest class. Thirty percent are on the average side this clearly points out the deficiencies in the company’s policies and attitude towards the dealers. Being the most important part of the channel network but that too not under the company’s direct control should be properly considered and policies should be revised. 13. It is clear that there is not much difference in the opinion of dealers. Fifty-five percent are agreed to setup the required network while forty-five percent are not. It’s a mixed a bag situation and company has to decide accordingly. 14. Near about sixty percent dealers always wait for the clearance of the cheque. Thirty percent depend on their appraisal of the customer and then decide accordingly. Only tenpercent takes risk pass on the activation, as they don’t want to loose their customer. 15. The dealers liking about the various features of the company. It is clear their responses that AirTel’s Brand Image is best of the lot, the other features are also important but the brand image is most compelling one for them. 16. Seventy-five percent dealers are not satisfied with the company’s attitude towards the dealers. Nearly fifty percent are not satisfied with the promotional strategy and Services
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offered by the company for them. Some of them have given no responses as they consider them a part of every business.
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CHAPTER VI CONCLUSIONS
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CONCLUSION
•
From above the details I conclude that most Airtel users preferred to remain with Airtel and that to mainly because of its brand value. Also good no. of users who were willing to switch from their respective subscribers showed interest in Airtel. Hence, these statistics imply a bright future for the company. Also the company is now providing more services like the door to door services which is you dial the Airtel customer care and would like to send someone flowers the Airtel company delivers those flowers to the person concerned. Also Airtel is providing free text messaging service and free voice mail service. Call conferencing is also another feature Airtel provides.
•
But after conducting the dealer survey we conclude that Airtel has to pay special attention on its dealer handling mechanism as they contribute a huge part in making the customer brand loyal. They are the main source which provides customers the details about the various tariff plans. So it is important for company to make them aware of the plans and give them quality services.
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LIMITATIONS
? Time constraint- The time constraint refers to the amount of time available to complete a project.
? Money constraints- The cost constraint refers to the budgeted amount available for the project.
? Availability of information- A Research largely depends on the information available to achieve its objectives the availability of information is also a major concern in this Project report.
? Biasness of the Data- The data collected is secondary in nature. So the user may have different objective and may have used it accordingly. So the data available may be bias.
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SUGGESTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Despite investments in integrated ERP, customer care, billing and network management systems, telecom operators still struggle to achieve the promises of strategic information management: providing relevant and meaningful information on Product, Customer and Channel performance. What's needed? Structuring and pulling together the disparate pieces of cost, revenue and performance information, to provide a view of where value is being generated in the business. Utilizing CRM systems to collect customer data Customer attributes and segmentation Product analysis for better yield management. Financial, understanding of Customer costs and profitability Typical situation. Ideal Integrated Solution. Closed loop marketing
Some of the recommendations for Airtel are as follows:
•
Airtel should use CRM as a platform for efficient delivery of a suite of products, services and applications to its 25 million plus mobile, landline and broadband customers.
•
For telecom, IT is like bread and butter. We believe it plays two significant roles-it works as a support system, and it can also be a business driver. Thus IT is very important for Airtel to understand and segregate customer needs depending on the product and services he is buying.
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•
One of the primary things that can be done is the segmentation of customers. With this, AirTel will be able to give its customers more value for money.
•
The future migration in bandwidth or zones should be done in such a manner that the existing customer base do not suffer.
•
The Airtel subscriber or customer should get the same quality of service no matter which of their call centres he contacts. This should be their vision – unified services across the country.
•
It is vital for them to manage the expectations of the customers and thus provide them with innovative products and services in a manner which makes them loyal.
•
Besides the game play of retaining customers, many operators are also constantly challenged to build a profitable postpaid customer base. Thus Airtel should try and initiate schemes that help • Migrating of prepaid customers to a postpaid plan by creatively introducing the right value-added services to right customers and communicating with customers effectively
•
Airtel can look forward to Acquiring quality customers and using new customer induction and expectation management as a retention tool and managing monthly payment cycles to minimize defaults and engaging channels to expand the reach for retention programs.
•
Set up a department which will exclusively handle complaints of dealer and solve them ASAP. This should on similar lines of customer care department.
•
Thus the core business drivers of Airtel should be: (a) Useful segmentation methodology and techniques
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(b) Effective churn analysis and prediction (c) Successful cross and up-selling (d) Targeted acquisition (e) Accurate price plan analysis
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Websites http://www.airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/airtel.in/airtel.in/home http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharti_Airtel http://www.bhartiairtel.in/index.php?id=aboutbhartiairtel http://www.airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/Airtel.in/airtel.in/home/foryou/mobile/postpaid/features/ http://www.airtel.sc/airtel_prepaid.html Dealers in Delhi region whom I have personally approached to collect data and fill questionnaires.
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APPENDIX
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Questionnaire
Dealer Dealer’s Name Phone Mobile : : : :
Q-1 In whose services you deal most? (a) AirTel Percentage:_________ Q-2 Which type AirTel’s service customer mostly prefer? (a) AirTel Leisure (c) AirTel Standard Q-3 How would you rate AirTel’s network in your area? (a) Excellent (b) Good (c) Needs improvement (b) AirTel Business (b) others
Q-4 How Knowledgeable is our customer service people? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dis-satisfied
Q-5 When phoning our office how quickly is your call transferred? (a) Immediately (c) Takes Time________ Q-6 How responsive are the customer care executives in returning the phone calls? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So (e) Strongly Dis-satisfied (b) within few minutes
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Q-7 Overall how you rate our customer service department? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-8 How do you rate the usefulness of our sales representatives Visit? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-9 How do you rate our schemes? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-10 How attractive is our margins? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-11 How much activations you make monthly? ___________________________________________________________________ Q-12 Time within which you inform the franchisee about receipt of activation? (a) < 1 hour (b) 1-2 hours (c) > 2 hours
Q-13 What is your overall level of satisfaction with our services? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-14 Is it feasible that activations are made from your office directly by setting the required computer network? (a) Yes (b) No
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Q-15. In case of Cheque payments do you wait for the cheque to be cleared before you pass on the activation to the franchisee? (a)Always (b) Generally (c) Never
Q-16 What do you like best about the company. ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ Q-17 What do you like least about the company. ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ Q-18 Additional comments/prolems/suggestions. ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________
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doc_543692969.doc
Marketing strategy is defined by Prophet's David Aaker as a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its resources on the optimal opportunities with the goals of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.
MARKETING STRATEGIES OF AIRTEL IN AIRTEL
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Exactly ten years ago, Jyoti Basu in Calcutta called Sukh Ram in Delhi in what was the first mobile phone call in India. Brick sized cell phones used to cost Rs. 45,000 and each call costed Rs. 16.5/minute. Back then, cell phone was a status symbol. Today, there are over 60 million mobile connections in India (expected to double in number in next 12 months). A local call costs around Rs 1/min and a cell phone can be purchased for less than Rs. 2000. Wireless technology has been a boon for India. In a country where setting up wired infrastructure is very expensive and time consuming, wireless is the perfect solution to connect remote villages. The timing was also just right as India escaped the burden of legacy technology and reaped the benefits of latest GSM technology. Cell phones have not been just about technology. They have brought about a cultural change in the country. SMS is the favorite means of communication for everybody today. The revolution in computing in countries like India will also come through mobile phones. What PC did to offices and then to masses in developed countries, mobile phones will do in developing countries. Time was when it took several years to get a new telephone connection in India. Now, there is less pressure than ever before for fixed landlines as mobile phone subscribers appear poised to outnumber those with a fixed line.
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By year's end, India may become one of the few countries where the mobile revolution is complete and the mobile reigns supreme, just ten years after it was first introduced. Every month, India adds another 1.5 million mobile subscribers to the 28 million mobile phone users registered last December. In January 2003, one year before, India had just 10 million mobile subscribers When mobile telephony was introduced in India in 1994, there were just a few service providers, such as AirTel. It was a heavily regulated sector with prohibitive license fees, high call charges of 30 cents per minute, and expensive handsets. Then, only the privileged could use a mobile in India. But in the last four years, call charges have fallen and license fees have become more manageable.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
PREFACE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. INTRODUCTION: I. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2. 3. 4. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. LITERATURE REVIEW COMPANY PROFILE MARKETING STRATEGIES DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION SUMMARY OF FINDINGS CONCLUSION LIMITATION SUGGESTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX (QUESTIONNAIRE)
3
INTRODUCTION
4
OBJECTIVES
1. To study the importance and development of tele – communication industry in today’s scenario. 2. To understand the various Marketing Strategies which Airtel has adopted to survive in highly competitive cell phone industry. 3. To make a comparative study of the major players in Indian Service Provider.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The methodology adopted for this project is exploratory in nature since there is no hypothesis that has to be tested. The conclusions have been drawn by exploratory research work. There have been two sources of information collected:
a) Primary Sources
I have met retailers of the Airtel of the company and have been able to get first hand information regarding the product, its features and the buying patterns of the product. Their input has been valuable.
b) Secondary Sources
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Secondary source has played a vital role to play in this report. A good amount of data has been collected from various published articles and reports found in magazines and journals. Another vital source has been the Internet and particularly the companies own website.
6
CHAPTER I (LITERATURE REVIEW)
7
TELECOMMUNICATION MARKET IN INDIA
The Indian telecommunications Network with 250m telephone connections is the fifth largest in the world and is the second largest among the emerging economies of Asia. Today it is the fastest growing market in the world and represents unique opportunities for UK companies in the stagnant global scenario. Tele-density, which was languishing at 2% in 1999, has shown an impressive jump to 9.5% in 2006 and 10.5% in 2007 and is set to increase to 20% in the next five years beating the Govt. target by three years. Accordingly, India requires incremental investments of USD 20-25 bln for the next five years. Private operators have made mobile telephony the fastest growing (over 164% p.a.) in India. With more than 33 million users (both CDMA and GSM), wireless is the principal growth engine of the Indian telecom industry. Given the current growth trends, cellular connections in India will surpass fixed line by late 2004/early 2005. Intense competition between the four main private groups - Bharti, Vodafone, Tata and Reliance and with the State sector incumbents-BSNL and MTNL has brought about a significant drop in tariffs. There has been almost 74% in cell phone charges, 70% in ILD calls and 25% drop in NLD charges, resulting in a boom time for the consumers. The Government has played a key enabling role by deregulating and liberalising the industry, ushering in competition and paving the way for growth. While there were regulatory irregularities earlier, resulting in litigation, these have all been addressed now. Customs duties on hardware and mobile handsets have been reduced from 14 percent to 5 percent. The Indian government has merged the IT and Telecom Ministries to speed up reforms and decision on the Communication Convergence Bill to enable the common regulation of the
8
Internet, broadcasting and telecoms will be taken after the new Government assumes responsibilities in may this year. An independent regulatory body (TRAI) and dispute settlement body (TDSAT) is fully functional.
INDIAN CELLULAR MARKET
The Bharti Group, which operates in 23 circles, continues to be the country's largest cellular operator, with 50 lakh subscribers. BSNL, which operates in 22 circles, has a subscriber base of 37 lakh subscribers. Thus BSNL stands second largest cellular operator in terms of subscriber base at the end of the fiscal ending March 31, 2007, displacing Vodafone from the second position. Vodafone, which operates in only eighteen circles, is the third largest operator with a subscriber base of 32 lakh. Unlike fellow public sector undertaking, MTNL, which operates in Mumbai and Delhi, BSNL has been a very aggressive player in the market. "Cellular operators who expected BSNL to go the MTNL way, were taken by surprise and did not take effective steps to counter it, till it was too late in the day," said a telecom analyst.
Belying fears of a slowdown in cellular subscriber acquisitions, the cell club has reported a 7.92% growth, the highest growth in any month so far, during March 2005. Year-on-year, the cellular subscriber base in the country has almost doubled in March 2005, and is expanding at the rate of 25% per year thereafter.
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The cellular subscriber club expanded by 21.31 lakh last month. This is much higher than 5.9 lakh subscribers added in February 2005 and 2.13 lakh in January 2005. Idea, which operates in Seven circles, is the fourth largest operator with a subscriber base of 17.80 lakh, higher than BPL's 11.31 lakh subscribers across four circles. The subscriber numbers per operator drop sharply with the sixth largest operator, Spice Communications, having a subscriber base of 9.40 lakh, followed by Reliance Telecom's 8.9 lakh subscribers. MTNL is the ninth largest operator, with a base of 8.32 lakh subscribers.
While the subscriber base-jumped by 3.38% to 44.39 lakh in the metros, subscriber base of category A circles of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu jumped by 10.18 % to reach 43.64 lakh. Category B circles of Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (West), Uttar Pradesh (East), Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal recorded a jump of 10.69%, with a total base of 33.74 lakh subscribers. Circle C has reported 12.74 % growth with subscriber numbers jumping to 5.08 lakh.
Among the metros, while Mumbai added 1,63,180 subscribers, higher than the 1,58,646 added by Delhi, the Capital's cellular subscriber base of over 80 lakh is still higher than Mumbai's 66.89 lakh. While the cellular industry has been on roll for the first three quarters of the previous financial year with an average of 16.75 lakh monthly additions in the third quarter, the first two months of 2007 had seen the growth slowing down.
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GSM MARKET IN INDIA
Regional Interest Groups - GSM India
With a population of around 1.1 billion growing at roughly 1.7 per cent a year, India is potentially one of the most exciting GSM markets in the world. After two rather difficult years, the past 12 months have seen the region's promise beginning to come to fruition. Much of this success can be attributed to the stabilisation of the licensing and regulatory environment.
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India's telecommunications have undergone a steady liberalisation since 1994 when the Indian government first sought private investment in the sector. More significant liberalisation followed in 1996 with the licensing of new local fixed line and mobile service providers. However, it has been the government's New Telecom Policy (1999) that has had the most radical impact on the development of GSM services. 'The policy's mission statement is 'affordable communications for all', There is a genuine commitment to creating a modern and efficient communications
infrastructure that takes account of the convergence of telecom, IT and media. In addition, the policy places significant emphasis on greater competition for both fixed and mobile services.'
Competition in the mobile sector has already had a visible impact on prices with calls currently costing less than 9 cents per minute. This means that service costs have fallen by 60 per cent since the first GSM networks became live in 1995. It also helps explain why a recent Telecom Asia survey revealed that more than 70 per cent of Indian mobile subscribers felt that prices were now at a reasonable level. One of the challenges facing GSM operators in India is the diversity of the coverage regions -from remote rural regions to some of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the world. India has more than 40 networks, which cover the seven largest cities, over 7000 towns and several Lacs villages. Such depth of coverage has required enormous investment from India's operators. It is estimated that more than Rs200 billion had been invested in India's GSM industry by mid-2000, a figure that is set to be supplemented by a further Rs. 300 billion over the next five years.
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The good news is that subscriber growth is beginning to look healthy. With India's low PC penetration and high average Internet usage -at 14-20 hours a month per user it is comparable to the US -the market for mobile data and m-commerce looks extremely promising. WAP services have already been launched in the subcontinent and the first GPRS networks are in the process of being rolled out. In the year ahead, GSM India will work with its members to realise the potential of early packet services in anticipation of the award of 3GSM licences.
India fastest growing GSM mart India is expected to have 145 million GSM (global system for mobile communications) customers by 2007-08 compared to 26 million subscribers as on March 2005, according to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association. "For GSM, India is a success story. It is one of the fastest growing markets with its subscriber base doubling in 2005. At this pace, the target of 150 million subscribers by 2007-2008 is definitely achievable," Alan Hadden, president of GSA, said at a news conference in New Delhi. Globally, the GSM market reached 1 billion users in February 2005, he said, adding GSM accounted for 80 per cent of the new subscriber growth in 2005."Almost every Latin American operator has chosen GSM. In North America GSM growth is bigger than CDMA (code division multiple access)," he said. Commenting on the raging debate over GSM versus CDMA in mobile services arena, Hadden said: "GSM is the world's most successful mobile standard with over 1 billion users, and is an open mobile standard. It also supports automatic international roaming, which is a major contributor to business plans." India’s GSM mobile firms’ revenue up 30 pct India’s private telecoms firms offering GSM-based mobile services reported a 24 percent rise in revenue in the year to March 2007 but said future growth rates could slow because of heavy
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taxes on the nascent industry. Although India’s mobile sector is the world’s fastest growing major wireless market, it is amongst the highest taxed industries in the country. Mobile carriers pay as much as 25 percent of their revenue as licence fee, spectrum charges and other taxes. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said revenue for fiscal 2003/04 stood at 83.08 billion rupees ($1.86 billion) compared with 64 billion rupees a year earlier. According to T.V. Ramachandran, director general at COAI, “These revenue growth rates cannot be maintained unless there is a concerted effort by the government to cut excessive levies and allow sharing of infrastructure” “But the potential to do much better exists as there is still huge demand in the sector.” Ramachandran said the sector was still losing money but declined to elaborate. Sales jumped because of a doubling of the GSM (Global System of Mobile Communications) user base as more people entered the flourishing market thanks to one of the lowest call rates in the world. But the monthly average revenue per user, a key measure of profitability, declined 17.4 percent to 432 rupees in the fourth quarter compared with 523 rupees in the first quarter due to a cut in tariffs and excessive competition among companies. Growth slowing, demand untapped: The association has not included the financial performance and the GSM-user base of state-run firms Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the second-ranked player, and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, Ramachandran said. There are 150 million GSM customers and more than 96 million users of the rival CDMA-based mobile services in the country. The pace of growth in monthly additions is slowing after just 1.25 million users took up the service in April compared with 1.9 million in the previous month and 1.63 million in February. Ramachandran blamed the slowdown on a majority of small GSM operators being unable to expand networks into rural swathes where demand remained largely untapped.
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“Our surpluses are not enough to cover costs of network expansion and financing charges on loans. We are making money only to cover operating expenses,” he said. Carriers are now subsidising handset costs to woo users into the underpenetrated industry forecast to have more than 250 million customers by 2007. Roughly three percent of Indians own a mobile phone compared with about 20 percent in China. About a dozen firms such as Bharti Airtel Ltd, 28 percent owned by Singapore Telecommunications, Reliance Infocomm Ltd and the Indian GSMunit of Vodafone group battle in the hotly competitive sector.
DOES GSM HAVE THE EDGE?
GSM operators are not the only ones who are worried about the rapid strides made by CDMA mobile players Reliance Infocomm and Tata Indicom in the Indian cellular market?
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The GSM suppliers – both handset and equipment - who incidentally also have their other foot firmly placed in the CDMA pie, are beginning to lose some sleep over what was earlier termed as `niche’ and `minuscule’ data carriage market by the operators . Apart from the strong success of the two CDMA operators whose networks are based on code division multiple access (CDMA), the miserable showing of the four global standard for mobile (GSM) based networks that launched general packet radio service (GPRS) service for data connectivity in last three years, has the vendors worried. Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) now believes that even though India will primarily remain a voice traffic-led market in next two-three years, the data traffic component will grow by 25-30 per cent, an optimism that it’s trying to make GSM operators feel as well.
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THE CDMA CHALLENGE
CDMA players had launched their services with CDMA 2000 1X-based networks, which can give hi-speed, always-on connectivity to the Internet, and other data services. GSM operators, on the other hand, have had to migrate from the frustrating experience of WAP (wireless application protocol) to GPRS, which has not significantly improved the subscriber’s experience of surfing the Net on/from mobile. The top brass of GSA, an organisation comprising Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, Alcatel and Lucent Technologies - met on Tuesday in the capital to persuade the operators to adopt EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) and leave GPRS behind as a dream gone sour. Only Airtel, Vodafone, BPL Mobile and Idea Cellular had launched GPRS, but the data transfer speeds of GPRS have been abysmal. The field trials gave a speed of around 54 kbps, but the actual speeds have not exceeded 14-18 kbps, a major reason why GPRS growth has been so slow. As against the total GSM cellular base of 5.61 crore, the country has between 2,80,000 lakh GPRS users only. In comparison, the two CDMA operators have about 120 lakh connections. All these sets are data compliant. Though no figures are available as to how many use these for data services, the figure is believed to be respectable as a percentage ratio for CDMA.
Bharti is almost there But first, the EDGE! Bharti Cellular is close to commercially launching its EDGE service in Delhi and Mumbai by end May or early June, sources said. The company was the first to conduct field trials in November with its equipment supplier Ericsson. Idea too held EDGE field trials in February this year with its vendor Nokia. Vodafone and BPL are yet to hold the trials. The two
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companies would eventually migrate to EDGE, but perhaps after seeing the response to Bharti’s service. EDGE holds the promise of delivering data speeds of around 170-180 kbps (as against the theoretical speed of around 380 kbps) which, if achieved, promises the launch of many data applications. The scalable cost of migrating from GPRS to EDGE is not too high and mainly comprises software upgrades in case of a modern network such as Bharti and Hutch, claimed chairman of GSA India chapter Rakesh Malik.
Will GSM maintain its headstart?
At the GSM Evolution Forum held in New Delhi, GSA president Alan Hadden predicted that GSM growth will far outstrip CDMA as was happening globally. He felt India could have as many as 200 million GSM subscribers by 2007-2008, up from nine million in December 2004. According to GSA, there are over 1.1 billion GSM subscribers worldwide as against 250 million CDMA customers. The revenue of top 25 global operators from data averages 18 per cent and 22 of these operators run GSM networks. Overall, there are 76 operators in 50 countries that have committed to deploy EDGE. Almost every country has a GSM-based network and even those US operators, which operated on now-defunct TDMA technology, were migrating gradually to GSM, not CDMA, pointed out Hadden at the GSM Evolution Forum. The Forum is a global GSA program to assist the operators for evolution to third generation (3G) technologies. “People are using their phones for much more than voice. Fifteen networks have commercially launched EDGE as it can run 3G like services in the existing spectrum for the operators without needing a 3G license. Even the
18
migration to a full-fledged 3G level of Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) will be smooth with EDGE,” said Hadden. “Besides, the automatic roaming provided by GSM networks in almost 200 countries is a power that CDMA doesn’t give you. We know for sure that almost 20-25 per cent of the revenue for some GSM operators comes from roaming customers,” he added. But CDMA is no pushover with Korea and Philippines as the shining jewels in its crown. The first CDMA 2000 1X was commercially deployed in October 2000.
Already, 81 operators have launched 77 CDMA 2000 1X networks whereas nine have launched services based on 1xEV-DO platform across Asia, the Americas and Europe. At least, 16 new 1X and six 1xEV-DO networks are scheduled to be deployed in 2004, according to CDMA Development Group. EV-DO and EV-DV are the next level of evolution on the CDMA 2000 1X platform, capable of delivering services comparable to 3G WCDMA.
Where are the models?
What will matter a lot in this war will be the availability of EDGE compliant handsets at affordable rates. While the two CDMA operators have been giving out handsets that can give hispeed data transfer, same has not been the case with GSM. Even now, GPRS handsets have not become commonplace and GPRS feature is found only in mid and high-end segment handsets.
End sum game
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When the networks deploy EDGE, subscribers can expect the delivery of advanced mobile services such as easy downloading of video and music clips, full multimedia messaging, besides high-speed Internet and e-mail access, provided their handset supports all this. But the real cruncher will be the migration at a later stage to 3G technologies such as WCDMA, EV-DO or EV-DA as and when the government decides what to do with the 3G licences. WCDMA for example promises delivery of a phenomenal 2 megabytes per second (mbps), equivalent to what a leased line in many middle level corporates gives. More importantly, WCDMA will spawn a whole new range of full motion audio-video applications, including video telephony. GSM lobby may continue to remain gung ho over the future of their technologies over that boosted by the American firms Qualcomm and Motorola, but Indian market could well throw an interesting scenario that industry experts will do well to watch. In the coming months, Reliance plans to offer its CDMA subscribers much more than what GSM players intend to deliver through their EDGE for their subscribers.
Who succeeds in this battle for mobile customer’s eyeballs is most difficult to predict. A Korea and Japan may not be waiting to happen in India, but India will probably be more like the Chinese market with both standards co-existing. For now, GSM rules!
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COMPANY PROFILE
Airtel comes to you from Bharti Cellular Limited - a part of the biggest private integrated telecom conglomerate, Bharti Enterprises. Bharti Airtel limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa. The company offers mobile voice & data services, fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, DTH, turnkey telecom solutions for enterprises and national & international long distance services to carriers.
Bharti Airtel has been ranked among the six best performing technology companies in the world by business week. Bharti Airtel had 200 million customers across its operations. Apart from being the largest manufacturer of telephone instruments in India, it is also the first company to export its products to the USA.
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By 2015 Airtel will be the most loved brand, enriching the lives of millions.
"Enriching lives means putting the customer at the heart of everything we do. We will meet their needs based on our deep understanding of their ambitions, wherever they are. By having this focus we will enrich our own lives and those of our other key stakeholders. Only then will we be thought of as exciting, innovation, on their side and a truly world class company."
SERVICES
Bharti Airtel’s product and services portfolio includes mobile services, home phones, broadband, calling cards, DTH, IPTV, MPLS Services, satellite services, data transport solutions and conferencing services.
Airtel Prepaid
Airtel Prepaid, the Ready Cellular Card from Airtel comes to you from Bharti Enterprises, India's leading integrated telecom service provider. Going mobile with Airtel Prepaid is a new way of life. With a host of great features, also simple to use, Airtel Prepaid makes everything that you dreamt and believed, possible.
Airtel Postpaid
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Airtel welcomes you to a vibrant world of unlimited opportunities. More exciting, innovative yet simple new ways to communicate, just when you want to, not just through words but ideas, emotions and feelings. To give you the unlimited freedom to reach out to your special people in your special way.
Airtel Roaming
AIRTEL’s Roaming service allows you to use your mobile phone to make or receive calls from almost anywhere in India and abroad. Airtel Roaming gives you two great options: • • Airtel National - Enjoy roaming in India across 42 partners networks and over 750 cities. Airtel International - Roam across international destinations, in nearly 119 countries including USA, Canada, UK etc. with 284 partner networks.
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Long Distance
Experience complete freedom like never before with Airtel! Our National Long-Distance facility allows you to make long distance calls in India and Overseas from your cellular phone. This service is applicable to both Postpaid and Prepaid customers.
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AIRTEL BRAND
Airtel & Visual Identity
For a brand to be successful, it must build enduring relationships with its different audiences. Integral to this relationship is the visual image of the brand the consumer carries in his/her mind. The Airtel brand image is created through the consistent application of a carefully developed visual identity, which helps Airtel distinguish itself in a cluttered market. Airtel's visual identity helps create instant brand recall and strengthens the relationships that its audiences have with it.
The Airtel visual identity has different elements that work together to create a strong and consistent identity for the brand.
The Airtel Logo
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The new logo is the letter ‘a’ in lowercase, and has airtel written in lowercase under the logo and the word starts with a small 'A'. The unique symbol is an interpretation of the ‘a’ in airtel. The curved shape & the gentle highlights on the red color make it warm & inviting, almost as if it were a living object. It represents a dynamic force of unparalleled energy that brings the brand and its customers closer. The specially designed logo type is modern, vibrant & friendly. It signals the brand’s resolve to be accessible
The Airtel Typographical style
The use of all lowercase is its recognition for the need for humanity. Red is part of the brand’s heritage. It is the color of energy & passion that expresses the dynamism that has made airtel the success it is today, in India, and now on the global stage.
Airtel comes to you from Bharti Tele-Ventures - a part of the biggest private integrated telecom conglomerate, Bharti Enterprises.
(Chairman and Group Managing Director)
Sunil Bharti Mittal
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VISION:
"As we spread wings to expand our capabilities and explore new horizons, the fundamental focus remains unchanged: seek out the best technology in the world and put it at the service of our ultimate user: our customer."
About Bharti Tele-Ventures
Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited was incorporated on July 7, 1995 for promoting investments in telecommunications services. Its subsidiaries operate telecom services across India. Bharti TeleVentures is one of world’s leading providers of telecommunication services with presence in all the 22 licensed jurisdictions (also known as Telecom Circles) in India, and operations in Srilanka, Bangladesh and Africa. It served an aggregate of 207.8 million customers as of December 31, 2010; of whom 199.6 million subscribe to their GSM services and 3.2 million use their Telemedia Services either for voice and/or broadband access delivered through DSL. It is the largest wireless service provider in India, based on the number of customers as of December 31, 2010. They offer an integrated suite of telecom solutions to our enterprise customers, in addition to providing long distance connectivity both nationally and internationally. They also offer Digital TV and IPTV Services. All these services are rendered under a unified brand "airtel".
The company also deploys, owns and manages passive infrastructure pertaining to telecom operations under its subsidiary Bharti Infratel Limited. Bharti Infratel owns 42% of Indus
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Towers Limited. Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers are amongst top providers of passive infrastructure services in India.
Business Strategy
Bharti Tele-Ventures' strategic objective is “to capitalize on the growth opportunities that the Company believes are available in the Indian telecommunications market and consolidate its position to be the leading integrated telecommunications services provider in key markets in India, with a focus on providing mobile services”. The Company has developed the following strategies to achieve its strategic objective: 1. Focus on maximizing revenues and margins; 2. Capture maximum telecommunications revenue potential with minimum geographical coverage; 3. Offer multiple telecommunications services to provide customers with a "one-stop shop" solution; 4. Position itself to tap data transmission opportunities and offer advanced mobile data services; 5. Focus on satisfying and retaining customers by ensuring high level of customer satisfaction; 6. Leverage strengths of its strategic and financial partners; and
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7. Emphasize on human resource development to achieve operational efficiencies.
Mobile Strategy
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Capture maximum telecommunications revenue potential with minimum geographical coverage to maximize its revenues and margins. Build high quality mobile networks by deploying state-of-the-art technology to offer superior services. Use the experience it has gained from operating its existing mobile networks to develop and operate other mobile networks in India and to share the expertise across all of its existing and new circles. Attract and retain high revenue generating customers by providing competitive tariffs, offering high quality customer support, proactive retention programs and roaming packages across all of its mobile circles.
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Provide affordable tariff plans to suit each segment of the market with a view to expand the reach, thereby increasing the mobile customer base rapidly.
Media Strategy
The media planning was done by Madison Media. The primary media used for the rebranding campaign was television and print so that everyone would get to see the ad & this would create an impact in his mind. Later in the secondary media, OOH and digital media was used extensively so that there was an immediate brand recall of the new logo and the brand Airtel.
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JWT was the creative agency that has worked on the new Airtel campaign currently playing out on TV, print, outdoor.
Brand Strategy To understand the brand strategy, let’s first look at the brand building exercise associated with airtel — a brand that repositioned recently to mark its global presence in the market. The new Airtel campaign is not merely rebranding. Its a re-launch. A new positioning. A new brand idea. A new voice. The brand has embarked on an exciting new journey. A journey that seeks to bring people closer to what they love. In the new participation economy, customers are no longer happy being passive viewers. They want to create, comment on and share all that is close to their hearts. Airtel seeks to enable that in every way possible. When the brand was launched, cellular telephony wasn’t a mass market by any means. For the average consumer, owning a cellular phone was expensive as tariff rates (at Rs 8 a minute) as well as instrument prices were steep — sometimes as much as buying a second-hand car. Bharti could have addressed the customer by rationally explaining to him the economic advantage of using a mobile phone. But Sunil Bharti says that such a strategy would not have worked for the simple reason that the value from using the phone at the time was not commensurate with the cost. “Instead of the value-proposition model, we decided to address the sensory benefit it gave to the customer as the main selling tack. The idea was to become a badge value brand,” he explains.
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So the Airtel “leadership series” campaign was launched showing successful men with their laptops and in their deluxe cars using the mobile phone. In simple terms, it meant Airtel was positioned as an inspirational brand that was meant for leaders, for customers who stood out in a crowd. Did it work? Repeated surveys following the launch showed that there were three core benefits that were clearly associated with the brand — leadership, dynamism and performance. These were valuable qualities, but they only took Airtel far enough to establish its presence in the market. As tariffs started dropping, it became necessary for Airtel to appeal to a wider audience. And the various brand-tracking exercises showed that despite all these good things, there was no emotional dimension to the brand — it was perceived as cold, distant and efficient. By 2000, Bharti and his team realized that in a business in which customer relationships were the core this could be a major weakness. The reason with tariffs identical to competitor Essar and roughly the same level of service and schemes, it had now become important for Bharti to “humanize” Airtel and use that relationship as a major differentiation. The brand had become something like Lufthansa — cold and efficient. What they needed was to become Singapore Airlines, efficient but also human. A change in tack was important because this was a time when the cellular market was changing. The leadership series was okay when you were wooing the crème de la crème of society. Once you reached them you had to expand the market so there was need to address to new customers.
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By that time, Bharti was already the leading cellular subscriber in Delhi with a base of 3.77 lakh (it now has 200 million customers). And with tariffs becoming more affordable — as cell companies started cutting prices — it was time to expand the market. How could Bharti leverage this leadership position down the value chain? Surveys showed that the concept of leadership in the customer’s minds was also changing. Leadership did not mean directing subordinates to execute orders but to work along with a team to achieve common objectives — it was, again, a relationship game that needed to be reflected in the Airtel brand. Also, a survey showed that 50 per cent of the new customers choose a mobile phone brand mostly through word-of-mouth endorsements from friends, family or colleagues. Thus, existing customers were an important tool for market expansion and Bharti now focused on building closer relationships with them. That is precisely what the brand tried to achieve through its new positioning under the Airtel “Touch Tomorrow” brand campaign. This set of campaigns portrayed mobile users surrounded by caring family members. Says Bharti: “The campaign and positioning was designed to highlight the relationship angle and make the brand softer and more sensitive.” Airtel positioned itself as a power brand with numerous regional sub-brands reflecting customer needs in various parts of the country and became more humane and more sensitive as a brand. Bharti also understood that one common brand for all cellular operations might not always work in urban markets that are getting increasingly saturated. To bring in new customers, the company decided that it needed to segment the market.
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In 2003, Airtel repositioned its brand with “Express yourself” campaign and changed its logo to give more energetic and younger look .The highlight of the campaign was capability of Airtel’s performance and network coverage and that it was launched in regional language. CURRENT STRATEGY As it looks to expand its cellular services globally— With an eye on the youth in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, Bharti Airtel has rebranded itself as 'airtel' and launched a global campaign that will rebrand its operations across the world. The new brand identity has been created in sync with the launch of the company's third generation (3G) services.
THE AIRTEL RE –DESIGN
Old Logo
New Logo
The new logo for airtel service is designed London-based Brand Union, a WPP agency. Brand Union has done a wonderful job as far as the airtel logo goes. “It’s young and vibrant. Above all, there’s a change in positioning, from a voice company to one that provides data. It enriches lives in other words. The group’s marketing effort has been reinforced with the re-launch of the Airtel brand logo, with a new international and younger look.The idea was to rework the
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brand so that it is relevant to a larger segment of the population as we are now expanding globally. The new brand look will be supported by a Rs 300 crore budget. Basically, Bharti Airtel, the brand owner, which provides the service, has done away with the box in which the word Airtel was placed earlier. This was famously called the flag logo because the look resembled just that — the colours red and white alternating with each other. The word ‘Air’, in black, was placed against a white background, while ‘Tel’, in white, appeared against a red backdrop. To keep the continuity going, the dot of the letter ‘i’ in the word, was also red. Airtel now, is “unboxed” having been freed of its rigid boundaries. In a break from the past, the word airtel has been spelt in lower case. The brand has also recently unveiled its new positioning,
'Dil jo chahe paas laye'
TARGET AUDIENCE PROFILE • The target audience for this ad campaign will be both males and females between the age groups of 15- 45 years. • • A vast Age group has been chosen as nowadays almost every person is using a mobile. The target audience will be all over India as Airtel is a service that is being used by consumers all over. • The target audiences are people who are currently using Airtel Services as well as non Airtel users. • The benefits the target audience would get form the brand Airtel would be a combination of : 33
o Emotional Benefit- The consumer could express his inner most feelings and always stay connected to loved ones. o Social Benefit- Airtel is an International brand now, it would satisfy his esteem needs. • The target audiences’ involvement with the product is very HIGH, as communication is one of the most important aspects in every consumer’s life as it helps him to stay connected to his near & dear ones & also carry on his daily life both professionally & personally. Thus while choosing any such cellular service, he would do a complete analysis & research to find out which service provider would satisfy his needs & may be give even more.
CREATIVE BRIEF
The target audience in this ad campaign is both males and females of the SEC- A. who is intellectual, intelligent & has the rationality to understand the gravity of the ad campaign. Since the objective was to reposition the brand, it was necessary to make the consumer change his perception about the brand which required a strong motivation. This could be done only by connecting with the consumer emotionally & India being a country of emotions, it became necessary & easy to reach out to the consumer & place our brands in their minds in a positive way.
Airtel as a brand had to enhance its image, thus it had to give something more, if not literally then emotionally. Thus came the concept of, 'Dil jo chahe paas laye' which meant you'll never be away from your close ones in airtel’s world.
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Once the consumer has seen the ad campaign, it should create a deep impact in the minds of the consumer, so that if asked about any service provider Airtel should be the brand that should in the consumers TOMA (Top of the mind Awareness). After this ad campaign the consumer would have a higher bonding with the brand. Since the situations shown in the ad campaign are similar to what every consumer can relate to, the consumer after having seen the ad campaign should be convinced that its only Airtel which is a service provider that enables him to convey all that he wants to.
AD ELEMENTS
SITUATION 1 Endless Goodbye
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The first TVC titled, 'Endless Goodbye', shows a couple bumping into each other repeatedly after having said their goodbyes. The TVC begins with a couple who looks very sad as the young man is leaving. However, the very next moment, he finds the girl in a nearby café and is very excited to see her. Later, both walk down a street. They say goodbye to each other and the girl turns away, only to meet the man again, who comes in a cab. The girl hops into the taxi and both of them leave together. Then, the man asks the cabbie to stop the taxi and gets out, bidding adieu to the girl inside. The next instant, the girl comes running towards the man and hugs him. The TVC then shows the couple happily walking across the city. They enter a metro station and once again are very sad, as the young man boards a train. As the train leaves, the girl once again meets the man on the platform and happily hugs him. The TVC ends with a voiceover saying, "In Airtel's world, you'll never be away from your close ones. Dil Jo Chahe Paas Laye."
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SITUATION 2 Street Performer
The second TVC titled, 'Street Performer', opens with a man dancing to the tune of Airtel's official ringtone. Next, a girl walks down the street; she stops as she sees the young man performing interesting dance moves. The girl stays for a while to watch him dancing; but leaves when she checks the time on her watch and realizes that she is getting late. The man, who is still dancing, stops and finds that the girl has left. So, he follows her and catches up with her. He continues dancing while the girl is walking. The TVC ends with a voiceover stating that in Airtel's world, entertainment will never stop, followed by the tagline, 'Dil Jo Chahe Paas Laye'
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Bharti’s Accomplishments
1 The largest private sector integrated telecommunications services group in India in terms of the number of customers.
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Proven track record of managing growth - both organic as well as by way of acquisitions.
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First and largest private telecommunications services company offering fixed-line services in India.
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First private telecommunications company to launch long distance services.
5 First off the block to launch fixed-line services in all the four circles of Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
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Management Structure
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Reach us, Anytime Anywhere
In case you need assistance, dial '121' - our toll-free number, accessible from anywhere in the country, even while roaming. *In case of email, mention your mobile no. like 9810012345 in the subject of the mail for a quicker response.
TARIFF STRUCTURE
Prepaid Tariffs Airtel Prepaid Ready Cellular Card and Recharge Cards are available, all over the city at over retail outlets including 24-hour outlets. Airtel Prepaid Ready Cellular Card and Recharge Cards are available, all over the city at over retail outlets including 24-hour outlets.
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Airtel Prepaid Regular
449 SUK Pulse Rate Price of Pack (Rs.) Free Airtime on Pack (Rs.) Incoming Calls (Rs.) 60 sec Rs.449 Nil Free while in home network Airtel LOCAL RATES (Rs./min) STD RATES (Rs./min) ISD (Rs./min) USA, Canada, Europe (Fixed Line), Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand. Gulf, Europe (Mobile), SAARC countries, Africa & Rest of the world Cuba, Sao Tome & Principe, Guinea Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin SMS (Rs.) Local National International Other Details *Rs 50 Local Airtel-Airtel Mobile talktime per month for 6 months * First month Airtel-Airtel credit within 72hrs of activation & balance credit by 1st week of every month) *The SMS charge as applicable is per 160 characters * Validity- 24 months. Rs.1.00 Rs.1.50 Rs.5.00 Rs.40.00 Rs.9.20 Rs.6.40 Rs.1.20 Rs.2.75 GSM / CDMA (10 Digit) Rs.2.00 Rs.2.75 Rs.2.40 Rs.2.75 Landline / WLL
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POSTPAID Airtel Postpaid allows you to choose from a variety of affordable talk plans, convenient payment options and host of rich features. So get set to enjoy a world of limitless possibilities! Reference Tarif Packages (RTP)
ON TIME CHARGES Activation Charges Membership Fee Security Deposit MONTHLY CHARGES (FIXED) Bill plan Charge Monthly Rental Clip MONTHLY CHARGES (OPTIONAL) Clip
Rs. 600 NA Rs. 500 Rs. 524 Rs. 425 Rs. 99 NA Rs. 99 Airtel GSM Digit) Rs 1.00 / Landline /
CDMA (10 WLL Rs. 1.00 Re.1 Rs 1.00
Local Rates STD RATES 50 – 200 Km 200 – 500 Km 500 + Km ISD USA, Canda, Europe (Fixed
Line), Rs. 7.20
Austalia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, new Zealand Gulf, Europe (Mobile), SAARC Countries, Rs 9.99 Africa & Rest of the world Cuba, Sao tome & Principle, Guinea Rs. 40.00 Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Island, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin
SMS
Local Rs. 1.50 42
National International Value Added Services (Rs.)
Rs. 2.00 Rs. 5.00 Rs. 3.00
Airtel One Standard 150
ONE TIME CHARGES Activation Charges Membership Fee Security Deposit MONTHLY CHARGES (FIXED) Bill Plan Charge Monthly Rental Clip MONTHLY CHARGES (OPTIONAL) Clip Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin SMS Local National Intentional VAS
?
Rs 250 Rs 250 (Converts into security after 24 months) NA Rs. 150 Rs. 51 Rs. 99 NA Rs. 50
Rs 1.50 Rs 2.00 Rs. 5.00 Rs. 3.00
This Bill Plan is also available under Advance Rental of Rs. 900 for 2 years.
Local Pack
Airtel to other local mobiles (non Airtel) At Rs 1 / min
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Monthly rental Rs 25 per months/STD Pack Monthly rental Rs 75 per month/Special offer for Airtel Telephone service customers for availing Airtel Mobile services
Airtel to other mobiles (non Airtel) & fixed lines nos. at Rs 2 / min.
? ?
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If you already have Airtel Telephone service, you can buy a new Airtel Mobile connection under Airtel One Standard 150 Plan.
Benefits:
? ? ? ?
Non security deposit. No membership / activation fee Enjoy calls to your Airtel fixed line no. at just 60 P / min. Monthly rent of Rs 25 for reduced call rates to your Airtel fixed line has been waived off for 1 year.
Advance Rental benefits (1year scheme)
Pay an advance rent of Rs 999 and enjoy Airtel One Standard 150 plan at Zero monthly rental for one year. Advance rental of Rs 999 gives you a rental discount of Rs 150 every month for the next 2 months. All other options and charges are as per the existing Airtel One Standard 150 Plan. AIRTEL ONE STANDARD 249 ONE TIME CHARGES Activation Charges Membership Fee Security Deposit MONTHLY CHARGES (FIXED) Bill Plan Charge Monthly Rental Clip MONTHLY CHARGES (OPTIONAL) Clip
Rs 250 Rs 250 (Converts into security after 24 months) NA Rs. 249 Rs. 150 Rs. 99 NA Rs. 50 Airtel GSM Digit) / Landline /
CDMA (10 WLL
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LOCAL RATES STD RATES 50-200Km 200 – 500 Km 500 + Km ISD USA, Canda, Europe (Fixed
Re. 1.00
Rs. 1.25
Rs. 1.25
Rs. 2.00 Rs. 2.00 Rs. 2.00 Line), Rs. 7.20
Rs. 2.40 Rs. 2.40 Rs. 2.40
Rs. 2.40 Rs. 2.40 Rs. 2.40
Austalia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, new Zealand Gulf, Europe (Mobile), SAARC Countries, Rs 9.99 Africa & Rest of the world Cuba, Sao tome & Principle, Guinea Rs. 40.00 Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Island, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin SMS Local National International Value Added Services (Rs.) Rs. 1.00 Rs. 1.50 Rs. 5.00 Rs. 3.00
You also enjoy 25 FREE local mobile to mobile SMS SENIOR CITIZEN PLAN
ONE TIME CHARGES Activation Charges Membership Fee Security Deposit MONTHLY CHARGES (FIXED) Bill Plan Charge
Rs. 250 Rs. 250 (Concerts into security deposit after 24 months) NA Rs. 150 Rs. 51 Rs. 99
Monthly Rental Clip NA Cuba, Sao Tome & Principle, Guinea 45
Bissau, Diego Garcia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Norfolk Island, Sakhalin SMS Local National International VAS With Senior Citizen Plan You can take 3 Friends and Family numbers:
? ? ?
Rs. 1.50 Rs. 2.00 Rs. 5.00 Rs. 3.00
Airtel to Airtel (1local no.) – Rs. 0.5 / min. Airtel to Airtel (1 STD no.) – Rs 1.5 / min ISD calls to US / Canada / South East Asia / Australia / New Zealand) – Rs. 9.99 / min
You also get FREE alert subscription worth Rs 30 / alert or 3 months on:
? ? ?
News Astrology Health Tips
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The SMS charges as applicable is per 160 Characters.
LIFE TIME PLAN
PRE-PAID card users need not worry anymore about recharging their coupons every month. Company has launched a plan that allows users to take a pre-paid connection with lifetime validity for a one time payment of Rs. 299. Subscribers availing themselves of this scheme will also get full talk time for the recharge coupon they purchase and also have the option to buy Taiwanese manufactured Bird mobile handsets for as low as Rs. 1,399. The move is aimed at stopping the churn in the pre-paid subscriber base. Once a subscriber takes this plan, he will always be an Airtel subscriber whether the mobile is being used or not.
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PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITY (STRATEGY)
Airtel to “Touch Tomorrow” with a new brand vision The Bharti Mobile promoted AirTel cellular service will go in for repositioning of its brand image. The new brand ethos is portrayed in two distinct fashions - the tag line "Touch Tomorrow", which underscores the leading theme for the new brand vision, followed by "The Good Life", which underscores a more caring, more customer centric organization. Aimed at reengineering its image as just simply a cellular service provider to an all out information communications services provider, Touch Tomorrow is meant to embrace the new generation of mobile communication services and the changing scope of customer needs and aspirations that come along with it The new communication is about a new dimension in the cellular category that goes beyond the Internet, SMS, roaming, IVRS, etc but which engulfs the whole gamut of wireless digital
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broadband services that will constitute tomorrows cellular services. The new campaign is in two phases - the first of which will communicate overall brand philosophy and the second products and services. According to Mr. Jagdish Kini, Chief Operating Officer, Bharti Mobile Limited, Karnataka "We are adopting a new brand- platform - Touch Tomorrow - not only to reflect our corporate ethos but also business strategy". The new identity will have the logo in Red, Black and White colours along with lower case typography to convey warmth. AirTel will incorporate the latest branding in all of its communication and will soon be going in for an enhanced promotional drive to establish the brand's presence. MARKET SITUATION At the time of launch The first mover in the market was Airtel which launched its services in Delhi in Aug 1995 (Informal launch). Essar Cellphone followed by launching its services informally in Oct 95. At this point of time, the market was at a nascent stage, awareness level was low and both operators independently tried to spread awareness and educate the people Once the networks were commercially launched, it became a number game with a multitude of schemes being offered to woo customers Initially the cellphone was perceived as a status symbol and utility took a back seat The target segment in Delhi were corporate and the high income group. The average capacity installed was for 1.5 lakh subscribers. This coupled with the steep license fee paid to DOT put pressure on the operators to break-even by rapidly expanding their markets. In the first two years, this led to a number of schemes being offered and prices crashing.
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COMPETITIVE SITUATION Airtel launched its services before Essar and skimmed the market picking up the bulk of the high usage premium clients. This is a very competitive industry with the two companies
differentiating either on value-added services or price. Airtel is perceived as the high quality provider and has a premium image. Essar, on the other hand, is perceived as the lower end service provider. Airtel positions itself as the market leader on the basis of the number of subscribers. Essar is trying to counter this by emphasising on the reach of its network and the quality of its service. However, Essar is somewhat not been very successful largely due to the inconsistency in advertising To promote themselves, both the players have been dependent on tactical advertising However, they have restrained from using comparative advertising Hoardings have been a very popular medium for carrying the advertisements Airtel has also been advertising on television using the Bharti Telecom name.
SALES DEPARTMENT AND STRATEGY A. • • • • • Major Accounts (Direct Channel) Handles corporate (named and famed) accounts Forecasting of sales Mapping the accounts Providing after sales support to the subscribers. Maintaining call reports for records.
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•
Providing Feedback to the marketing department regarding the requirement of the market.
B. IDC (indirect Channel) • • • • • C. 1. Handling distribution Maintaining records and level check of the channel partner Liaisoning between the channel partner and the company. Target achievement Training the executives of the channel Distribution Support Logistics • Monitor handset and SIM card requirements of channel partners and co-ordinate with stores • 2. • • • 3 • • Rental Provide cellular services (SIM cards) on rent. Provide cellular phones on rent Useful for people visiting Delhi for a short interval. Telesales Call customers and generate sales lead. Follow up with the customers, if they need any assistance Settle areas of concerns such as incentive claims of channel partners
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• 4
Pass on the sales lead to the channel department.
Audit • • Consultant to the AirTel showrooms. Monitor the operations at the AirTel distribution outlets Organize training. Retail • • Locate shops to open retail counters. Monitor the retail counters.
5.
MARKET SEGMENTATION Segmentation is beneficial because of better predictability of the target consumer group, minimization of risk exposure, better ability to fine-tune a product / service to the requirement of target buyer and the resultant ease in designing a proper designing marketing mix strategy In this case segmentation is on the bade of income. In evaluating different market segments the company looks at two factors The overall attractiveness of the segments and the company's objectives & resources The present market for Cellular phones, pagers and conventional phones is as follows Premium Upper X X X Lower X X X Middle Upper X X X Lower X X Economy Upper X Lower -
Cellular Phones Pager Conventional Phones
X Market Segment Targeted TARGET MARKET SEGMENT
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Airtel has targeted the premium and upper middle class. The rationale behind it is that only those segments should be targeted who value time and have the paying capacity. It Is also planning to target the business tourists during their stay in the capital About 60% of the clientele are top executives of corporate houses. About 15% are foreign organisations and the rest are professionals and small businessmen. During the introduction stage there was intense pressure to get consumers across to hook up with their brand, because getting them to switch brand loyalty later would be hard So far Airtel marketers have been concentrating totally on the business executive class but now that the basic viable volumes has beer) built up and prices have declined to a certain extent they are planning to venture further a field.
POSITIONING The product is sought to be positioned as a business efficiency tool. a lifestyle revolution and a status symbol The emphasis is to remove misconception that the cellphone is an expensive means of communication and drive home the point that the cellphone is actually a day-to-day utility. PRODUCT POLICY AND PLANNING
The product or service is the heart of the marketing mix. Without a product or a service customers' needs cannot be satisfied. The basic product promise by Airtel is mobility. Airtel's main marketing strategy is to be a first mover all the time. It has recognised the significance of making the first move-- because in the field of Communication & Information Technology changes occur at a tremendous pace.
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Effective product segmentation has to be carried on continuously because basic services can be and will be copied and in time become expected component of the product. Airtel seeks to carry out this segmentation through provision of new information services and making new facilities available. The product policy and planning depends on the stage of the product life cycle. At present the cellular phone market has reached the maturity stage. Since, the premium segment is nearing saturation the company targeting the upper middle and middle-middle class. In order to do so Airtel is trying to optimise the price performance package by offering suitable "product bundling". This involves the selection of the suitable hardware (handset) and its software (its services.) with reasonable price in order to deliver maximum price performance to its customers. In addition, it offers free Airtime services and other concessions to make the prices and thus the product more attractive. It has also opened a 24 hours customer service. Only price doesn't serve as an effective differentiator, value added services become the effective differentiator.
The "Value Added Services" provided from Airtel are:1). Voice Mail service This system is similar to the answering machine - if the user is not able to answer a call for some reason the caller can leave messages in the voice mail box which can be later retrieved by the user. ii) Short Message Service The short message service is like a two-way pager. It gives an option of sending and receiving text messages directly from one mobile phone to another without the intervention of an operator.
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iii) Mobile Fax 1 Data Service This service helps the subscriber to send and receive Faxes, access E-mail, download computer files from other systems and remotely log on to another computer and surf the Internet. iv) Cash Card The cash card is a pre-paid and pre-activated card which allows the buyers to buy air time in advance. All it requires is the payment of an initial amount. This is a useful service for people who travel to Delhi often and those who want to control the expenses on their calls. v) Caller ID Displays calling person's number. vi) Outgoing call restriction To prevent or limit outgoing calls, for example, in peak hours. Also possible to exclude one or several countries, or any geographical region, to permit only local calls, or to limit the outgoing calls to a listed number. viii) Call forward Incoming calls can be forwarded to another fixed or mobile phone. Besides these some other services provided by Airtel are - Call conferencing, Call Broadcast et cetera. It is in the operators -Interest that they not only get many subscribers but also get them to use the mobile facility frequently. In the early stages getting increases to subscribe may be easier than getting them to talk since they will find it costlier to use the mobile phone as compared to a conventional phone [if is believed that initially cellphones would be used buy] viii) Roaming Facility
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Roaming facility is available while the subscriber is travelling. The billing is done in the home network (Delhi). Roaming facility is available manually* as well as semi-automatically. Once a subscriber is In any other city or country, where a GSM network is available, simply insert the SIM card of the local operator Into your handset and start talking.
* **
Manual Roaming means a separate SIM card is provided for each city Semi automatic roaming means one card has the facility for different cities.
AIRTEL'S MARKETING ORIENTATION. Since this is a high-involvement expensive product, the service provider has to fully take care of the customers. a) They take personal responsibility to "get" the answer for any problem faced by the customer b) c) d) e) They anticipate customers' problems and take pro-active steps to prevent them They give answers to the questions & requests, quickly & efficiently. They have a positive tone & manner while interacting with customers. They end the interaction on a positive or a humorous note-making the last 30 seconds count.
Airtel realises that attracting people 'Is easy but converting them into loyal customers is hard, hence emphasis is on maintaining a 'Smiling and a Friendly Atmosphere' to please and retain the customer.
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MARKETING STRATEGY ADOPTED BY BHARTI
Bharti has spent a considerable amount on advertising its mobile phone service, Airtel. Besides print advertising, the company had put up large no of hoardings and kiosks in and around Delhi. The objective behind designing a promotion campaign for the ‘Airtel’ services is to promote the brand awareness and to build brand preferences. It is trying to set up a thematic campaign to build a stronger brand equity for Airtel. Since the cellular phone category itself is too restricted, also the fact that a Cellular phone is a high involvement product, price doesn't qualify as an effective differentiator. The image of the service provider counts a great deal. Given the Cell phone category, it is the network efficiency and the quality of service that becomes important. What now the buyer is looking at is to get the optimum price-performance package. This also serves as an effective differentiator Brand awareness is spread through the' campaigns and brand preference through brand stature. Airtel's campaign in the capital began with a series of 'teaser' hoardings across the city,' bearing just the company's name and without explaining what Airtel was. In the next phase the
campaign associated Airtel with Cellular only thereafter was the Bharti Cellular connection brought up. Vans with Airtel logos roamed the city, handing out brochures about the company
and its services to all consumers. About 50,000 direct callers were sent out. When the name was well entrenched in the Delhiites’s mind, the Airtel campaign began to focus on the utility of Cellphone. In the first four months alone Airtei's advertisement spend exceeded Rs. 4 crores. As of today the awareness level Is 60% unaided. This implies that if potential or knowledgeable consumers are asked to name a Cellular phone service provider that is on the top of his/her mind 60% of them would name Airtel. As for aided it -is 100% (by giving clues and hints etc.). 57
Brand strength of a product or the health of a brand is measured by the percentage score of the brand on the above aided and the unaided tests. The figures show that Airtel is a healthy and a thriving brand. Every company has a goal, which might comprise a sales target and a game plan with due regard to Its competitor. Airtel 's campaign strategy is designed keeping in mind its marketing strategy. The tone, tenor and the stance of the visual ads are designed to convey the image of a market leader in terms of its market share. It tries to portray the image of being a "first mover every time" and that of a "market leader". The status of the product in terms of its life cycle has just reached the maturity stage in India. It is still on the rising part of the product life cycle curve in the maturity stage. The diagram on the left hand side shows the percentage of the users classified into heavy, medium and low categories. The right hand side shows the revenue share earned from the three types of users. Airtel, keeping in mind the importance of the customer retention, values its heavy users the most and constantly indulges in service innovation. But, since heavy users comprise only 15 - 20% of the population the other segment cannot be neglected. The population which has just realised the importance of cellular phones has to be roped in. It is for this reason that the service provider offers a plethora of incentives and discounts. Concerts like the "Freedom concert" are being organised by Airtel in order to promote sales. The media channel is chosen with economy in mind. The target segment is not very concrete but, there is an attempt to focus on those who can afford. The print advertisements and hoarding are placed in those strategic areas which most likely to catch the attention of those who need a cellular phone.
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The product promise (which might cost different 1 higher) is an important variable in determining the target audience. Besides this, other promotional activities (strategies) that Airtel has adopted are . (i) People who have booked Airtel services have been treated to exclusive premiers of blockbuster movies. Airtel has tied up with Lufthansa to offer customer bonus miles on the German airlines frequent flier's programs. (ii) There have been educational campaigns, image campaigns, pre launch advertisements,
launch advertisements, congratulatory advertisements, promotional advertise-ments, attacking advertisements and tactical advertisements.
DISTRIBUTION
Company
Franchisee
Distributor Dealers
Dealer Customer
Customer
The- company whose operations are concentrated in and around Delhi. It 27 Franchisees and 15 Distributors- They also have 8 'instant access cash card counters- Each franchises or distributor can have any number of dealers under him as long as the person is approved by the Airtel authority. Each franchises has to invest Rupees Ten Lakhs. to obtain a franchise and should employ an officer recruited by Airtel. This person acts as an liaison between the company and the franchises. The franchises can it any number of dealers as long as their territories do not
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overlap. But unfortunately Airtel has not been very successful in controlling territorial overlaps of dealers. The franchises can carry out his 1 her own promotional strategy. For this the. company contributes 75% of the money and the franchises contributes 25% of the money. The dealers under the franchisee receive the same commission. The franchises and the dealer obtain the feedback from the customers and they are sent through the liaison officer on a day-to-day basis to Airtel. The dealer has to invest Rupees. One Lakh as an initial investment. The dealer of Airtel are not allowed to provide any other operators' service. Target set for distributors and the dealers is 100 -150 activations per month. Hence the dealers can also go for their own promotions like banners and discounts on festivals etc. The dealer provides service promptly. The consumer on providing the bill of purchase for the handset and proof of residence has only to wait an hour before getting connected. The staff of the dealers and the franchisees are provided training by the Airtel personnel. The complaints encountered by the franchisees and dealers are either handset being nonfunctional or the SIM Card not getting activated. Anything more complicated is referred to the main Airtel office in Delhi.
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DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
DEALER SURVEY
Classification of dealers according to the proportion of business of Air Tel.
Table-1 No. of dealers 22% 88% Responses Airtel Others
This chart show that twenty two percent of dealers believe that Airtel is the most preferred brand while the other eighty eight percent believe that others are alos popular among the costumers.
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1) what types of services customers want? (Multiple response were given) Table 2 Service Airtel Leisure AirTel Business AirTel Standard No. of dealers 03 33 64 Percentage 3% 33% 64%
From the chart, it is clear that the most popular service Among the customers is air tel standard and then airtel business because of their convenient tariff rates. However, each service is suitable for specific class of people depending on their usage.
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2) How would you rate Air Tel’s network in your area? Table-3 Rating Excellent Good Needs improvement No. of dealers 20 3 10 Percentage 60% 10% 30%
The chart depicts that thirty percent dealers are not fully satisfied with the netwok. They nelieve that there is scope for improvement as the signals are sometimes not proper in the interiors. Sometimes even inside trhe house or shop signals get weak.
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3) How knowledgeable is company’s customer service people? Table – 4 Rating Excellent Very Good So-So Dis-satisfied Strongly Dissatisfied No. of dealers 27 6 0 0 0 Percentage(%) 75% 18% 02% 04% 01%
This chart shows that all the dealers are satisfied with the knowledge of the customer service people of Airtel. They understand their problems and give them a reasonable solution.
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4) When phoning at the customer care department how quickly is the call transferred to the customer care executives? Table – 5 Time Immediately Within few minutes (2-3 min) Takes time No. of Dealers 00 03 30 Percentage 02% 10% 88%
Most of the dealers i.e. near about 90% have the problem that when they make a call to the computerized customer care department it takes long time near about 5-10 minutes for their call to be transferred to the customer care executives. 5) How responsive are the customer care executives in returning the phone calls. Table – 6
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Rating Excellent Very Good So-So Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied
No. of dealers 25 5 2 1 0
Percentage (%) 75% 15% 6% 3% 01%
Here most of the dealers are satisfied with the responsiveness of customer care executive in calling back to them if proper solution was not available for the first time.
6) Dealer’s overall rating to the customer care department. Table – 7 Rating Excellent Very Good No. of dealers 5 15 66 Percentage (%) 15% 45%
So-So Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied
12 1 0
36% 3% 01%
As shown above nearly thirty-six percent dealers have low level of satisfied with the department that leaves much needed scope for improvement.
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7) Dealer’s rating to the usefulness of sales representatives visits to them. Table –8 Rating Excellent Very Good So-So Dissatisfied Strongly Dissatisfied No. of dealers 10 7 9 3 4 Percentage (%) 30% 21% 27% 10% 12%
The above chart clearly indicates that a substantial percentage of dealers (27%) have a low level of satisfaction with the company representatives to them. Also 21 percent dealers are not at all satisfied with them.
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8) Dealers rating of the schemes provided by the company for them. Table – 9 Rating Excellent Very Good So-So Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied No. of dealers 0 6 12 15 0 Percentage (%) 03% 15% 36% 45% 01%
From the chart, it is clear that the dealers are not satisfied with the schemes provided by the company. They have the complaint that thought the customers are benefited from the various schemes there are not many schemes for their benefit. Sometimes the schemes are communicated to them slightly late and thus them the benefits from them.
9) Dealer’s satisfaction with the margins or cut-off provided by the company. 69
Table – 10 Level of Satisfaction Excellent Very Good So-S0 Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied No. of dealers 6 12 11 4 0 Percentage (%) 18% 36% 33% 12% 01%
The above chart indicates that near about fifty percent dealers are not much satisfied with the margins given by the company. The possible reason for this is the frequent fluctuations in them. Many times they get less than what is assured. 10) Classification of dealers according to the number of activation’s (average) made in a month. (on the basis of question II) Table – 11 0-10. 10-20. 20-30 30-40 70 40
above No. of Dealers Percentage (%) 3% 1% 8% 0.50% 10% 1% 7% 1% 5% 1%
No. of activations 0-10 10-20
No. of dealers 3 8
Percentage (%) 9.10 24.24
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11) Time within which dealers inform the franchisees about the receipt of activation forms. Table – 12 Time Less than 1 hour 1-2 hours Greater than 2 hours No. of dealers 33 00 00 Percentage 90% 06% 04%
From the chart it is clear that dealers immediately inform the franchisee about the receipt of the activation forms and it all depends on how those forms are passed on to the franchisees for timely activation.
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12) Dealer’s overall level of satisfaction with the company’s services. Table – 13 Satisfaction level Excellent Very Good So-So Dissatisfied Strongly dissatisfied No. of dealers 5 17 10 0 1 Percentage (%) 15% 51% 30% 01% 3%
The above chart shows that almost half of the dealers (50%) have high level of satisfaction and they should be moved to the highest class. Thirty percent are on the average side this clearly points out the deficiencies in the company’s policies and attitude towards the dealers. Being the most important part of the channel network but that too not under the company’s direct control should be properly considered and policies should be revised. 13) Is it feasible that activations are made directly from the dealer’s office instead of franchisees by setting the required computer network?
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Table – 14 No. of dealers Yes No 18 15 Percentage 55% 45%
Graph-18
45% 55%
Yes No
From the chart it is clear that there is not much difference in the opinion of dealers. Fifty-five percent are agreed to setup the required network while forty-five percent are not. It’s a mixed a bag situation and company has to decide accordingly.
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14) In case of cheque payment do dealers wait for the clearance of cheque before passing on the activation form to the franchisee? (Customer is not known) Table – 15 No. of dealers Always Generally Never 25 05 03 Percentage 61% 30% 9%
Graph-20
9%
Always
30% 61%
Generally Never
Near about sixty percent dealers always wait for the clearance of the cheque. Thirty percent depend on their appraisal of the customer and then decide accordingly. Only ten-percent takes risk pass on the activation, as they don’t want to loose their customer.
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15) Best/Distinctive features of the company. (Multiple responses were given) TABLE-16 Features Brand Image Promotional Strategy Excellent Service Strong Network No. of Dealers 13 4 7 9 Percentage 39% 12% 21% 27%
Graph-21
27% 39%
Brand Image Promotional Strategy Excellent Service
21%
12%
This chart shows the dealers liking about the various features of the company. It is clear their responses that AirTel’s Brand Image is best of the lot, the other features are also important but the brand image is most compelling one for them.
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16) Problems faced by the dealers.(Multiple responses were given) Table – 17 No. of dealers No dealer recognition Promotional strategy Service Fluctuating Margins No response 13 8 6 2 4 Percentage 39% 24% 18% 6% 12%
12% 6% 18%
Graph-21
39%
24%
No dealer recognitio n Promotion al strategy
This chart shows that seventy-five percent dealers are not satisfied with the company’s attitude towards the dealers. Nearly fifty percent are not satisfied with the promotional strategy and Services offered by the company for them. Some of them have given no responses as they consider them a part of every business
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CHAPTER V (SUMMARY OF FINDINGS)
1.
Twenty two percent of dealers believe that Airtel is the most preferred brand while the other eighty eight percent believe that others are alos popular among the costumers.
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2. It is clear that the most popular service Among the customers is air tel standard and then airtel business because of their convenient tariff rates. However, each service is suitable for specific class of people depending on their usage. 3. Thirty percent dealers are not fully satisfied with the netwok. They nelieve that there is scope for improvement as the signals are sometimes not proper in the interiors. Sometimes even inside trhe house or shop signals get weak. 4. All the dealers are satisfied with the knowledge of the customer service people of Airtel. They understand their problems and give them a reasonable solution. 5. Most of the dealers i.e. near about 90% have the problem that when they make a call to the computerized customer care department it takes long time near about 5-10 minutes for their call to be transferred to the customer care executives. 6. Most of the dealers are satisfied with the responsiveness of customer care executive in calling back to them if proper solution was not available for the first time. 7. Nearly thirty-six percent dealers have low level of satisfied with the department that leaves much needed scope for improvement. 8. The substantial percentage of dealers (27%) have a low level of satisfaction with the company representatives to them. Also 21 percent dealers are not at all satisfied with them. 9. It is clear that the dealers are not satisfied with the schemes provided by the company. They have the complaint that thought the customers are benefited from the various schemes there are not many schemes for their benefit. Sometimes the schemes are communicated to them slightly late and thus them the benefits from them.
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10. Near about fifty percent dealers are not much satisfied with the margins given by the company. The possible reason for this is the frequent fluctuations in them. Many times they get less than what is assured. 11. It is clear that dealers immediately inform the franchisee about the receipt of the activation forms and it all depends on how those forms are passed on to the franchisees for timely activation. 12. Almost half of the dealers (50%) have high level of satisfaction and they should be moved to the highest class. Thirty percent are on the average side this clearly points out the deficiencies in the company’s policies and attitude towards the dealers. Being the most important part of the channel network but that too not under the company’s direct control should be properly considered and policies should be revised. 13. It is clear that there is not much difference in the opinion of dealers. Fifty-five percent are agreed to setup the required network while forty-five percent are not. It’s a mixed a bag situation and company has to decide accordingly. 14. Near about sixty percent dealers always wait for the clearance of the cheque. Thirty percent depend on their appraisal of the customer and then decide accordingly. Only tenpercent takes risk pass on the activation, as they don’t want to loose their customer. 15. The dealers liking about the various features of the company. It is clear their responses that AirTel’s Brand Image is best of the lot, the other features are also important but the brand image is most compelling one for them. 16. Seventy-five percent dealers are not satisfied with the company’s attitude towards the dealers. Nearly fifty percent are not satisfied with the promotional strategy and Services
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offered by the company for them. Some of them have given no responses as they consider them a part of every business.
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CHAPTER VI CONCLUSIONS
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CONCLUSION
•
From above the details I conclude that most Airtel users preferred to remain with Airtel and that to mainly because of its brand value. Also good no. of users who were willing to switch from their respective subscribers showed interest in Airtel. Hence, these statistics imply a bright future for the company. Also the company is now providing more services like the door to door services which is you dial the Airtel customer care and would like to send someone flowers the Airtel company delivers those flowers to the person concerned. Also Airtel is providing free text messaging service and free voice mail service. Call conferencing is also another feature Airtel provides.
•
But after conducting the dealer survey we conclude that Airtel has to pay special attention on its dealer handling mechanism as they contribute a huge part in making the customer brand loyal. They are the main source which provides customers the details about the various tariff plans. So it is important for company to make them aware of the plans and give them quality services.
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LIMITATIONS
? Time constraint- The time constraint refers to the amount of time available to complete a project.
? Money constraints- The cost constraint refers to the budgeted amount available for the project.
? Availability of information- A Research largely depends on the information available to achieve its objectives the availability of information is also a major concern in this Project report.
? Biasness of the Data- The data collected is secondary in nature. So the user may have different objective and may have used it accordingly. So the data available may be bias.
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SUGGESTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Despite investments in integrated ERP, customer care, billing and network management systems, telecom operators still struggle to achieve the promises of strategic information management: providing relevant and meaningful information on Product, Customer and Channel performance. What's needed? Structuring and pulling together the disparate pieces of cost, revenue and performance information, to provide a view of where value is being generated in the business. Utilizing CRM systems to collect customer data Customer attributes and segmentation Product analysis for better yield management. Financial, understanding of Customer costs and profitability Typical situation. Ideal Integrated Solution. Closed loop marketing
Some of the recommendations for Airtel are as follows:
•
Airtel should use CRM as a platform for efficient delivery of a suite of products, services and applications to its 25 million plus mobile, landline and broadband customers.
•
For telecom, IT is like bread and butter. We believe it plays two significant roles-it works as a support system, and it can also be a business driver. Thus IT is very important for Airtel to understand and segregate customer needs depending on the product and services he is buying.
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•
One of the primary things that can be done is the segmentation of customers. With this, AirTel will be able to give its customers more value for money.
•
The future migration in bandwidth or zones should be done in such a manner that the existing customer base do not suffer.
•
The Airtel subscriber or customer should get the same quality of service no matter which of their call centres he contacts. This should be their vision – unified services across the country.
•
It is vital for them to manage the expectations of the customers and thus provide them with innovative products and services in a manner which makes them loyal.
•
Besides the game play of retaining customers, many operators are also constantly challenged to build a profitable postpaid customer base. Thus Airtel should try and initiate schemes that help • Migrating of prepaid customers to a postpaid plan by creatively introducing the right value-added services to right customers and communicating with customers effectively
•
Airtel can look forward to Acquiring quality customers and using new customer induction and expectation management as a retention tool and managing monthly payment cycles to minimize defaults and engaging channels to expand the reach for retention programs.
•
Set up a department which will exclusively handle complaints of dealer and solve them ASAP. This should on similar lines of customer care department.
•
Thus the core business drivers of Airtel should be: (a) Useful segmentation methodology and techniques
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(b) Effective churn analysis and prediction (c) Successful cross and up-selling (d) Targeted acquisition (e) Accurate price plan analysis
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Websites http://www.airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/airtel.in/airtel.in/home http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharti_Airtel http://www.bhartiairtel.in/index.php?id=aboutbhartiairtel http://www.airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/Airtel.in/airtel.in/home/foryou/mobile/postpaid/features/ http://www.airtel.sc/airtel_prepaid.html Dealers in Delhi region whom I have personally approached to collect data and fill questionnaires.
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APPENDIX
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Questionnaire
Dealer Dealer’s Name Phone Mobile : : : :
Q-1 In whose services you deal most? (a) AirTel Percentage:_________ Q-2 Which type AirTel’s service customer mostly prefer? (a) AirTel Leisure (c) AirTel Standard Q-3 How would you rate AirTel’s network in your area? (a) Excellent (b) Good (c) Needs improvement (b) AirTel Business (b) others
Q-4 How Knowledgeable is our customer service people? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dis-satisfied
Q-5 When phoning our office how quickly is your call transferred? (a) Immediately (c) Takes Time________ Q-6 How responsive are the customer care executives in returning the phone calls? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So (e) Strongly Dis-satisfied (b) within few minutes
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Q-7 Overall how you rate our customer service department? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-8 How do you rate the usefulness of our sales representatives Visit? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-9 How do you rate our schemes? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-10 How attractive is our margins? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-11 How much activations you make monthly? ___________________________________________________________________ Q-12 Time within which you inform the franchisee about receipt of activation? (a) < 1 hour (b) 1-2 hours (c) > 2 hours
Q-13 What is your overall level of satisfaction with our services? (a) Excellent (d) Dissatisfied (b) Very Good (c) So-So
(e) Strongly Dissatisfied
Q-14 Is it feasible that activations are made from your office directly by setting the required computer network? (a) Yes (b) No
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Q-15. In case of Cheque payments do you wait for the cheque to be cleared before you pass on the activation to the franchisee? (a)Always (b) Generally (c) Never
Q-16 What do you like best about the company. ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ Q-17 What do you like least about the company. ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ Q-18 Additional comments/prolems/suggestions. ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________
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