BHARTI AIRTEL

SUBMITTED BY :

Krishna Madhavi
Rini Varghese
Wajid Ali
Dinkar Mishra

SUBMITTED TO :

Prof. Marya Wani

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
 Abstract………………………………………………………………………….2
 Objective…………………………………………………………………………2
 History, Development& Growth………………………………………………..2
 SWOT Analysis………………………………………………………………….4
 Analysis of External environment
 Porter’s Five Forces Model…………………………………………....5
 Strategy Analysis………………………………………………………………...7
 Structure & Control Systems Analysis…………………………………………..8
 RelevantConcepts………………………………………………………………..9
 7 P’S…………………………………………………………………9
 STP………………………………………………………………….11
 Brand Personality…………………………………………………...12
 Share of Mind……………………………………………………….12
 Pioneer Advantage………………………………………………….12
 Viral Marketing……………………………………………………..12
 Repositioning………………………………………………………..12
 Brand Reinforcement& Revitalization………………………………12
 Brand image…………………………………………………………13
 Pricing Policy………………………………………………………..13

 Major issues……………………………………………………………………….13
 Recommendations…………………………………………………..

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ABSTRACT

This document is a report on the analysis of the case titled “Airtel- From Touch
Tomorrow to Live Every Moment”.

Bharti Airtel is one of India’s leading private sector providers of Telecommunication

services. This report deals with the indepth analysis of the given case study on Bharati
televentures . It is prepared by looking into the gist of the article and anlyzing the issues
and the relevant marketing concepts. The five porters model gives an indepth insight as
to how things should be dealt with.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this analysis is to study the growth of Bharati Airtel , strategies implimented
by it to sustain and capture the market share.

History, Development & Growth

• Sunil Bharthi Mittal founded Bharthi Enterprises in 1976 which started as a unit
for manufacturing bicycle components later diversified into the manufacturing of
stainless steel, brass and plastic products, import of gensets etc.
• The year 1985 demarcated the turning point in the history of the company after it
entered into the manufacturing of push button telephones after entering into a
technical tie-up with Seimens AG.
• In 1989, Bharthi in collaboration with Takacom corporation became the first
Indian company to manufacture telephone answering machines.
• In 1992, Bharthi formed a consortium with certain prominent players in the
industry like SFR-France, Emtel-Mauritius and MSI-UK, to bid for mobile
service provider licenses in Indian metros.
• In 1994 Bharthi obtained the GSM mobile service provider licence for Delhi NCR
and in 1995 the service was launched.
• In 1996, it became the first private telco to launch mobile services in Himachal
Pradesh.

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 • In 1997 it became the first Indian mobile service provider to cross the 100,000
customers mark.
• In 1998 Bharti BT Internet, a joint venture of Bharti Telecom and British Telecom
was formed for providing ISP services, which launched ISP services in Delhi,
Mumbai and Bangalore under the `Mantra online' brand in 1999.
• It could establish footprints in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka also by acquiring
JT Mobile. Singtel, Asia's leading telco, formed a strategic partnership with
Bharthi in 2000 and Bharti acquired majority stake in SkyCell to establish its
presence in the Chennai circle. By 2001, Bharthi could win mobile service
provide licenses in eight circles and in 2002, it got listed on NSE, BSE and DSE.
• Bharti Enterprises has successfully focused its strategy on telecomwhile
straddling diverse fields of business. From thecreation of 'Airtel',one of India's
finest brands, to becoming thelargest manufacturer and exporter of world class
telecom terminals under its'Beetel' brand, Bharti has created a significant position
for itself in the global telecommunications sector.

SWOT Analysis
Strengths

 Bharthi Airtel is the largest cellular provider in India by making its presence
known in various fields like cellular telephony, internet services etc.
 It could form many strategic alliances with several leading companies like
Siemens AG, SFR- France, MSI- UK, Singtel etc which provided it with the
necessary technical expertise to carry on with its market expansion
 It could cover the entire India with its network and increase the market shares by
employing geographical expansion strategies
 The pioneer advantage Bharthi had helped it in increasing the market shares.
Bharthi employed both the market-penetration strategies and new-market segment
strategy to increase its customer base.

Weaknesses

 When the company was started by Sunil Mittal, he had little knowledge and
experience about the industry which took him more time to establish in the industry.
 For the same reason, initially the business had to outsource to experts in the field.

Opportunities

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  Latest Technology and low cost advantage
 Huge untapped Rural market

Threats

 Intense competition and shortage of bandwidth

 New players coming to India
 Saturation point in basic telephony services

 ANALYSIS OF EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

 Porter’s Five Forces Models

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• Internal Rivalry:

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 All these players compete to capture the market share.

• Threat Of New Entrants:

• New entrants like Uninor , Etilsat, S-tel
• Rapidly changing Technology

• Customer Bargaining Power

• Cut throat competition
• Low switching cost
• Less differentiation among service providers
High bargaining power of customers can be depicted
 Supplier Bargaining Power
• Otsourcing dealers
• Network outsourcing and maintenance by Ericcson and Nokia systems
• Information technology by IBM
• Call centre outsourcing by Nortel, Aegis BPO, Emphasis, HindujaTMT.
However threat of suppliers bargaining power is less for Bharti Airtel.

 SUBSTITUTES
• Landline
• CDMA
• Video Conferencing
• VOIP- Skype, gtalk, Yahoo messenger
• Email and saocial networking websites

 MARKETING STRATEGY ANALYSIS

VISION

To be globally admired for telecom services that delight customers

MISSION

 Cost

 Innovative services

 Empowered employees

 Customer service focus efficiency

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 • Core Value Of Airtel –
• Performance
• Dynamism
• Leadership

• Targeting
• Elite class of people
• Up market professionals
• Entrepreneurs with business plans
• Low income mass category
• Youth with low tariff plans and less night call charges
• Women and senior citizens by post paid connection

• Advertisement
Airtel basically uses two appeals to connect to the users
• Emotional
• Humorous

 Provision of value added services

 Intensive distribution
 Relation ship with customer
 Increasing brand awareness

 STRUCTURE & CONTROL

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The businesses at Bharti Airtel have always been structured into three individual strategic
business units . (SBU's) - Mobile Services, Airtel Telemedia Services & Enterprise Services. The
mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23
telecom circles while the Airtel Telemedia Services business offers broadband & telephone
services.

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 Mobile services Airtel Telemedia Services Enterprice services

RELEVAN
TCONCEPTS
 7P’S

 Product:

• MOBILE SERVICES
Prepaid
Postpaid
Blackberry
Smart phones
Calling cards
• Telemedia services
Broadband & fixed line
• Enterprise services

• Place:
Distribution channels
Shop in shop points at various departmental stores and life style establishments.

• Price:
• Airtel has customer based pricing strategies.
• Flexible pricing

• Promotion:
• Large scale print and video advertising.

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 • Providing wallpapers and screensavers on website

• Process:

 Process for availing services is very easy and customer can avail it very easily.
 121 is the customer support no. which can be dialed from anywhere in India.

• Physical evidence:

 Process for availing services is very easy and customer can avail it very easily.
 121 is the customer support no. which can be dialed from anywhere in India.

• People :

 Dedicated and passionate workforce.

 Has various attractive schemes and plans for all the market segments.
 Good and effective customer service.

• STP
• Segmentation

MARKET SEGMENTATION

1) DEMOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION: Airtel has divided its market on the basis of

following variables
Age: 18 to 40 years
Gender: Male and Female
Income: More than 60000 per annum

2) GEOGRAPHIC SEGMENTATION:

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 Country: India
State: Delhi, Maharshtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab,etc
District: Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Ahmedebad, Chennai, etc.

3) BEHAVIORAL SEGMENTATION:
Occasions: Birthday, Marriage, Anniversary, etc.
Festivals: Rakshabandhan, Diwali, Christmas, etc.

4) PSYCOLOGICAL SEGMENTATION
Lifestyle: Based on people’s way of living.
Values: According to the values of an individual.

MARKET TARGETING

 121.63 million subscriber by 2010 elite class up market professionals women &
senior citizen by postpaid connection
 PAN-INDIA targeting
 High corporate clients
 Low income group people
 Youth with new tariffs – youtopia campaign

POSITIONING

TAGLINE: Live every moment

Airtel has positioned itself as a leader, a premium brand and a product for premium sector. New
positioning was aimed at developing a strong relationship with the customers. Airtel took
measures to add warmth and humanized touch to the brand.

Brand Personality:

Airtel has endorsed A.R Rahman as brand ambassador to impart Uniqueness, Innovation, and
soulfulness to the brand.

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Share of Mind:
It is the largest telecom company in the country and has top-of- mind recall amongst cellular
phone users and enjoyed leadership position in market. It can be primarily attributed to it’s
strong brand building and positioning strategies

Pioneer advantage
Airtel broke new ground in telecom industry as it entered the industry first and set benchmark. It
filled the hole in customer’s mind and was triumphant in becoming market leader.

Viral marketing :
Bharti employs Word of Mouth and Word of Mouse to create publicity and to convey new
relevant brand related information.

Repositioning:
Airtel intended to transform its image to capture a good deal of market share and to battle the
augumenting competition . It endeavored to add innovation, energy and friendliness besides its
existing image of leadership, performance and dynamism.

It started new ‘Live Every Moment campaign’ and altered it’s logo color, introduced new tariff
plans.

Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization:

Bharti focused on giving a contemporary look to Airtel connect centers with e-kiosks, facades,
collaterals, signage’s and merchandising material. It introduced new value added services such as
SMS, smart mail, call waiting and information services.

Brand Image

Airtel has paid much attention on the following areas as part of it’s brand image building.

Functionality Efficiency

Aggressive market expansion

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Physical presence

People’s emotions

Pricing policy

 Value addition to customer

 . Multiple pricing Points.

 Dynamic Pricing

 Freedom of choice.

MAJOR ISSUES
• Bharthi Airtel Cellular Services had the pioneer advantage which helped it in gaining a
considerable ‘share of mind’. But market research revealed that the ‘share of heart’ was
very less and it arrived into a conclusion that the brand was perceived as ‘cold and
efficient’.
• In an industry where customer relationships were of paramount importance to build up
the customer base, lacking of an emotional and humanized touch was the major weakness
for Bharthi Airtel in the initial stages of its growth.
• When most of the new subscribers bought a cellular phone based on the suggestions of
their kith and kin, lack of strong customer relationships had a deep negative impact in
terms of the viral marketing strategies.

• Airtel cellular services initially targeted the premium category of society who could
afford the high rates. But once the saturation point is reached, and unless the market is
expanded a brand cannot survive for long. This was another major issue Bharthi Airtel
faced which it could overcome by repositioning the brand, by featuring youth and
families in advertisements which highlighted the relationship angle and made the brand
softer and more sensitive.

• For Bharthi Airtel, the distribution strategy was another grey area as far as the increase of
customer base was concerned. In a situation where the call rates are high, to reach out to
every prospective customer, creating brand awareness and communicating the value of
the product was also necessary. Changing the customer perception and creating a need
and demand of the product was the need of the hour which Bharthi Airtel could
accomplish by opening one stop cellular stores, e-commerce portals etc.

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 • At one point of time when Government has increased the tariff rates, Bharti felt the price
charged did not match the value delivered. So it had focussed only on the premium sector
who could afford the rates instead of concentrating upon customer awareness to expand
the number of customers.

RECOMMENDATIONS
• Airtel has to focus on the emerging markets of Asia and Africa as these markets will
continue to be the growth engines of the telecom world.
• Along with catering to the needs of premium sectors, it also has to focus on middle class
society and once the maturity stage is reached it can even consider the bottom of the
pyramid .
• It can tap the rural markets as there are plethora of opportunities awaiting telecome
sector.
• To attain good technical expertise it may consider forming collaborations with major
foreign players.
• To trim down the competition BhartiAirtel can take mergers and acquisitions with weak
players in to account.
• With the everchanging trends Bharti also has to make timely changes in its brand value
• As a market leader considering the oligopoly, Airtel miust be vigilant enough and
innovative to sustain it’s top most position and enhance it’s market share.

BIBILOGRAPHY

1. http://www.bhartiairtel.in
2. http://capitaline.com
3. www.moneycontrol.com

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