A study on B2B sales force issues faced by telecom companies with reference

to Tata Docomo

Submitted by

Balakrishnan.V

Chandru.D Saravanan.P

Santhosh Kumar.S

Project Guide: Dr.P.Mohan Suyamburaj

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OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT:

Analysing the Indian telecom industry with respect to business to business marketing.

Identification of B2B realted issues and resoliving methodologies with reference to Tata

docomo.

INTRODUCTION

India is the world’s second-largest telecommunications market. It has one of the lowest

call tariffs in the world enabled by the mega telephone networks and hyper-competition among

them. It has the world's third-largest Internet user-base with over 137 million as of June

2012 Major sectors of the Indian telecommunication industry are telephony, internet and

television broadcasting.

The mobile phone industry in India is likely to contribute US$ 400 billion to the

country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and has the potential to generate about 4.1 million

additional jobs by 2020, as per Ms Anne Bouverot, Director General, Groupe Speciale Mobile

Association (GSMA).

“India’s data story is very promising. Vodafone is investing nearly US$ 3 billion over the

next two years in India in expanding its network infrastructure and distribution channel in the

country,” as per Mr Vittorio Colao, CEO, Vodafone Plc.

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SWOT ANALYSIS OF INDIAN TELECOM INDUSTRY

A swot analysis on Indian Telecom industry is as follows:

STRENGTH IDENTIFIED IN THE INDUSTRY

Exponential growth.

Skilled Human Resource at low-cost.

Access to Infrastructure – optical network and satellite links.

Favourable policies (to some extent) and regulator.

Strong international brand names.

Huge customer potential

High growth rate

Allowed FDI limit ranging from 74% - 100%

High Return on Investment

Low Capital Expenditure

WEAKNESSES IDENTIFIED IN THE INDUSTRY

Quality of Service.

Low revenue per user (ARPU).

Customer retention.

No clear strategic direction.

Poor organizational structure.

No research and development programs.

Employee skill inconsistency.

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Very low employee morale.

Late adopters to latest technology

Most competitive market

Requirement of huge financial resources for entry

OPPURTUNITIES IDENTIFIED IN THE INDUSTRY

Huge market size.

Local handset manufacturing.

Making technology accessible to all (e.g. broadband).

Adopt latest technologies.

Removal of international trade barriers.

Adopting MVNO.

3G & 4G services

Value Added Services

Telecom Equipment Exports

Scope in Content related service

THREATS IDENTIFIED IN THE INDUSTRY:

Recession in economy.

Inconsistent and adhoc decisions from regulatory authorities.

Political Instability, Security issues.

Adverse shifts in trade policies of government.

Declining ARPU(Average Revenue Per User)

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Content privacy

TATA DOCOMO: ORGANIZATION PROFILE ABOUT TATA

Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai,

Maharashtra, India. It encompasses seven business sectors: communications and information

technology, engineering, materials, services, energy, consumer products and chemicals. Tata

Group was founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata as a trading company. It has operations in more

than 80 countries across six continents. Tata Group has over 100 operating companies each of

them operates independently out of them 32 are publicly listed. The major Tata companies are

Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Tata

Global Beverages, Tata Teleservices, Titan Industries, Tata Communications and Taj Hotels.

The combined market capitalisation of all the 32 listed Tata companies was $89.88 billion as of

March 2012. Tata receives more than 58% of its revenue from outside India.

Tata Group remains a family-owned business, as the descendants of the founder (from the

Tata family) own a majority stake in the company. The current chairman of the Tata group is

Cyrus Pallonji Mistry, who took over from Ratan Tata in 2012. Tata Sons is the promoter of all

key Tata companies and holds the bulk of shareholding in these companies. The chairman of

Tata Sons has traditionally been the chairman of the Tata group. About 66% of the equity capital

of Tata Sons is held by philanthropic trusts endowed by members of the Tata family.

The Tata Group and its companies & enterprises is perceived to be India's best-known

global brand within and outside the country as per an ASSOCHAM survey. The 2009, annual

survey by the Reputation Institute ranked Tata Group as the 11th most reputable company in the

world. The survey included 600 global companies. The Tata Group has helped establish and

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finance numerous quality researches, educational and cultural institutes in India. The group was

awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanth Basic elements.

HIERARCHY PYRAMID SALES DIVISION OF TATA DOCOMO

Fig: 2.1 Hierarchy of sales division in Tata Docomo

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Tata Docomo products and services:

Tata Docomo offers a suite of solutions to help your business address every

communication need. Touching upon every sphere, our unmatched offerings combine the

entirety of products and services on Tata Docomo’s fixed line and wireless platforms. Cross-

platform CDMA and GSM capability and solutions are geared to harness the strengths of all that

TATA Teleservices Limited has to offer. Now, your every communication requirement has an

appropriate solution that will enable your business to grow rapidly.

The most comprehensive bouquet provided by Tata Docomo to a business:

Enterprise data

Managed Service

IOT and Mobility Solutions

Broadband and Landline

Enterprise voice

Under this major five vertical Tata Docomo provides various serves to a business which were

listed below

1. Enterprise data:

Wireline

VPN Services

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Video Services

Wireless Data

2. Managed Service:

Data Centre Service

Threat Management

Media

Business Applications on Cloud

3. IOT and Mobility Solutions

Location Based Services

Mobile Applications

Other IOT/M2M solutions

4. Broadband and Landline

5. Enterprise voice

Wireline

Wireless

IP Voice

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Add On

Internet Leased Line:

Businesses, big or small need a reliable and consistent internet connectivity to run their

mission critical and day-to-day operations. Tata Docomo brings to you a high performance and

carrier grade internet connection, specifically designed to cater to business needs to help you stay

ahead.

The silent features of Tata Docomo Internet lease line service were

Speed

Future readiness

Carrier-grade connectivity

End-to-end service level agreement

Web tool

Reach

The major part of Tata Docomo business comes from its enterprise voice service.

Wireline:

PRI

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Primary Rate Interface (PRI) is a service that enables connection of up to 30 voice

channels to an enterprise EPABX on a single line. Each channel can be configured for incoming,

outgoing or both functionalities.

BRI

Integrated Services Digital Network Basic Rate Interface (ISDN BRI) integrates service

by offering two 64 kbps bearer (B) channels used for voice, data, and video. Both channels can

be bonded to providing 128 kbps link.

SIP Truck

Unlike in traditional telephony, where bundles of physical wires are delivered from the

service provider to a business, a SIP trunk allows a company to replace these traditional fixed

PSTN lines (PRI/BRI) with a SIP trunk over an IP based transport network. SIP Trunking helps

connect a private business-class phone system with a IP based PSTN.

Centrex Business Solutions

Centrex is a fully managed, hosted service that offers the functionality of PBX system.

The solution offers to connect all your offices within the city limits as well as all across India.

Wireless:

Mobile Telephony (GSM/CDMA)

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Enjoy seamless connectivity through Tata Docomo’s GSM and CDMA services across

India, with value based plan and easy billing to meet your voice connectivity requirements. With

Mobile Number Portability (MNP), you can now shift to Tata Docomo services without

changing your number and leverage the advantage of superior voice clarity, pan India coverage

and congestion free network.

Walky

Tata Walky is a feature-rich wireless landline phone that has changed the way businesses

perceives and uses fixed lines.

It combines the functionality of a mobile and the comfort of a landline. It offers quick

set-up of a wireless last-mile point of connection, even at remote locations.

IP Voice:

Managed VoIP

Managed Voice over IP (MVoIP) is an end to end managed and cost-effective internet

based voice solution. It features a robust and scalable VoIP technology that provides premium

quality of voice for international calls.

Global SIP Connect

Global SIP connect is a fully managed end to end worldwide SIP trunk service that

supports both intra-office (on-net) voice calls to and from the PSTN word (off –net).

Insta CC

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Tata Docomo in association with Tata Communication brings to you Insta CC, an on

demand Hosted Contact Centre Solution that provides you with a unified, scalable and managed

portfolio of contact centre applications. With only minimal upfront investment, you can deploy

next-generation contact centre capabilities using the Insta CC platform.

Insta CC gives a business

i. Zero capital expenditure – pay-as-you-go tariff model

ii. Distributed and location-independent implementation

iii. Scalable, reliable and secure service

iv. Flexible and quick capacity adjustment

v. Next-generation contact centre capabilities

vi. Reduced need for in-house technical skill sets

Add On:

Audio conference

Today in a globalized world, enterprises have a greater need to partner and collaborate.

Audio Conferencing has become an important tool for businesses that need to connect and

collaborate with people across functions and geographies.

Business Benefits through audio conference service of Tata Docomo

i. Reduce travel cost

ii. Increase executive productivity

iii. Permits frequent, multi-party interactions

iv. Zero capital investment

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Flexi Toll service

Flexi Toll Services is a unique single number accessible across operators, Pan India. Tata

Docomo offers:

i. Call Free Service (1800): Your customers calling your 1800 number are not charged and

you pay for all calls reaching your 1800 number

ii. Call Local Service (1860): In which your customers reaching you will be charged only

local call charges; and you would need to bear the long-distance call charges

IPLCC

Tata Docomo in association with Tata Communications offers leased connectivity,

designed especially for call centres. Tata Communications has developed an end-to-end, TDM

based voice service that helps call centres and BPOs control network costs, while delivering the

manageability and scalability necessary to stay competitive. International Private Leased Circuit

(IPLC CC) for call centres delivers a dedicated solution based on a flexible, commercial and pay-

per-use model. As a fully managed solution, IPLC CC minimizes start-up costs for call centres

and BPOs — helping networks scale to accommodate growth.

The IPLC CC solution includes

i. Local loop

ii. National leg

iii. International leg

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iv. Switching and multiplexing

v. US Point of Presence (PoP) with PSTN termination and aggregation services

SEGMENTING,TARGETING AND POSITIONING

Tata docomo provides Prepaid service mostly for its B2C users but it provides post-paid

plans for government and corporate users i.e. B2B users there exists more plans and relationship

oriented activities

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B2B ISSUES AT TATA DOCOMO-ENTERPRISE VOICE:

1. Sales people do not read all reports which provide insights on past performance and

future forecasts.

2. The company is not doing enough sales training - sales manager cannot articulate their

own company’s sales projects.

3. Order processing is too long and complex.

4. Recognition of wrong sales people for wrong reasons.

5. Spending too much time in forecasting sales and not closing sales.

6. Company focuses on product training not sales training.

7. Failure to train managers by means of hiring external sales trainers.

8. Promotion of best practices.

9. Failure to ask for referrals.

10. Focus on sales promotional activities which do not generate any revenue.

11. Failure to learn winning or losing a order.

12. Too many meetings.

13. Spending too much time in existing customer service.

14. Employee turnover.

15. Out-dated technology.

16. Lack of planning.

17. Lack of communication between managers and sales force.

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18. Focus on product rather than sales skills.

SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Make sales people read reports and insights

2. Team leader must be trained in the sales process in a systematic manner so that he would

become aware of in the company’s sales process in a proper way

3. The order process must be made transparent so as to make the customers understand the

entire processing

4. Sales people must be selected based upon number of appointments closed and not based

on number of appointments fixed

5. The focus of the sales person should be oriented towards closing the sale and not towards

forecasting sale

6. The company must focus on improving the sales skills rather than explaining about the

product

7. The team leaders must undergo training sessions from the outside sales screener

8. The sales people must focus on obtaining referrals from the existing clients

9. Sales promotional activities must be designed in such a way that they generate revenues

by attracting qualified prospects

10. Companies should gather information which is necessary to improve b2b sales

performance

11. Frequent meeting and Periodical reviews should not be conducted as they affect the

fatigue of the sales person

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12. Sales managers must not be involved in taking care of customer service which should be

delegated to the CRM department.

13. The company should not fire its employees and rather get rid of their problems by means

of a development program

14. Usage of technologies in communication such as messengers like what’s app hike etc..,

so as to improve and interchange communication within and outside the company

15. A sales plan template should be developed for common major accounts

16. The internal communication between the hierarchies under the sales domain will help to

improve sales dramatically

17. The company needs to stress upon educating sales force and must equip them to handle

objections over the product or service.

18. The company must focus on creating teams which possesses best sales skills.

CONCLUSION:

Thus a study on Tata Docomo’s Enterprise vertical was conducted to identify the issues related

to B2B voice segment.The issues were analysed and possible solutions were suggested in the

report.

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References:

1. Selling rewards and Paying performance in your sales force, Institute of Employment

studies, University of Sussex campus.www.employment-studies.co.uk.

2. Media reports, Department of Telecommunication, Department of Industrial Policy and

Promotion (DIPP), RNCOS.

3. Trust, Image and Association, Affecting Loyalty towards Telecom Service Providers in

India: A Study On BSNL, International Journal of Management and Social Sciences

Research (IJMSSR) ISSN: 2319-4421 Volume 2, No. 1, January 2013.

4. Identification of Telecom Service Quality Dimensions in India with Fuzzy Analysis,

Global Journal of Management and Business Studies. ISSN 2248-9878 Volume 3,

Number 5 (2013), pp. 467-474© Research India Publications.

5. Indian Consumer Market Scaling New Height Telecommunication, Volume: 2 | Issue: 3 |

Mar 2013 • ISSN No 2277 – 8179.

6. Customer respond and satisfaction against marketing strategies of selected cellular

service providers in nanded city, Excel international journal of multidisciplinary

management studies vol.2 issue 3, march 2012, ISSN 2249 8834).

7. Service Quality in Telecom Sector - A Study of Telecom Service Providers Of

Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali. (IJMMR Volume 1, Issue 1 (December, 2010) ISSN

2229‐6883).