CONTENTS

Executive Summary

Introduction

Meaning & Definition Of Telecommunication

History of telecommunication

Company Profile- Bharti Airtel

Vision & Mission

Awards & Recognitions

Product Profile

Brand Logo

SWOT Analysis

Conclusion

Reference

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Airtel comes to you from Bharti Airtel Limited. It is one of the leading

integrated telecom services providers with operation in 18 countries

across Asia and Africa. Sunil Bharti Mittal is the Founder, Chairman

and Group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s leading business

groups with interests in telecom, financial services, retail, reality,

manufacturing and agriculture.

Airtel is one of Asia’s leading providers of telecommunication services

with presence in the entire 22 licensed jurisdiction (Also known as

Telecom Circles) in India and Sri Lanka.

Airtel not only deals with telecom but also it has many other products.

It has pioneered several innovations in telecom sectors. The company

is structured into four strategic business units: - Mobile, Tele Media,

Enterprise and Digital TV.

The mobile business offers services in India, Sri Lanka and

Bangladesh. The telemedia business provides broadband. IPTV and

telephone services in 89 Indian cities. The Digital TV business provides

Direct-to-Home TV services across India.

Bharti Airtel Ltd., commonly known as Airtel, was incorporated

on the 7th of July, 1995 as a Public Limited Company and one

of the first companies to enter the Telecom Services business

in India. It is the largest Indian telecommunications company

and it operates in more than 20 countries across South Asia

and Africa offering 2G, 3G and 4G services. It is the largest

cellular service provider in India, with 200 million subscribers

as of 9th August 2012. In the early years, Bharti Airtel Ltd

established itself as a supplier of basic telecom equipment. Mr.

Sunil Mittal jumped at the opportunity provided when the

government opened up the sector and allowed private players

to provide telecom services. Bharti Airtel Ltd accepted every

opportunity provided by this new policy to evolve into India's

largest telecommunications company and one of India's most

respected brands. It is considered to be the first mobile firm in

the world to outsource everything except marketing, sales and

financial operations. Airtel now offers a variety of services to

its consumers including 4G services in select cities, Airtel

Money, Telemedia, Mobile data services, enterprise business

solutions, etc. Airtel globally rebranded itself in 2010 and it

now follows the ‘One Network’ strategy across all Airtel

operating countries.

Airtel was born free, a force unleashed into the market with a

relentless and unwavering determination to success. A spirit

charged with energy, creativity and a team driven “to seize

the day” with an ambition to become the most globally

admired telecom service. Airtel, in just ten years of operations,

rose to the pinnacle to achievement and continues to lead.

As India’s leading Telecommunications Company Airtel brand

has played the role as a major catalyst in India’s reforms,

contributing to its economic resurgence.

Today we touch people’s lives with our Mobile services,

Telemedia services, to connecting India’s leading 1000+

corporate. We also connect Indians living in USA, UK and

Canada with our call home service.

Meaning and Definition of

Telecommunication

Telecommunications, also called telecommunication, is the

exchange of information over significant distances by

electronic means. A complete, single telecommunications

circuit consists of two stations, each equipped with a

transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter and receiver at any

station may be electrical combined into a single device called

transceiver. The medium of signal transmission can be

electrical wire or cable (also known as ‘copper’), optical fibre

or electromagnetic fields. The free-space transmission and

reception of data by means of electromagnetic fields is called

wireless.

The simplest form of telecommunications takes place between

two stations. However, it is common for multiple transmitting

and receiving stations to exchange data among themselves.

Such an arrangement is called telecommunications network.

The Internet is the largest example. On a smaller scale,

example include: Telephone networks, Corporate and

academic wide-area networks (WANs), Police and fire

communication system.

HISTORY OF TELECOMMUNICATION:

The history of telecommunication began with the use

of smoke signals and drums in Africa, the Americas and parts

of Asia. In the 1790s the first fixed semaphore

systems emerged in Europe; however it was not until the

1830s that electrical telecommunication systems started to

appear. This article details the history of telecommunication

and the individuals who helped make telecommunication

systems what they are today. The history of

telecommunication is an important part of the larger history of

communication.

Now let us see how the telecommunication has improved from

the olden days of smoke signals and drums to the new

changing technology of fast internet and mobile phones.

Early Telecommunication:

Early telecommunications included smoke signals and drums.

Drums were used by natives in Africa, New Guinea and South

America, and smoke signals in North America and China.

Contrary to what one might think, these systems were often

used to do more than merely announce the presence of a

camp.

In 1792, a French engineer, Claude Chappe built the first

visual telegraphy (or semaphore) system

between Lille and Paris. This was followed by a line

from Strasbourg to Paris. In 1794, a Swedish

engineer, Abraham Edelcrantz built a quite different system

from Stockholm to Drottningholm. As opposed to Chappe's

system which involved pulleys rotating beams of wood,

Edelcrantz's system relied only upon shutters and was

therefore faster. However semaphore as a communication

system suffered from the need for skilled operators and

expensive towers often at intervals of only ten to thirty

kilometres (six to nineteen miles). As a result, the last

commercial line was abandoned in 1880.

Telegraph and Telephone:

A very early experiment in electrical telegraphy was an

'electrochemical' telegraph created by the German physician,

anatomist and inventor Samuel Thomas von Sömmering in

1809, based on an earlier, less robust design of 1804

by Catalan polymath and scientist Francisco Salvá i

Campillo. Both their designs employed multiple wires (up to

35) in order to visually represent almost all Latin letters and

numerals. Thus, messages could be conveyed electrically up to

a few kilometres (in von Sömmering's design), with each of the

telegraph receiver's wires immersed in a separate glass tube

of acid.

The first commercial electrical telegraph was constructed

in England by Sir Charles Wheatstone and Sir William Fothergill

Cooke. It used the deflection of needles to represent messages

and started operating over twenty-one kilometres (thirteen

miles) of the Great Western Railway on 9 April 1839. Both

Wheatstone and Cooke viewed their device as "an

improvement to the [existing] electromagnetic telegraph" not

as a new device.

In 1880, Bell and co-inventor Charles Sumner

Tainter conducted the world's first wireless telephone call via

modulated light beams projected by photo phones. The

scientific principles of their invention would not be utilized for

several decades, when they were first deployed in military

and fiber-optic communications.

Radio and Television:

In 1832, James Lindsay gave a classroom demonstration

of wireless telegraphy to his students. By 1854 he was able to

demonstrate a transmission across the Firth of

Tay from Dundee to Woodhaven, a distance of two miles

(3 km), using water as the transmission medium.

On March 25, 1925, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird publicly

demonstrated the transmission of moving silhouette pictures

at the London department store Selfridges. In October 1925,

Baird was successful in obtaining moving pictures

with halftone shades, which were by most accounts the first

true television pictures. This led to a public demonstration of

the improved device on 26 January 1926 again at Selfridges.

Baird's first devices relied upon the Nipkow disk and thus

became known as themechanical television. It formed the

basis of semi-experimental broadcasts done by the British

Broadcasting Corporation beginning September 30, 1929.

After mid-century the spread of coaxial cable and microwave

radio relay allowed television networks to spread across even

large countries.

Computer networks and the Internet:

On September 11, 1940, George Stibitz was able to transmit

problems using teletype to his Complex Number Calculator

in New York and receive the computed results back

at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.[17] This configuration

of a centralized computer or mainframe with remote dumb

terminals remained popular throughout the 1950s. However it

was not until the 1960s that researchers started to

investigate packet switching — a technology that would allow

chunks of data to be sent to different computers without first

passing through a centralized mainframe. A four-node network

emerged on December 5, 1969 between the University of

California, Los Angeles, the Stanford Research Institute,

the University of Utah and the University of California, Santa

Barbara. This network would become ARPANET, which by 1981

would consist of 213 nodes. In June 1973, the first non-US

node was added to the network belonging to Norway's

NORSAR project. This was shortly followed by a node in

London.

ARPANET's development centred around the Request for

Comment process and on April 7, 1969, RFC 1 was published.

This process is important because ARPANET would eventually

merge with other networks to form the Internet and many of

the protocols the Internet relies upon today were specified

through this process. In September 1981, RFC 791 introduced

the Internet Protocol v4 (IPv4) and RFC 793 introduced

the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) — thus creating the

TCP/IP protocol that much of the Internet relies upon today. A

more relaxed transport protocol that, unlike TCP,

did not guarantee the orderly delivery of packets called

the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) was submitted on 28 August

1980 as RFC 768. An e-mail protocol, SMTP, was introduced in

August 1982 by RFC 821 and http://1.0 a protocol that would

make the hyperlinked Internet possible was introduced on May

1996 by RFC 1945.

However not all important developments were made through

the Request for Comment process. Two popular link protocols

for local area networks (LANs) also appeared in the 1970s. A

patent for the Token Ring protocol was filed by Olof

Söderblom on October 29, 1974.[20] And a paper on

the Ethernet protocol was published by Robert

Metcalfe and David Boggs in the July 1976 issue of

Communications of the ACM.[21]

Internet access became widespread late in the

century, using the old telephone and television

networks.

Telecom in India:

 The Indian telecommunications industry is one of the world’s

fastest growing industries, with 653.92 million telephone

(landlines and mobile) subscribers and 617.53 million mobile

phone connections as of may 2010. It is also the second

largest telecommunication network in the world in terms of

number of wireless connections after China. The Indian Mobile

subscriber base has increased in size by a factor of more than

one-hundred since 2001 when the number of subscriber in the

country was approximately 5 million to 617.53 million in May

2010.

As the fastest growing telecommunications industry in the

world, it is projected that India will have 1.159 billion mobile

subscriber by 2013. The industry is expected to reach a size of

Rs. 344,921 crore by 2012 at a growth rate of over 26 percent

and generate employment opportunities for about 10 million

people during the same period. According to the analysts, the

sector would create direct employment for 2.8 million people

and for 7 million indirectly.

MODERN GROWTH:

A large population, low telephony penetration levels, and a

rise in consumers’ income and spending owing to strong

economic growth have helped make India the fastest-growing

telecom market in the world. The first operator is the state-

owned incumbent BSNL. BSNL was created by corporatization

of the erstwhile DTS (Department of Telecommunication

Service), a government unit responsible for provision of

telephony services. Subsequently, after the

telecommunication policies were revised to allow private

operators, companies such as Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Tata

Indicom, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Loop Mobile have entered

the space.

In 2008-2009 rural India outpaced urban India in mobile

growth rate. Bharti Airtel now is the largest telecom company

in India.

India’s mobile phone market is the fastest growing in the

world, with companies adding some 20.31 million new

customers in March 2010. The tatal number of telephones in

the country crossed the 600 million mark in Feb 2010. The

overall tele-density has increased t 44.85% in Oct 2009.

The total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & WLL (F)) base is

more than 543.20 million now. The wireline segment

subscriber base stood at 37.06 million with a decline of 0.12

million in Dec 2009.

INDIAN TELECOM SECTOR: RECENT

POLICIES

All the Villages shall be covered by telecom facility by the

end of 2002.

National Long Distance Service (NLD) is opened for

Unrestricted entry.

The International Long Distance (ILDS) have been opened

to competition.

The basic services are open to competition.

Policies allowing private participation have been

announced as per the New Telecom Policy (NTP), 1999 in

several new services, which includes Global Mobile

Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) Services,

digital Public Mobile Radio Trunked Service (PMRTS),

Voice Mail/ Audiotex/ Unified Messaging Service.

Two telecom PSUs, VSNL and HTL have been disinvested.

COMPANY PROFILE

Airtel is one of Asia’s leading providers of telecommunication

services with presence in all the 22 licensed jurisdictions (also

known as Telecom Circles) in India and in Sri Lanka. It served

an aggregate of 133,708,496 customers as of April 30, 2010,

in India; of whom 130,616,487 subscribe to GSM services and

3,092,009 use Telemedia Services either for voice and/or

broadband access delivered through DSL. Airtel is the largest

wireless service provider in the country, based on the number

of customers as of April 30, 2010. It offer an integrated suite of

telecom solutions to their enterprise customers, in addition to

providing long distance connectivity both nationally and

internationally. They also offer DTH 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 Towers Limited. Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers are

two top providers of passive infrastructure services in India

FACTSHEET:

Name Bharti Airtel Limited.

Business

Description

Provides mobile services in all the 22 telecom

circles in India, Srilanka and Bangladesh. Was the

first private operator to have an all India

presence.

Provides telemedia services (fixed line and

broadband services through DSL) in 89 cities in

India.

Also offers DTH and IPTV services.

Established July 07, 1995, as a Public Limited Company

Listings The Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE)

The National Stock Exchange of India Limited

(NSE)

Operational

Network

Provides GSM mobile services in all the 22

telecom circles in India, Srilanka and Bangladesh.

Was the first private operator to have an all India

presence. Provides telemedia services (fixed line)

in 89 cities in India.

Registered

Office

Bharti Airtel Limited

(A Bharti Enterprise)

Bharti Crescent, 1 Nelson Mandela Road, Vasant

Kunj Phase IINew Delhi - 110 070

Tel. No.: +91 11 4666 6100

Fax No.: +91 11 4666 6411

VISION AND PROMISE

AIRTEL’S MISSION, VISION AND VALUES

OUR MISSION

Hunger to win customers for life.

OUR VISION

Our vision is to enrich the lives of our customers. Our obsession is

to win customers for life through an exceptional experience.

OUR VALUES

We aim to work towards our vision, driven by our values of AIR -

Alive, Inclusive & Respectful.

ALIVE

We are alive to the needs of our customers. We act with passion,

energy and a can-do attitude to help our customers realise their

dreams. Innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit drive us - if it can’t

be done, we’ll find a way.

INCLUSIVE

Airtel is for everyone - we champion diversity, recognising the

breadth and depth of the communities we serve. We work with

them, anticipating, adapting and delivering solutions that enrich

their lives. We do this by having an open mind and embracing

change.

RESPECTFUL

We live the same lives as our customers, sharing the same joys and

the same pains. We never forget that they are why we exist. We act

with due humility, always open and honest, to achieve mutual

respect.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION:

Airtel Ranked "No.1 Service Brand" in the annual Brand Equity Most

' Trusted Brands Survey 2014.

Bharti Airtel won "Top Treasury Team Asia 2014" in Adam Smith

Awards Asia 2014

Airtel won the Best Treasury Team in Asia Pacific at the Finance

Asia Corporate Treasurer Awards 2014

Airtel won the "Best Mobile Product" for Wynk Music under Telecom

Service Providers Category and "My Favourite Service Provider"

award under the Pubic Poll Awards Category at the prestigious ET

Telecom awards 2014.

Bharti Airtel was ranked first in Brand Equity's Top 50 Service

Brands in India's Most Trusted Brands Survey 2013

Bharti Airtel was conferred with the Top Operator (Cellular), Top

Operator (NLD), Top Operator (ILD) awards at the ICT (Information

and Communication Technology) Business Awards 2013 in Delhi

Bharti Airtel has been recognized as the Best Global Wholesale

Carrier for 2009 at the Telecoms World Awards Middle East by

Terrapin.

Airtel was rated as the ‘Strongest Band’ in the Economic Times

Brand Finance Brand Power Rating 2009. It is the only Corporate

Brand to be awarded the AAA rating.

Airtel ranked second in the Economic Times-Brand Equity Most

Trusted Brand Survey 2009.

Bharti Airtel ranked India’s second most valuable company, by

Business Today in 2009.

Bharti Airtel's my Airtel app won the 'Service Innovation 2013'

Award at Aegis Graham Bell Awards 2013 for empowering

customers to manage all Airtel services effortlessly from a single

interface

Bharti Airtel was felicitated for 'Best Mobile Service

Provider' and 'Innovation in mMoney' at Aegis Graham Bell

Awards held on November 1, 2012

Sunil Bharti Mittal Chairman & Managing Director Bharti Enterprises

gets The Best Asian Telecom CEO award. bharti tele-ventures is

Asia's Best GSM Carrier

PRODUCT PROFILE

The Products which are offered by Airtel is very unique and

attractive to the customers. They also provide with lots of benefit

and attractive key features to the customers.

Airtel deals in four product or we can say that it is divided into four

segments of Airtel. They are:-

1. MOBILE

2. BROADBAND

3. DIGITAL TV

4. FIXED LINES

MOBILE:

Under mobile it is again divided into four. They are: Post Paid, Pre

Paid, Black Berry and Smart Phones. People can opt according to

their requirement and usage. All the provided schemes are

available to the customer without any much problem.

POST PAID:

Here Post Paid means after using the service we are to pay the

amount that which the customer has used. In post paid we are to

select the Tariff before the usage. According to the Tariff, we will

receive our bill. Then comes the way by which we can pay our bill.

Airtel has provided hell lots of facilities for payment of bill hassle

free. We can pay our bill through Internet, Paying to the Airtel bill

payment outlets, through mobile and if you want to pay your bill

sitting at home that is also possible without the use of internet,

mobile, etc. A collection of bill from home is also possible with the

help of collection boy who comes at your door steps and collects

your bill amount.

Auto roaming facility is given in post paid mobile connection. We

can also get post paid connection along with handset if required.

PRE PAID

Pre Paid means we have to pay before we use the service. In case

of pre paid we have different denominations of vouchers, we have

to buy the recharge vouchers and then by entering the 12-digit

number we have to recharge our number. We can also recharge our

number online, with Lapu facility or by buying the recharge

vouchers.

Handset is also available with Pre Paid connections. We also have

different tariff for pre paid and for reducing the call charges, those

which are called as Power Recharge also. Roaming facilities are

also give in pre paid all over India other than North East and Jammu

& Kashmir for security reasons.

BLACK BERRY

BlackBerry from Airtel is an ‘always connected’ wireless solution

providing easy and secure access to your email and data.

BlackBerry is the world’s most integrated communication device on

Airtel. With this we can now be constantly accessible on mail, talk

on phones and surf the internet at the same time, schedule and

coordinate appointments in the middle of meetings, raise approval

request, log in orders, update business databases and stay

connected to your colleagues, customers, friends and family from

anywhere, anytime.

KEY FEATURES

Email SMS/MMSWireless

Internet

Organiser Camera* Attachments

Instant

MessagingCalender Media*

SMARTPHONES

Smartphones are those which is supported by Windows mobile

6.5. We can say this smartphones as Mobile PC. We can access

in internet and can keep all updates almost all the times. It has

a very strong memory backup and can keep in its memory for

longer time.

BROADBAND

Broadband is a high speed internet service which is provided by

Airtel. As we all know how the broadband connection is, it comes

with an extra wire which is connected with PC or Laptop whatever

with the customer wants to use it. It also has different tariffs and

many other variations in it. It is not moveable in every place, we

have to use in that place where we have taken the connection. The

broadband service is very much popular and is acceptable by the

customer. It has a very great demand in the market.

DIGITAL TV

Now a days this digital TV has become very famous and popular

among the people. This digital TV comes with a dish which is

directly connected with the satellite. In this service we can choose

the channel required according to our wish. In digital TV also we

have to subscribe for the channels. The picture quality with digital

TV is very high and is very much clear.

With digital TV we have the facility of recording and pause the

programme. The provided cable TV service is now a days getting

extinct among the people. With this modern change in technology

people are also opting the change.

FIXED LINE

Fixed lines we all know what exactly it is. This are those telephone

lines which is fixed in one place and is connected with a wire. This

fixed lines are usually used in homes, shops, telephone boots,

office, etc where the mobility of the phone line is not there. BSNL

was the first to provide with fixed lines in the country. Now almost

all the telecom company’s provide fixed line connection.

This fixed line has also the different tariffs. The fixed line is usually

post paid, but we can opt for pre paid also. This is very much

helpful to the customer because it has a less failure of lines and

almost nil network problems.

This is all about the product of Airtel which is provided in the

market for the customer. All the products of Airtel is running

successfully in the market without any failure. The service which is

provided by Airtel is speechless and in any problem with the

product they try to help the customer as fast as possible.

All the product has unique features in itself. All are different in their

perspective fields and because of the unique characteristics of the

product, the brand AIRTEL is acceptable in the market.

COMPETITORS

Top Competitors for Bharti Airtel Limited

Reliance

Idea

Vodafone

Tata Docomo

Aircel

MTNL

BSNL

BRANDING

Advertising

The way telecom firms advertise, gives an approximate idea about the telecom trends. The Indian Telecom Sector liberalized in 1994 after which the Indian cellular market witnessed a surge in cellular services. By 2005, there were a total of 12 players in the market with the five major players being Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited (Bharti), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Hutchinson-Essar Limited (Hutch), Idea Cellular Limited (Idea) and Reliance India Mobile (RIM). Due to severe competition, BHARTI AIRTEL had to take new initiatives to woo customers. Prominent among these were - celebrity endorsements, loyalty rewards, discount coupons, business solutions and talk time schemes. As of date, AIRTEL has used the maximum number of celebrities for advertisements. The list includes -Sachin, Shahrukh, Rehmaan, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Zaheer Khan, etc. The Youth segment and the business class segment were considered most important by cellular industries of which the youth segment was the largest and fastest growing.

Airtel sought the services of Sachin Tendulkar as he was the brand ambassador. One of the most famous tunes for Airtel was given by A.R.Rehman with which people could easily connect with the brand.

Airtel was the first company to target specific customers and it came out with advertising its group card labeled as ‘Friendz’. In fact, until now, the market was treated as homogenous. Airtel then announced Senior citizen cards targeted at those above 60. The “Friends card” is for those who wish to restrict themselves to their group with low calling rates and some free messages.

INITIAL BRANDING

Initially, the target group was elite professionals since tariff rates were high. Airtel positioned itself as an inspirational and lifestyle brand. It was pitched not merely as a mobile service, but as something that gave consumer a badge value. The Brand was developed to connote leadership in network, innovations, offerings and services.

The taglines like "Airtel celebrates the spirit of leadership" and "The first choice of the corporate leaders" emphasized that stance. The ‘Leadership’ campaign was reportedly successful.

“Leadership” to “Touch Tomorrow”

Bharti decided to ‘humanize’ the brand ‘Airtel’ in 2000. It started with Bharti launching its new ‘Touch Tomorrow’ campaign which aimed at strengthening its relationship with its customers and make the brand ‘softer’ to cater a wide variety of people across the society

“Live every moment” to “Express Yourself”

Later, Airtel adopted the "Express yourself" positioning, the emotional angle was predominant – it wanted to stand out in what was becoming a highly commoditized, crowded market.Capital “A” showed leadership and red dot on “i”

showed innovation

LOGO

The logo is a modern representation of the letter 'a' on a bright red background.

The unique symbol is an interpretation of the ‘a’ in Airtel

The curved shape & the gentle highlights on the red colour make it warm & inviting, almost as if it were a living object.

The colour Red shows the heritage. It is the colour of energy & passion that expresses the dynamism that has made Airtel the success it is today, in India, and now on the global stage.

The logo is called “The Wave”.

The old logo shown alongside, also 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.

ADVERTISEMENTS AND MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

“Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai” talks about how every friend

serves a special purpose, similar to different Airtel services

Lazy Friend → Easy Recharge & Online Bill Payment

Proxy Friend → Career Guidance

Kadkee Friend → Talk Time Transfer

Status Update Friend → Update On FB Status

In Short Airtel Suit The Need Of Everone With Its Plethora

OfServices.

“ Jo tera hai wo mera hai” ad compaign is lunched by airtel

on the occasion of friendship day.

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS

Bharti Airtel continues to be the largest telecommunications

company and the market leader in India and in some countries

in Africa. Having been established in 1995, it enjoyed the early

mover advantage in India and was able to quickly make full

use of the government’s liberalization policies to firmly

establish itself in India. Airtel offers the most expansive

roaming network, letting you roam anywhere in India with its

Pan-India presence, and trot across the globe with

International Roaming spread in over 240 networks. Airtel’s

subscriber base continues to grow and it had reached 220.9

million users in March, 2011. Airtel also boasts of having the

maximum number of active customers (~92%), the highest in

the industry. Since Airtel outsources all its operations except

Sales, Marketing and Finance, it has established strong

strategic alliances with Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and IBM for its

technological operations. Many consider this outsourcing

strategy to be a masterpiece. Airtel’s ‘match box strategy’ in

rural areas helped them to penetrate deep in the rural sectors.

Bharti Airtel has its presence in more than 300000+ rural

areas. Airtel has always taken an initiative in promoting its

services with advertising campaigns that strike a chord with

the consumer. Hence, it enjoys a very high brand recognition

and awareness among Indians. Its services continue to be

excellent.

Weaknesses

Some analysts see Airtel’s outsourcing strategy as a weak

point as they believe that Airtel is not able to cater to its own

technical needs. In recent times, Airtel has not been

performing very well. It reported lower than expected earnings

in the 1st quarter of FY 13. This hit investor sentiment and the

stock witnessed heavy selling, which saw it plummet to a 6

year low on the bourses. All these factors led to the

downgrading of the stock, from “stable” to “negative”. Airtel

has also been witnessing a steady decline in its ARPUs.

Opportunities

India continues to be the largest growing market in the world

and provides ample opportunities for telecom majors to

expand services, especially in rural areas. Bharti Airtel has the

opportunity of attracting subscribers of other telecom service

providers through the Mobile Number Portability (MNP)

recently, as the company has a reputation of providing

excellent services. The telemedia services provide a huge

opportunity to Airtel to foray into different telemedia services

and expand and diversify its services. Airtel has a huge

presence in India and Africa. It can continue to expand in

Africa, buy penetrating its market further. Airtel should also

look into expanding in other regions like Latin America and

South-East Asia, as these markets provide a huge opportunity

for Airtel to stamp its global presence. The new greenfield

operators have not been successful in acquiring a decent

revenue and customer market share, in spite of offering lower

prices. This may lead to an opportunity for the bigger players

like Bharti to acquire these businesses in the future.

Threats

Airtel has witnessed steadily decreasing market share. Though

it still enjoys the numero uno position in India, it does so only

marginally. The increasing number of competitors in the Indian

telecom market have continuously been eating into Airtel’s

initial significant market share of over 40% to reduce it to a

mere 19% in 2012. Mobile Number Portability is a double-

edged sword and though it brings Airtel new customers, it also

allows existing Airtel users to switch to other networks, which

would always remain a significant threat. Intense competition

from new entrants triggering Price war in a decreasing ARPU

environment is another major threat. The regulatory

environment in India continues to be laden with risks and

highly uncertain, with new policies and regulations being

meted out, which do not necessarily work to the benefit of

Airtel.

PEST ANALYSIS

POLITICAL

The Indian political scenario and regulations from TRAI are the

most significant aspects which would affect Airtel. The recent

2G scam and the subsequent regulations passed by TRAI were

points of debate. For example, the reserve price for the

auction proposed by the telecom regulator should be reduced

by at least 80%, felt CEOs of Airtel and other operators.

Following TRAI's controversial spectrum recommendation,

Fitch has revised the outlook of Airtel to “negative” from

“stable” due to adverse regulatory environment in India and

risks involved in its African operation. Regulatory risk is high

for the Indian telecom industry compared with other markets

in Asia Pacific. Fitch believes that an evolving regulatory

framework, regular policy changes and cancellation of 2G

licenses by India's Supreme Court in February 2012 could

change the industry structure in 2012 and negatively affect

Bharti's free cash flow generation. Regulatory risks for Airtel

include a one-time charge for excess spectrum, spectrum

reframing and imposition of high spectrum renewal fees as

recommended by TRAI.

ECONOMIC

Airtel enjoys a very large consumer base in India and Africa,

and this continues to be the driver of revenues for Bharti

Airtel. Expanding more into the rural market will provide Airtel

with more such opportunities to increase revenues and market

shares. Airtel's African operations contributed about 20

percent to both its consolidated revenue and EBITDA during

the first nine months of FY12. The telecom sector is also

considered to be one of the major sectors which provide direct

employment which indirectly helps in economic growth of

India. Also, increasing investments in this sector by means of

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) ensures that there are enough

economic stimuli for Airtel and the industry as a whole. FDI to

a limit of about 74% is permitted in this sector.

SOCIAL

Airtel has been very successful in branding itself as “a brand

for successful people”. It has consistently come up with

advertising campaigns which emotionally affect the Indian

consumers. Earlier, Airtel focused on its plans and tariffs, but

now, it advertises in such a way that the user associates

emotions and values with Airtel. The “Express Yourself”

campaign, the “Barriers Break when People Talk” campaign,

and the more recent “Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai”

campaigns are excellent examples of how Airtel managed to

brand itself in all socioeconomic classes. The Airtel tune

became a rage amongst Indians and it has become the most

downloaded ringtone. The rising Indian middle class and

higher incomes at their disposals have also ushered in good

returns for companies like Airtel

TECHNOLOGICAL

Bharti Airtel is the first wireless service provider which supplies

roaming services, international and long distance

communication services and Value Added Services. Bharti

Airtel has a highspeed optic fiber network. Airtel is the first

mobile telephony company to outsource everything except its

marketing, sales and financial operations. Airtel outsourced

their IT processes to IBM, entire network operations to Ericsson

and Siemens along with Alcatel Lucent recently and the

transmission towers to another company. This has worked in

its favor as Airtel can concentrate on other parameters and

new innovations in its services, such as venturing into

telemedia services, new options like Airtel Money, broadband

and 3G/4G services, etc. Airtel also builds on providing value

and efficient services to its customers.

CUSTOMER SERVICE DELIVERY

Customer Service Delivery is one of the very essential

department of the organization. It plays a very vital role in the

organization. This department starts working right from the

beginning when a customer applies for a connection.

CSD is the department which is to sort out any kind of problem

faced by the customer. The department is playing a very vital

role in retaining the customers.

Let us now know in broad how this particular department

functions. When a customer wishes to take a connection

he/she first goes to particular outlet where a connection is

available. Then the customer fills up the form and takes a

connection. This department then starts its work, they send for

the verification of the customer who has applied for the

connection. After the verification is done the connection of the

customer gets activated and the customer starts using it.

After that, if the customer wants to use other services

provided by the company, the customer will either go to the

outlets or call in the help desk for further query or to know

about the schemes provided. All this role play is handled by

the CSD department itself. We can say that this department is

directly connected with the customers 24 hours.

The information’s that we receive through Value Added

Service( i.e. SMS) is all done by this department itself. They

always keeps the customers aware of the newly launched

schemes and try to benefit the customers. To benefit a

customer a company should always resolve the problems of

the customers that they are facing. They also should not only

resolve the problem and leave, but they should also follow up

the customers from time to time and create goodwill among

them.

All this is done by the CSD department very smoothly and

accurately. If this department fails to perform then there will

be a great chaos in the company and may fail to proceed

further.

The department has three touch-points:-

TOUCH POINTS

OUTLETS CALL CENTRE SELF SERVICE

Now let me tell in details what are the Touch Points and what

they actually does:-

OUTLETS:

The outlets are those where a connection is available and a

customer can go and grab. The outlets are made by the

company for easy access of the connection. If suppose a

customer is facing any problem, he/she will go to the outlet

first and ask what to do regarding it. They here at this point

provide service to the customers for easy access and contact

the company as and when required. The outlets work on behalf

of the company and provide service to the customers.

Through outlets a customer pays bill, recharge the number,

launch complains, etc. Outlets are first place where from the

functioning of the department starts.

CALL CENTRE:

We are very much familiar with the term Call Centre. We know

what it does and how it functions. A call centre receives a call

from a customer and treats the customer according to their

needs.

A customer contacts a call centre through a given helpline

number by the company. The call centre deals with the

complains and also provide with information that is required to

the customer.

This is a place where they tries to solve the problem online if

possible or they take the complain from the customer and

gives the customer a complain number. Now a days call centre

is available in almost all the company’s. The main function of

call centre is to solve the problem of the customers and follow

up.

SELF SERVICE :

This is a touch point where a customer does everything

themselves. This is done with SMS service. By following the

guide one can do it. Here what happen is if a person wants to

activate a service like miss call alert, caller tune, news, etc.

The customer can read the instruction and do it by himself by

sending one SMS or by dialling a specified number.

If a customer wants to check the balance amount of the

number using for a pre-paid customer or if a post-paid

customer wants to know the bill amount of the number, then

the customer can by dialling the specified number provided by

the service provider can check it.

No department is possible to control and run smoothly if it is

not sub-divided. Likewise this department has three sub-

divisions:-

1. Sales and Marketing.

2. Network

3. Customer Service

COMPLAIN MANAGEMENT CELL:

The CSD department has a special cell where it deals with the

complain of the customers. The cell is known as Complain

Management Cell.

The complain management cell keeps an eye on the

complain which goes to the back end.

They see’s whether the issues are resolved or not.

They try to find out what is the matter of the

complain.

They resolves the complain and follow up their

customers.

Eg: if a customer is having a problem with hello tunes

or network, the customer lodges a complain to the

company through the call centres and solves the

problem.

This is how the complain management cell works and plays a

vital role in retaining their customers. The complain

management cell works for whole day and night to satisfy the

customers and resolve their problems. Without this it would

have been very difficult to retain customers.

SEGMENTATION

Due to diminishing marginal returns on its voice revenues, Airtel was forced to abandon its one size fits all demographic segmentation. It came up with a strategy where it classified users into different segments. Segmentation can be defined as the process of dividing the market into customers with similar

interests into one segment There are basically 4 levels of segmentation and Airtel segmented its market as:

Segment marketing: Here the target market is divided into different segments on the basis of homogenous needs. Airtel has broadly divided the whole market into 2 categories – prepaid and postpaid.

Niche Marketing: It can be defined as the marketer’s effort to position their product or service in smaller markets that have similar attributes and have been neglected by other marketers. AIRTEL launched its product blackberry in this category which particularly focussed on the upper business class who have to be in touch with the world every time 3. Local marketing: In this segment companies have to focus on the requirements of the local markets to be successful. Airtel is focussing on local marketing by their low tariff plans in rural and even urban cities.

Individual Marketing: In this segmentation, companies focus on individual customers and try to be in touch with them by phone calls, email etc. Airtel regularly calls its every customer and tells them about its new features and schemes

Airtel segmented its consumer market on the basis of:-

Geographical segmentation: The market is divided into groups based on demographic attributes such as localities, regions, cities, density etc. Airtel segments the

market on the basis of states, as they have different plans for different states. The different geographic regions are handled independently and different campaigns are run according to the tastes and preferences of people in each region.

Demographic segmentation: The market is divided into groups based on demographic attributes like age, gender, income, occupation, religion, family life cycle etc Age and lifecycle.

Psychographic segmentation: In this segmentation, marketers segment the market on the basis of motivation, values, belief, lifestyle, personality etc

Behavioural segmentation: Organisations also divide the market on the basis of behaviour that the customer shows towards the usage of products. Various variables for segmenting market on the basis of purchase behaviour of customers are occasions, benefits, user status, user rate, loyalty etc.

CONCLUSION

From The above Project Bharti Airtel I learn a lot about how

Airtel established itself a market leader in the Indian telecom

space.

Airtel is fulfilling the needs of many people. The company

should promote their product as attractively as possible. They

should also maintain the market reputation they has and

retain the customers. There are lot of competitors in the

market, the company should face the tough competition and

come out with better policies and plans.

They should always focus on achieving the targets or

objectives of the company. The company has a tie up with

many large organizations and which is because of their service

and reputation in the market. Hence, the organization should

change its policies with the changing market and maintain its

position.

The prospects of Airtel continue to remain strong because it is

built around very strong fundamentals, and this growth should

be visible in the near future.

Large number of Pre-Paid customers and small number of

Post-Paid customers.

Private sector employees mostly take up the Post-Paid

connection.

Students take the Pre-Paid connections because of the

low schemes and different other facilities on and off

campus.

They are linked with many private companies and also

some of the govt. organization with their corporate plans.

They satisfy their customers and always read for any kind

of help to the customers.

REFERENCES

REFERENCE BOOKS:

Aswathappa, k, Human Resource Management, 4th

Edition, published by TATA MC Graw Hill, 2006.

Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management, 11th Edition,

published by Asoke K. Ghosh, 2003.

WEB SITES :

www. airtel .com