BHARTI AIRTEL 1 MARKETING STATEGIES

ACKNOWLEDMENT

We acknowledge the sincere assistance provided to us from several rather unexpected quarters during the course of execution of this study. Our gratitude to each and every one of them who made this task easy n worthwhile. We are extremely thankful to PROF. ARUN POOJARI for giving us an opportunity to study various MARKETING STRATEGIES in this subject, and making our study a memorable learning experience.

BHARTI AIRTEL 2 MARKETING STATEGIES

LALA LAJPATRAI COLLEGE

STRATIGIC MANAGEMENT INTERNAL PROJECT

MARKETING STRATIGIES OF TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS

BHARTI AIRTEL

STD: DIV:

S. Y. B. M. S. B

SUBMITTED TO: PROF. ARUN PUJARI

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INDEX
SR. NO. TITLE PAGE NO. SIGN

INTRODUCTION

MARKET LEADER, MISSION & PARTNERSHIPS MARKETING MIX

5-6

SWOT

7-8

PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES

9-11

BRAND POSITIONING AND FUTURE PLANS GROUP MEMBERS

12

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Introduction

Based in New Delhi, Bharti Airtel is India's largest private sector telecom operator and India's sixth-largest company by market capitalization. Bharti Airtel is also the only operator to offer its services (mobile, fixed line and Internet access) in each of Indias 23 circles, or operating areas. While this wide service footprint made Bharti Airtel especially well-positioned to capitalize on India's telecom boom, it also presented the company with significant challenges and risks in addressing this demand. In order to keep up, while also maintaining high levels of customer service, all the processes required to run its businessfrom order management and service activation to those processes involved in the operation of its core network needed to run smoothly and in sync with each other. With the company approaching a new phase in its growth as a business, and with the need for a compelling user experience of utmost strategic importance, Bharti Airtel knew it needed to take a fundamentally new look at the way it created and managed its customer-facing processes.

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Market Leader Airtel comes to you from Bharti Airtel Limited The businesses at Bharti Airtel have been structured into three strategic business units (SBU's) - Mobile services, Broadband & Telephone services (B&T) & Enterprise services. First private telecom service provider to connect all states of India . Covers 23 telecom circles of the country, has 21 million customers Highly successful brand in India.

Mission We will meet the mobile communication needs of our customers through : Error-free service delivery. Innovative products and services. Cost efficiency. Partnerships : Partner with world's finest companies like Singtel (Singapore Telecom), Ericsson, Nokia,Blackberry,IBM and many more to bring the best of products & service.

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MARKETING MIX The 4Ps are as follows : Product Airtel Pre-paid Airtel Post-paid Blackberry Wireless Handheld Value Added Services (VAS) The different value added services provided by Airtel are Instant Balance Enquiry 24Hr recharge Facility Caller line identification Call divert, Call wait & Call Hold Multimedia messaging service (MMS) Airtel Live Portal SMS based Information Service Hello Tunes & Ring Tones Voice Mail Service Easy Post-paid bill collection Gifting of Ring Tones & Hello Tunes GPRS Business Solutions

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Price Place It has wide and extensive presence even in the remotest areas Airtel Customer Care Touch Points Distributors like E.g. Shops, grocery stores, chemists, outlets, malls, etc. Promotion Large scale print and video advertising. Big celebrities like SRK and Sachin are roped in to endorse the product. Now the famous Kareena-Saif couple endorse the brand. In 2002 Airtel got its Signature tune from A.R. Rehman, this signature tune is perhaps the most downloaded tune in India. Provides innovations such as Bollywood movie premiers, music services such as ring back tones & many more. "Friendz" pre-paid connection for youth," Ladies Special" plan, Seniors plan. Executives corporate plan(First to give prepaid in this category). Special discounts in calling rates & sms services. Providing wallpapers and screensavers on website. Customer based pricing strategies. Flexible pricing mechanism Controlled by TRAI.

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SWOT STRENGTHS Market share : Airtel has the largest market share of 54%. This shows that it is the leader in the telecom sector. This is Airtels biggest strength. The only operator in India other than VSNL having international submarine cables : Airtel and VSNL are the only telecom providers that have the under water submarine cables for better service and efficient prices. Customer care: Airtel has its call centers which provide 24 *7 customer service to their clients. They help customers in various ways regarding problems with service, network or any such issues. The customers get full satisfaction when their problems are solved and in this way it creates brand loyalty. Customer care is available on phone, internet as well as sms service. It is time and cost effective. Promotions: Airtel has its vast promotional strategies for the marketing of its products. Famous actors endorsing Airtel creates demand for the products and thus, people buy the product. Advertisements in the form of hoardings, banners and emarketing creats awareness of the product and thus sales increase. Launching of various schemes and changes in the rate of calling,sms, gprs services are also a part of promotional activities.

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WEAKNESS Price Competition from BSNL and MTNL : Airtel faces direct competition from MTNL and BSNL, as these are the only service providers which are equally good in price and efficiency. Losing lead on technical expertise : In this modern age new technologies are been developed by many service providers, this weakness is an area of concern for Airtel. OPPORTUNITIES The fast extending Indian market Latest technology and low-cost advantage. Growth of mobile phone users. Untapped Rural Market:Although : Airtel have strong Presence throughout the country but still they are far away from the Indian rural part and generally this part is covered by BSNL so indirectly Airtel is losing revenue from the rural sector.

THREATS Market Maturity in basic telephony segment. Direct competition from Vodafone. Threat from new entries like Videocon, virgin & uninor.

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PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY

The Bharti Mobile promoted Airtel cellular service will go in for repositioning of its brand image. The new brand 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 re-engineering 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 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. Bharti used AirTel to build a strong value proposition and accelerate market expansion through Indias first national pre-paid card TV brand campaign First time ever in India - any pre-paid card brand goes on TV A combination of the film genre exposed through the TV medium designed to connect with the masses of India Youth based - romance driven strategy platform makes the value proposition of AirTel - Mumkin Hai come alive All elements - user imagery, context, tone & language created to connect the category to the lives of the SEC B & SEC C segment the middle class non-mobile user.

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AirTel positions itself on the platform of being excellent for emergency situations increasing productivity as a part of everyday life. Sharukh Khan makes everything in life possible while romancing pretty Kareena Kapoor with AirTel, Indias leading pre-paid mobile card.

The main idea is to stay ahead of competition for at least six months. Working on the above game plan Bharti is constantly coming up with newer product offerings for the customers. The focus, of course, is to offer better quality of service. To make the service simpler for customers using roaming facilities, Airtel has devised common numbers for subscribers across the country for services like customer care, food services and cinema amongst others. It will also launch a unified billing system across circles so,

customers moving from one place to another do not have to close and then again open new accounts at another place.

To assist customer care personnel to deal with subscriber

queries, a storehouse of 40,000 frequently asked questions and their answers have been stored on the computers.

Bharti expects that most of its new customers (one estimate is

that it would be 60 to 70 per cent of the total new subscriber base) would come from the pre-paid card segment. So, they must be given value-added products and services which competitors dont provide.

Bharti, for the first time for a cellular operator, has decided to

offer roaming services even to its pre-paid customers, but the facility would be limited to the region in which they buy the card. To ensure that customers dont migrate to

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other competing services (which is known as churn and ranges from 10 to 15 per cent of the customer base every month), the company is also working on a loyalty program. This will offer subscribers tangible cash benefits depending upon their usage of the phone. The loyalty program will not be only for a badge value, it will

provide real benefits to customers. The idea is to create an Airtel community. Another key area which Bharti is concentrating its attention

upon is a new roaming service launched in Delhi under which calls of a roaming subscriber who is visiting the city will be routed directly to his mobile instead of traveling via his home network. The company also offers multi-media messaging systems

under which customers having a specialized phone with a in- built camera can take pictures and e-mail it to friends or store it in the phone. The cost per picture is between Rs 5 to Rs 7.

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Brand Positioning Became the 1st Indian company to win the Best Bottom Line IT & Best Knowledge Management awards by defeating companies such as ONGC, Birla Corp., the Tatas & Reliance at Asian level. Positions itself as juvenile brand by linkages to celebrities such as SRK, Kareena, Sachin, etc. Airtel is transforming itself fully into a Service Lead Brand.

Future Strategies to retain its market share New tariff plans. More value added services. Increase in visibility and coverage The AirTel - AirTel advantage New innovative packages More of the e-factor

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