TEAM 3 (EVENING): BHARTI AIRTEL

Company Overview: Bharti Airtel is one of the leading global telecommunications companies,
offering 2G/3G/4G wireless services, mobile commerce, high speed DSL Broadband, DTH etc.
The company is widely operating across 20 countries in Asia and Africa.
Corporate Strategy Implemented: Bharti Airtel was able to create value by using Market
Development.
The criteria which help establish this strategy is Bharti Airtels expansion into different
geographical markets and creation of new customer segments through pricing strategies &
additional bundled products.
Gaining new geographical Markets:
Bharti Airtel has historically followed an aggressive merger and acquisition as well strategic
alliance policy both domestically and internationally
Domestically speaking when Airtel initially rolled out its services in Delhi it went into an
agreement with Siemens to market telephone terminals. Airtel entered a new state almost only
through the acquisitions of an existing players like in Andhra Pradesh & Karnataka by acquiring
JT Mobiles, in Kolkata circle by acquiring Spice Cellular, in Tamil Nadu by acquiring Sky cell
and Rajasthan through the acquisition of Hexacom.
Internationally Airtel has many joint ventures with telecom leaders like SingTel in Singapore;
British Telecom in the UK; E.M. Warburg Pincus & New York Life International in USA. It
acquired controlling stakes in Warid Telecom to enter the Bangladesh and started green field
operations in Sri Lanka. In the largest ever telecom takeover by an Indian firm, Bharti Airtel
eventually also acquired Zain Telecoms African business. With this acquisition, Bharti Airtel
transformed into a truly global telecom company.
Adding New Customers through bundled product portfolio:
Airtel in 2001 merged all its product verticals into a single entity to offer a unified services
approach and in the process has been successful in creating more customers through its broad
product portfolio.
In addition to its voice & data services, Airtel has also captured market share using its fixed line
and high speed broadband services in addition to Wi-Fi dongles, Hotspots & routers as value
added services. It also offers Digital TV Services including IPTV services with varied
subscription options. Airtels Business unit delivers end to end telecom solutions to India's large
corporate offices. It specializes in providing customized solutions to different industry verticals.
Backed by the alliances with leading technology companies worldwide and state of the art
infrastructure, it offers complete range of telecom solutions to expand its consumer base.
Adding New Customers through Pricing Strategies:
Bharti Airtel reduced billing charges for its postpaid customers once they exhaust their 3G and
2G data limits, which created a more specific postpaid stronghold and improved Airtels margins.
Airtels pricing was based on the average annual income of the entire demographic area in a
channelized way. In voice tariffs, Airtel offered Yatosha Noma - a combination for Airtel
customers, where they get more data usage, calling minutes and text messaging thus increasing
buyer attractiveness of this package which in turn increased the customer base. Bharti Airtel also
offers International Tariff (Prepaid), for the prepaid customers, and Airtel International Tariff
(Postpaid), for the postpaid customers, where they can make calls tax-free all the time. This

makes Bharti Airtel a valuable service option with customer centric pricing schemes specific to
their target markets.
Are They Successful?
Airtel has largely been successful in following its market development strategy supported by its
position as the third largest mobile operator in the world in terms of subscriber base. In India
alone it is the largest operator with almost 1.85 billion subscribers with annual revenue of almost
14.2 billion [1]. In Africa it has a total revenue of $ 4.49 billion and a subscriber base of 69.4
million customers [4].It is the second largest operator in the continent and is a market leader in
several African countries [1]. Hence Bharti through its aggressive acquisitions and alliances, has
definitely succeeded in establishing itself as a truly global telecom behemoth. Having said this,
Bhartis acquisition policy cannot simply been deemed as an outright success. They have seen
tough results in several African countries and Bangladesh in the recent past, and have probably
not performed as well as they expected.
Core Competency (VRIO) Analysis:
Airtels highly valued brand image and a good network infrastructure provides them competitive
advantage over other competitors.
Resource

Valuable? Rare? Costly to Organization

Imitate?
exploiting it?

Competitive
Advantage

Economic
Implications

Brand
Image/Reputation

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Sustained
Competitive
Advantage

Above
Normal

Network
Infrastructure

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Sustained
Competitive
Advantage

Above
Normal

Value - Airtel has an excellent network infrastructure and a good brand image which makes them
a valuable resource for the company.
Rarity Airtel is a well-established brand and has been in this industry for a long duration. This
gave Airtel a strong footprint in this industry creating a brand image which is a rare resource.
Costly to Imitate - It is very difficult for competitors to imitate Airtels brand value and try to
build such infrastructure as this will require high capital investment.
Exploited by the Organization - Airtels effectiveness in performance and operations have
allowed them to sustain a large subscriber group in India, South Asia and Africa
Bharti Airtel does have more core competencies like Strategic Outsourcing Capabilities which
can provide them advantage whereas Technology is another resource which is not rare and can be
implemented by other organizations.
Reference:
[1]Bharti Airtel Investor Presentation, Nov 2014
[2]Airtel Company Profile sheet
[3]Tripathy, Devidutta; Goma, Eman (8 June 2010). "Bharti closes $9 billion Zain Africa deal"
Reuters. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
[4]Business Standard, Bharti Airtels Plot Veers off script in Africa, Retrieved July 29, 2015