Case Study Bharti Airtel Business Essay

Bharti airtel, formerly known as bharthi tele-ventures limited (B Tvl) . India’s largest and world’s second largest cellular service provider with more than 90 million subscribers as December 2009. It also offers fixed line service and broadband service and mobile broadband.

SingTel owns over 32.04%of the bharti telecom. Vodafone is also a shareholder of airtel with 4.4%of the shares.

Airtel comes to you from bharti airtel limited, India’s largest integrated and the first private telecom services provider with a footprint in all 23 telecom circles. Bharthi airtel since its inception has been at the forefront of technology and has steered the course of the telecom sector in the country with its world class products and services. The businesses at bharti airtel have been structured into three individual strategic businesses – mobile services, airtel Telemedia service & enterprise services. The mobile business provides mobile& fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles while the airtel telemedia service business offer broadband telephone service in 94 cities. The enterprise services provide end -to-end telecom solution to corporate customers and national and international long distance service to carriers. All these service are provided under the airtel brand

The bharti group has a diverse business profile and has created global brand in telecommuting sector. Bharti has recently forward into retail business as bharthi retail pvt.Ltd.under a wal-mart for the cash carry business. it is successfully launched an venture with EL Rothschild group to export fresh agri products exclusively to markets in Europe and USA and has launched bharthi axa life insurance company Ltd under a joint venture with AXA, world leader in financial protection and wealth Management.

Incorporation year : 1995

Business :bharti Enterprises

From :pravite

Revenue :US$7.254 billion (2009)

employees : 25,543(2009)

Strategic capability :

Overall corporate performance needs to be disaggregated to highlight areas of strength and weakness. Targets and indicators are needed to identify how well the organisation is performing. Comparative techniques such as benchmarking can be used both internally and externally to compare activities and functions and to assess overall performance. Useful indicators include market share, profitability, financial turnover and other measures such as total output, product or service quality, employee productivity staff retention and environmental auditing. The type of technology used within the organisation should be assessed. Investment in new technology may affect the demand for lobour. It many increase the market share and increase output .Alternatively the introduction of new technology may change the skills profile required and create the need for more investment in training the current workforce ,or need to release those without the required skills and replace them with employees with the “right” skills . New technology can also result in labour and reduce the number of employees needed.

The organizational structure is examined for appropriateness for future developments. Are any alterative structures available that may increase effectiveness? Scope for delivering the organizational hierarchy, increasing employee empowerment, re-engineering business process, and centralization versus decentralization are indicative of the range of issues that might feature in the organisational assessment which informs the human resource plan. Any change which affects organisational output must be taken into account in HRP as tt will impact on the demand for labour .in times of labour shortage; organisations should be looking for ways to reduce their demand for labour for labour by working more effectively. All organisations need a clear vision of their development in the medium to long term. The pace of change in many business sectors is high;nonetheless,even in dynamic times organisations must seek to retain control over their strategic development .key participants in this sector will have had to decide whether they compete or not and to have made an assessment of the impact o that decision on their market share. The introduction of telephone insurance and the extension of on-line banking are further examples of changes in the strategic direction of these sectors. These decisions have significant HR implications and demonstrate the importance of understanding the link between the corporate strategy and human resources plans. Although the HR functions are unlikely to change the overall corporate strategy, early involvement in the planning process identifies the HR issue and allows for more effective human resource planning.

Wim Elfrink, Chief Globalisation Officer and Executive Vice President, Cisco Services, said: “We are thrilled to join hands with Bharti Airtel in an innovative model for managed service providers. Building on the government’s commitment to rapid broadband deployment, we will together create and deliver transformational services for large enterprise and small and medium-sized business customers. This collaborative relationship is built on the strategy that we do not simply give our customers what we have; instead we create what they need by developing new business models and services adapted to our customers’ diverse needs.”

The vision of the strategic business alliance is to combine the unique differentiation and capabilities of Bharti Airtel and Cisco. Bharti Airtel brings strengths of market leadership and product expertise in network connectivity for large enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), in addition to strong distribution and a network of systems integration partners. Cisco brings value through its IP-based capabilities, strengths in next-generation network solutions, and enterprise and SMB channels. The unique products and services offered by this alliance will incorporate Cisco technology with the Airtel network to target the burgeoning Indian managed services market.

Marketing planning:

A marketing plan assists you integrate your total marketing effort. It ensures a systematic approach to developing products and services to meet and satisfy your customers’ needs. A good marketing plan sets clear, realistic and measurable objectives, includes deadlines, provides a budget and allocates responsibilities. A plan can consist of this element:

Analysis of current market

business objectives

Key strategies

Steps to achieving your objectives

Proposed budget

Timing

Marketing plan should remain an ongoing process throughout the life of your business.

Organizational design:

Organization structure: There has always existed a need to arrange the resources of an organization in such a way that will achieve the objectives set for it, in the most effective manner possible. Martin (2005).Organizational structure is not the intent of modern era; it existed centuries ago and has been taking different forms with advance needs and technology. The framework of any organization in any age represents the way the designers interpret, in the light of prevailing models and fashion, the objectives to be achieved matched together with the human and technological resources. Martin (2005). Organization structure has an huge impact on the performance of the human and monetary resources of the organization and on the organization as a whole. No matter how organizations vary from each other depending on the complexity and the size, there is always a necessity for division of whole management task into a variety of activities. Thus, allocating different activities to different parts of the organization and setting mean and methods to control, co-ordinate and integrate them. The structure of an organization can be regarded as frame work for getting things done. It consists of units, functions, divisions , departments and formally constituted work teams into which activities related to particular process, projects, products, markets, customers, geographical areas or professional decisions are grouped together. The structure indicates who is accountable for directing, co-ordinating and carrying out those activities and defines management hierarchies- the chain of command, thus spelling out who is responsible to whom for what at each level in the organization. Armstrong (2006).

The different types of structure are:

Tall and Flat structures:

Tall structures are types of structures where the involvement of specialist managers, helps the organization to co-ordinate a wide range of activities across different products and market sectors. Its main characteristics are numerous levels of management and narrow span of control. Short or flat structures involves few management layers, enabling a greater degree of top management control. This type of culture prevails in smaller organization.

Hierarchical Structures:

‘The basis of the different forms of hierarchical structures is the strict observance of the principle of the unity of command. A line of command can consequently be traced through the ranks of the organization to or from the chief executive or chairman. Members are usually divided into divisions or departments which are charged with a certain area of responsibility” Campbell and Craig (2005).The various types of hierarchical structures are distinguished from each other depending on how the parts of the organization are distributed. They are

1. Entrepreneurial Structure:

Entrepreneurial structure is one where the owner of the organization has direct control of management activity and delegates task to his employees. This type of culture can be found in small organizations, where the tasks are limited like cafe, small retail stores, etc..

2. Bureaucratic Structure:

Bureaucratic structure is a tall and rigid structure. Bureaucratic form of organizations always exhibit their characteristics of fixed division of labour,central control, employees appointed for various posts on basis of capability and not elected, systematic and strict filing of the documents. In this structure promotions are given only on the basis of seniority and achievements. Here, there are strict rules and regulations and there is need for disciplined approach.

3. Functional Structure:

“A functional structure closely follows the ‘classical’ school of thought in organizational structure in that it prevails the first steps in determining the formality of roles, responsibility, control and co-ordination of activities”. Campbell & Craig (2005). The organization is often divided into five key functional areas:

Finance and accountancy

Marketing and sales

Human resources

Technical (example: R&D)

Operations (example: Manufacturing).

This structure will become a drawback and give rise to complexity if the company wants to expand its product lines. To counter this drawback the larger companies especially operating across various countries and various types of customers divide their customer base according to the region and the type of product. This division is generically termed as Geographical division and Product or Customer Based division and within them they have the functional structures. In this scenario the head quarters has all the power and authority and pass it on to the managers in these divisions to carry out the task effectively. Example: Citigroup has divided its customer base on the basis of their country and the type of account or product they have.

Independence form of structure:

This form of structure is almost a form of non-organization. In this structure the owner runs the show on his own. If there are more than one owner then often they don’t co-ordinate and if they then the percentage of co-ordination is very less. This structure is often visible where professionals are involved. There is no control over each other. Example: GP Surgery, Barristers, etc.

Core-periphery Organizational structure:

Today’s global competition and emphasis on saving resources has given rise to structure through which the payroll is downsized to the core of permanent employees only who carry out the fundamental activities of the organization. This allows the organization flexibility in managing fluctuations in its labour requirements by hiring casual, part-time or contract workers on an ad-hoc basis. (Campbell & Craig 2005).

Organizational culture:

Basically, organizational culture is the personality of the organization. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artefacts) of organization members and their behaviour. (www.managementhelp.org) .Edgar Schein (1985) described Organizational Culture as “the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by an organization, that operate unconsciously and define in a basic taken-for-granted fashion an organization’s view of itself and its environment”. Ralph Stacey (1996) defines organizational culture as ” the culture of any group of people is that set of beliefs, customs, practices and ways of thinking that they have come to share with each other through being and working together. It is a set of assumption people simply accept without question as they interact with each other. At the visible level the culture of a group of people takes the form of ritual: behaviour, symbols, myths, stories, sounds and artefacts”.

Determinants of Organizational Culture are:

The ‘philosophy of the organization’s founders’.

The ‘nature of the activities in business’.

The ‘nature of interpersonal relationships’ and the degree of camaraderie in the organization.

The ‘management style’ adopted and the types of control mechanism’.

Any ‘influences’ from the external environment which can affect the employees perceptions of their job security or personal, economic and social outlook. Campbell & Craig (2005).

The ‘Artefacts’ of culture are things that ‘give away’ certain feature of an organization Campbell & Craig (2005). Artifacts can be logos of the organization, layout of the plant, colour of the walls, etc.. Artifacts include ‘slogans and sayings’ ‘form of language’, ‘rituals and routines’, how the culture treats newcomers to the organization and heroes and villains of an organization’. Campbell & Craig (2005). Example: Google gives away its quality of friendliness, innovativeness and an outgoing organization by coloring its walls in vibrant colors and planning various sporting and entertaining activities. Moreover, every employee is free to interact with all the employees no matter of the department they work in and there is no discrimination in recruitment and no strict observance of hierarchy.

Organizations don’t necessarily have one unified culture due to uniqueness of every individual and these individuals tend to form subgroups based on similarities among the individuals of these groups. “As understood in sociology, a subculture is a set of people with distinct behaviors and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part”. (www.wikipedia.com). The subcultures would be different and distinct from other subcultures and larger culture due to age of its members, race, ethnicity, class and/or gender, sexual orientation, etc..An organization always has many subcultures as it grows and expands because new employees that would be recruited by the organization would have different attributes influenced by the environment they have come from and the events in their life and society. These individuals often associate with employees with similar attributes resulting in a group having their own culture. Example: In Citigroup, due to the diversity there are employees with various cultures like Indian culture. They form a group with other Indian employees and they often interact with each other a lot and this has resulted them in having a different culture. This subculture can be seen the way they eat, dress and communicate with others.

Members of subculture would always have a different style and represent themselves differently from the mass groups. Many subcultures evolve constantly due to their members attempt to stay steps ahead of the dominant culture. A subculture can be described as a counter culture if they oppose dominant culture systematically.