3. STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
TELECOM SECTOR – BHARTI AIRTEL
True motivation comes from achievement, personal development, job satisfaction,
and recognition
Frederick Herzberg 1923-2000, US psychologist
Overview
In the global telecommunications market, it’s hard to imagine a more fertile
environment for explosive growth than India. With a large, young and tech-savvy
population, an economy whose growth rate is second only to China and telephone
penetration of just seven percent, India stands as a textbook example of how
demand f or comm unications services can be explosive if t he con ditions
are right. A few yea rs ago, whe n forecaster s predicted a fou rf old
increa se in subscribers in three years–to 200 million–it seemed impossible.
Since then, however, market growth has outstripped the unlikely forecast, and no
operator has been better poised to capitalize on this opportunity than Bharti Airtel.
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 India’s 23 “circles,” or operating areas. While this wide service
footprint made Bharti Airtel especially well -posit ioned 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 business–from 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.
4. The risks of growth Bharti Airtel’s other big challenge was the need to
make the major investments in IT infrastructure required to service its rapidly
growing base of subscribers. As a capital expenditure, these investments are
typically offset by the future service revenues that they enable. However, in
addition to the inherent risks of a large fixed investment, Bharti Airtel faced an
added financial risk from a steady decline in India's average revenue per user (ARPU)
for mobile telecom services, the result of government-mandated pricing changes that
created–at roughly eight dollars a month–one of the lowest ARPUs of the
region. Thus, while Bharti Airtel realized that it was absolutely essential to
invest in its future growth; factors unique to the Indian market substantially
increased the risks of making these capital investments. To address these unique
opportunities and challenges, Bharti Airtel established a far-reaching outsourcing
relationship with IBM that substantially mitigates its IT investment risks by
giving IBM full control and ownership of Bharti Airtel’s IT infrastructure and
associated processes. By substituting predictable operating expenses for risky,
upfront capital investments, this strategy fundamentally transforms the financial
underpinnings of its business model. An equally impor tant aim of this strategy is
to enable Bharti Airtel to focus its energies on growing, serving and retaining its
customer base and thus fully capitalize on India’s astounding growth surge.
SWOT Anaysis
Strengths.
Valuable Business Partners – Techno & Financial
Strong Brand Image
First Mover Advantage
Single Private Leading Indian Telecom Company
Enthusiastic & Innovative Business Development team
Marketing Driven Low Cost Model
Blessed with Directional Visionary - S.N. Mittal
Massive Economies of scale from large subscriber base
Weakness.
Outsourcing of Core Systems
5. Lagging behind in Exploring market Investment opportunity
Opportunities
Tele-Density – 30.6% Low among Developing Countries
Low Broadband Penetration
Untapped Rural Market
Bharti Infratel – Cutting Down cost in Rural area
Growing Globally
First Indian Sponsor to sign Manchester United
Threats
Falling ARPU
Intense Competition From Nearest Competitor
Shortage of Bandwidth
New Players Entering Indian telecom sector
Uncertain Economic Condition
Strategic Intent
Alliances/Partnerships To extend its reach in India’s rural markets,
Bharti Airtel should focus on innovative initiatives, including efficient
infrastructure deployments, expanding its distribution network via partnerships,
and customized content and tariffs.
Development of Rural Market Bharti Airtel first studies the
commercial viability of a rural community (and the surrounding villages) based
on parameters such as source of livelihood, average income, and involvement
in frequent commercial transactions or travels. The company has to develop a
prioritized deployment strategy based on the specified criter ia. Qualifying
villages are first to receive a base station, which also caters to nearby
communities. To help ensure efficient usage and profitability for each of these
base stations, Bharti Airtel must track the revenue generated per base station.
6. Strategy Execution
HC Bridge Model The Proposed strategy and the related policy
guidelines to achieve the objective of the company for the year 2017 have
been decided on the basis of HC Bridge Model.
Strategic Assumption Lens The strategic assumption lens is used to identify
the pivotal talent the organization will require to achieve the objective of the
year 2017, keeping the strategic intent of the organisation in view. This is
decided in alignment with the organizational objective and the estimated
revenues to be generated for the year 2017. According to the intended
objectives the organization would require talented human resource in the
marketing and the technical cadre to achieve the goal.
Competitive Positioning Lens The strategy to design the position of the
organizational products and services to compete in the market is decided using
this lens. In accordance to future strategies the organization’s objective is t o
position the Brand as a most admirable brand and extend the brand in the
7. rural market. The strategies to achieve this positioning will be designed using
this lens. One of the strategies for competitive positioning could be to spin off
a unit of Airtel with a focus on Rural Market. The strategy to divest would help
allay fears of loss of brand equity for AIRTEL as such.
Strategic Resource Lens The Human talent required to train and develop the
resource that will be available (E.g Band width, Human Capital from
acquisition, financial resources) in the future is decided and talent acquisition
plans for the same are executed using this lens. Acquiring human talent from
institutes like IRMA, B Schools and IIT’s with a rural bent of mind will be
desirable in the present case for the organization t o achieve its objective of
2017. Personnel required for training the newly acquired human capital with
focus on achieving synergy in the organization and rural market development
and marketing strategies will be the critical requiremen t for the organization.
Strategic Process Lens The development of new business processes and
modifications of the existing processes for the newly available human talent
and resources to achieve synergy is decided using this lens. In the present
case it should be all processes aligned with the objective of divesting a unit of
AIRTEL with a ‘Rural Brand’ Positioning.
Policies and Practices All HR policies and practices required to manage and
handle the human talent has to be decided and implemented to achieve the
organizational goal for the year 2017. Before the new unit is born, policies and
practices those are intended to be that of the divested unit needs to be in
place.
Investments The necessary investments plans required in acquiring
businesses, human capital, training, infrastructural development, marketing
expenses for rural market development are decided to increase the efficiency
of the organization.
Lepak Model - 2012
Quadrant1 Developing human capital with high uniqueness and strategic
value for the organization (Marketing & Technical people). The marketing and
technical team has to be highly committed to the cause and be organisation
focused. Therefore, it is advisable to develop them so as to gain a competitive
advantage.
8. Quadrant 2 Traditional Employees in the other domains of business can be
hired from the local labor market. As they would be sharing a symbiotic
relationship with the organisation, the HR configuration for this type of
employees could be market based. For example, the compensation for the
employees falling in this could be based on external equity.
Quadrant 3 Human capital that is generic and of limited strategic value an d
may remain external to firm. Components like Franchises, Customer care,
distributors of Sim could be contracted as the relationship would be purely
transactional. Compliance with the contracted targets would the focus.
Quadrant 4 Human capital that is unique in some way but not directly
instrumental for creating customer value. The Alliance Partners, VAS
developers, M &A consultants would be falling in this quadrant. For example,
Value Added Services would be the differentiating feature of the service
provided by Airtel when compared with the competitors. Therefore, there is a
need to collaborate with the ‘best of the breed’. Same would hold good for
Alliance Partners and Consultants so to increase the yield.
Lepak Model – 2017
Quadrant1 As the market would have responded to the marketing and
technical actions by Airtel, the availability of human capital with such
9. capabilities would increase. This would result in the decay of unique ness of
these personnel. By the year 2017, they would have moved to Quadrant 2.
Quadrant 2 Over a period of time, the only differentiating factor between two
organizations would be the human capital. Therefore it is expected some of the
high performers and loyal traditional human capital who have gained sufficient
knowledge may be shifted to Quadrant 1 and increase their uniqueness and
achieve improved performance.
Quadrant 3 By the year, it is expected the competition in the rural market
would have intensified. Therefore, Airtel has to preempt the market by offering
a better ‘bundle of benefits’ as compared to the nearest competitor. It is
recommended that Airtel is to integrate forward and acquire the franchisees to
setup an Airtel exclusive showroom in the rural areas. As a forward integration
strategy some of the contracting human capital may be shifted to quadrant 2 to
achieve a strong hold in the rural market.
Quadrant 4 Human Capital Alliances: VAS development would be more
common and hiring them on the Airtel pay rolls would help the company to
have a stronger foothold. VAS Developers in this quadrant may be recruited
and shifted to quadrant 2 for the long term benefit of the organization.
10. Conclusion In a recently conducted HR survey by IQPC, 61.9% of
respondents have marked talent acquisition and management as the top
challenge closely followed by integrating business process with technology. HR
professionals in India are waiting for the advent of a comprehensive and user -
friendly system to handle the different HR activities as well as manage a large
workforce. The number of international companies setting base in India is on
an all-time rise and it is essential for the country to adapt to global HR
standards. The shift from traditional HR practices is a necessity which has to
be welcomed both by employers and employees. Therefore the team has
formulated strategic framework for talent management at Airtel keeping in line
with the organizational objective for the year 2017.
“The soft stuff is always harder than the
hard stuff”
Roger Enrico, Vice Chairman of PepsiCo, referring to areas
like HRM as opposed to quantitative factors in Fortune,
November 27th, 1995