Overview
Bharti Airtel Limited- the Indian telecommunications firm formerly known as Bharti Tele-Venture Limited Akhil Gupta- Joint Managing Director of Bharti Airtel Limited Network Suppliers Agreement took 3 months and a quarter to finalize Bhartis customer base growing @ 100% per year o Challenge to keep pace with network expansion o PROBLEM #1 - Budgeting and the tendering process for network expansion takes up tremendous amount of management time and bandwidth. Tendering- Solicitation of vendors bids for contracts o PROBLEM #2 Management of firms IT Capital Expenditures; Equipment purchased within a couple of years becoming obsolete for intended purchase purposes. Huge investments at waste because of unpredictable expenditures! o Need a lean and predictable cost model- if Bharti had a reliable, predictable usagelinked cost structure, then could become the lowest-cost producer of minutes o Proposed Solution to Capital Expenditure nightmares: Plan consisted of two outsourcing proposals
One to Bhartis key telecom network equipment vendors, Ericsson, Nokia, and Siemens The other to Bhartis IT equipment vendor, IBM Vendors involved worried about taking on additional risk o Sunil Mittal- Bhartis Chairman and Managing Director gave Gupta free rein to investigate options to solve the problem.
Bharti History and Background Mittal founded Bharti in 1995 with $900 start-up
capital. Mittals Goal for Bharti has two-fold: o To take advantage of the liberalization of the Indian telecom market o To bid for a government license to operate the 1st private mobile telecom service in the Delhi area. Mittal was an entrepreneur at the time with experience in creating and successfully managing several businesses
o o o equipment
Bicycle Components business Portable Generator Import business Venture with Siemens to produce telephone
GROWTH Existence of first eight years: Growth because there was a Single minded devotion to the project and the industry. Basically, there was FOCUS. o Mittal stated, Our business is telecom and nothing else. o Bharti- first private provider in the Delhi market o In 1998, first private provider to make a profit o Drive for continuous expansion- Aggressively pursued acquisitions of licenses for mobile operations in other geographic regions or Circles. Circles- Telecom service in India was divided into geographical areas, called circles, for the purpose of awarding mobile and fixed-line telephone licenses. CAPITAL INFLOWS Acquisition strategy required greater capital inflows- In 1999; Bharti sold 20% equity interest to the private equity firm Warburg Pincus. Soon after, NY Life Insurance Fund, Asian Infrastructure Group, the International Finance Group, and SingTel, all acquired equity interest. 2002- Bharti went public raising $172 million in IPO o Indian National Stock Exchange o Mumbai (Bombay) Exchange o Delphi Stock Exchange 2002 year-end: Bharti raised over $1 billion through FDI
Capital Inflows financed next stage of growth o 2001-2002: obtained mobile licenses for 15 out of Indias 23 total circles o 6 Fixed-lined licenses of the 15 o Leverage with SingTel, licenses to be 1st private telecommunication service provider in India to launch national and international longdistance service. o By 2003- Bharti present in all major economic and industrial centers- 91% of all mobile users in India; Full coverage expected by 2005
FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE March 2004 year-end: - Revenues- $1,113.4 million; 100% increase over 2003 - Economies of Scale advantage - Improved Operating Margin: (2003) -2.25% to (2004) 16.9% - Net loss (2003), (2004) Net income of $117 million - 2004 ROE: ~ 12% Bhartis Management and Organization
FAMILY RUN BUSINESS - Sunil Mittal: Chairman and group managing director - Rakesh Mittal: board director - Rajan Mittal: joint managing director, overseeing the functional directors Gupta- a chartered accountant with a degree from the Delphi University - CFO from 1995-2000; becoming joint managing director in 2001
Market Competition
The Indian market was highly competitive by 2002-2003. Rates low as 3 to 4 per US cents per minute Average monthly revenue per customer unit- fallen by three years as telecom providers fight for subscribers In 2003, 7 major operators in India: Bharti (Operations in Fixed & Mobile), BSNI, Hutchinson, Reliance, Tata, Idea Cellular, and MTNL. Strong regional operators- Spice and BPL. Industry consolidation caused the switch from having national footprints to having the ability to provide value-added service. Operators now needed 2.5 G or 3 G technologies to accommodate those services Now, there is a major CAPITAL INVESTMENT CHALLENGE Competitive advantage possibly with Tat or Reliance because of their STRONG CAPITAL RESOURCES
Business practice- purchase ~30% to 40 excess capacity to keep ahead of customer demand On the balance sheet- 30% excess would represent ~$300 million to $400 million
IT Requirements Bhartis IT requirements fell into three categories: 1. Telecom systems and software 2. Customer management information systems 3. Business-support software and hardware architectures Bharti contracted with IBM, HP, and Oracle for the business-support software and hardware architectures and customer management systems.
Bharti facing HUGE up-front investments in IT in order to get the right architecture in place and to be ready for growth over the next 10 years.
Human Resource Issues Human Resource scarcity related to IT and network development requirements. Needed RETAIN and HIRE the best and brightest talent Network development would require to hire ~2000 to 3000 people in 2004
Outsource responsibility for the buildup, maintenance, and servicing of the core IT infrastructure. (IBM) o Complete and comprehensive end-to-end management service for supplying, installing, and managing all of its hardware and software requirements of basic IT architectures of company o Subject to quality controls specific to SLAs (Customer Satisfaction hotlines) o Exchange for services, Bharti agrees to pay IBM a share of its revenues o Agreement 5 year period- renewable for additional 5 years
Reactions to Bharti
Don Price- the CTO of Bharti Mobile Services Never heard of such an agreement- expressed serious reservations about handing over network management and operations to the vendors IT AND Marketing departments Concerned that the software or hardware applications not supported by IBM would no longer be available
In addition, concerned about the implications the deal would have on the time to market of new IT-based services for customers
Human Resource departments Concerned about the management of transfer of nearly 1,000 staff members Cultures different from India: India is not a Hire-and Fire country
Vendor Reactions
Initial reactions were mixed. Liked the opportunity to do more business with Bharti Concerned with the risks and the need for senior Buy-In from top levels Major Concern: Might be stuck with important investments in network equipment that they made in behalf of Bharti in the event that Bharti did not use the equipment Concerned with absorbing hundreds of Bhartis employees If vendors dont sign- could be dangerous because of the rapid growth of Bharti causing lock out of lucrative deals IBM had concerns about forecasting Bhartis future revenue growth in order to estimate how much they would get paid over the next five to 10 years. o IBM needed to be fairly sure of Bhartis future success o Not sure if investment would improve Bhartis chances for success in the future o Felt like betting on a horse in a horse race