Management Learnings in 10 Minutes

Following is the Youtube link for the video having  two  students (one of them being me ) narrating their experience of POM .

Bharti Airtel . .. Express Yourself

 Company Analysis  : Bharti Airtel

Intrroduction 

Airtel : Express Yourself !

• Bharti Airtel commonly known as Airtel is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands. 
• It operates a GSM network in all countries, providing 2G, 3G and 4G services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel is the world's fourth-largest mobile telecommunications company with over 246 million subscribers across 20 countries as of March 2012.
• It is the largest cellular service provider in India, with over 187.30 million subscribers at the end of June 2012.Airtel is the third largest in-country mobile operator by subscriber base, behind China Mobile and China Unicom.

History 

• In 1986,  Bharti Telecom Ltd was incorporated & offered push button telephones .
• In 1995 Bharti Televentures launched its cellular operations in Delhi .
• In 2002 , it went public and the company was listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and   National Stock Exchange of India
• In 2003 , cellular operations were rebranded under single Airtel brand 
• In 2010, Airtel acquired the African operations of the Kuwait based Zain Telecom.
• In March 2012,Airtel launched a mobile operation in Rwanda.

Airtel acquired Zain Telecom

Milestones 

• Operates GSM network & provides telecom services (2G , 3G & 4G) across 20 countries.
• 5th largest telecom operator in the world with 243 million customers 
• Largest cellular service provider in India with over 185  million customers
• First mobile phone company in the world to outsource all of its business operations except marketing, sales and finance .
• Bharti Airtel is the first Indian telecom service provider to achieve Cisco Gold Certification.On 31 May 2012, Bharti Airtel awarded the three year contract to Alcatel-Lucent for setting up andInternet Protocol across the country.This would help consumers access internet at faster speed and high qualiy internet browsing on mobile handsets.

  Airtel Vision Statement

  By 2015 Airtel will be the most loved brand, enriching the lives of millions.
                                                                                                                                                                    

  Airtel Mission Statement

We will meet the mobile communication needs of our customers through 

A] Error Free Service Delivery

B] Innovative Products and Services

C] Cost Efficiency and

D] Unified Messaging Solutions

Products and Services

Wide range  of Products and Services

1. 3G

       Airtel had about 3 million 3G subscribers as of May 2011. Airtel plans to cover 1,500 cities across 13 circles by the end of March 2012. The company, which has 3G licences for 13 circles, is also in talks with other service providers to roll out the services in the remaining 10 circles as part of its roaming offerings

2. 4G

       On 19 May 2010, the broadband wireless access (BWA) or 4G spectrum auction in India ended. Airtel paid 33.1436 billion for spectrum in 4 circles: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and Kolkata. The company was allocated 20 MHz of BWA spectrum in 2.3 GHz frequency band.

3. Airtel Money 

        Airtel has started a new mCommerce platform called Airtel Money with collaboration with Infosys. It is launched on April 5, 2012, in Infosys Campus of bangalore. with the help of Airtelmoney,users can transfer money,pay bills and other financial transactions using mobile phone. 

4.  Digital Television

       The Digital TV business provides Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV services across India under the brand name Airtel digital TV. It started services on 9 October 2008 and has about 32.44 million customers as of August 2010. 

5. Enterprise Business Solution  

       There are two kind of solutions offered by Airtel. One is GPRS Based Solutions like mobile applications tools for enterprise, TrackMate, automatic meter reading solutions etc. and the other is SMS Based Solutions like interactive sms, bulk sms, inbound call center solutions.


Organizational Structure  

Airtel Organization Structure

•        The transformed organizational structure will have two distinct Customer Business Units (CBU) with clear focus on B2C (Business to Customer) and B2B (Business to Business) segments. 
•        Bharti Airtel's B2C business unit will comprehensively service the retail consumers, homes and small offices, by combining the erstwhile business units—Mobile, Telemedia, Digital TV, and other emerging businesses (like M-commerce, M-health, M-advertising etc.). 
•        The B2C organization will consist of Consumer Business and Market Operations. It is the largest telecommunication company in India.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

•         Bharti Airtel has more than 246 million customers . It is the largest cellular provider in India,and also supplies broadband and telephone services - as well as many other telecommunications services to both domestic and corporate customers.
•        Other stakeholders in Bharti Airtel include Sony-Ericsson, Nokia - and Huawei, with whom they hold a strategic alliance. This means that the business has access to knowledge and technology from other parts of the telecommunications world.
•        The company has covered the entire Indian rrnation with its network. This has underpinned its large and rising customer base.

 Weaknesses

•        An often cited original weakness is that when the business was started by Sunil Bharti Mittal over 15 years ago, the business has little knowledge and experience of how a cellular telephone system actually worked. So the start-up business had to outsource to industry experts in the field.
•        Until recently Airtel did not own its own towers, which was a particular strength of some of its competitors such as Hutchison Essar. Towers are important if your company wishes to provide wide coverage nationally.
•        The fact that the Airtel has not pulled off a deal with South Africa's MTN could signal the lack of any real emerging market investment opportunity for the business once the Indian market has become mature.

Opportunities

Airtel +Blackberry

•        Global telecommunications and new technology brands see Airtel as a key strategic player in the Indian market. The new iPhone will be launched in India via an Airtel distributorship. Another strategic partnership is held with BlackBerry Wireless Solutions.
•         Despite being forced to outsource much of its technical operations in the early days, this allowed Airtel to work from its own blank sheet of paper, and to question industry approaches and practices - for example replacing the Revenue-Per-Customer model with a Revenue-Per-Minute model which is better suited to India, as the company moved into small and remote villages and towns.
•           The company is investing in its operation in 120,000 to 160,000 small villages every year. It sees that less well-off consumers may only be able to afford a few tens of Rupees per call, and also so that the business benefits are scalable - using its 'Matchbox' strategy.

Airtel offering PCO phones to Farmers

Threats 

•        Airtel and Vodafone seem to be having an on/off relationship. Vodafone which owned a 5.6% stake in the Airtel business sold it back to Airtel, and instead invested in its rival Hutchison Essar. Knowledge and technology previously available to Airtel now moves into the hands of one of its competitors.



Airtel + Vodafone

•          The quickly changing pace of the global telecommunications industry could tempt Airtel to go along the acquisition trail which may make it vulnerable if the world goes into recession. Perhaps this was an impact upon the decision not to proceed with talks about the potential purchase of South Africa's MTN in May 2008. This opened the door for talks between Reliance Communication's Anil Ambani and MTN, allowing a competing Inidan industrialist to invest in the new emerging African telecommunications market.
•        Bharti Airtel could also be the target for the takeover vision of other global telecommunications players that wish to move into the Indian market.

Le 3 The Story of Three Monks : Management Lessons

Learning Principles of Management through Animated Movie : Three Monks

Graphics coupled with good audio enhances the impact of the Educational medium . Nothing better than teaching Principles of Organization Management through an educational movie . The film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.

 

 The movie is based on the Chinese proverb - "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water".  The plot of the movie involved the problem of fetching water by three monks . The movie illustrates the process of evolving the best possible method to do this work and learning organization management lessons midway .

Following are the management lessons learnt :-

1. Teamwork does enhances the efficiency in the working of task  .

2.  Disputes tend to arise when there are more than one person involved .

3. Scientific and objectives measurements and instruments should be used to resolve the conflict .

4. The most efficient method to solve a problem evolves over a period of time .

5. Teamwork and team interest should take precedence over the personal interest .

6. Experiences in crisis management comes handy to come up with new innovative methods to solve  a problems .

7 Attitude of each team member determines the fate of the task  and decides for the success rate .

8. Synergistic roles :   Individual sums become bigger than what was there individually .

Application of the Three Monk Story in The real world Scenario 

1. Some very common problems faced during teamwork are :-

 All   three monks had problem initially due to their conflicting opinions . But their diverse personality attributes helped in resolving them which eventually helped in coming to solution to the problem of water  collection  .

There is no team without disputes !

a) Individual differences in work styles.

b) Ill-defined problems.
c) Personality conflicts.
d)Conflicts with other deadlines or priorities

e)Lack of motivation.

f)Lack of team organization or progress.

2. Attribute for  Efficient Teamwork

a)  Synergy

Teamwork + Innovation + brainstorming

 The creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.A team uses its membership  resources to the fullest and thereby achieves through collective action far more than could be achieved otherwise

b) Team work >>>>>>> Individual work 

• More resources for problem solving.
• Improved creativity and innovation.
• Improved quality of decision making.
• Greater commitments to tasks.
• Higher motivation through collective action.
• Better control and work discipline.

c) Cohesiveness

Unity is Strength 

• The degree to which members are attracted to and motivated to remain part of a team.
• Can be beneficial if paired with positive performance norms.

Characteristics of high-performing teams:

Teamwork Aye !!!

• A clear and elevating goal.
• A task-driven, results-oriented structure.
• Competent and committed members who work hard.
• A collaborative climate.
• High standards of excellence.
• External support and recognition.
• Strong and principled leadership

Importance of Motivation

Motivation - : An inferred process within an animal or an individual that causes that organism to move towards a goal

A leader has to keep team's motivation levels high .

Motivational strategies

•    Find new skills
•    Develop & train them
•    Get feedback on their performance
•    Expand their ability to work
•    Rotate their work

Hawthorne Effect 

The Hawthorne Effect refers to the way that workplace efficiency, performance and productivity can often be improved by introducing and measuring any change to working practice. It doesn't matter whether you change from one system to another , productivity will definitely go up . 

The Hawthorne effect explains that a subject will improve or modify an aspect of their behavior in response to the fact they are being studied or watched and not in response to any part of the actual study.

LE - 02

Experience

In the second lecture of the Principles of Organization and Management , the focus was more on nature of functions and decision of Organization .  

#Lesson1

Theory X and Theory Y Managers

Douglas McGregor, an American social psychologist, proposed his famous X-Y theory in book 'The Human Side Of Enterprise'.


Theory X

• The average person dislikes work and will avoid it he/she can.
• Therefore most people must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards organisational objectives.
• The average person prefers to be directed; to avoid responsibility; is relatively unambitious, and wants security above all else.

Theory Y

• People will apply self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organisational objectives, without external control or the threat of punishment.
• Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement.
• People usually accept and often seek responsibility.

 #Lesson2

The class Activity illustrated through the diagram above shows that in a team , contribution of each member of the team is essential to ensure success . There is no differentiation between the team members although their roles varies through the activity .

There is an interdependence among the team members for the task ahead .
All team members are equally responsible in their contributions for the overall task completion .
All Members while crossing the river communicate  and coordinate with each other through a predetermined signal .
All  Member Roles are Similar but not Same or Different and Equivalent in terms of total effort, risk .


There are several stages which are  systematically divided to structure the task :-
1st step - All 3 are safe .
2nd step - Front one is Half safe. Middle and Last one is fully  safe
3rd step - Front one is Fully Risky; Middle one and Last one is Fully SAFE
4th step - Front one and middle one are HALF RISKY; Rear one is SAFE
5th step - Front one SAFE: Middle one is Fully Risky; Last one is SAFE.
6th step - Front one and  Middle ones are Fully Safe; Last one is Fully Risky
7th step - Front and Middle one is safe;
8th step - Last one is half risky
9th step - All three are Safe


Team excellence comes by proper designing of team tasks, team roles, preparation and execution of the tasks

There are 3 stages in building Organizations :-

Work Planning
 Craftmanship - Here the person is deft in doing entire job  . This is more personalized and depends on individual to individual .
 Specialization - Here the person has one particular type of skill set . This can  be easily assigned
to anyone in Organization .

Authority Planning:
Centralization - Here the centre for authority and decision making  is not concentrated in few hands 
 Decentralizaion - Power to take decision and authority is distributed . It enhance the efficiency in working as decisions are taken fast .


Planning  - Control:
Formalizaiton  :Here much emphasis is laid on the rules laid down by the Organization .
 Socialization : Although there are norms , but there is certain level of flexibility here as compared to Formalization .

#Lesson3

Tower Building and Goal Setting and Management

• Organization is made of tiny blocks called teams which can be further broken down in team members   which are essential for its day to day functioning .
• Systematic setting of goal which in turn should be lofty enough to drive the motivation of team members  is necessary  for any Organization . 
• Quality of Foundation laid is  deciding factor  the success of the Organization .
• Goals can be subdivided in Short term goals and long tern goals . Focus on both is necessary to quantify the  progress achieved .