New structure in India and South Asia to be effective from August 1.
Leading telecom player Bharti Airtel on Thursday announced restructuring of its Indian and South Asian operations to streamline its businesses and reduce the cost structure.
The company had posted 31 per cent fall in its consolidated net income at Rs 1,400.7 crore for the quarter ended March 31 against Rs 2,044.4 crore in the same quarter last year, due to acquisitions and rebranding costs and higher interest outgo.
Airtel's interest costs are also increasing after it paid a huge amount to acquire 3G (third generation) and BWA (broadband wireless access) spectrum in the auction last year, besides buying out Zain’s African operations.
The move, however, comes at a time when the telecom industry is reeling under pressure due to low tariffs and intense competition.
| CHANGING CHARACTER |
| * Two customer business units — business to customer and business to business |
| * Market operations to be divided in three regions each headed by an operations director |
| * North and east India, and Bangladesh operations to be headed by Ajai Puri |
| * South India and Sri Lanka operations will be under Vineet Taneja |
| * West will come under Raghunath Mandava (along with national distribution portfolio) |
| * K Srinivas, the joint president of Telemedia business, will lead the consumer business vertical |
The new structure, a company said, will be effective from August 1. The operations, which were earlier divided into four segments – mobile, enterprise, digital and telemedia — will now focus on two sides – consumer and enterprise. These will be structured under two customer business units (CBU) with focus on B2C (business to customer) and B2B (business to business) segments.
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The mobile, telemedia, digital TV and other emerging businesses such as M-commerce, M-health, M-advertising will now be combined under the B2C unit and serve the retail consumers, homes and small offices. The B2C unit will again be divided into two — consumer business and market operations.
The restructuring will enable the company to create synergies across various business segments. However, it will have minimal impact on the employees, company officials said.
The major movement among employees is likely to happen in the marketing and sales segment of each business unit. According to people close to the development, the impacted employees will be given options to shift to the the group’s other ventures such as retail, agriculture, value-added services as well as international businesses. Apart from India and Africa, Bharti Airtel offer telecom services in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
K Srinivas, the joint president of the telemedia business, will now lead the consumer business vertical as the president. This group will lead the overall B2C strategy and focus on customer experience, product and service innovation (including data, VAS, new products/services) and build an ecosystem around the B2C services.
The second segment of B2C — market operations group will lead the ‘go-to-market’ strategy and complement the consumer business segment.
The market operations in India and South Asia will be divided in three regions, each headed by an operations director. The north and east India, and Bangladesh operations will be headed by Ajai Puri, south India and Sri Lanka operations will be headed by Vineet Taneja and operations in the west will be headed by Raghunath Mandava (along with national distribution portfolio).
The B2B business unit will continue its focus on serving large corporate and carriers through Bharti Airtel’s wide portfolio of telecommunication solutions. Also, it will remain under Drew Kelton.
The new segment head will report to Sanjay Kapoor, CEO – India & South Asia.
Atul Bindal, who was leading the mobility business for two years, will now move into a role within the group.
“Bharti Airtel has always adopted transformational business models that have set the industry benchmark. As we move into the next phase of our growth journey, the new organisation structure will mark a major step towards building an organisation of the future. Customers are at the core of our business and with this new structure we are proactively creating an integrated customer centric organisation,” said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director, Bharti Airtel.