Airtel deploys Oracle as part Of biz strategy

Bangalore, INDIA, September 14, 2006- Bharti Airtel today announced the completion of its strategic implementation of Oracle Financials and Oracle Human Resources Management systems (HRMS). This will provide Bharti Airtel with real-time financial and human resources information as well as give the organization higher operational efficiency, along with better visibility and enhanced management over its financial and HR operations.

This implementation was a part of the strategic business consolidation undertaken by the organization to integrate the processes and systems of its different business units under 'One Airtel'. The Bharti Airtel IT strategy is aligned with the organization's business for the delivery of 'One Airtel' through two major focus areas ? 'BIZ' and 'INT' ? that are part of Bharti Airtel's unique "IT Truck" model.

The 'BIZ' area is focused on customer facing systems capabilities while the 'INT' area is focused on organization and internal facing systems capabilities. The Oracle single instance deployment is part of the INT focus area.Dr. Jai Menon, Director ? IT & Innovation, Bharti Airtel said, "Last October, a manifesto for change was created at Bharti Airtel. The first step in this direction came with the integrated structure under One Airtel, spearheading all aspects of our telecom business in India.

Our primary aim in IT was to standardize operations across the different strategic business units of the company. We set about completing this mission along with IBM,our strategic partner in IT. The first stage has been completed by leveraging uniform business processes through an integrated finance and HR system. The next phase is in progress to implement supply chain and learning management software systems using Oracle Applications."

"The Oracle Financials and HR implementations are the latest Oracle Applications deployed at Bharti Airtel. The new, enterprise-wide, single instance consolidates four separate financial and HR systems that were earlier used in the organization. This provides Bharti Airtel with real-time information enabling better visibility and control of our business operations," Dr. Menon added.

Mr Ash Khalek, Vice President, Service Industries, APAC, Oracle said,"Oracle is proud to be associated with Bharti Airtel, one of the most innovative telecom operators in the APAC region. Bharti Airtel recognises the value Oracle brings with its full stack of telecom specific business applications and has adopted Oracle's financials, procurement, human resource management, customer relationship management applications and the Oracle technology platform."

The implementation of Oracle Financials and HRMS was started in 2005. As Bharti Airtel's strategic IT partner, IBM played an instrumental role in managing and executing the project from both a hardware and software perspective. The end-to-end implementation was completed in eight months. The project has been successful in achieving synergies of processes and in optimizing operational efficiencies across the telecom business units. Some of the other benefits achieved with Oracle single instance (Financials and HRMS) include:

· Integrated system for Financials, HRMS and Learning Management System thereby providing a uniform technology advantage

· This ensures data integrity, standardization in creating and maintaining organization structure, processes, consolidation of financials,people information and competencies management

· Single chart of accounts with automated real-time consolidation of financial results. The organization had to deal with three different charts of account in the past before the implementation of the Oracle Financials system.

· Single source of information for all financials with audit trails. This helps the organization address regulatory requirements

· Real time access to information for reporting requirement

· Scalability of IT system and reduced total cost of ownership for IT systems

Oracle's leadership in the global Telecommunications industry

More than 800 communications services providers worldwide use Oracle's applications and industry-leading technology platform, a testament to Oracle's ability to create value and help drive efficiencies and profitability for customers. Communications companies that are Oracle solution users include:

· 17 of the world's top 20 Communications Service Providers

· All 10 of the world's most profitable Communications Service Providers

· 8 of world's top 10 Mobile Operators

· 8 of Asia Pacific's top 10 Communications Service Providers

· 16 of Asia Pacific's top 20 Mobile Operators

· 9 out of Asia Pacific's top 10 Fixed Line Operators

About Bharti Airtel Limited

Bharti Airtel Limited is one of India's leading private sector providers of telecommunications services with an aggregate of 27.24 million customers as of end of August'06, consisting of 25.65 million mobile customers. Bharti Airtel created history by being ranked among the top 10 best performing companies in the world in the globally renowned BusinessWeek IT 100 list. The company organization was the first private operator to provide mobile services in all the 23 circles in India. The company also provides telephone services and Internet access over DSL in 92 cities. The company complements its mobile, broadband & telephone services with national and international long distance services. The company also has a submarine cable landing station at Chennai, which connects the submarine cable (owned by an associate company) connecting Chennai and Singapore. The company is a part of the consortium, which jointly owns and has developed the next generation undersea cable system SEA-ME-WE-4. The company provides reliable end-to-end data and enterprise services to the corporate customers by leveraging its nationwide fiber optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed-line and mobile circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and landing station. For more information, visit http://www.bhartiairtel.in

About Oracle India

Oracle India Private Ltd (Oracle India), a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation, the world's largest enterprise software company, was established in 1993. Oracle was one of the first international software companies to set up an India Development Centre in 1994. Today, Oracle's two India Development Centres, at Bangalore and Hyderabad, work closely with Oracle's global software development team, headquartered at Redwood

Shores, California, on the entire Oracle product family. India is also a hub for several of Oracle's global support, consulting and financial services operations. Through its offices in the six metro and presence in 17 non-metro cities in India, and an extensive network of more than 400 channel and alliance partners under the Oracle PartnerNetwork, Oracle India markets the complete range of Oracle products and services across India.

Oracle India has more than 6,500 customers in the telecommunications,banking, insurance, manufacturing and utilities industries, across the government and private sector. Oracle India is a major partner for E-Governance initiatives of Central and State Government bodies in India.

The Oracle-HP E-Governance Centre of Excellence is located at Oracle India's head office in Gurgaon, near New Delhi.

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com/.

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