Businesses all over the world are dominated by either the IT goals or by the business goals. Telecom is the only sector in which these two set of goals overlap each other; this is because of the acute competition existing in this domain which has lead to a freefall in the ARPU of the industry. Today, Telcos have started aligning their business goals towards sharing of resources so as to reduce their cost of operations. Indus Towers is one such initiative taken up by the top 3 giants of the Indian telecom industry namely AirTel, Vodafone and Idea.
Telecom industry operates in a very unique manner, it behaves like a FMCG till the point of sale (think of a nearby mom and pop store selling both a Coca Cola and an IDEA recharge voucher or a SIM card) and as a service industry because the minute a SIM card is sold the user is registered with the telecom operator and the operator starts providing the user with the required airtime.
Operating in a cluttered environment (more than 14 players exist in Indian market) has made the life of Telcos very difficult; therefore even a small glitch in the service can cause a loss of customer.
Many initiatives are being taken up by the telecom operators to remain profitable in the current environment. These initiatives can be broadly divided in to two categories –
a) How to increase their market share?
b) How to bring down the operation (network) cost?
Various trends are shaping up in the market to take care of these questions. One such trend is that many operators have now started to study the usage of their customers and are offering them with various innovative offers based on their profile. Such initiatives from the operators side ensures that the customer does not switch and remain loyal to them. Other trend which can be derived from the market is that Telcos have started joining hands in order to lower their network costs by sharing their resources with other operators. In future we may see such sharing in 3G also because none of the operator has 3G license in all the 22 circles.
Telecom is a sector which is changing with the pace of light. The time has come when these companies should get together and work on an altogether different concept of ‘Sharing and Caring’ because already the ARPU in India is one of the lowest in world and if it continues to fall then it will be very difficult for these telecom operators to generate profits.
There is a lot of difference between 2G and 3G. Calling/Dial-ling a number is one aspect which a common illiterate citizen can easily adapt. But for 3G which is mostly associated with internet/data/even video calling (which is currently at whooping Rs. 3/min) he has to be literate. We are forgetting that in terms of elementary education, we are way behind developed nations or even developing economies like Russia and China.
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