0

Featured Article

OCTOBER 2018

WeChat

MR. ANAND CHOUDHARY

Assistant General Manager at Vodafone

Telecommunication

Sector of

New India

TELECOMMUNCATION

1

OUR VISION

“To nurture thought leaders and practitioners through inventive education”

CORE VALUES

Breakthrough Thinking and Breakthrough Execution

Result Oriented, Process Driven Work Ethic

We Link and Care

Passion

“The illiterate of this century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Alvin Toffler

At WeSchool, we are deeply inspired by the words of this great American writer and futurist. Undoubtedly, being convinced of the need for a radical change in management education, we decided to tread the path that leads to corporate revolution.

Emerging unarticulated needs and realities require a new approach both in terms of thought as well as action. Cross-disciplinary learning, discovering, scrutinizing, prototyping, learning to create and destroy the mind’s eye needs to be nurtured and differently so.

We school has chosen the ‘design thinking’ approach towards management education. All our efforts and manifestations as a result stem from the integration of design thinking into management education. We dream to create an environment conducive to experiential learning.

ABOUT US

2

Dear Readers,

It gives me great pride to introduce SAMVAD’s edition every month. Our SAMVAD team’s efforts seem to be paying off and our readers seem to be hooked onto our magazine. At WeSchool we try to acquire as much knowledge as we can and we try and share it with everyone.

As we begin a new journey with 2018, I sincerely hope that SAMVAD will reach new heights with the unmatched enthusiasm and talent of the entire team.

Here at WeSchool, we believe in the concept of AAA: Acquire Apply and Assimilate. The knowledge that you have acquired over the last couple of months will be applied somewhere down the line. When you carry out a process repeatedly it becomes ingrained in you and eventually tends to come out effortlessly. This is when you have really assimilated all the knowledge that you have gathered.

At WeSchool, we aspire to be the best and to be unique, and we expect nothing but the extraordinary from all those who join our college. From the point of view of our magazine, we look forward to having more readers and having more contributions from our new readers.

SAMVAD is a platform to share and acquire knowledge and develop ourselves into integrative managers. It is our earnest desire to disseminate our knowledge and experience with not only WeSchool students, but also the society at large.

Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR

Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe Group Director

3

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the October Issue of SAMVAD for the year 2018!

SAMVAD is a platform for “Inspiring Futuristic Ideas” and we constantly strive to provide articles that are thought provoking and that add value to your management education.

With courses pertaining to all spheres of management at WeSchool, we too aspire to represent every industry by bringing you different themes every month. We have an audacious goal of becoming the most coveted business magazine for B-school students across the country. To help this dream become a reality we invite articles from all spheres of management giving a holistic view and bridge the gap between industry veterans and students through our WeChat section.

The response to SAMVAD has been overwhelming and the support and appreciation that we have received has truly encouraged and motivated us to work towards bringing out a better magazine every month. We bring to you the October Issue of SAMVAD which revolves around the theme of “TELECOMMUNICATION”.

We hope you read, share and grow with us!

Hope you have a great time reading SAMVAD!

Best Wishes,

Team SAMVAD.

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping old ones.”

John Maynard Keynes.

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

4

We Chat 5

Analytics in Telecomm- Changing Business Model from Red Ocean to Blue Ocean

8

Disrupting Financial Statements of

Telecommunication Giants

11

Metamorphosis Of The Telecom Industry Of India

13

Role of HR in Telecommunication Industry & Telecommunication Industry in HR

15

Internet of Things and its effect on Telecom

17

20

Team Samvad 21

Team Samvad 23

Call for Articles

5

Q1. Could you please take us through your

inspiring journey in the Telecommunication

Industry?

It has been an absolutely interesting journey of around 15 years in the Telecom industry. It all started with campus recruitment into Tata Telecom, which then manufactured EPABX solutions. This first job gave me insights on the power of various possibilities that Telecommunication industry has to connect diverse societies across geography. Having worked on GSM and CDMA technologies, and seen one emerge as a leader while the other, even though having great technical potential, go through its sunset. To mobile applications and IoT now, it has been an absolute roller coaster ride of sorts. Like in everyone’s career there are these golden phases - Being a part of TTSL, I was in a team driving cost savings via new product implementation in Customer Service. This meant driving digital initiatives way back in 2005, which is an achievement of sorts for a new guy in the block then. I implemented policies and drove solutions to ensure the team achieved cost saving which amounted to 10% of overall costs of customer services operations. That’s a big number in terms of money. Currently, I feel proud of myself to be contributing to nation’s key projects like Digital India - I am driving Digital India in my own capacity

by enabling enterprises with IoT solution. Start-up India - I feel proud driving Start-up India initiative, as I can promote unique and innovative solutions that start-ups provide to the enterprise world. Smart Cities – I feel proud powering Smart Cities. As I connect the smart

Bin, to the camera for surveillance, street lights to become smart and I can go on and on. No city Can be SMART unless it is Digital, and if it is Digital it has to communicate and record to make sense of the data. When I look back, I certainly feel proud to have orchestrated solutions right from the time of fixed line telephone to call centers to mobility driven SMS to applications and now driving Strategic Initiatives for IoT (Internet of Things). I feel glad that I chose this industry to build my career and with the immense opportunities that lie ahead, it is an industry which will only thrive and grow. However, one needs to be agile to work in this fast-growing space and carve out your own space.

Q2. What are the challenges that the telecom

industry is facing right now?

It is a universally known fact that Telecom is an

investment-centric business and one needs to

have the right mix of patience, strategy, and

processes to get maximum market share. The

telecommunication industry is going through a

transformational phase of development.

Key challenges which industry faces are:

1. Reducing profit margins – Well we all use

GBs of data which is cheaper than a Key pint

of beer. New entrants use price drops as their

means to grab market share. This trend has

led to a huge dent in profits. From 11

operator’s licenses issues, there are now just

4 remaining.

MR ANAND CHOUDHARY Assistant General Manager at Vodafone

WECHAT

Team SAMVAD

6

2. Fast Changing Technology – Operators need

to keep investing in newer technology even

before they have got their perceived ROI for

their earlier investments. Before investments

in 3G could reap their profits, 4G was around

the corner for taking and now we hear about

5G too.

3. The rapid evolution of IoT – with billions of

devices expected to communicate with each

other, industry needs to scale up their

capabilities to address the demands of

markets. This growth is generating billions

and trillions of new data sources and thus, it

is expected that this growth will push the

data to be handled by networks to zettabytes

per year.

4. Security of Data: Concerns with respect to

data security, ownership of data etc. will only

grow as we go more digital.

5. Regulations: Just like banking telecom is a

highly regulated space. Government policies

are excellent but they need to be updated in

order to meet the increasing ask of personal

data security and even nation-wide security.

Q3. What do you think will be the next

disruption in the telecom industry in India,

as it is the second largest telecom network

in the world?

India has immense potential from both

consumer and enterprise perspective. As per

TRAI, there are now 1,183 million connections,

amounting to 92 mobile connections for every

100 inhabitants in the country. From an 11-player

market, now there are only 4 major players. The

disruption has impacted the market as much as

it can. The industry has gone through its own

bell curve and now should settle itself down as a

mature industry. You see, now all telecom

operators have started charging for validity

again, the focus is back on revenue.

Consumer story of India shall continue, 5G is

around the corner, consumers will be treated

with massive data speeds. For enterprises - Fixed

wired-line networks for connecting the last mile

on MPLS, ILL etc will become a thing of past, as

5G will enable this all! However, the major

disruption will be the adoption of IoT, Big Data,

Artificial Intelligence which will shape up the

new age Telcos. The one who is able to garner

right product mix, at a right price point and with

the right set of partner eco-system will be able to

make a mark.

Q4 Do you think the exponential growth in data

consumption will anyway help India in

improving the literacy rate?

Today, the digital divide in India is real -

illiteracy rate is 25-30 percent and digital

illiteracy is even higher. About 70 percent of

over one billion Indians live in rural areas, and

only about 400 million have Internet access. As

per various industry studies, around 85% plus

internet connected users, use mobile data.

Certainly, data is like the new electricity

connection, it is present in every house. In the

process of using data on mobile, it is making

people learn the basics of computing. With

mobile data, the person is always connected. Just

related to a basic point, Now, even a no-voice

asks what is the pixel rating of their new camera

phone, isn’t it? Right from the best in class to

the lowest one in the economy has awakened to

the power of data.

Data is driving literacy in more than many ways:

- Bank balances are on mobiles

- Government subsidies call for use of

mobiles

- Entire application-based economy is

making people use more and more of

data

- Easy access to data is making people

more knowledgeable.

Also, because of data availability in your hands

through a mobile phone, there are many a

7

course which have started on training people on

various skills. Teachers and institutes are

adopting the use of the internet to record the

session and give access to content on demand.

Also, today, we numerous institutes which use

concepts like telepresence to conduct virtual

classroom and run a session for students.

Anyone can access from anywhere and anytime.

This means learnings just don’t stop. Youtube

has some many video courses. It is rightly put in

the movie 3 idiots – “Gyan to har jagah bat raha

hai.. kahi bhi chale jao.” It is up to the user, what

he/she uses the power of data in his mobile. I am

sure you would have observed that the

difference between rural and urban clads are fast

deaminizing. The rural clads are as smart as

urban ones, thanks to the availability of data.

Data is really driving literacy in the country.

Q5. The telecom penetration in rural areas

is 58.45% as of July 2018, what do think will

be the factors contributing to further

penetration?

Firstly, we all must appreciate that all businesses

(barring NGOs) are run to make profits.

Telecom companies are no exception to this

basic rule of business. And as I said earlier,

telecom is a heavy investment-centric business.

One must appreciate that the cost of installing

and managing a telecom network must be

justified by the revenues earned. Having set the

basic understanding.

According to me the key factors that will help

push telecom in rural area are the following:

Cost of setting up infrastructure Government policies

Potential of growth in that area

If the remaining 42% area contributes to revenues

which are minuscule, it may not make commercial

sense to connect them. But that my way of looking at

things, it certainly is a topic worth a healthy debate.

Q6 What advice would like to give students

wanting to pursue a career in this industry?

Today innovations are happening everywhere. It

is the area of telecommunications we all hear

about the latest trends viz: IoT, Big Data,

machine learning and Artificial intelligence etc.

Telecom sector will continue to grow with the

speed of light. Just like IT, a telecom sector is a

place where one needs to continuously keep re-

inventing oneself basis technology. The skills

required in telecom have graduated and are

changing rapidly. It is expected that

professionals adopt the agile framework and

deliver at a speed faster than what consumers

expect. Which means, technology quotient has

to be high, but at the same time newer business

models have to be developed. Apart from

telecom operators which provide lucrative career

opportunities, Government initiatives around

Digital India, Smart Cities have opened up many

opportunities to work with the start-up eco-

system and participate in making India truly

digital. One cannot exist alone, Partnerships and

co-creation, play a key role in modern business.

Find newer and innovative methods of doing

business. Trust me, the evolution will keep going

on. If you like new challenges and have an

appetite for new business ideas using

technology, this is a field to be in! I certainly

look forward to working with you all soon. All

the best!!

--------------------0------------------------

8

Abstract

Telecom giants collect lots of data regularly which can give deeper insights and will drive smart decisions if utilized effectively by proper mining and critical analysis of both structured and unstructured data. On top of this, there is Red Ocean in the industry making it challenging and dynamic for any operator to sustain. Hence it is imperative for the operators to take decisions based on extensive data analytics to ensure effective and efficient utilization of resources to increase market share. This article is an attempt to explain in brief how analytics can be applied in reducing customer churn, fraud and security breaches, and managing unstructured data.

Keywords

Predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics, social

media analytics, forecasting, customizing plans,

text analytics, Call Data Record (CDR), ARPU,

Blue ocean, Red ocean, congestion, Regression.

Introduction

Telecommunication industry in India is very

dynamic and competitive in the world which can

easily be understood by the fall of 4 operators

(Tata Teleservices, Telenor, Reliance, and Aircel)

because of the rise of R-Jio who entered by

creating an uncontested market based on blue

ocean strategy. India is currently the world’s

second-largest telecommunications market after

China, with a subscriber base of 1185.88 million

(TRAI, 2018), the market has seen strong growth

in subscriber base in the past decade and a half.

There are currently 5 telecom service providers

in India with a teledensity of 91.61% (TRAI,

2018), out of which 1,162.47million customer are

wireless subscriber (2G, 3G, 4G) and 23.41

million as wireline subscriber (TRAI, 2018).

New spectrum trading rules have been

introduced which led to improving service

quality and enhanced speeds by supporting

consolidation. The Urban teledensity stands at

167.72% while for rural it’s 56.54% as on Nov

2017 (TRAI, 2018).

The telecom market is moving to a new

uncontested market of Blue Ocean where new

services based on user experience can change

the whole scenario. It is therefore required by

the firm to take decisions using extensive

research, to maximize revenue and profits

(COMMUNICATIONS TODAY, 2016)

Some of the major challenges and how they can be understood by analytics:

Customer Churn

Churn within the telecommunication business is inevitable and pricy. “Churn” in the telecom industry is the share of subscribers moving from a selected service (3G, 4G) to another service or operator. Telecom Operators today have an average churn rate of 1.9 to 2 percent month on month and an average annual churn rate of 10 to 60% which might have an effect on the company’s overall growth (kanniappan, 2014). Customer churn reduces profitability and increases marketing and re-acquisition expenses.

Telecom companies use TRIPLE PAY services

which is again becoming a red ocean, in TRIPLE

Pay if few more services can be added like

Entertainment, Education and regional

information etc. Instead of having different

apps, integrating services will give enhanced

Analytics in Telecomm- Changing Business Model from Red Ocean to

Blue Ocean

Saurabh Yadav & Megha Vaish, Symbiosis Institute Of Telecom Management

OPERATIONS

9

user delight and experience. Identifying gold

customers by applying analytic techniques and

give them a special privilege, will certainly

increase customer lifetime value and reduce

churn rate. Creating a strong CRM system in

build with big data analytics and KPIs will lead

to high customer satisfaction and experience

(Hughes, 2017).

Fraud and Security Breaches

Fraud in Telecommunications is consequently an extensive subject. Superimposed fraud and subscription fraud have done the most damage to the industry. Operators admit of 1% of the revenue through leakage, and for some, it is up to 10%, (KPMG Survey). As per the annual survey of 74 operators, the global telecom industry is confronting the revenue leakage of about $40 billion a year. Almost 50 million customer records have been lost through Cyber-attacks in the past 10 years. Due to the security breaches and telecommunications fraud, operators lost around $38.1 billion in 2015 (CFCA, 2015).

Fig.1- Predictive analytics in Fraud preventi0n

Unsupervised machine learning and data lakes can help you identify new and old types of frauds and helps in predicting critical situation, which can be avoided by taking pre-emptive actions. Continuous analysis of streaming data can point out the outliers more effectively, identify crime rings and even pre-empt large attacks. Fraud prevention increases customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, and customer retention thus giving the competitive advantage

to operators (CXOtoday, 2017).

Increasing unstructured data:

Mobile data traffic is continuously increasing and with coming years it will increase with more pace. It is said by 2022, traffic generated from a smartphone will increase by 10 times and it is estimated that mobile data traffic is expected to grow by CAGR of 47%. In today’s scenario, around 90% of data is unstructured and only 10% is structured. This 10% of data consist of CRDs, DDRs, Network data, and Subscriber data, which can easily be analysed. While the other 90% which is not yet utilized properly. This includes Content from the social stream, Blogs, tweets, comments, ratings, views, images, videos, traditional web content such as news articles, product information, and simple corporate informational web pages. (ERICSSON, n.d.)

Fig.2-Text Analytics – Themes (Negatives and

Positives)

Mobile data traffic is continuously increasing and with coming years it will increase with more pace. It is said by 2022, traffic generated from a smartphone will increase by 10 times and it is estimated that mobile data traffic is expected to grow by CAGR of 47%. In today’s scenario, around 90% of data is unstructured and only 10% is structured. This 10% of data consist of CRDs, DDRs, Network data, and Subscriber data, which can easily be analysed. While the other 90% which is not yet utilized properly. This includes Content from the social stream, Blogs, tweets, comments, ratings, views, images,

10

videos, traditional web content such as news articles, product information, and simple corporate informational web pages. (ERICSSON, n.d.)

Conclusion:

Thus, with the use of analytics techniques,

operators can easily find the loophole in the

existing process and provide them with a chance

to focus on new ways of offering services to

enter a new uncontested market. Based on the

research done we can conclude that customer

churn reduces if the contract term is increased,

Quality service is provided. Fraud can be easily

detected by outlier analysis. Text analytics,

Social media analytics can easily read the people

voice and new trends which can help operators

to take decisions while launching new services.

can help organizations to be more efficient and customer focused across all the dimensions of organizations;

References:

1. (TRAI,2018) retrieved from

http://www.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/Press_

Release_No4_Eng_11012018.pdf

2. (COMMUNICATIONS TODAY,2016) reterived

from

http://www.communicationstoday.co.in/i

ndex.php/perspectives/2588-telecom-

sector-challenges-and-opportunities

3. (kanniappan, 2014)

https://www.happiestminds.com/blogs/how-to-

reduce-churn-in-a-telecom/

4.(Hughes, 2017)

http://www.dmnews.com/dataanalytics/churn-

reduction-in-the-telecom-

industry/article/94238/

5. (CFCA,2015)

https://www.sysnettelematica.it/documenti-um-

labs/antifrode/529-communication-fraud-

control-association-survay-2015/file

6. (CXOtoday, 2017)

http://www.cxotoday.com/story/using-big-data-

to-solve-telcos-fraud-revenue-leakage/

7.(Communications Today, 2017)

http://www.communicationstoday.co.in/14849-

telecom-infrastructure-issues-faced-by-

infrastructure-providers-and-tsps-introduction

8.(Towster, 2016)

http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/departments/artic

les/426701-managing-the-edge-infrastructure-

challenges-a-next-generation.htm

9. (ERICSSON, n.d.)

https://www.ericsson.com/en/mobility-

report/future-mobile-data-usage-and-traffic-

growth

-----------------------0-----------------------

11

Reliance entering any market & not wiping away

a share of its well-established competitors might

be very unusual occasion. Reliance Jio not only

just defeated its competitors but demolished

them, to such an extent that it disrupted the

whole telecom sector completely. In addition to

its telecom sector was already marred by the

spectrum controversy, this resulted in more

radical changes in the sector. Jio not only

managed to seize a customer base of more than

100 million in a year but also the flair of millions

of Indians, with each of its ambitious journeys.

Funded by Mukesh Ambani, Jio managed to

break into a heedful group of Telecom operators,

and to its kudos within a brief spell of time,

elevated itself to becoming the biggest player in

the pack. This was because Jio considered Data

rather than Voice to be its primary source of

revenue, whereas 75% of revenue share its

competitors came from Calling services. This

represented a significant shift in the structure of

the Indian Telecom sector. This ascent did not

come at a cost. After investing around 2 lac crore

on setting up the required infrastructure, this

newcomer is still making returns whereas

making rest of the telecom industry suffer by

bringing in more & more users. Digital

revolution was underway throughout the world

& India was lagging behind others when it came

to mobile internet access. To this Jio's

acquisitive business prototype, characterized by

its use of offers like, “Summer Surprise” & “Dhan

Dhana Dhan” resulted in it disrupting the

market by not working around TRAI - framed

guidelines. Jio's influence has been far greater

than free voice calls & disruption of the industry.

Here is a brief glance at how Jio managed to

shake things in the industry,

Price Cuts

Great news for the consumers which

eventually turned out to be the worst

nightmare of the industry. As Jio entered

the market with its predatory pricing, all

the major players were pushed into a

price war which they had avoided for a

long period. After Jio's entry, not just

tariff rates dropped but even prices of

data plan & voice call also dropped. To

keep pace with Jio, all the other telecom

companies which previously charged sky-

high prices later started charging as low

as 50 ₹ per GB.

Data Revolution

India which ranked 150th in terms of data

consumption before entry of Jio saw itself

biggest data consumer of the world in

terms of value within a matter of time.

4G VoLTE voice call revolution

Prior to Jio's entry telecom's operator use

to charge hundreds of rupees every

month for providing call services, Jio

entered the market with a bang by

promising free unlimited calling services

by using its VoLTE network. Jio provided

supercilious call standard at a cost, which

was just a mere fraction of what its

competitors use to incur. This eventually

made the competitors upgrade their

network to the latest standards.

Disrupting Financial Statements of Telecommunication Giants

Drashti Shah, PGDM Media and Entertainment- Prin. L.N. Welingkar Institute

of Management Development & Research, Mumbai &

Akshat Chaturvedi, MDI, Gurgaon

Varenya Vikrant

FINANCE

12

JioFiber

Gives ultra-high-speed internet up to 100

Mbps for 3 months & complimentary

access to a host of Jio's premium apps.

Another blow it provided to its competitors was

to increase their selling expenditure in the

advertisement. The advertisement expenditure

has already increased up to 10% which is further

expected to go up to 20%. To add further misery,

despite assurance from the government to the

sector, central state's policy did not provide any

help, as Goods & Service Tax (GST) increased the

tax from 15% to 18%. It even forced 2 major

players like Vodafone & Idea to merge to survive

this competition. However, till now, their

amalgamation hasn’t brought any fruits, but it is

expected that it will bring some stability with

consolidation resulting benefit of synergy in

operations which will bring operations to cost

down. This can also help pricing power to

return. This will result in both companies having

35% of customers in the market & 42% of

revenue market share in the coming future. This

was also a result of the ignorant attitude of

Vodafone & Idea regarding quick transforming

of Telecom landscape. They missed the 4G bus &

it was too late when Jio entered. This however

damaged financial statements of other small

operators & forced them to exit as there was

already a debt burden prevailing and free calling

offered by Jio impacted their revenue on a large

scale resulting into their liquidation. It’s

predicted that only 3 major players will be part

of the sector in the coming future,

1. Idea-Vodafone

2. Reliance Jio

3. Bharti Airtel

Still, the concern remains high debt, the

combined debt of Idea-Vodafone is marginally

higher than Airtel. And due to high competition,

they have to continuously invest in expansion &

providing value-added service which will further

raise the debt level. To provide to further

increasing cost, Telecom operators are looking

for selling a noncore asset, mainly the towers.

There is an opportunity for Idea-Vodafone

merger to monetize its tower assets. Even Bharti

Airtel, India’s second largest Telecom operator

after Idea-Vodafone merger decided to buy

Tikona Digital Network's 4G business.

It was Public's perception of Jio products & it's

pricing strategies which seemed better &

affordable to the public when compared with its

competitors. It also benefited from unfair cost

advantage as Spectrum usage charge stand

constantly. Now the next category Jio is aiming

is at Fintech segment. Following the acquisition

of a customer base of 200 million users, it has an

eye on the merchant community. It has

launched a new app called “Jio Browser”. This

will enable them to dominate Point of Sale

segment which is currently dominated by major

banks. Jio doesn’t plan to stop here and is

further targeting to take on video streaming

giants like Google, Netflix & Amazon Prime. Not

just limited to telecom, but now they’re offering

lifestyle products, streaming TV service, digital

payment application, music library & connected

home system.

-----------------------0--------------------

13

There was a time in history when owning a

telephone set was a status symbol. Hardly two

sets in a society. Neighbours would flock to

inquire into its operation and sometimes even

request to make calls to their wealthy relatives.

Alexander Graham Bell brought the world a bit

closer. However, the revolutionary, Martin

Cooper, thought the world was not close enough

yet; he invented the cell phone. With time, cell

phones became from luxury to a necessity.

Today, almost every human owns one.

How can I say this? Well, this is how; India ranks second in terms of Telecommunication subscriptions, internet subscribers and app downloads in the world, with the connection being 93.27(per 100 inhabitants) and the number of mobile subscribers being 1189 million as of 2018. App downloads in the country grew approximately 215% between 2015-2017. Over the next five years, the rise in mobile-phone penetration due to falling handset costs and decline in data costs will add 500 million new internet users in India, creating opportunities for new businesses.

The Government of India has brought about numerous wide-ranging and radical policies that have to impart along with well-built consumer demand in the swift flourishing of the Indian Telecom Sector. It has enabled easy market access to the telecom equipment and a fair and proactive Regulatory Framework in the form of the new National Digital Communications Policy, 2018, that have empowered that the telecom services are provided at economical prices to the consumer. Also, the liberalisation of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) i.e. The sector is now open to 100% FDI. Out of this 100 per cent, 49 per cent will be done through unmanned route and the rest is to be done through the FIPB (Foreign Investment Promotion Board) consent route. These evolutions have made the sector one of the

MARKETING

METAMORPHOSIS OF THE TELECOM INDUSTRY OF INDIA

Ayushi Anand, PGDM - Prin. L.N. Welingkar Institute of Management

Development & Research, Mumbai

Varenya Vikrant

14

quick growing and within the top five employment generators in the country. FDI worth US$ 31.75 billion during the period April 2000 to June 2018, according to the data released by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). Some of the developments in the contemporary past are: Throughout the first quarter of 2018, India has become the world’s fastest-growing market for mobile applications. India remained as the world’s fastest-growing market for Google Play downloads in the second and third quarter of 2018. Bharti Airtel is planning to launch 6,000 new sites and 2,000 km of optical fibre in Gujarat by the year 2018-19. The number of mobile wallet transactions increased by 5 per cent month-on-month to 325.28 million in 2018. BSNL is expected to launch its 5G services in India by 2020. Vodafone India and Idea Cellular have merged into ‘Vodafone Idea’ to become India’s largest telecom company, as of September 2018.

How is it even thinkable that we talk about the telecom industry in India and fail to mention the curt and gigantic disruptor – JIO. Jio has seized the sim trays of the consumers, thanks to its cost-effective and overwhelming plans. Two years into the market and Jio already has the subscriber base of 215 million. 240 Crore is the gigabytes of data consumed by the Jio subscribers in a month! With its aggressive pricing and plans, it leads the Telecom Majors Vodafone and Idea to integrate and other smaller insignificant players like Aircel to shut down its operations in India. They could not live through the Reliance blow. Thanks to the speed and lucrative plans, other products like PUBG, Swiggy, Uber eats etc have encashed on it. It has brought them closer than it ever was.

The road ahead…

The telecom Industry apart from the JIO

disruption is also heading towards a vital

reallocation in the coming years with the

introduction of new technologies like 5G, M2M,

IoT and AI. India is dynamically gearing to roll

out 5G in this year to come at par with the rest

of the world. The Telecom Engineering Centre

under the Department of Telecom is arranging

finalising standards for telecom equipment and

devices for 5G services. 5 billion IoT/M2M

(Machine-to-Machine) devices are to come up in

India in the coming years that will be vital for

the adoption of 5G technology. The largest

number of startups in IoT space is coming out of

India in the fields of health management,

environmental monitoring etc. With a well-built

foundation of smart minds and entrepreneurs

and strong governmental support, the future of

Telecom Industry in India is undoubtedly bright.

Apart from these chances lying in the

technological advancement segment, the other

untouched segment is the rural Indian

Population. With approximately 70% of Indian

population is rural and the Telecom penetration

being only 44% of the total subscriber base, and

with increasing living standards and disposable

incomes, the only way for the telecom giants to

grow their crux is by acquiring new subscribers

and tailoring a plan for the day-wage workers so

that there is committed motivation on their part

to invest in it.

-----------------------0-------------------------

15

If there is any major contributor in Companies success that goes unnoticed, it’s surely HR team. They deliver the service which benefits both Company & it’s employees. Indirectly they even play a role in delivering superior services to customers, as it’s rightly said, more motivated the employee, much better are the services delivered to its customers, & HR plays a crucial role in Team Building, Team Motivation & Team Coordination.

Talking about telecommunications, they’ve played a significant part in bringing world together & making it One Global Village. This is due to constant improvement in practices followed by Telecommunications Companies, then whether it’s operational efficiency, marketing techniques or improving the financial outlook of the company, all of which has a common foundation, which is HR as they are responsible for selecting right people for the right job.

So, the question arises, what role does HR

exactly plays??

They’re mainly responsible for 2 major roles,

a) Management of Resources

It involves activities like talent

acquisition, employee engagement,

communication, employee compensation

& performance management.

b) Skill Enhancement

This includes training, motivating, define

growth path for employees, career

building & employee welfare schemes.

With Indian telecommunication industry

emerging as one of the major reasons for

resurgence of economic growth, India has

surpassed US to become second largest wireless

network in world. This is due to increasing

competition in telecom sectors, which has made

companies penetrate market in tier-3 cities,

which has not only increased its extension to

rural areas, but also leading to increase in

employment & enhancing financial statements

of companies. From profession point of view,

telecom sector continues to offer new

opportunities as industry expands. This can be

done by practicing Strategic Human Resource

Management. Telecom company needs telecom

engineers, test engineers & software engineers in

large numbers. In recent years, market has

undergone fundamental changes in terms of

technology, recruitment & competition. In this

changing environment, practices like poaching &

raiding are acquiring strength.

Today’s HR Team has to combat with challenges

like Adapting to globalization, prioritizing the

strategies & analyzing the process. With so

much competition prevailing in the market, the

candidates other than salary look into various

aspects like brand, location, job security and

reputation of company which also is to be taken

care by HR Team. It is HR’s role in helping

company to come up with innovative ideas to

meet customer needs by targeting top talent. It

Abhinav Kapadia, MMS Batch 2 & Anjali Dedhia, MMS Batch 1- Prin. L.N.

Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research, Mumbai

Varenya Vikrant

Role of HR in Telecommunication Industry & Telecommunication

Industry in HR

HUMAN RESOURCES

16

helps in making a good local company to great

global brand. It enables the enterprise to provide

complete end to end solutions to corporate

customers and other long-distance services to

carriers. In this fast-moving economy, telecom

companies should be keen for growth, and thus

needs to build an environment within the

organization which is highly competitive and to

form a team of new generation leaders which are

needed to run new landscape and workforce.

They help in providing technical oxygen to

companies, on which business & customers

connect. As sector has undergone changes & is

dynamic in nature, conventional methods no

longer serve the purpose and operational

structure needs constant assessment & thus

making companies always ready for a change.

To build customer empathy, innovative skills are

required that can be done by retaining the right

people, developing leadership skills & recognize

new business model which includes evolving

skills & equipping them with perfect

environment. They don’t just need employees to

be reactive but proactive with further

augmentation of rewards & recognition. As the

pace is high, it is both demanding & stimulating.

Fast moving technology, upsetting to cloud

means advancement in expertise, knack & know-

how of employees & need for flexible employees.

With increasing customer expectations of

service, it needs 24*7 running model. This whole

process requires bringing in right people to

bring in innovation & excellence. Companies are

at their best when its workforce is at their best.

This can be done by providing proper working

conditions, rehabilitation activities and proper

compensation schemes which encourages to

keep employee motivated, committed & fit. By

putting employees first, & including diverse

workforce can reflect with the communities

where they are operating.

Source: Economic Times (2017)

It was predicted that due to latest advancements

in sector, people were at risk of losing their jobs,

as companies were consolidating and optimizing

the staff. Around 50,000 people lost their jobs,

but now it can be said that the worst is over.

However, companies might now turn their focus

on recruiting in fields like big data & artificial

intelligence. Companies need to unveil more

apps on grounds of health, education &

livelihood with a vision to take digital

experience in every corner, which might need

further needs of employees who can develop

such apps and a good marketing team to spread

the knowledge & awareness regarding the same.

Further advancement can be done by practicing

E-HRM which is an application which supports

both networking & supporting. It is crux in

decentralizing HR practices to management &

employees. This empowers employees to focus

less on operating part & more on strategic part.

It helps to improve both efficiency &

effectiveness in HR activities by reducing cost &

making HR part of strategic function of

organization. By implementing such practices,

company can not only improve their

performance but also keep their competitors on

toes. Companies can also launch startup fund to

promote entrepreneurship in digital market by

investing in business with proper Human

Resource planning & allocation.

-----------------------0------------------

17

Internet of Things popularly known as IoT has

been one of the most popular words over the

internet, every business, technology-firm,

equipment manufacturers have been trying to

utilize this IoT boom. In the Internet of Things,

things refer to the sensors, RFID, smart watches,

smartphones which are connected over the

internet, they can interact with each other, store

as well transmit information to the cloud

computing. After the success of 4G now most of

the countries are looking forward to 5G services

which will serve for reliable and faster

downloading speed of around 1GBPS. By 2020

china, US, South Korea is looking forward to

being the first countries to launch 5G services

for commercial purposes. For the success of

Industry 4.0, we need faster 5G services for

connecting IoT with the cloud, big data

analytics, the blockchain, artificial intelligence,

Home automation, and wearable devices are the

top two successful examples of applying IoT to

enhance telecom. Smart homes are a hot topic in

western countries, as a smart home is designed

in such a way that smartphones, alarm clock,

AC, car, lights, etc all are interconnected with

each other

using the power of Telcos. As the alarm rings

over the smartphone’s lights are switched on

with sends a signal to geyser, car to pull up the

right set temperature on their own without

human interference. Smart homes or cities none

can work without telescopes, so we can simply

say that all this have increased the demand for

fast 5G services.

https://electronicsforu.com/wp-

contents/uploads/2017/01/37890956_xxl-1-

696x491.jpg

Talking about connected cars, the first

connected cars were made by General Motors

Working with Motorola Automotive when they

introduced OnStar in 1996. Which became

popular afterword’s as it has the various

advanced feature like infotainment, safety,

navigation, diagnostic efficiency. Tesla now is

conducting a trial for a driver-less car which isn’t

possible without IoT and Telcos, so we can see

that demand for high-bandwidth & faster

internet is going to surge in future. If we take a

look at the changing scenario of business then

Internet of Things and its effect on Telcos

Vaibhav Kumar, PGDM- NITIE Mumbai

GENERAL MANAGEMENT

18

data holds the key for marketing, supply chain,

finance. With the advent of big data analytics,

we need to get the data about the customers,

suppliers, demand, inventory for carrying out

predictive analysis using the software. This data

can be extracted from IoT devices which need

telecommunication services to transmit these

data to the cloud. We have seen that the

demand for data services has been increasing

exponentially over the time for which we need

Telcos infrastructure. IoT has no meaning

without Telcos as it needs Wi-Fi to transmit the

stored data to the cloud for storage and analysis.

Reference: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

One of the IoT data sources includes a

distributed messaging system which allows

Telcos to transfer data between cells, processing

centers, and users. It is essential to process data

close to the source so as to easily transfer them

to data centers. This helps to predict data

congestion in case of some cricket matches near

the stadium and improve customer experiences.

Talking about the latest use of Drones in last-

mile delivery services by Amazon. Customers are

placing the orders over the net, then this order is

processed and stored over cloud using data,

chatbots like Alexa are also utilizing the IoT,

machine learning, Neural networks, Natural

language processing techniques to deliver best

customer-care services to the customer by

reducing manpower. This order is now delivered

by using drones which uses fast internet services

to track the location of the delivery. We can

clearly see that with the advent of smart

technology tools like IoT, blockchain, big data,

market basket analysis the demand for data

services has increased manifolds providing a

good platform for Telcos to expand their

business by pulling more towers, optical fiber

cables helping to grow their business. After

demonetization use of digital money using UPI,

card swap machine, wallets have increased

which has caused a surge in the demand for fast

internet services. Changing usage pattern can be

remotely managed by using IoT by the telecom

companies, which will help them in

understanding the consumer usage pattern for

providing better services, maintenance, and

subscription plans.

Industry 4.0 also known as physical-cyber space

where all the IoT devices and computers will be

connected to each other ultimately making

decisions on the basis of the data analytics, AI

without human involvement. These smart

machines will get smarter as they get access to

more data, helping our businesses to be more

efficient. These connected machines will extract

a large amount of data from the sensors will be

transmitted to cloud storage, big data analytics,

machine learning hence the demand for fast

connectivity will increase alarmingly. Few

experts have suggested keeping 5G exclusively

for industry 4.0

19

Reference:

https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-

images.forbes.com%2Fbernardmarr%2Ffiles%2F2018%2F09%2FAdobeSto

ck_203804824-1200x480.jpg

Telecommunication businesses will be able to

effectively plan and analyse maintenance,

thereby optimizing their services in the area of

poor network coverage, slow downloading

speeds, dropped calls and inordinate service wait

times.

Internet of things is the key for decision making

process for almost all the businesses in the

future. For tapping the benefits of Industry 4.0,

dark warehousing, faster last-mile delivery,

driver-less cars we need to have Telcos

infrastructure to support. Without

telecommunication sector we cannot have

sustainable growth, most of the countries are

focussing on harnessing the benefits of 5G

services. In the world of analytics where SCM,

marketing, finance, HR all are going for data-

driven decision-making, telecom sector can’t be

ignored. IoT data are used by the companies to

understand the needs of the customer based on

which new products, services are developed and

marketed to the customers by using

telemarketing, E-commerce tools.

-----------------------0------------------

20

CALL FOR ARTICLES

We invite articles for the NOVEMBER 2018 Issue of SAMVAD.

The Theme for NOVEMBER month- “Sports” The articles can be from Finance, Marketing, Human Resources, Operations or General Management domains. You may also refer to sub-themes on Dare2Compete. Submission Guidelines: o Word limit: 1000 words or a maximum of 4 pages with relevant images. o Cover page should include your name, institute name, course details & contact no. o The references for the images used in the article should be mentioned clearly and

explicitly below the images. o Send in your article in .doc or .docx format, Font size: 12, Font: Constantia, Line spacing:

1.05’ to samvad.we@gmail.com. Deadline for submission of articles: 30th November, 2018

o Please name your file as: <Your Name>_<title>_<section name e.g. Marketing/Finance> o Subject line: <Your Name>_<Course>_<Year>_<Institute Name> o Ensure that there is no plagiarism and all references are clearly mentioned. o Clearly provide source credit for any images used in the article.

Connect with us: Like our Facebook page: Samvad - WeSchool

Follow us on issuu.com: http://issuu.com/samvad Follow us our twitter handle: @Samvad_We Subscribe our YouTube Channel: Samvad WeSchool

21

.

22

Scan the QR code to watch our interview with our WeChat guest

“Mr. Anand Choudhary”

CHECK OUT OUR PREVIOUS ISSUES: SEPTEMBER 2018- https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/DesignThinking_sept_2018 AUGUST 2018- https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/insurance_aug_2018

JULY 2018- https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/technology_july_2018

JUNE 2018-https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/june_2018

MAY 2018- https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/may_2018_analytics

APRIL 2018-https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/april_2018_fashion

MARCH 2018- https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/march_2018_updated

FEB 2018- https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/1530984129145_feb__final

JANUARY 2018- https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/january_2018_final

DECEMBER 2017 - https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/december_2017_farming

23

NOVEMBER 2017- https://issuu.com/samvadwelingkar/docs/november_2017_adventure_tourism

“The road to success

& failure are almost

exactly the same.”

-Colin R. Davis

Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/XK7thML3zEQ SAMVAD is the Student Magazine of Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, Mumbai.

SAMVAD does not take responsibility for any kind of plagiarism in the articles submitted by the students. Images used are subject to copyright.