A

Project Report
ON

“BRAND POSITIONING AND BRAND

PERCEPTION OF AIRTEL”

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT FOR

THE AWARD OF THE
DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

Dr. Amit Gupta
Project Co-ordinator
SUBMITTED BY:
VIPUL
Batch BBA III (A)
Enrollment No

MAHARAJA AGRASEN INSTITUTE OF

MANAGEMENT STUDIES
Affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi
PSP Area, Plot No. 1, Sector 22, Rohini Delhi 110086

1
,

STUDENT UNDERTAKING
This is to certify that I have completed the Project titled “BRAND POSITIONING
AND BRAND PERCEPTION OF AIRTAL” under the guidance of “MR. AMIT
GUPTA” in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree of Bachelor of
Business Administration at Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Management Studies, Delhi.
This is an original piece of work & I have not submitted it earlier elsewhere.

VIPUL
Name of the Student

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I VIPUL thank in particular MR. AMIT GUPTA for assigning me this project and
encouraging us to write in the first place.
I am indebted to all those who have been helpful throughout the process of writing this
Report and helping us by giving their valuable suggestions but as the cliché goes, I am
solely responsible for any remaining errors of fact or judgement. Once again we thank
everyone who helped us in our project.

Vipul
Name of the Student

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The project included a thorough market analysis for this particular assignment. The
markets so covered were in North and south Delhi cluster. Initially we analyzed the
market category and then accordingly segmented it to do a proper study of the entire
competition prevailing in the market.
Later we in a team also got involved in knowing the brand positioning and perception of
Airtel with its competitors to interact and deal with customers. This also helped us in
getting the knowledge of the various tariff plans and promotional offers.
The Airtel is by and large a very important market, as still majority of the customer use
its services.
But our survey showed that Airtel is getting tough competition from Vodafone followed
by Reliance, Tata and Idea respectively: especially when the price-war started between
the players: the rates have been so slashed that every player is trying hard to capture the
major portion of the market.

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 Table of CONTENTS

Student declaration…………………………………………………………...i

Certificate fromGuide…………………………………………………..…...ii

Acknowledgement………………….……………………………..…..……iii

ExecutiveSummary……………………………………...……………….....iv

Page no.

CHAPTER-1
Introduction

CHAPTER -2
Company Profile / About the Organization

CHAPTER -3
Research Methodology

CHAPTER -4
Projects & Services

CHAPTER -5
Conclusion, Findings and Suggestions

Bibliography vi

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CHAPTER – 1

INTRODUCTION

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 INTRODUCTION

BRAND POSITIONING AND BRAND PERCEPTION

“The object of positioning a brand is to cause people to feel that there is no

completely satisfactory substitute for the brand.”

1.1 BRAND POSTIONING

To position a brand requires that you make choices. Having a position means that the
brand will appeal to some people and not others. A brand can be positioned in several
ways: offering a specific benefit, targeting a specific segment, price, or distribution.

Positioning can be defined as follows:

Positioning is how a product appears in relation to other products in the market.

Not every product has unique truths or truths that are very different from competition.

Brands can be positioned against competing brands on a perceptual map.

A perceptual map defines the market in terms of the way buyers perceive key
characteristics of competing products.

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The basic perceptual map that buyers use maps products in terms of their price and
quality, as illustrated below:

BRAND POSTIONING PROCESS

Generally, the brand positioning process involves:

1. Defining the market in which the brand will compete (who the relevant buyers
are) .
2. Identifying the attributes (also called dimensions) that define the brand’s 'space'
3. Collecting information from a sample of customers about their perceptions of
each brand’s on the relevant attributes
4. Determine each brand’s share of mind
5. Determine each brand’s current location in the brand space
6. Determine the target market's preferred combination of attributes (referred to as
an ideal vector)
7. Examine the fit between:
o The position of your brand
o The position of the ideal vector
8. Position.

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MEASURING THE BRAND POSITIONING

Positioning is facilitated by a graphical technique called perceptual mapping, various

survey techniques, and statistical techniques like multi dimensional scaling, factor
analysis, conjoint analysis, and logit analysis.

IMPORTANCE OF BRAND POSTIONING

 The brand stands for something important to the customer

 Its values align with the customer’s values
 It reinforces the customer’s self image or how the customer aspires to be
perceived
 It can serve as a ‘badge’ or other form of self-expression
 It possesses admirable qualities
 It provides unique or superior customer service
 It delivers a unique product purchase or usage experience
 It is entertaining
 It delivers superior performance
 It is venerated, has heritage (continuity, trustworthy leader, since)
 It is the technology leader
 It has noble aims/values
 It tells an engaging story about itself
 It was first -- a pioneer -- in its market

1.2BRAND PERCECPTION

 The act of perceiving or the ability to perceive; mental grasp of brand by means of
the senses; awareness; comprehension, insight or intuition and qualities.

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  The understanding, knowledge, etc. gotten by perceiving, or a specific idea,
concept, impression, etc. so formed about brand.

 It refers to how the brain organizes and interprets sensory information about
brand.

Brand Perception is a creation of the brain that goes beyond the input of sense organs.
Sense organs detect changes in the environment, and transmit the information as nerve
impulses or action potentials.

Perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory

information.

The term perception may be used generally for mental apprehension, but in philosophy it
is now normally restricted to sense perception—to the discovery, by means of the senses,
of the existence and properties of the external world. Philosophers have been concerned
with the analysis of perception—that is, the study of its nature and of the processes
involved in it—and with its epistemological value—that is, how far, if at all, it can be
regarded as a source of knowledge about the world. Their answers to these closely
interrelated questions have been formulated in various theories: the commonsense theory
and other kinds of direct realism, the representative or causal theory, critical realism, the
sense-datum theory, and phenomenalism. This entry will be devoted to the main features
of perception that underlie the various theories and that have raised philosophical
problems and controversy. It will discuss both the initial evidence that may be analyzed
without recourse to scientific findings and the causal and psychological process revealed
by scientific investigation.

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1.3 OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
THE OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT ARE AS FOLLOWS ;

1) Study the brand positioning and perception of Airtel.

2) Do a comparative analysis with other company.
3) What are the various strategies being adopted for it.
4) Recognize factors that influence the customer to stick with their
network.
5) Providing major features that are needed by every customer.
6) How they are providing efficiency of after sales service by their
network.
7) Considering factors that help in increasing their sales.

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 CHAPTER – 2
COMPANY’S PROFILE

2.1

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Company Snapshot
Telecom giant Bharti Airtel is the flagship company of Bharti Enterprises. The Bharti
Group, has a diverse business portfolio and has created global brands in the
telecommunication sector. Bharti has recently forayed into retail business as Bharti Retail
Pvt. Ltd. under a MoU with Wal-Mart for the cash & carry business. It has successfully
launched an international venture with EL Rothschild Group to export fresh agri products
exclusively to markets in Europe and USA and has launched Bharti AXA Life Insurance
Company Ltd under a joint venture with AXA, world leader in financial protection and
wealth management.

Airtel comes to you from Bharti Airtel Limited; Bharti Airtel is one of the leading
alternative providers of telecommunications services in India and the first private telecom
services provider with a footprint in all the 23 telecom circles. Bharti Airtel since its
inception has been at the forefront of technology and has steered the course of the
telecom sector in the country with its world class products and services. The businesses at
Bharti Airtel have been structured into three individual strategic business units (SBU’s) -
Mobile Services, Airtel Telemedia Services & Enterprise Services. The mobile business
provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom
circles while the Airtel Telemedia Services business offers broadband & telephone
services in 94 cities. The Enterprise services provide end-to-end telecom solutions to
corporate customers and national & international long distance services to carriers. All
these services are provided under the Airtel brand.

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The enterprise services group includes units for both long-distance carriers and for
corporate clients. Bharti Airtel has nearly 29 million total customers -- approximately
more than 27 million GSM mobile and 1.6 million fixed-line customers.

The company was founded as Bharti Tele-Ventures in 1995 and

changed its name in early 2006 to Bharti Airtel Limited. It is a unit
of Indian conglomerate Bharti Enterprises)

Sunil Bharti Mittal (Chairman and Group Managing Director)

This highly innovative company created telecom history when it farmed out its network
management to experts Nokia and Ericsson, and set a trend in the global cellular
industry. Last year, Vodafone gave the company a vote of confidence by acquiring
10% mostly from early Bharti investor Warburg Pincus. This year, Bharti will offer
its second overseas services after the Seychelles. It acquired a license for tax haven
Jersey, in the Channel Islands, and is looking for more. It also plans to spend $2
billion this year to double the size of its network and cover 50% of India's
population, up from 40% currently. )

Business Divisions

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Bharti Airtel offers GSM mobile services in all the 23-telecom circles of India and is the
largest mobile service provider in the country, based on the number of customers.

The group focuses on delivering telecommunications services as an integrated offering

including mobile, broadband & telephone, national and international long distance and
data connectivity services to corporate, small and medium scale enterprises.

The group offers high speed broadband internet with a best in class network. With
Landline services in 94 cities we help you stay in touch with your friends & family and
the world.

The Company compliments its mobile and broadband & telephone services with national
and international long distance services. It has over 35,016 route kilometers of optic fibre
on its national long distance network. For international connectivity to east, it has a
submarine cable landing station at. For international connectivity to the west, the

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Company is a member of the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe – 4 (SEA-
ME-WE-4) consortiums along with 15 other global telecom operators.

Marketing strategies

Bharti decided to design different marketing strategies for different circles depending
on the strategies, employed by the competitors. While the company was focusing on its
pricing strategies, its competitors in various sectors were concentrated on new service
offerings and value additions (For instance, in the Chennai circle, the cellular war
between RPG Group, Bharti and Hutch was more value and service driven). Since the
players almost immediately matched price reduction moves, companies had begun
focussing on developing value-added offerings and schemes to expand their market and
gain customer loyalty. Analysts remarked that the players were coming up with new
schemes or value-additions almost every week to get the better of their competitors.

By constantly keeping itself abreast with the moves of its competitors and launching
various proactive/reactive schemes, Bharti was able to retain its leadership position.
Despite continual attacks from Hutch, Relaince, Spice, Idea Cellular and BPL, Bharti’s
cellular services received good high response in all circles during 2005. It was reported
that in Mumbai, 60-75% of customers seeking Airtel services were BPL Mobile and
Hutch subscribers. In fact, it was becoming difficult for the company to activate cellular
connections in Mumbai swiftly on account of the high rush – in some cases; it took
almost three days to activate a connection.

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 2.2COMPETITOR’S PROFILE

Vodafone Essar

Vodafone Essar, previously Hutchison Essar is a cellular operator in India that covers
16 telecom circles in India . Despite the official name being Vodafone Essar, its products
are simply branded Vodafone. It offers both prepaid and postpaid GSM cellular phone
coverage throughout India and is especially strong in the major metros.

Vodafone Essar provides 2G services based on 900Mhz and 1800Mhz digital GSM
technology, offering voice and data services in 16 of the country's 23 licence areas.

Growth of the company as Hutchison Essar

In 1992 Hutchison Whampoa and its Indian business partner established a company that
in 1994 was awarded a licence to provide mobile telecommunications services in
Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and launched commercial service as Hutchison Max in
November 1995. Analjit Singh of Max still holds 12% in company.

By the time of Hutchison Telecom's Initial Public Offering in 2004, Hutchison Whampoa
had acquired interests in six mobile telecommunications operators providing service in 13

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of India's 23 licence areas and following the completion of the acquisition of BPL that
number increased to 16. In 2006, it announced the acquisition of a company that held
licence applications for the seven remaining licence areas.

In a country growing as fast as India, a strategic and well managed business plan is
critical to success. Initially, the company grew its business in the largest wireless markets
in India - in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. In these densely populated urban
areas it was able to establish a robust network, well known brand and large distribution
network -all vital to long-term success in India. Then it also targeted business users and
high-end post-paid customers which helped Hutchison Essar to consistently generate a
higher Average Revenue Per User ("ARPU") than its competitors. By adopting this
focused growth plan, it was able to establish leading positions in India's largest markets
providing the resources to expand its footprint nationwide.

In February 2007, Hutchison Telecom announced that it had entered into a binding
agreement with a subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc to sell its 67% direct and indirect
equity and loan interests in Hutchison Essar Limited for a total cash consideration (before
costs, expenses and interests) of approximately US$11.1 billion or HK$87 billion.

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 IDEA

Company Information

Idea Cellular is a wireless telephony company operating in various states in India. It

initially started in 1995 as a join venture between the Tatas, Aditya Birla Group and
AT&T by merging Tata Cellular and Birla AT&T Communications.

Initially having a very limited footprint in the GSM arena, the acquisition of Escotel in
2004 gave Idea a truly pan-India presence covering Maharashtra (excluding Mumbai),
Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh (East and
West), Haryana, Kerala, Rajasthan and Delhi (inclusive of NCR).

The company has its retail outlets under the "Idea n' U" banner. The company has also
been the first to offer flexible tarrif plans for prepaid customers. It also offers GPRS
services in urban areas.

Presently, operations exist in 11 Service Areas covering Delhi, Maharashtra, Goa,

Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttaranchal, Haryana, UP-West,
Himachal Pradesh, UP-East, Rajasthan and Kerala. With a customer base of over 23
million, IDEA Cellular's footprint currently covers approximately 60% of India's telecom
population.

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A frontrunner in introducing revolutionary tariff plans; IDEA Cellular has the distinction
of offering the most customer friendly and competitive Pre Paid offerings, for the first
time in India in an increasingly segmented market
Customer Service and Innovation are the drivers of this Cellular Brand. A brand known
for their many firsts, Idea is only operator to launch GPRS and EDGE in the country.
Idea has received international recognition for its path-breaking innovations when it won
the GSM Association Award for "Best Billing and Customer Care Solution" for 2
consecutive years.
IDEA Cellular is part of the Aditya Birla Group, a US$ 24 billion corporation with a
market cap of US$ 31.5 billion and in the league of Fortune 500. Anchored by an
extraordinary force of over 100,000 employees belonging to 25 different nationalities,
over 50% of its revenues flow from its overseas operations.
With ambitious future plans, the company is poised for rapid growth across the whole
country.

Brand Information

The Brand Idea: It is almost impossible to disintegrate brand Idea from the corporate
Idea. Brand values are the company values and vise versa.

The Brand Vision: It goes without saying that the brand vision of idea mirrors the
company’s vision. The brand mission statement is... To be the most customer-focused
mobile service brand, continuously innovating to help liberate our customers from the
shackles of time & space.

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 Reliance Communications

Reliance Communications (formerly Reliance Infocomm), along with Reliance Telecom

and Flag Telecom, is part of Reliance Communications Ventures (RCoVL). According to
National Stock Exchange data, Anil Ambani controls 66.75 per cent of the company,
which accounts for more than 1.36 billion shares of the company. Reliance Infocomm is
an Indian telecommunications company. It is the flagship company of the Reliance-Anil
Dhirubhai Ambani Group, comprising of power (Reliance Energy), financial services
(Reliance Capital) and telecom initiatives of the Reliance ADA Group. Reliance
Infocomm is currently managed by Anil Dhirubhai Ambani.It uses CDMA2000 1x
technology.

Company Profile

On November 15th 1999, Reliance infocomm begins its project planning. The founder of
RELIANCE INFOCOMM, Dhirubhai Ambani dream was “Make a phone call cheaper
than a postcard and you will usher in a revolutionary transformation in the lives of
millions of Indians”. In 2000, optic fibre laying process commences in Gujarat, Andhra
Pradesh and Maharashtra. In 2001, first media convergence Node made “Ready for
Electronics” at Jaipur. In 2002, first Base Transceiver Station (BTS) made “Ready for
Electronics”. Then in same year company obtains International Long Distance License
from Govt. of India. After that they establish 1st point of Interconnect in New Delhi and
on December 27, Honorable Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee inaugurates
RELIANCE INFOCOMM. Then year 2003 starts which was the most successful year for
Reliance Communications.

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Strategic Business Units

The business of Reliance Communications is organized into three strategic customer

facing business units: Wireless, Global, and Broadband. In addition, one of the wholly
owned subsidiaries of Reliance Communications is engaged in the marketing and
distribution of wireless handsets. Their strategic business units are supported by our fully
integrated, state-of-the-art network and operations platform and by the largest retail
distribution and customer service facilities of any communications service provider in
India.

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 Tata Teleservices

Company profile

Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) is part of the Tata Group of Companies, an Indian
Conglomerate. It runs the brand name Tata Indicom in India in various telecom circles of
India. The company forms part of the Tata Group's presence in the Telecommunication
Industry in India.

TTSL was incorporated in 1995 and was the first company to offer CDMA Mobile
services in India, specifically in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Tata is the direct competitor with other operators in India. The company provides unified
telecommunication solutions including mobile, fixed wireless, fixed line and broadband.
Other competitors like Vodafone, Airtel, Aircel, Idea, MTNL, and BSNL providing GSM
based mobile telephony.

The company was first in India to provide free intra network calling within city limits.
They launched a unique scheme providing lifetime rental free connectivity on its mobile
and fixed wireless for a one-time charge.

The Tata Group's commitment to building a substantial presence in India's telecom

industry has seen it play a leading role in the development of the country's

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communications infrastructure. The telecom services of the Group are offered under the
brand name Tata Indicom, and cover all segments, from retail and enterprise to wholesale
and international. The objective is to make Tata Indicom the preferred
telecommunications choice of customers across the country.

The Tata Indicom Enterprise Business Unit (TIEBU) is the central, specialized enterprise
sales and marketing unit for the Tata Group's telecom initiatives. The unit is the
benchmark telecom player in the enterprise space and was formed with a view to
providing customized, end-to-end voice and data solutions to customers across India. It
delivers cost-effective, integrated solutions that are designed to fulfill the most complex
communication needs.

Tata Indicom offers you a range of products and services like Wireless Internet, Wireless
USB Modem and Mobile Phones so you are always connected.

Landline Phones Net Telephony Internet & Broadband It has partnered with Motorola,
Ericsson, Lucent and ECI Telecom for the deployment of a reliable, technologically
advanced network. The company, which heralded convergence technologies in the Indian
telecom sector, is today the market leader in the fixed wireless telephony market with a
total customer base of over 3.8 million.

Tata Teleservices’ bouquet of telephony services includes Mobile services, Wireless

Desktop Phones, Public Booth Telephony and Wireline services. Other services include
value added services like voice portal, roaming, post-paid Internet services, 3-way
conferencing, group calling, Wi-Fi Internet, USB Modem, data cards, calling card
services and enterprise services. Some of the other products launched by the company
include prepaid wireless desktop phones, public phone booths, new mobile handsets and
new voice & data services such as

BREW games, Voice Portal, picture messaging, polyphonic ring tones, interactive
applications like news, cricket, astrology, etc.

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 CHAPTER – 3
RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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As the area of specialization is Marketing, So the study of the hotel is carried out from
the Strategic Marketing point of view and analysis of the gathered data is done in the
light of academic knowledge secured from the Institute. After getting relevant
information the findings have been analyzed and compiled, which highlights the area
undertaken in the Research of the Hotel for the last five years.
The Data hunting for the Project was conducted in various logical and systematic steps

to obtain maximum information on this context keeping the objective in the mind.

Broadly speaking the data was collected from two sources-

Data concerning Brand positioning and Brand perception is of the following companies:

Airtel
 Vodafone
 Idea
 Reliance
 Tata Indicom
The methodology followed for carrying out this study can be broken into following sub-
headings:
SAMPLE DESIGN: -
Random sample design was adopted; the customers were selected randomly on the basis
of convenience.
SAMPLE SIZE: -
The total sample size of 80 from various areas was taken.

DATA COLLECTION METHOD

PRIMARY DATA: - A questionnaire was developed to be used as a checklist.. It was

ensured that each respondent should be given equal importance. The questionnaire
consists of closed ended as well as open-ended questions.
SECONDARY DATA: -

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The secondary data collected from the different sources: -
Airtel website
Journals
Magazines
Company Brochures
Other Companies websites

SAMPLING TECHNIQUES

Data is analyzed and interpreted using statistical method or tools like bars, charts, and
different kinds of pie charts.

In this research; data has been collected through QUESTIONNAIRES.

The main purpose of using this type of method for collection of data is the fact that:-

1. It is free from the bias of the interviewer; answers are in respondents' own
words.
2. Large samples can be made use of and thus results can be made more
dependable and reliable.

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CHAPTER – 4
PRODUCT AND
SERVICES

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 AIRTEL BRAND POSTIONING
Creating a Winning Brand Promise

The goal of Airtel brand positioning exercise is to develop a brand promise that is unique,
compelling and believable. AIRTEL brand positioning evaluates all potential brand
promises against these three criteria – unique, compelling and believable. The
winning promise is delivered against all three criteria or it won’t work. The only
way to assess this is to measure each of these for Airtel brand promise option with
each key target audience.

Capture the Mind. Win the Day.

Remember the Mind Is a Memory Bank To better understand what an advertiser is up

against, it may be helpful to take a closer look at the objective of all advertising
programs- the human mind.

Like a memory bank, the mind has a slot or "position" for each bit of information it
has chosen to retain. In operation, the mind is a lot like a computer.

But there is one important difference. A computer has to accept what is put into it. The
mind does not. Infact, it’s quite the opposite.

The mind, as a defense mechanism against the volume of today's communications,

screens and rejects much of the information offered it. In general, the mind accepts
only that new information which matches its prior knowledge or experience. It
filters out everything else.

Choose Your Words Carefully

We had a depressingly familiar experience last week. A brand manager took us through
their fresh brand strategy, and it was terrible. It was, like most brand positioning,

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pointless. About eight out of every 10-brand strategies have no impact whatsoever on
brand equity. And this was going to be another addition to that big book of
pointless branding for two reasons.

First, there were too many words in the positioning statement. Three concentric circles
confronted us. The central red circle was called the brand essence. In the middle
was a blue circle called brand personality. And then around the edge was a circle in
yellow, called brand identity.

I have never seen a great brand positioning strategy that needed more than three words to
define the brand. Any more than that and the probability of achieving any kind of
impact on the market turn almost immediately to zero.

The Brand Positioning Workshop

The Brand Positioning Workshop by Airtel is designed to gain complete consensus

among organization’s management team and marketing leadership on the brand’s
target customers, essence, promise and personality.

They work with you to develop their brand’s position in its current marketplaces, while
designing flexibility for its future growth. This includes identifying, analyzing and
selecting the brand’s target audiences, competitive frame of reference and key
customer benefits (functional, emotional, experiential and self-expressive). The
workshop focuses on developing the brand’s essence, promise and personality.
They also ensure that their brand has chosen the most powerful benefits to own and
that it has developed the proof points and “reasons to believe” for those benefits.

We believe that the primary brand benefit should deliver against these objectives:

• The benefit is extremely important to your target audience(s).

• Your organization has unique, sustainable competencies (and strategic intent) in
delivering against the benefit.

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 • Your competitors are not delivering against the benefit (nor would it be easy for
them to do so in the future).
• Any benefit chosen must be unique, compelling, motivating, understandable and
believable.

Understanding the Competition

When a company positions its brand in a customer’s mind, it is positioning that brand
against other brands. It is critical to understand the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of each of those competitors along with the industry
structure itself. (In fact, wise organizations dedicate a person to understanding the
competition.)

This knowledge about your competition is necessary because you want to uniquely
“own” an important benefit in your customer’s mind. Ideally, this benefit is one,
your competitors have not addressed and cannot easily address in the future. Better
yet, the benefit you “own” should be one that takes advantage of your competitors’.

 The Technology Advantage

Tomorrow's technology to enrich today.

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SEVEN BASIC FEATURES OF AIRTEL THAT MAKES IT
SUPERIOR THAN OTHER PLAYERS
Technology

Bharti tele-communications provides and amongst the top technologies in the world. In
ranking of top 100 global technology companies, Bharti has made its maiden appearance
at a very impressive 19th position. At the 19th position, Bharti features ahead of global
companies like Microsoft, Ericsson, Motorola, Verizon, France Telecom, IBM, Intel,
Cisco and Qualcomm. It provides the largest GSM network

Clarity

A position should be easy to communicate and quick to comprehend. Difficulty in either

suggests that a position is too fuzzy to be of value to the brand. Airtel provides clarity and
an undisrupted voice or network connection everywhere.

Distinctiveness

People have few needs that are unfulfilled, and they have many choices to fill the needs
they have. If a brand’s position lacks distinctiveness it will be forced to compete on the
bases of price or promotion; expensive strategies that will not build brand equity in the
long term. Airtel is distinct in its services, clarity, network and efficiency.

Coherence

Airtel needed to deploy a cohesive and coordinated approach to operating its systems.
Speak with one voice through all the elements of the marketing mix if one wish to create
a strong position. If, for example, a brand that is positioned as premium quality and price
appears to be low, its quality image will suffer. And thus meeting all such requirements is
Airtel’s primary objective.

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Commitment

Often people will get nervous when a strong position threatens to ignore or even alienate
some segment of the population as a price of clearly communicating to the desired target.
Once a position is adopted, it takes commitment to see it through, in the face of criticism
and pot shots. Airtel is committed to its customers and keep on looking after their tele-
communications needs.

Services

Airtel brings you a host of exciting features ranging from facilities like online tests, in
touch and Video Surveillance Solutions to trouble shooting devices like, Net Expert and
Web Jockey. Airtel’s provides the best broadband services of high speed and
performance to its consumers.

Coverage

It goes without saying that adopting a strong brand position requires coverage. It is much
easier to defend an appeal to everyone with a rather generic sales pitch. You must believe
that the position makes strategic sense for the brand and then stick to your guns. Airtel
covers 94 cities in India.

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LIMITATIONS

1) A small sample size of 100 customers was considered due to time and resource
constraints.

2) The scope of the project is limited to the Delhi only. So, we

cannot say that the same response will exist throughout India.

3) Some of the customers were not co-operative in giving correct

information even if they were aware of various features and
schemes of Airtel.

4) Human error during recording, tabulation and printing error

could be present.

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 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

QUEST 1: Which connection you are currently using?

2%
16%
32%

12%

14%
24%

AIRTEL VODAFONE IDEA

TATA RELIANCE OTHERS

Out of our sample size 32% of the population is using Bharti Airtel, which is the highest
percentage among other competitors and the remaining 68% of the population is using
Vodafone, Rliance, Iea, tata and others.

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QUEST 2: out of the scale of 10, how much scale do you give to easy recharge process of
your operator?

9.5
10
9 8
8
7 6 6
6
5 4
4 3
3
2
1
0

S
E
L

TA
A

C
TE

R
E

N
FO

E
TA
ID
IR

H
LI
A

T
A

O
D

E
O

R
V

Series1

The users of Bharti Airtel rated the easy recharge process, 9.5 out of 10, which is the
highest scaling given among all other operators, followed by Vodafone, 8. Idea and
Reliance have been scaled same i.e 6, and tata is rated 4.

36
QUEST 3: On what basis, you choose your operator?

1% 15%
10%

4%
70%

ECONOMICAL PROMOTIONAL
VALIDITY OPTIONS NETWORK COVERAGE
OTHERS

70% of the sample population gives the first preference to the network coverage while
choosing the operator, an insignificant portion gives weightage to the economical issues,
10% goes by the promotional offers and only 4 % of the population says validity is the
main criteria.

37
QUETS 4: out of the scale of 10, rate the network coverage of the following operators.

10

The 2

0
AIRTE VODA RELIA OTHE
IDEA TATA
L FONE NCE RS
Series1 9.5 8 4 4 5 3

Series1

network coverage of Bharti Airtel has been rated the highest i.e the average 9.5, followed
by Vodafone with an average of 8.

QUEST 7: Is your operator introduces promotional offers/schemes

frequently? If yes mention any two.

38
 3
15

82

YES NO CAN'TSAY

surprising 82% of the population says yes that their respective operators
introduces schemes frequently whereas 15% of the customers says no to it
while the rest 3 % can’t say about the promotional offers.

QUEST 8: which operator would you prefer (except yours)?

39
 0

S
R
OPERATORS

E
10

H
E
LI OT
C
N
5

A
A
Series1

N E AT
R 10

T
E A
O ID 20

55
F
A

L
D

E
O

T
IR
V

0 20 40 60
A

NO. OF PEOPLE

55% of customers want to go with Bharti Airtel, 20% prefers Vodafone, Idea
is preferred by 10% of the sample selected, 10% wants to prefer M.T.N.L.
and 5% wants to prefer Tata.

40
QUEST 9: do you give preference to advertisement for choosing your
operator?

40
35
40 30
25
NO. OF
20
PEOPLE
15 Series1
10
5
0
YES NO CAN'T
SAY

people out of the population of 100 customers says that they give preference
to the advertisements, for 25 customers advertisement does not play a major
role, rest 35 can’t say.

41
QUEST 10: out of the scale of 10, how much score do you give to customer care
support of your operator?

2
8 AIRTEL
6
VODAFONE
IDEA
The TATA
5 RELIANCE
7
OTHERS
6

customers of Airtel have rated the highest of 8 in terms of customer care

support, next leader in this is the Vodafone and have been rated an average 8
marks, idea and reliance have been rated the same 6 and Tata following the
leaders after securing 5.

Quest. 11 what do you think about the Airtel’s advertisements?

42
 7%3%

25%

65%

excellent good average poor

43
CHAPTER – 5

CONCLUSION,

FINDINGS AND

SUGGESTIONS

CONCLUSION

44
In our view, AirTel has the most recognizable brand in the Indian operator space, with
30.8% of our respondents able to identify it as a mobile brand unaided. While this is
lower than many of its competitors, examination of the various brand strength indicators
shows AirTel has a much stronger brand than its competitors do. Of respondents, 27.4%
identified AirTel with “cool”, 26% with “creative”, and 22% with “technically
advanced”. Only 8.6% of respondents identified AirTel with “cheap”. These are solid
brand equity numbers, which Bharti can continue to capitalize on as it competes in an
increasingly crowded space. It has increased its market share from 20.5% to 21.5% of the
market. Driving some of this growth are experiences of AirTel customers. Some of our
other research suggests AirTel customers are quite satisfied with almost all aspects of
Bharti’s offering.

FINDINGS

45
Following are our few findings during the project tenure:-

 Airtel enjoys high market share with improved customer satisfaction

front.
 Many people have an image about airtel that they have some hidden
cost and have confusing plans.
 Airtel faces major competition in the field Vodafone, Idea and trusted
brand Reliance.
 Airtel in comparison to its competitive brands has a good market
image but due to some server problem has let it down.
 From the data collected Bharti Airtel is given preference by customer
because of the network connectivity.
 Airtel advertisements are more attractive
There are many more findings, which would be discussed later in the report.

RECOMMENDATIONS

46
 Airtel should focus on the server down problem. So as to enable its customer a
smooth and uninterrupted services such that free flow of services.

 Airtel should also focus on improving its IMAGE in the fast paced market
competition.

 Aitrel should focus on more PROMOTION tactics to increase its brand

perception. They should display proper advertisement boards, hoardings, in order
to increase the image of the company in the minds of the consumer.

 It should display hoardings at the places where the footfall is high like metros, bus
stands mall etc.

 Airtel should better up with their network and connectivity problems so as to

maintain their hold in the market, as it is a service not a product.

 The tariff plans should not be complex, but should be very easy to explain to the
customer by the FOS (feet on street). The FOS should have proper knowledge e
about the schemes provided by the company so that they can convey the right
message to the customer base politely.

 Airtel should make a different cell for customer satisfaction, where in the people
so employed can personally look after their complaints, rather than waitin for the
channel member to do the same.

 It should have a proper complaint BOXES, at their respective outlet where they
can focus on customer demands and needs.

47
  The company should assure of proper supply of recharge vouchers cards to its
distribution networks, so that they can provide it to the customers on time.

 Airtel should also be tough on their LBA”S (Local Business Associates) if they
are not providing proper results, as they do have a tendency of taking things for
granted some times.

Hence working on above-mentioned recommendations can help airtel to gain more

market share and further strengthen their hold on positioning in the minds of the
customers. Last but not the least; Airtel is a major player in the market as they are
providing lucrative schemes with excellent margins.

48
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Newspaper

 Times of India
 Hindustan times
 the Hindu

2. Magazines

 Business world
 India today

3. Web sites

 www.google.com
 www.indiatimes.com
 www.airtel.com
 www.mp3download.com

49
 QUESTIONNAIRE
Customer's Name: …………………………………………………….
Address: ……………………………………………………………….
Phone No: ………………………………………………………….

1. Which Connection you are currently using? Give reason for choosing this
connection?

AIRTEL VODAFONE IDEA TATA RELIANCE OTHERS

• ………………………………………………………
• ……………………………………………………….

2. Out of scale of 10, how much scale do you give to easy recharge process of
your operator?

AIRTEL VODAFONE IDEA TATA RELIANCE OTHERS

3. On what basis, you choose your operator?

a) Economical
b) Promotional Offers
c) Validity Options
d) Network Coverage
e) Others please specify...........................................................

4. Out of scale of 10, rate the network coverage of the following operators?

AIRTEL VODAFONE IDEA TATA RELIANCE OTHERS

50
 5. Is your operator introduces promotional offers/schemes frequently? If yes, write
any two?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Can't say
• ……………………………………………………………..
• ……………………………………………………………..

6. Which operator would you prefer except yours?

AIRTEL VODAFONE IDEA TATA RELIANCE OTHERS

7. Do you give preference to advertisement for choosing your operator?

a) Yes
b) No
c) Cant say

8. Out of scale of 10, how much score do you give to Customer Care Support of
your operator?

AIRTEL VODAFONE IDEA TATA RELIANCE OTHERS

9. If you are given a chance of changing your operator to Airtel, then will you
agree to it?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Can’t say

10. Are you satisfied with your current operator?

a) Strongly satisfied
b) Somewhat satisfied
c) Moderate
d) Somewhat dissatisfied
e) Strongly dissatisfied

11. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the
following?
a) Connection/Operator ……………………………
b) Network Coverage ……………………………
c) Scheme ……………………………
d) Economical ……………………………
e) Best Advertisement ……………………………

51