Bharti announces strategic roadmap for mobile service leadership

Bharti Enterprises has announced its strategic roadmap for providing mobile

services across India. This is consequent to its successful bids for the 4th

cellular license in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, UP (West), Madhya

Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Bharti Enterprises also announced an initial outlay of Rs 1,500 crore in the

new mobile circles including upgradation of networks in the recently acquired

Kolkata circle.

It also announced that its mobile operations would be restructured into one

major region in the west and five hubs for greater regional and operational

synergies.

The creation of a major region in the west as against hubs across India

underlines Bharti’s strategic thrust to the western region. The region and

hubs have been created for synergy management and operational needs. This

restructuring will hence ensure that key decision making decentralized to the

head of the region and hub to ensure greater customer focus. Thus resulting in

management of larger business areas with greater operational efficiencies and

flexibility.

It also announced the first step towards creating large homogeneous regions

was taken with the formation of the western region, which would comprise the

four new mobile circles--Mumbai, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.


The company has announced that Sanjay Kapoor, CEO of Bharti’s mobile operation

in Delhi would take over as Executive Director of the Western Region with its

head quarter at Mumbai.

The CEO heading both Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh will be announced shortly.

Atul Jhamb has been appointed COO of the Mumbai Circle. IP Bajaj has been

appointed COO of the Maharashtra Circle. VK Bhalla has been appointed COO of the

Madhya Pradesh circle and would report to the CEO of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

It also announced its plans for the rest of the circles which has been

clustered into ‘Hubs of Business Excellence’.

The Delhi ‘Hub of Business Excellence’ would comprise the existing Delhi

mobile service and one new mobile circle of UP West. The company announced that

SS Dhillon would take over as the CEO of the Delhi hub. Kanwal Sachar has been

appointed COO of the UP-West circle

The Chennai ‘Hub of Business Excellence' would comprise the Chennai metro

area and the newly acquired licencee for Tamil Nadu and Kerala. PH Rao, who is

currently the head of SkyCell in Chennai will take over as CEO for the Chennai

hub. Vinod Sud has been appointed COO of the Kerala circle.

The Bangalore ‘Hub of Business Excellence’ would comprise the existing

mobile services of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Jagdish Kini, who is currently

CEO of Bharti’s mobile operation in Karnataka will take over as CEO of the

Bangalore hub. Pawan Kapur has been appointed Chief Executive of the Andhra

Pradesh circle.

The Chandigarh ‘Hub of Business Excellence’ would comprise the Himachal

Pradesh, Haryana and eventually the Punjab circle. IB Mehra, who was earlier the

CEO of Bharti’s mobile operation in Andhra Pradesh will take over as CEO of

the Chandigarh hub.

The Kolkata circle would be headed by Deepak Gulati, who was earlier the COO

of Bharti’s Karnataka mobile operation. He will now take over as Chief

Executive of Bharti’s Kolkata operation. The new Executive Director of the

western region and all the other CEO’s will continue to report to Anil Nayar,

President, Mobility group.

And all set to enter strategically as third operator in Gujarat

March next year will usher in new roles for the cell phone users in Gujarat.

The role of making a choice to select their cell phone operator with parameters

in pricing, reach, quality and service as Bharti Enterprises is all set to enter

the Gujarat market from 2002, March. Announcing this, Sunil Mittal, GMD, Bharti

Enterprises said that unlike the existing operators, he would go in with

packages and deals that would be more customer oriented and at competitive

price. "The voice quality and data speed of our operations will be at par

with the best in the world," he informed while setting a target of 2 lakh

customer base. He also informed that CEO of its Gujarat operations have already

been finalized and plans to invest Rs 200 crore in the first year in the form of

laying optical fibre lines and erecting towers and purchase of other assets. He

also added that $ 30 billion- $ 40 billion would have to be roped into the

Indian scenario to kick start the Indian telecom sector which he said will only

be possible with the help of foreign investors.