How does it feel to be a pan-Indian telecom operator?
To quote J.R.D. Tata, “Nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without deep thought and hard work.” That’s the value system at TTSL. Happy and loyal customers have made the company grow from nowhere less than four years back to now-here! Customer confidence and faith in a company, in turn, give an impetus to the company to grow ?? on the back of our bouquet of superior products and services. At this moment, I feel extremely proud that we are now operational across 22 circles. This is a key milestone in our pursuit of realising the Tata vision of having a nationwide presence in a short span of time. Tata Indicom is committed to providing best-in-industry products and services, and a host of value-added benefits to our customers.
How has the company performed in 2008? What are the high points?
The year 2008 has been a turning point for us. This is the year that will mark a new beginning for us. As I said, 2008 has seen us emerge as a pan-Indian player; this is the year when we announced our GSM plans after receiving the licence; this is also the year when we announced our tie-up with NTT DoCoMo; and we have already received GSM spectrum in 12 circles. All of these make up the springboard for future growth and our evolution as one of the best players in the Indian telecom space.
TTSL has offloaded a 26 per cent stake to Japan’s NTT DoCoMo. How will this move benefit the company?
NTT is a strong market leader and its services are used by more than 50 per cent of Japan’s mobile phone users. By teaming up with the NTT leadership team, we look forward to bringing value to our customers in India, both in terms of differentiated technology and products, and value-added services (VAS). NTT DoCoMo brings to us a plethora of strengths, being a world leader in wireless technology and a mobile operator with many firsts to its credit, including VAS such as i-mode and m-wallet. NTT DoCoMo has played a major role in the evolution of mobile telecommunications through the development of cutting-edge mobile technologies and services. Indian telecom users will now get a flavour of world-best products and services.
Also, 3G is round the corner and we will bank on NTT DoCoMo for that. Our Japanese partner is extremely experienced in 3G and future technologies, and we will assimilate and deploy the same for the benefit of Indian customers.
What would you consider as TTSL’s biggest advantage vis-a-vis its rivals?
Our partnership with NTT DoCoMo is an immense opportunity to scale up our products and services. Partnering with this Japanese giant will give an edge to the company vis-? -vis competitors in terms of technology expertise and experience in rolling out new networks and managing next-generation technologies and networks. It will also lead to fuller optimisation of business operations and help the company develop new VAS offerings.
On the network front, Tata Indicom is the only operator that has been consecutively rated as the best and least congested network in India by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and other independent bodies. Recently, TTSL was also felicitated for being the Company with the Most Consumer Pull in India. This is a culmination of years of work, and marks a new beginning for the company.
What are the challenges that you face?
The challenge, as always, remains sustaining growth and improving profitability. Both are crucial to the life cycle of any organisation. To improve profitability and sustain growth, the company has to continuously innovate and introduce new business ideas. However, ideas come a dime a dozen; people often approach me with ideas. It is the implementation that matters and makes the difference.
For instance, when we launch a service, what matters is not which handset “The year 2008 has seen us emerge as a pan-Indian player, announce our GSM plans as well as our tie-up with NTT DoCoMo. All of these make up the springboard for future growth” or device we are offering the service on. We would rather concentrate on the quality of service, tariff offers for HNIs (high networth individuals) and other individuals, and how the company can improve the customer experience and gain their affection.
What do you think of the competition in the industry?
Being at the helm of a company that is young and fast growing, in an environment that is dynamic, is indeed a challenge ?? one that my team and I savour. One has to keep a lot of aspects in mind: regulatory issues, keeping pace with competition, company growth, valueadded products and services, etc.
In my belief, increasing competition is healthy and will in itself be a solution to all sorts of hindrances. India is still at a nascent stage and there’s a lot of scope for development in this sector. As we are all aware, the pace of growth is incredible and India will soon be a leading country as far as the telecom space is concerned.
What are TTSL’s thrust areas?
Our key focus area remains roll out of GSM services and key developments in the CDMA business. We have aggressively rolled out state-of-the-art VAS services like Mandi Bhav, Facebook, Indicom Messenger and Voice SMS. That’s just the beginning of a wave of change that you will see from us.
When would you be ready to launch GSM services?
Stay tuned. You will see the services being rolled out in all the circles that we have received spectrum in, in early 2009.
What are the plans for IPTV and 3G?
We will discuss 3G once the bid details are available. As for IPTV, it is still at a nascent stage ?? India is in the race, but for now, broadband and internet penetration need to gain far more momentum.
What is the strategy for the rural market?
When it comes to rural areas, customer expectations ?? in terms of services, handsets, etc. ?? are much lower. But the network coverage requirements are very large. From the operator point of view, we intend to provide various applications that are of use to farmers and the rural populace such as commodity exchange prices, fishing and weather information, and local-language-based instruments that are convenient to use. We are aggressively pursuing mobile applications development, along with VLE handsets. Coupled with aggressive pricing and lower tariffs, we intend to have a strong presence in the rural space.
The challenge lies in customer acquisition and increasing our penetration in deeper pockets of rural India. To cite an example, Tata Indicom is the only brand to start a new format in branded retail called Sansar Stores in smaller markets. The idea is to create neighbourhood stores where the company reaches out to potential subscribers and meets their diverse requirements using telecom as the platform. Customising applications in local languages will also emerge as a key revenue stream, going forward.
The urban telecom user, meanwhile, is more evolved and is looking at top-end applications other than voice and SMS, ringtones, wallpapers and internet access. This customer is also brand conscious and therefore, the appeal, form factor and packaging need to be focused differently.
What is the level of investment planned for the coming years?
We are planning investments of around $2 billion over the next two years, with around three-fourths of this being spent on our GSM rollout.
How has the tie-up with Virgin Mobile benefited TTSL?
The Virgin Mobile brand is India’s first youth-focused mobile service. Its branded services are being offered to Indian consumers by TTSL through a branded franchise agreement with Virgin. Virgin has helped reach our target audience ?? the youth ?? and offer them products and services that are very competitive as compared to other players.
