Indian Telecom Industry Research Articles

Strategic Priorities for the Indian Telecom Industry in the Next Decade

The Indian Telecom Success Story in India is a feather in the caps of several stakeholders, principally the government, followed by the private sector players who have invested over 200 K crores to take advantage of the policy environment created by the government to set up large telecom networks in the country, and provide one of the best telecom services comparable to the best in the world. The mushrooming of services, devices, telecom towers, use of diesel have all brought in their wake, some issues as well, although the low cost of the voice services - said to be the lowest in the world - has washed away much of the criticism. In this paper, the authors trace the development of the Indian telecom industry. They developed a PESTEL framework, a Porter's Five Forces Field analysis framework, did a SWOT analysis, used the BCG Matrix - all to analyze and highlight the many aspects of this growing industry. These analyses provide some insights into the workings of the industry. The authors concluded that the way forward will include more attention to VAS products, more of 3G and 4G applications development, more newproduct development suitable for the B to C, and in the inter-industry domains where B to B applications will have to propel growth in a world with increasing automation and mobile phone usage in day to day life activities.

Strategic Priorities for the Indian Telecom Industry in the Next Decade

Strategic Priorities for the Indian Telecom Industry in the Next Decade

Validating Antecedents of Customer Loyalty for Indian Cell Phone Users

The Indian telecom industry is one of the fastest growing in the world and second largest mobile market globally. The Indian cell phone market is characterized by a large subscriber base (545 million connections as on May, 2010, expected to reach 876.6 million in 2013), low average revenue per user (INR 209 as on March 2009) and high churn rates (53.2% in 2009, and is expected to increase to 59.6% in 2013). The Indian consumers are enjoying a wide range of services along with the world�s lowest local call rates. The mobile phone operators in India are faced with the challenge of reducing customer churn in the ever-increasing prepaid subscriber market. Under such circumstances, the success of mobile phone service providers in India mainly depends on developing innovative schemes to increase customer loyalty. In service organizations, customer loyalty is considered as prime determinant of long-term financial performance of firms. One of the crucial issues of today is to understand how or why a sense of loyalty develops in customers. Loyalty definitions and metrics are mostly in behavioural and attitudinal terms. Consensus is absent in the marketing literature on how loyalty should be conceptualized and measured in the service industry. The present study addresses both the conceptual and measurement issues related to customer loyalty amongst the cell phone users. Building on existing literature, the antecedents of customer loyalty are reassessed in a service setting namely, customer satisfaction, trust, commitment, corporate image, and switching costs. This paper reports the development and validation of scales for measuring customer loyalty and its antecedents. The scale development and validation process was divided into three phases. Phase 1 consisted of the item generation process, assessment of content validity, and initial purification of measures. Item analysis and exploratory factor analysis were used on data collected from 250 postgraduate business students of a major university in India for initial purification of the instrument. In Phase 2, additional data were collected from 855 cell phone users in northern India to assess the latent factor structure through confirmatory factor analysis. In Phase 3, the discriminant validity and convergent validity of the measures were established. The managerial implications of the major findings of this study are as follows: It contributes to the existing literature by developing a theory-based framework for understanding the direct effects of satisfaction, trust and commitment, switching costs and corporate image on behavioural and attitudinal loyalty. By measuring loyalty as composite measure consisting of both behavioural loyalty and attitudinal loyalty, it provides evidence of the multidimensional nature of loyalty construct. Using data collected from mobile phone users, the reliability and validity of the scale are established. The newly refined and validated measures can be used by future researchers to study customer loyalty and its antecedent factors. The loyalty measures developed in this study provides managers with an easy tool to identify attitudinal and behavioural differences among customers. Marketing managers can draw meaningful distinctions between customers who buy out of habit and those who buy because of emotional attachment to the company.

Growth of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) In India in the Telecom Industry

With more than 500 million subscribers, India is the second largest mobile phone market in the world after China. In the last decade, an average of 15 Telecom operators has started operations in India. The market has been flamboyant for Indian as well as Foreign investors. Many of them are entering through the Merger and Acquisition route. The Governing Regulatory Authorities have a responsibility that no irregularity occurs and that every investor is given equal opportunity. Spectrum which is a constrained essential input for mobile services is also highly fragmented leading to possible industry inefficiencies. This paper critically examines the Merger and Acquisition scenario in the Telecom industry in India and the current policy framework that provides policy prescriptions for the future.

Role of Value Added Services in Shaping Indian Telecom Industry

The present study evaluates the impact of value added services on the consumer while selecting particular cellular services. The primary data has been used for the purpose of study, which has been collected with the help of questionnaire. The past researches have evaluated the consumer perception about telecom industry and the voice services. The present research will study the effect of the VAS on the consumer. There is a need of study for this subject. The tools used for the analysis are descriptive statistics, correlation, regression, t test. The findings of the research shows that the VAS is a very important factor which affects the customers which they opting for a particular cellular service and the factors like usage in roaming, time of usage, GPS and satisfaction level of customer are important.

Stock Behavior of Indian Telecom Companies During Pre-2G-Scam and Post-2G-Scam

The prosperity of all countries depends on its economic activities on a sustained basis. The starting point of all economic activities rests with the availability of capital which is limited for an organization. One of the major sources of capital is the investing public by making them share the ownership. In the modern times the control of an organization is separated from the ownership in the assumption that the controllers will act in the best interests of the owners. The owners benefit from the return on their initial investment in the form of dividend and increase in the market price of the equity they possess in the form of windfall profit. Thus many scholars believe that the objective of a firm is to maximize the market value of the firm. When the firm keeps doing well, the market price of the firm’s stocks also go up increasing the potential returns to the investors. But when the management, i.e. the controllers indulge themselves in scams or scandals, it not only affects the managers themselves but it affects the investors much more even leading to lack of confidence in the whole industry the firm is in. This paper attempts to study, using technical analysis, the behavior of the stocks of the top ten companies in the telecom industry in India during pre-2G-scam and post-2G-sacm. It was found that the share prices of not only the companies involved in the 2G scam but also the share price of the companies which are not involved in the 2G scam also declined after 2G scam. Also the investors had lost their trust on the entire telecom industry because of the 2G scam.

Customers Satisfaction towards Bsnl Services in Coimbatore City-An Analysis

The Indian telecom industry is a sunrise industry and has been one of the major drivers of change in present economy advancements during the last decade. It has contributed significantly to the digital revolution which is being experienced by the world as a whole. It has reduced the space between the communicators with efficient and excellent add-on features. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is one of the large telecom service providers in India. As a major player in the market studying the customer's level of satisfaction and the factors influencing the use of BSNL services by the customers, would enable the BSNL to develop an appropriate strategy to market their service. Therefore, in the present study 200 respondents using BSNL service, selected from the Coimbatore city, have been asked to provide their opinions on their level of satisfaction and factors responsible for it. Using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test it has been found that quality of the service, cost of the service and high speed internet access as a value added service, have influenced the level of satisfaction of the customers.

Role of Dynamic Capability and Information Technology in Customer Relationship Management: A Study of Indian Companies

There is a growing body of academic and practitioner literature on Customer Relationship Management (CRM), most of the research in this field being conducted in the Western context. In the emerging countries of Asia, the difference is not only about the level of technology adoption and infrastructure, but also about the way decisions are made the and technology is used to form relations, and the deeply-rooted values of employees and customers who drive the competitive performance of CRM. These contextual peculiarities of CRM have got important implications for the sources of competitive performance in the process of CRM. It has been well accepted that CRM is a strategic initiative. But, surprisingly, the CRM literature is largely silent on the issue of competitive reaction in dynamic markets of emerging Asian economies. In such markets, the domain of CRM is characterized by lots of changes. Managers cannot rely on only static firm's resources that they have assembled to take CRM decisions and drive competitive advantage. Drawing from the theoretical argument in strategic management, i.e., dynamic capability approach, this study identifies sources of competitive performance for the process of CRM in dynamic capability. It is an organization's ability to continuously improve, innovate, and reconfigure resources to match the evolving environmental needs. Information technology (IT) competence has been considered as an important moderator of the relationship between dynamic capability and competitive performance. The study articulates the drivers of dynamic capability for CRM. Further, the study investigates the main effects, as well as the interaction effects of IT and dynamic capability on competitive performance of the CRM process. A questionnaire survey has been conducted, and data collected from a sample of 334 cross-functional executives of 29 organizations from Indian banking, telecom, and retail industry. Some of the important findings of the study are as follows: In the emerging markets of Asia, dynamic capability played a crucial role in gaining competitive CRM performance across all three industries. In the highly dynamic and competitive Indian telecom industry, the dynamic capability played the most important role. Important drivers of dynamic capability also include social networking capability with the other capabilities related to integration and market orientation. Contrary to the findings of the few studies in the Western context, CRM technology had positive effects on competitive CRM performance; it also enhanced the dynamic capability- competitive CRM performance relationships. In the absence of appropriate dynamic capabilities in the CRM process, the use of CRM technology might do more harm than good.