Quality Management Practices in

Bharti Airtel Limited

Table of Content

Page No.

Acknowledgement I

Table of Content II

01 Objective 01

02 Bharti Airtel Limited 02

03 Service Quality 03

04 Quality Implications at Airtel 05

05 Quality Issues & Recommendations 11

06 Quality Related News 12

01.Objective

The main objective of this assignment is to follow the actions and news of

selected multinational company in terms of quality improvements and quality

related problems and critically analyze them by applying literature learned in

Total Quality Management Subject. Therefore thorough this report it enable to

identify above quality management practices apply in Bharti Airtel Limited.

02.Bharti Airtel Limited

“Enriching lives means putting the customer at the heart of everything we do. We will meet their needs based on our deep understanding of their ambitions, wherever they are. By having this focus we will enrich our own lives and those of our other key stakeholders. Only then we

will be thought of as exciting, innovation, on their side and a truly world class company."

B

Bharti Airtel Limited, which commonly known as Airtel, is a leading integrated Tele communications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia (India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) and Africa (Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and etc). The headquarter of Airtel is located in New Delhi, India and the company ranks amongst the top 5 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers.

Airtel has GSM network in all countries in which it operates, providing 2G, 3G and 4G services, fixed line, high speed broadband through DSL, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services by depending upon the country of operation. Bharti Airtel had over 246 million customers across its operations at the end of February 2012.

Airtel is credited with pioneering the business strategy of outsourcing all of its business operations except marketing, sales and finance. As the vanguard of the telecom industry, Airtel has reached its peak in terms of the high quality value and service delivering to its customers.

03.Service Quality

Service Quality means:

An assessment of how well a delivered service conforms to the client's expectations. Service business operators often assess the service quality provided to their customers in order to improve their service, to quickly identify problems, and to better assess client satisfaction.

Dimensions of Quality Service

Every company owner wants to get loyal customers which add to repeating purchases and of cause increasing their maximum revenue. But to get there they need to know about the 5 Service Quality Dimensions which expressed through the SERVQUAL Model.

Tangible:

Refers to the appearance of the physical surroundings and facilities, equipment, personnel and the way of communication. In other words, the tangible dimension is about creating first hand impressions. Airtel should want all their customers to get a unique positive and never forgetting first hand impression, this would make them more likely to return in the future.

E.g.: Physical appearance of Airtel environment – Interior Deco, Uniform of employees, Attractive Building, Behavior Quality of employees

Reliability:

Refers to how the Airtel is performing and completing their promised service, quality and accuracy within the given set requirements between the company and the customer. Reliability is just as important as a goof first hand impression, because every customer want to know if their supplier is reliable and fulfill the set requirements with satisfaction.

E.g.: Time taken to paying bill, Handle customer inquiry etc...

Responsiveness:

Refers to the willingness of Airtel to help its customers in providing them with a good, quality and fast service. This is also a very important dimension, because every customer feels more valued if they get the best possible quality in the service.

E.g.: Friendly treating of customers, delivering a service in fast.

Assurance:

Refers to the Airtel's employees. Are the employees skilled workers which are able to gain the trust and confidence of the customers? If the customers are not comfortable with the employees, there are a rather large chance that the customers will not return to do further business with the company.

E.g.: Every Manager and employees should have Proper knowledge regarding to every aspect when dealing with customers

Empathy:

Refers to how the Airtel cares and gives individualized attention to their customers, to make the customers feeling extra valued and special. The fifth dimension are actually combining the second, third and fourth dimension to a higher level, even though the really cannot be compared as individuals. If the customers feel they get individualized and quality attention there is a very big chance that they will return to the company and do business there again.

Airtel pay more attention to customer satisfaction through providing quality service because,

- Meting the customer is the underlying rationale for the existence of community service organization. Customers have a right to quality services that deliver outcomes.

- Organizations that strive beyond minimum standards and exceed the expectations of their customers are likely to be leaders in their sector.

- Customers are recognized as key partners in shaping service development and assessing quality of service delivery.

- The process for measuring customer satisfaction and obtaining feedback on organizational performance are valuable tools for quality and continuous service improvement.

04.Quality Implications at Airtel

Airtel one of the most admiring brand in India and other operating countries which is loved by most of customers, tries to enhance their customer satisfaction through marketing innovations, continuous technological up gradation of the network, introduction of new generation value added service and the highest standard of customer care. They always think in fresh and innovative ways about the needs of their customers and delight them by fulfilling their requirements.

01. Customer Care

Airtel maintain high quality in all the fields that they deal in and Airtel customer care is also provide speedy trouble shooting and practice excellent customer friendly methods of solving

problems. Every complaint against Airtel is taken very seriously and it is studied in detail. This ensures that the best solution is provided and the customer is left happy and satisfied.

Using internet Airtel can gain best advantages. Their customer can gather more information from the Airtel site, check out their status with respect to their television and mobile accounts and they can also pay their bills through online. This ensures speedy and easy payments and helps Airtel to remain on top of the popularity charts.

02. Billing and Order Management System

Comverse Kenan ® Billing and Order Management Systems facilitated decentralization in a comprehensive enterprise-wide billing system. With Comverse, operators can manage any part or all of their billing and customer care infrastructure through on-site or service bureau models.

The Comverse Kenan services made numerous enhancements to Airtel operations, including improved operational efficiencies and quality of customer service:

Rating Timeliness Increased by 90% and enables Airtel to access current details on what the customer has spent, giving the operator better capabilities to manage fraud and bad debt.

Zero Billing Delay Environment Quick Order Times results to reducing the level of communications required between

ordering systems and the network. Operational Intelligence:

- Automated tools improved business reporting intelligence — reducing the

number of daily reports from 1,300 hard copy reports to just 83. Sharpening the Competitive Edge:

- The sales and marketing teams developed strategies to significantly improve

Airtel's competitive advantage at little to no additional cost by using tools such as rate plans, discounts, payments, and revenue treatment.

Improved Cash Flow and Resource Utilization:- The professional services team reduced the number of bill cycles by 80% and

engineered on-time billing delivery pan-India. Implemented Industry Best Practices:

- Via on-the-job training and an effective knowledge transfer program, Airtel

now has in place a sophisticated internal billing operations team trained to optimize system performance and fully tap system capabilities. In addition to operational efficiency and cost-savings, this also speeds time-to-market for innovative market offerings.

03. Partner Performance Management

Partner performance is a key factor in Bharti Airtel’s performance and ability to satisfy its customers. It is important to assess their performance based on the role that they are playing. If a partner is playing multiple roles, its performance should be measured independently within each role.

The partner's performance management is carried in two methods:

Partner Score Card Partner Audit

Partner Score Card

Bharti Airtel will issue a six monthly Partner Score Card to selected partners. This score card will provide feedback to the partner about their performance. Partners who consistently have poor performance could be notified of Bharti Airtel’s intention to re-evaluate the partner and potentially place the partner on a "conditional" status until performance improvement is demonstrated. Partners would be required to provide a documented action plan for corrective action. Failure to improve performance within the time would lead to a partner's ineligibility to quote new business; removal from Bharti Airtel’s approved partner list, and/or being resourced on their current business.

Bharti Airtel expects that the partners would incorporate the partner score card into their customer satisfaction and management review processes.

Partner Audit

This process checks the effectiveness and compliance of systems & processes running at the partner's premises. The process would be carried out by supply chain team with help from functional users (technical aspects) and governance team.

An audit would cover the following areas:

- Management Systems: Management reviews, Change management, Labor management, Environment, health and Safety management systems.

- Quality System: Compliance to quality certifications, Technical documentation, Management of equipments – calibration, Incoming quality control, In process control, Change control mechanism, Failure Mode Effect Analysis(FMEA) for process and design, Implementation of preventive and corrective action mechanism, Change Management and Rejection Control Mechanism.

- Production Capability : Factory infrastructure, layout and location, Equipment machinery, Production Planning, Preventive maintenance, Spare parts Management, Partner's Management, Inventory Control, Warehouse management, Identification and traceability

- Research and Development: Innovation, Design capability, Design Structure, Financial back up for R&D, Training

The audit score and findings would be tabulated by the audit team. Key findings of the audit and summary report would be discussed with the partner's management team.

04. Partner Relationship Management

Bharti Airtel partner engagement strategies focus on selecting the most capable partners worldwide and continuously working with them to enhance their capabilities of providing conforming goods or services, on time. The fundamental criterion for selecting and developing a long-term relationship with our partners is Best Value. Best Value applies not only to product cost, but also to costs and risks of acquisition and materials handling. Best Value, therefore includes the partner's service level, contribution to initiatives, and conformance to quality on all the requirements outlined in this manual.

Bharti Airtel’s PRM Process comprises of the following steps

Categorization - Business Size, Business Model, Type of product, Technology Rewards & recognition – Based on the Partner Performance Score Card Satisfaction level – Measure through conducting the survey Communication – Two way Communication Grievances – Using Partner Portal and E –mails to helpdesks try to solve grievance

related to Payments, Dispute/Disagreement in business and Unethical / Integrity / Code of Conduct violations

05. Supply Chain Management at Airtel

Bharti Airtel understands the importance of partners to remain competitive in a dynamic business environment. As a step in that direction, the Supply Chain (SCM) function has been created with a mandate to develop partner relationships to maximize mutual opportunities for growth and profitability. At the center of Bharti Airtel’s Supply Chain Philosophy is partnership and collaboration. The Supply Chain characteristics have therefore been defined using the same approach, shown in the table below.

Supply Chain Characteristics Bharti Airtel ApproachNumber & Structure Fewer; ClusteredProcurement personnel LimitedOutsourcing StrategicNature of Interactions Cooperative, positive-sumRelationship focus Mutually-beneficialRelationship focus Performance

Contract length Long-termPricing practices Target costingPrice Changes DownwardQuality Designed-inDelivery Smaller Quantities (JIT)Inventory buffers Minimized, eliminatedCommunication Extensive; multi-levelCommunication Collaborative; two-wayRole in development SubstantialProduction flexibility HighTechnology sharing ExtensiveDedicated investments SubstantialMutual commitment HighGovernance Self-governingFuture Expectations Considerable

06. Payment Procedure

Bharti Airtel ensures partners to get the best payable procedures to ensure invoices are processed effectively through the electronic payment transfer to ensure rapid, timely, and accurate payment to partners. For this, partners are required to submit the account details at the time of contract finalization.

07. Improve Service Management through the Tivoli Soft ware

Bharti Airtel realized the need for removing silos amongst individual processes by implementing an integrated suite of tools to improve service management. The company’s primary consideration was to deploy a solution which could be scaled-up ‘on-the-fly’ to match Bharti Airtel’s growth, comply with ITIL framework, automate processes, and reach a proactive mode of operations.

Airtel, along with IBM, conceptualized a Service Management framework using the Tivoli suite which had the facilities to address the needs of the business and bridge existing technology gaps by;

Enhance the productivity. Several processes were automated using the TSRM workflow engine. Helped in discovering assets and their relationships. Faster problem resolution with an end-to-end service view being made available in

Tivoli Business Service Manager (TBSM). Powered and subsequently supported growth from 5 core subscribers to 13 core

subscribers. Standard based monitoring procedures and framework in place helped scaling of

infrastructure.

Application downtime reduced.

08. Application Quality Management

Airtel offers end – to – end managed AQM (Application Quality Management) solutions which enable optimum performance of your applications and hence, improved response time. This eliminates the side effects of unpredictable application deployment by streamlining Layer 2 to Layer 7 on OSI model, ensuring optimal application and WAN performance. This technique also enables a service provider to move from providing a conventional “Network Centric SLA” to “Application Centric SLA.”

Through this can;

Accelerated Mission critical Applications. Seamless application delivery across WAN Cost Saving, by consolidation of remote servers to data centers. Reduced risk of data loss through can accelerated recovery process. Visibility of application performance allowing for better WAN Planning.

09. VQE - Voice Quality Enhancer

It is a revolutionary new system that spectrally reduces background noise. It eliminates acoustic echo, adjust speech levels in both directions and does away with low or distorted speech so that every word of yours can be heard clearly, wherever you may be speaking.

The VQE technology has been sourced from Tellabs of USA, a world leader on voice quality technology. This technology removes high back ground noise from the wireless side of the call thus delivering near wire line clear call quality on mobile phones.

10. Application of Six Sigma and Other Quality Tools

Six Sigma enables organizations a new way of doing businesses. In 2002 Bharti Group (Airtel) launched Six Sigma and it has successfully applied six sigma in all its businesses and has realized saving worth of billion of rupees. Six Sigma is an Integral part of its DNA with a dedicated team at each of its circles. Airtel basic service businesses yielded 250% return on investment in the first year of implementation of itself. There are more than 150 Black belts working in the entire group.

Not only that they use quality tools such as QC Charts, Fish Born Charts, Flow Charts, Histograms, Flow Charts and Scatter Diagrams to identify and prevents defects related to Quality to provide better service to their customers.

Application of 5s Concepts within Airtel generate more economical benefits to them.

05.Quality Issues at Airtel

Value Added services are lesser than other network providers.

- E.g.: Credit Transfer offers, Loan Offers

Still some areas have problem with quality of signal.

Internet speed is little bit lower when comparing to other service providers.

Lack of worldwide coverage.

Due to the lack of training some employees treat their customers in ill mannered way.

Recommendations

In Line with new technologies. Expand the coverage Provide more benefits to customers. Increase the service offer by their customer care. Give proper training to their work force.

06.Quality Related News in Airtel

Citing excessive spam, India’s top operator, Bharti Airtel, shuts out text messages from rival networks

India’s mobile industry has seen its fair share of chaos — February’s cancellation of the country’s 122 telecom licenses springs to mind — but top dog Bharti Airtel has taken things a step further with the rather extraordinary decision to close its network to incoming text messages from users of rival operators Aircel and Reliance.

Reported by the Economic Times

Poor Network Coverage

Had very poor network coverage problem for more than 7 month. I call many time customer care but representative DID not take any complain. I’m getting 0 and 1 point signal on my handset. Voice quality is very bad. Airtel customer care representative are not able to provide any resolution.

Customer of Airtel

Implementation of Six Sigma Model

Bharti Airtel won the first prize for Six Sigma implemented in Transport network to enhance voice quality in its network. “Quality is an integral part of a company’s strategy while the mechanism to achieve quality is a matter of choice. The quality deliverables should be driven from the top and Airtel takes pride to call itself a quality company, “stated Mr. Sanjay Kapoor, Deputy CEO, Bharti Airtel Ltd.

The Six Sigma project implemented by Bharti helped the company increase the vice minutes usage to 700-800 million minutes translating into Rs 200 corer while the mechanism provided by the Six Sigma implementation increased the customer satisfaction index from 61 % to 82 %.