in Chennai (The Reality) IDEA
Let me give a snapshot of IDEA so that you can know better.
IDEA Cellular is part of the Aditya Birla Group, the group operates in 25 countries. IDEA Cellular Ltd. is a leading GSM mobile services operator with over 47 million subscribers, under brand IDEA. It has licenses and spectrum to operate in all 22 service areas of India, with commercial operations in 18 service areas. IDEA plans to set up a network of 2400 cell sites across Tamil Nadu & Chennai, covering 1200 towns by the end of March '10.For more information about the company visit: http://www.ideacellular.com/.
IDEA is in 5th spot as per TRAI records.
In an interview Mr. Sanjeev Aga, Managing Director, IDEA Cellular said, "Chennai is a strategic market for IDEA, and we are happy to launch our services in this metro city. This not only provides us a platform to further strengthen our market position in the South, but is also a key milestone in our national roll-out plan."
Mr. Himanshu Kapania, Director - Operations, IDEA Cellular Ltd., said, "IDEA aims to provide the citizens of Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu, superior connectivity, whisper clear audio quality, zero call congestion and high capacity, ahead of time. IDEA's 2.75G capable & 3G ready core network provides for all future technological enhancements. We welcome the people of Chennai and other towns and villages of Tamil Nadu to join IDEA's pan-India network."
IDEA will develop customer service with a robust retail network comprising of exclusive 'My Idea Stores', 'Idea Points' and other outlets. The service network will be expanded to over 25,000 retail outlets and 60 IDEA showrooms in the state, shortly. Aimed at achieving visibility and real time experience, these will significantly enhance IDEA's distribution network and help reach out to its discerning customers across all segments.
“ALL THE ABOVE MENTIONED HERE IS DREAM OF IDEA PROJECT IN CHENNAI”
But what is the reality here in Chennai…. Is that idea telecom launched their service strong enough to challenge their competitors……
The fact is……… IDEA will die within year……. May be before June it may happen…….
Why?????? Lot of unanswered questions eating my head…… is the company is not capable to challenge the Chennai market….. It has all well build base but still lacking. Poor planning is going to collapse IDEA…..
Problems in IDEA:
Customers:
The customer are enjoying the current scenario…… company failed to identify the customers touch point…..
Customer are getting the sim cards from different service provider at free of cost and it holds minimum 15 to maximum 80 rupees of talk time…… with life time validity too.
So it is difficult for new entries to switch over to another operator. Customer have a constant operator and use the other operator only to make call.
If the network have poor coverage the customers won’t use the operator at free of cost also.
Competitors:
IDEA has strong competition like:
New entries:
MNC’s ……..telecom giant are going to launch their service. By next year Tamilnadu is going to have 15 operators.
The middle man:
Distributor are the big problem of IDEA…I mean the distributor are not creating the problem. The company itself became as big headache for the distributors.
Distributor role is important in this industry. IDEA provides 1.5% margin in total sale for the distributors at the same time other operator margin is pretty high. And they provide copier, scanner machines and digital camera to reduce the burden of distributor and retailers. But IDEA still follow all traditional procedures.
Past 3 months every Chennai distributor had lost between 15000 to 25000 rupees.
Actually IDEA asked the distributors to appoint 3 sale people for the promotional activities but it is difficult for the distributor to give salary while they are not generating any profit.
Distributor are forced by the sales team to move the product in the market to achieve the target and that leads the distributors to provide dummy identity proof for the numbers. And the company never mind receiving same identity proof for more then one numbers. It is called “scratching” in sales team’s language.
And every number is considered as active number. And the IDEA manage to make forecasting based on this performance.
Threat from TRAI:
TRAI has announced that all the operator must have pulse rate billing system. And it is going to be implemented in a short period.
Company policies:
IDEA doesn’t have a fixed planning and they change their policies in an irregular intervels.
Advertising:
IDEA has a great great great advertising team they never know what to do for advertisement. IDEA has actress Shereya as a brand ambassador for south India…… you can find poster in Chennai. First I thought it is poster of “kungumam” magazine.
No TV AD’s……I think the commercial shooting is on process…… Even paan beda valla try to showcase himself great for his new shop….then what is the job of the IDEA creative team……
WHAT IDEA HAS TO DO TO PROGRESS BETTER?
(It is copied from an American telecom company… but copying is became as birth right…. And shamelessly coping some good thought is my policy)
Market Studies:
Compare external market data against your internal customer data
Measure your market share for each segment and geographic area
Understand each segment's growth prospects
Evaluate strategies for taking advantage of the best market opportunities, protecting your vested-interest segments, and mitigating the risks of market change
Target the best sales prospects for your products and services
Target Marketing and Market Planning:
Efficiently allocate sales and marketing resources
Focus marketing campaigns
Yield higher returns on sales and marketing investments
Penetrate key market segments
Business and Sales Forecasting:
Quantify the relationship between various market factors and sales
Estimate price elasticity of demand for specific products and services
Determine the effects of technological change on underlying demand by product or service
Identify the combined impact of unspecified factors on product or service sales
Quantify the impact of advertising expenditures on sales
Do you think all the above seem to be confusing…… no problem just follow the “Porter’s 5 force model” it is more than enough to understand the market…….
What exactly IDEA wants to do?
Want to reduce the operating cost……..or reduce the capital investment……..?????????
Very simple IDEA has great confidence that they can achieve……..correction “over confidence”…..
Or IDEA wants to join in this group:
