Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality?
In April 2015, Bharti Airtel - India's largest telecom provider and a leading global telecommunications company - launched Airtel Zero, an open marketing platform that would allow Airtel customers to access mobile applications with zero data charges. Application developers would pay Airtel to join the platform, but would in turn attract more users to their products. Immediately after its launch, Airtel Zero was subjected to severe criticism on the grounds that it violated the net neutrality principle, which advocated that content should be available to customers without any form of prioritization. Subsequently, in support of net neutrality, Flipkart - a prominent Indian e-commerce company - pulled out of the platform. Was Airtel Zero a potential threat to net neutrality? With the pending decision of the government of India on the regulatory framework for over-the-top (OTT) applications and services, would Airtel Zero stand out as a viable platform? Susmi Routray is affiliated with Institute of Management Techology - Ghaziabad. Gunjan Malhotra is affiliated with Institute of Management Technology.
Swot Analysis of "Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality?" written by Susmi Routray, Boishampayan Chatterjee, Gunjan Malhotra includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Airtel Neutrality facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Mobile and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? casestudy better are - – technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Airtel Neutrality, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Airtel Neutrality operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Airtel Neutrality
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Airtel Neutrality
Strengths Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Airtel Neutrality in Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Airtel Neutrality is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Airtel Neutrality has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Airtel Neutrality are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Airtel Neutrality has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Airtel Neutrality has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Airtel Neutrality in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Airtel Neutrality has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Airtel Neutrality has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Learning organization
- Airtel Neutrality is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Airtel Neutrality is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Strong track record of project management
– Airtel Neutrality is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Airtel Neutrality is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Susmi Routray, Boishampayan Chatterjee, Gunjan Malhotra can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Airtel Neutrality has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Weaknesses Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Airtel Neutrality has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Airtel Neutrality has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Airtel Neutrality is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality?, it seems that the employees of Airtel Neutrality don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Airtel Neutrality has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality?, in the dynamic environment Airtel Neutrality has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Airtel Neutrality has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Need for greater diversity
– Airtel Neutrality has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Airtel Neutrality is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Airtel Neutrality needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Airtel Neutrality to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? HBR case study mentions - Airtel Neutrality takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Airtel Neutrality has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Airtel Neutrality in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Airtel Neutrality can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Airtel Neutrality can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Airtel Neutrality can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Airtel Neutrality has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Airtel Neutrality to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Airtel Neutrality to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Airtel Neutrality can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Airtel Neutrality can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Airtel Neutrality can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Airtel Neutrality to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Airtel Neutrality to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Airtel Neutrality has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Airtel Neutrality to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? case study. Airtel Neutrality can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Airtel Neutrality has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Airtel Neutrality to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Airtel Neutrality with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Airtel Neutrality high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing wage structure of Airtel Neutrality
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Airtel Neutrality.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Airtel Neutrality business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality?, Airtel Neutrality may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Airtel Neutrality needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Airtel Neutrality demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Airtel Neutrality is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Airtel Neutrality in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Airtel Neutrality needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Airtel Neutrality can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Airtel Neutrality can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Bharti Airtel's "Airtel Zero": Violation of Net Neutrality? is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Airtel Neutrality needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.