Bharti Airtel harnesses local talent to penetrate mobile market

Indian Telecom giant Bharti Airtel is now in the process of recruiting local youth with leadership qualities, soft skills and experience to strengthen its technical, sales and marketing divisions to launch its US$ 200 million operation in Sri Lanka in the next two or three months.

Speaking to The Sunday Times FT the Director – Human Resources of Bharti Airtel Lanka Pvt. Ltd, Krishnamurthy Shankar said that the company will harness local talent empowering selected youth to revolutionize the Sri Lankan mobile phone sector with fresh and innovative ways adding value to consumers. “We see substantial growth prospects in Sri Lanka where the mobile phone subscriber base is over 6 million users,” he said.

Therefore all the selected youth will be given short term on the job training and they will also be given an opportunity to receive training in Bharti Airtel India and Chinese giant, Huawei Technologies Company in China, he added. Huawei will be building and managing the GSM infrastructure for Airtel in Sri Lanka over the next three years. Huawei will also be responsible for deploying 2G and 3G solutions for Airtel. Shankar disclosed that the latest custom built technology from Huawei is expected to reduce Airtel’s total cost of ownership as well as enhance its competitive edge. Specifically, Huwei’s logistic support will enable Airtel to deploy the network faster and more cost effectively.

Referring to incentives Airtel plans to offer its employees, Shankar said that they will provide them with promotional prospects and job postings apart from high remunerations. He asserted that the company will introduce best HR practices and policies empowering all young employees to engage in decision making process in their respective divisions. He revealed that the company has already recruited the executive grade staff to roll out its network in Sri Lanka over the next three years, covering 70 per cent of the country.

With just 30% mobile penetration and witnessing a steady growth per annum, Airtel sees Sri Lanka as a strategic market in its overseas expansion initiative. Very soon, half the 20 million people of Sri Lanka may be having a mobile phone, given the rate at which subscriptions are growing, he added. Shankar pointed out that Sri Lanka is Airtel's first overseas venture but plans are underway to spread its wings to some neighbouring countries, and those in East Africa and the Middle East.

However he admitted that Airtel Lanka has an uphill task ahead, because currently 60 percent of the mobile market in the island is with Dialog Telekom. The rest of the market is shared by Mobitel, Tigo and Hutchinson Telecom.