Lesson 5:Develop team spirit. Allow everyone to come up with suggestions and ideas. Consider each and select the most appropriate ones.
Lesson 6:Marketing is very important. Do your market analysis, properly segment the market and keep on communicating. Let the potential customer know that you offer specifically for his/her segment. Maintain close dialogue and get regular feedback with the market. WAY FORWARD Plans are made to build a strong customer base of 50K by the end of the fiscal year 2012-13. Strong Marketing campaigns are being worked out to achieve this target.Our project had projected for 3G in the third year of operations i.e. in 2014. The competitors of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay
INDUSTRY SPEAK
GSM Launch The first phase of GSM Network with a capacity of 100K with ‘EDGE’ was planned to be launched from Nov 2011 with a total of 110 sites on air to meet the desired planned coverage. With lot of persuasions and liaison with various authorities, we could get 90 sites covering major areas. The new GSM Services were branded as ‘CHILI’ with the tagline: ‘Hot on Technology Cool on Pocket ‘ SIM cards and new recharge cards in easy denominations were brought out. Within two months of launch, we could get 10,000 customers in CHILI. In the GSM, as there was enough scope for revenue from roaming services, intensified dialogues with ‘roaming partners’ all over the world began in July ‘11. Operators in other countries were reluctant to be our ‘roaming partner’ as they had prevailing agreements with our competitors. However, through negotiations and offering better packages, within three months of launch, we could wrap up around 80 operators in major potential countries. Within eight months of operation, owing to the introduction of new customer friendly packages, our customer base rose to 30K and we brought almost almost all countries under roaming agreement thus enhancing our roaming revenue. In collaboration with various VAS providers, we could launch several new value added services. The growth of GSM is going as per the expectations and we are sure that the objectives will be fully met.
MTML have launched 4G in 2012 and it was felt that we should go in for 3G immediately without waiting for two more years. Further, enhancing to 3G network will bring more roaming customers thus increasing our roaming revenue. Hence processes to place order for 3G have been initiated.The African Telecom market is wide open and there is lot of scope for investment, growth and profit making. We are frequently getting many offers from various African countries for joint ventures/sole operations etc. We are examining such offers and depending upon the case, we may go in for such venture. From Dec 2011, the Government has opened the undersea cable to all interested operators (releasing from Orange, the exclusive bandwidth operator so far) to operate in Mauritius. We are having dialogues with potential stake holders in undersea cable to sell their bandwidth to us at better rates and reselling of the same by us to others in collaboration with other companies. On materialization of this, we may get some more additional revenue.MTML today is a fairly successful company and is going to generate steady revenue for a good period without the need to make any new investments. Any startup has the potential to be successful if it takes into account: i)All market conditions including the present competition, ii)The prevalent government policies including future expected changes, iii)The possibility of substitutes coming up, iv) Technological changes likely to happen, v) Present market demand including the present supply and future trends The challenge is more in a pure Government startup. However, the risk can be mitigated if you: 1.Keep a continuous watch on cash flows and monitor ROI on a regular basis. 2.Keep the MIS data ready and monitor it closely to see the progress being made. Any deviation from planned projection will make it necessary to change the strategy. 3.Lastly, record all the details with planned time schedules and actuals achieved. L!VE August 2012
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