Powerpoints

Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies for Long-Term Success

Introduction

As pointed out earlier, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BNSL) is a telecommunication company located in New Delhi, India. For a company to be successful and remain relevant for approximately 20 years of operation, there must be strategies that the company upholds and updates regularly for maximum profit. These strategies might be business-level strategies, corporate-level strategies, and many more. Additionally, every organization must face natural disasters, losses, and, most importantly, competition. Having competition has both drawbacks and benefits to the BNSL company. For example, the benefit of having competitors is that it ensures a company is always on its toes to keep up with the competitors, thus, success. On the other hand, the main risk involved with competition is that it may lead to the organization's closure.

Business-Level Strategies Applied by BNSL

Business-Level strategies are used to examine how firms compete in a given industry. In this case, BNSL's strategies examine how they compete in the telecommunication industry. Firms usually use these strategies to determine whether they plan on operating on a narrow or broad market (Okuus et al., 2019). The strategies are also important in determining what the firm’s competitive advantage is based on. Some of the business-level strategies applied by BNSL include:

Broad Cost Leadership

It is a strategy where the competitive advantage is the cost of goods being sold. Additionally, its competitive scope is broad in a target. This kind of leader must provide quality, service, and features that are highly acceptable at a low price while selling it to a broad market. BNSL deals in a wide range of products.

For example, Bharat fiber, mobile, landline, internet, wing services, and many more. To maintain leadership, BNSL decided to enhance its internet services by increasing its market and making it more accessible to a larger population. Additionally, they decided to give its users a greater bandwidth to ensure customer loyalty. BNSL's prices are also low and reasonable to ensure they retain their existing customers and attract new ones.

Broad Differentiation

It is a strategy applied by firms to attract more customers to form a broader market. The main aim of this strategy is to differentiate a firm or portray it as unique from the other competitor firms (Jeremias, Gani & Juliana, 2018). BNSL has applied this strategy due to the emergence of many rival firms in the telecommunication industry. It has forced BNSL to develop catchy slogans and distinct names for its various services to create awareness. These slogans and distinct names and logos aim to make their product stand out from other competitors.

Most Important Strategy

The most important strategy for long-term success will be broad cost leadership. It is because of the advantages that come with this strategy that makes it more preferable to the second strategy. The cost leaders have the advantage of enjoying increased market share, being able to withstand price wars, and finally, low costs enable low prices, leading to more profits. Finally, cost leaders make it hard for more competitors to enter the market. It ensures that the firm has fewer competitors while having a competitive advantage. Being a cost leader will ensure that BNSL controls the market or a larger part.

Cooperate-Level Strategies Applied by BNSL

Corporate-level strategies aim at gaining a competitive advantage. It is attained through the selection and management of firms competing in several industries or product markets. These strategies are usually employed in firms to help the firm earn above the average profits and create value for the shareholders (Li & Chen, 2018). The main components incorporated in these strategies include visioning, prioritization, allocation of resources, and objective setting. The corporate-level strategies that BNSL has employed include:

Stability Strategy

BNSL is the largest telecommunication firm in India. However, despite doing so well, minimal growth necessitated the implementation of this strategy. BNSL has to reinvest, promote creativity and innovation, and many more for a long-term stability strategy. The first strategy for stability was to enter the digital race due to the continuously changing technology. BNSL, the oldest telecommunication industry in India, had to adopt some new ways to maintain their customers. BNSL has also changed its leadership within the long period of its operation. Strong leadership ensures that the organization makes informed decisions that minimize its risk of failure.

Expansion Strategy

The expansion strategy involves redefining the organization by either increasing the efforts of the present firm or adding the scope of operation. The advantage of this strategy is that it may lead to new markets or products. The main reason entrepreneurs apply this strategy s to penetrate new markets and build share. The strategy is often considered as a way of improving performance.

BNSL is the largest telecommunication industry for various reasons. They established nationwide call centers to provide solutions to their customers built complex and massive networks throughout India. They ensured that the telecommunication services were available to citizens in rural areas.

Combination Strategy

It is a strategy that involves a combination of stability, retrenchment, and expansion strategies. These strategies can be either implemented sequentially or simultaneously to improve the performance of the business. BNSL needed this strategy to face the fast-changing, complex environment. BNSL provides a wide range of services and diversifies its products; they have expanded their region of operation up to the rural areas and many more. All these examples are evidence to show that this firm is utilizing a combination strategy.

Most Important Strategy

Personally, the most important strategy is the combination strategy. It is because it fights the loopholes that might affect the performance of the business. The advantage of embracing this strategy is that it eliminates wasteful competition and might make a firm a cost leader, therefore, accruing the firm the benefits of being a cost leader. This strategy is also the best since it raises capital and promotes a low purchasing cost.

The BSNL Competitive Environment

BSNL has lost a lot of control with the coming of new technology. It is the oldest telecommunication industry in India; thus, it has a large population. The major competitors of BSNL are Airtel, MTNL, and TATA. The minor competitors of this organization include QUADRAT, RELIANCE, and VIL. The competition is tight, thus, necessitating BSNL to work on its weaknesses. Some of the weaknesses of BSNL identified include decreasing market share, inability to retain customers, limited brand visibility, poor working culture, the establishment of unproductive rural assets, poor service image, and many more.

Airtel

It is the second-largest provider of telephony services and the biggest competitor of BNSL in India. The telecommunication firm works by targeting individuals aged between 15-25. These are youths who heavily utilize the internet. Another marketing strategy utilized by Airtel is social media marketing (Henry, 2022). The firm has taken advantage of the high number of its service users on social media. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and many more have improved the popularity of this telecommunication company.

MTNL

MTNL is another firm that closely competes with BNSL in the telecommunication industry. The firm decided to utilize the marketing mix framework that covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). This means that the company promotes marketing strategies such as product promotion, promotion planning, pricing approach, etc. The firm provides fixed-line services, wireless local loop, and mobile services such as 2G, 3G, and 4G. On the pricing approach, they offered highly competitive wireless services after losing their monopoly. They always aim at keeping their prices affordable. MTNL advertises its goods to create brand awareness and increase its operating range.

TATA

Like MTNL, TATA also decided to embrace the 4Ps of marketing strategy. They have decided to major in Telecommunication and media, steel, automobile, information technology, consumer and retail, infrastructure, and financial services. This firm prefers to price different prices based on the consumers' geographical location, age, gender, etc. Their place and distribution strategy is based in over 100 countries across six continents. Finally, they used televised advertisements, online advertisements, print media, etc., as a promotional strategy.

The Company Likely to be Successful

Personally, Airtel is likely to be more successful compared to other firms. This is because they have heavily embraced advertising their new ideas and products through the internet and social media platforms. Additionally, the fact that Airtel targets an age range of 15-25 means that most of their advertisement reach the target since individuals within this age bracket tend to use social media platforms and the internet more frequently.

The Market Cycle

According to the Response to the previous question, The success of Airtel would differ from fast-cycle markets. It is because the telecommunication network is very unpredictable. One great idea is that you are at the top, and in case of failure, the level of success is also affected faster. The success of Airtel is also determined by the large population they are targeting, who are also heavy users of the internet.

Conclusion

In summary, BNSL has been successful for a long time because of its marketing strategies, wide market, and strong leadership. Additionally, this company's success depends on the support given to it by the Indian government. However, If this firm is outdone by its competitors, It is not so soon. However, the firm should embrace technology more compared to its traditional routines to fight off its competitors or ensure it still remains at the top.

References

Henry, Z. (2018, August 22). Marketing mix of Bharti Airtel B. Case48. https://www.case48.com/case/Bharti-Airtel-B-Marketing-Mix-19246

Jermias, J., Gani, L., & Juliana, C. (2018). Performance implications of misalignment among business strategy, leadership style, organizational culture and management accounting systems. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3099151

Li, B., & Chen, S. (2019). Corporate-level strategy and firm performance: Evidence from China. Chinese Management Studies, 14(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/cms-10-2018-

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Okumus, F., Altinay, L., Chathoth, P., & Köseoglu, M. A. (2019). Business-level strategies. Strategic management for hospitality and tourism, 119- 133. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351188517-10