Bharti rejigs India, South Asia business; stock, mcap rises

Bharti Airtel on Thursday unveiled a major restructuring of its India and South Asia operations, combining various segments including mobile and digital TV into two separate business units to improve efficiency.

The transformed organisation structure will have two distinct Customer Business Units (CBU) with clear focus on B2C (Business to Customer) and B2B (Business to Business) segments, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

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Reacting to the news, shares of Bharti Airtel surged over 4 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange, adding Rs 5,638 crore to its market valuations.

At close, the stock was quoted at Rs 398.05, up 3.88 per cent from its last close. The stock had opened on a positive note and it gained further ground to witness an intra-day high of Rs 399.

The market capitalisation of the company at close was at Rs 1,51,160 crore against Rs 1,45,522 crore on Wednesday.

Similar trend was witnessed on the National Stock Exchange, where the scrip after opening at Rs 383.55, gained further ground and saw an intra-day high of Rs 398.90 and finally settled at Rs 397.70, up 3.73 per cent from its previous closing price.

The rejig which will come into effect from August 1 would see Bharti Airtel's mobile, telemedia, digital TV and other emerging businesses - such as M-commerce, M-health and M-advertising - into B2C (Business to Customer) division.

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Asked about job cut repercussion, the company said: "The restructuring exercise will have minimal impact on the people".

As part of consolidating its operations, the B2B (Business to Business) business unit will continue its focus on serving large corporate and data services through Bharti Airtel's wide portfolio of telecommunication solutions.

"...this new organisation structure marks a major step towards building an organisation of the future. Customers are at the core of our business and with this new structure we are proactively creating an integrated customer centric organisation," Bharti Airtel CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal said.

Bharti Airtel's B2C business unit will comprehensively service the retail consumers, homes and small offices, by combining the erstwhile business units - Mobile, Telemedia, Digital TV, and other emerging businesses (like M-commerce, M-health, M-advertising etc). The B2C organisation will consist of Consumer Business and Market Operations.

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"I am confident that this will provide us a solid platform to achieve our vision of making Airtel the most loved brand enriching the lives of millions," Mittal added.

The Consumer Business group will lead the overall B2C strategy and will focus on customer experience, product and service innovation (including data, VAS, new products/services), and build an ecosystem around the B2C services. K Srinivas will lead this vertical as the President, Consumer Business.

Market Operations group will lead the 'go-to-market' strategy. This vertical will take products and services to customers in South Asia with speed and efficiency.

Market Operations will complement the Consumer Business by building a robust 'go-to-market' ecosystem and leverage Bharti Airtel's vast distribution reach.