Airtel - Structure of Sales & Distribution System and Information Flow

Airtel's products and services can be classified into three strategic business units - Mobile Services, Enterprise services and Airtel Telemedia Services. Mobile services are based on Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technology and are available in both pre-paid and post-paid form. The Enterprise services unit provides integrated services comprising mobile, broadband, data and connectivity services to small, medium and large scale enterprises. The Airtel Telemedia services unit offers high speed broadband services through landlines in 94 cities.

Structure of Sales & Distribution system and Information Flow

Airtel has an extensive sales and distribution network with operations in 23 circles and 170 million subscribers in India. A multi-regional sales-and-marketing team develops both direct and indirect sales channels through handset manufacturer, Network Solutions Provider etc. Regional managers define the sales and marketing strategies for their respective territories. They also provide valuable feedback on the corporate strategy for sales and marketing, and product direction.

Figure 1: Circles and Zones

As part of Airtel's strategy to capture market share in each geographic region, Airtel has put in place a network of on-the-ground, experienced and incentivised sales and marketing personnel. There is a circle-level sales and marketing (S&M) head who reports to CEO. Different Zonal Business Managers (ZBMs) report to S&M head (5 zones in Gujarat circle- Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat, Rajkot, and North Gujarat). Then there are Zonal Sales Managers (ZSMs) who report to the ZBM at zone levels. Below ZSM, there are Urban and Rural Territory managers. Each UTM and RTM will have a distributor who will take care of the distribution work and will have few field sales executives (FSEs) to drive the distribution.

Figure 2: Organization Structure

Airtel employs second and third degree distribution networks to a great extent. The Company prepares invoice of SIM Cards, Prepaid Enrolment Forms (PEFs), GSM Pay Phones, Recharge Vouchers (RCVs) of various denominations for only Urban Distributors (UDs) and Rural Super (RS) Distributors. Easy balance (electronic recharge) is also transferred to only UDs and RSs. Urban distributors then distribute these items to retailers