Bharti sets sights on corporate customers

Mumbai, July 9: Moving away from the rush by telecom operators to enlist retail subscribers, Bharti Tele-Ventures today said it will focus on enlisting corporate and small enterprise clients by offering them a complete gamut of telecom services.

“Bharti is not only a cellular player, but an integrated player in the telecom business,” said Manoj Kohli, president (mobility), Bharti Tele-Ventures.

The company will offer a bouquet of services, including international long distance, national long distance, broadband and GPRS services, to enterprise customers. The increased penetration as mobile operators lower entry barriers is bound to create segmentation in the market, he added.

“That’s the first level of repositioning this entire space,” he said. Bharti Tele-Ventures has already talked to 500 CEOs of leading companies on a one-to-one basis.

So far no other telecom player has offered complete solutions to its corporate customers. The company has already made a beginning with Wipro, Praxair.

In Wipro, Bharti helped cut costs by ensuring that calls to the US and Europe were made through cell phones instead of landlines. This helped the company save a lot of money as call rates per minute to the US through a cell phone is at least Rs 8 cheaper than a wireline phone.

Praxair is using GPRS to track its fleet of 110 trucks that criss-cross the country in an effort to streamline its process.