The new organisational structure and governance model takes this forward and blends Bharti’s entrepreneurial ethos with an enhanced professional culture,” he affirms with a stamp of authority. From a manufacturer of bicycle parts in late ‘70s to a telecom czar today, Mittal has indeed come a long way. A trailblazer, he has moved many strides ahead of competition. Bharti Tele-Ventures is the largest mobile operator in the country and India’s leading telecom conglomerate today. For almost two decades, Bharti’s focus was telecom. Having created ‘Airtel’, one of India’s topmost brands, and become the largest manufacturer and exporter of world-class telecom terminals under its ‘Beetel’ brand, Bharti has carved a golden niche for itself in the global market. ‘Airtel’ enjoys a massive customer base of over 44 million customers across the length and breadth of India. Mittal avers that globally, there is a revolution in connectivity underway, the ubiquitous mobile phone being at the core. “India is today the world’s fastest growing telecom market. Averaging over 6 million customer additions every month, India has proudly joined an elite group of four nations with over 150 million mobile subscribers. The mobile industry grew from 99 million subscribers in March 2006 with a penetration of nine per cent to 166 million subscribers in March 2007 with a penetration of 15 per cent, thus exhibiting a growth of 68 per cent,” he says. After consolidating his telecom empire, Mittal forayed into other flourishing sectors of agriculture business, insurance and at last, retail, with a bang. Bharti has successfully launched an international venture with ELRothschild Group owned ELRO Holdings India, to export fresh agricultural products exclusively to markets in Europe and the US. It also floated a joint venture - Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company - with AXA, global giant in financial protection and wealth management. Subsequently, it forayed into the fledgling retail business by tying a knot with global behemoth - Wal-Mart. Though the initial deal is for the cash and carry business, Bharti Retail is expected to announce a much wider alliance, once New Delhi comes up with the retail policy along with a liberalised FDI regime in the sector. A KNOWN finance whiz kid and a tough negotiator, he never found it difficult to raise cash. In the capital-intensive telecom sector, especially where two cash-rich conglomerates - Tata group and Reliance-ADAG - are getting increasingly entrenched, he has always stayed a notch above the rest, with a comfortable 20 per cent market share. In the past, he has sold stake to several strategic investors at attractive prices, and also, innovatively financed his expansions. He got two giants - SingTel and Vodafone, to invest in his telecom venture.

One of the major challenges he has been facing, especially in the telecom sector, is the high rate job turnover. “Our success greatly depends on the skills and the dedication of more than 20,000 employees,” he recently told the shareholders of Bharti Tele-Ventures. ForMittal, the growth of his enterprise is like a steroid. Bharti crossed the 25 million-customer milestone in July 2006 and became the first Indian private telecom company to join an exclusive list of global telecom operators. This landmark customer base was achieved in just over 10 years, making Bharti Airtel one of the youngest companies in this list. It continued its phenomenal expansion and finished 2006-07 at over 39 million customers, and has crossed over 44 million now. No wonder, it showcased a sterling performance in the face of an extremely competitive environment. “We closed the year with a consolidated customer base of over 39 million, a growth of 86 per cent from a year ago and generated gross revenues of Rs184 billion ($4.5 billion), a growth of 57 per cent from a year ago. Net profit grew to Rs41 billion ($1bn) thus representing an annual growth of 100 per cent,” says Mittal. Having presided over the company’s fabulous growth in telecom sector, his moves into the retail and agri businesses have exposed his fascination towards certain fledgling sectors. “Retail industry in the country will grow to $500 billion in the next 10 years from the existing $300 billion, while organised retail would only account for $100 billion, so the unorganised sector would also witness growth,” says Mittal, allaying the fears of small trade. According to Mittal, mom-and-pop stores (small traditional kirana stores) do not get wiped out in the assault of retail malls. He adds that despite the presence of Wal-Mart, the number of mom-and-pop stores in the US has gone up. “New format of retail will require a lot of people for packing, labelling, and managing customers in stores, apart from other duties. Hence all the apprehensions over possible job loss on account of the entry of organised retail are unfounded,” adds Mittal.

HAVING graduated from Harvard Business School, he is the quintessential neighbourhood entrepreneur turned a corporate czar. Mittal founded Bharti Enterprises in 1976 to manufacture components for cycles. In 1984, he ventured into telecom equipment manufacturing and was the first to introduce phones with a push button dialing system. Abig opportunity knocked at its doors when India threw open the telecom services sector for private players, ending the decades-long monopoly by state-owned players. Bharti was the first to launch mobile service in New Delhi, way back in 1995. Initial growth was slow. When it made a debut, cell phones were considered a rich man’s luxury. Extremely high tariffs for both incoming and outgoing calls created high entry barriers for customers, and a roadblock to Bharti’s expansion plans. Soon Mittal realised that Bharti had to become a totally integrated, full-scale telecom player on its own. So, while Bharti has a very strong GSM mobile franchise (the largest in the country) it has also put in place fixed-line telephony, primarily to drive broadband services. The company installed its own fibre optic cable network running across the country and laid out a submarine cable linking India to the rest of the world. Mittal has been a price warrior and is largely responsible for starting the tariff wars. Competitors were forced to follow suit, resulting in huge savings for customers.Mittal’s gamble paid off and the rate cuts led to a surge in volumes of long distance traffic eventually. Bharti, which started off with a capital of $1,000, is today a $15 billion giant. It is the only company with its mobile footprint in all of India’s 23 telecom circles. It has invested over Rs200 billion in creating telecom infrastructure in the country, as the new players crammed up for the market share. And the rest is history.