In early 2008, Bharti Airtel Limited (BAL), still dominated the Indian telecom market and was the world’s tenth leading telecom company, was also preparing itself to reproduce its achievement in some other emerging markets. BAL has established itself as the leader in the market by differentiating itself with its focus on building a strong brand through innovation in sales, marketing, and customer service, and an innovative cost-effective business model. BAL’s unique business model had become the benchmark for emerging markets. Despite average revenue per user is quite low compared to other markets but it was viewed as an attractive market in respect of mobile penetration. BAL had responded to investing heavily in expanding its network, technology, and marketing. It was trying to cover all segments of the population from the tech-savvy youth population who coveted the latest value-added services to the bottom of the pyramid segment who would be satisfied with a low cost offering. Bharti Airtel Limited has managed to work with the best of domain specialists globally and emerge as a world class entity. Some of the traditional approach/strategy adopted to capture the market.

Market entry strategies:

• Bharti Airtel Limited entered in to technical collaboration with Siemens German engineering firm for push button telephones. Purpose was to enter in the telecom sector for wit limited geographical limits with hand set and the service of telecommunication (BCL provide service to BTV).
• Created brand “Airtel” object was to focus on building Brand to differentiate themselves for other player of telecommunication.
• Multi-branding strategy was used to capture different segment of market object was multi segment approach by Bharti Airtel Limited.
• Acquisition made by Bharti Airtel Limited are JT, sky cell , Spice cell object was to build to take over all local player to build themselves from  bottom to prepare themselves for future competition.
• Earlier Penetration pricing was used to target the premium segment of customer of the sector.
• Corporate branding strategy adopted to diversify profits and future investment (Agro business, retail, insurance and broadcasting etc.

Strategic partnerships/ Shareholders / Technology and Capital strategies:

• Partnerships include operational contracts with marquee vendors and strategic investors ranging from private equity investors to global telecom giants.
• Warburg Pincus  a celebrated PE investor held a stake for a substantial period of time and was instrumental in providing Airtel support in its early stages.
• Temasek the Singapore based investor holds a considerable stake in Bharti Airtel Limited.
• Bharti Airtel Limited was also affiliated with Singapore Telecom for providing partnership campaign and investment.

Outsourcing strategies:

• Ericsson was given the permission to provide, manage and maintain the equipment as well as provide quality assurance in Airtel‘s then 13 mobile circles.
• IBM was given the permission to handle the back office requirements of Airtel’s presence in India

Operational strategies:

• Higher emphasis on ARPU/min – stark contrast with other operators who concentrate on ARPU only.
• Aim to be become a one stop shop for all telecommunication services under the Bharti umbrella.
• Exploring opportunities in international markets.
• Hived off tower infrastructure into a separate entity.