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Idea Cellular started as a joint venture company between Aditya Birla group, AT&T and the Tata Group. Both AT&T and Tata have since stepped out of the venture. Idea Cellular has over 40 mn subscribers spread across Delhi, Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttaranchal, Haryana, UP-West, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala. Idea currently covers about 45% of Indias population, and plans to start operations in Mumbai and Bihar.

The Challenges
Idea went through a series of mergers and acquisitions including the recent one of Spices cellular business. Talking about the challenges on the IT front, Prakash Paranjape, CIO, Idea Cellular says Over the period, Idea Cellular has grown through a series of mergers & acquisitions. In the initial phase, we had disparate systems and processes which were barely serving the needs of the business at that point of time. Our overall IT infrastructure had to be made scalable to the service, and drive the growth over a longer period of time. Also, forward looking systems and processes had to be built and rationalized in all parts of the business.

Another recent challenge Idea encountered was when it chose to acquire Spice Telecom that had operations in Punjab and Karnataka. According to Prakash Paranjape, Our aim is to integrate the IT infrastructure in the two circles of Karnataka and Punjab, which we have acquired from Spice, with the Idea network. Most vital is the integration of solutions deployed on this infrastructure with core Idea systems, in the shortest possible time. He is confident that integration of IT infrastructure will be done in the stipulated time frame.

In fact, in a separate eight year deal (worth $19.2 mn) announced recently, IBM will integrate, transition and migrate existing Spice applications, hardware, packages and products to the Ideas transformed applications platform. IBM will manage all IT operations and services for Ideas business in Punjab and Karnataka besides migrating the IT help desk services to its centralized help desk in Pune.

Another challenge which the company thinks it will overcome is the existing partnership which Spice Telecom had with Modi Promoted VAS company Cellebrum, which was also an in-house provider for the company. While Idea has a VAS tie up with OnMobile. But Prakash Paranjape does not consider that as a challenge and says, Idea works with multiple VAS partners, and Cellebrum is one of them. OnMobile is another valued partner of Idea, so I dont think there is any challenge for us.

The Idea
Before IBM came on board, Idea Cellular had disparate underlying servers, storage and very few COTS (Commercial Off-The Shelf) application systems in fragmented forms in multiple islands. It was this idea to integrate the IT operations coupled with the sheer size of operations in terms of coverage and the challenges in managing the explosive growth, the Idea management decided to go the Airtel way by entering into a ten year deal with IBM termed as business transformation pact. The mandate to IBM was to integrate, innovate and transform Ideas business processes and IT infrastructure. IBM is in the process of designing an innovative risk-reward revenue sharing model, and it covers Ideas existing operations and potential new additions. The ten year pact, depending upon Ideas business revenues and circle expansion, would size around $600 mn to $ 800 mn.

The Partnerships
Apart from IBM, Idea has partnered with some of the leading players in their own space for providing various value added services. For billing, it has partnered with Atos Origin, while prepaid billing solution is from Bharti Telesoft. Roaming solution is from Roamware. On Idea Cellulars overall strategy, Prakash Paranjape of Idea Cellular says that A robust Information Technology network is core to Ideas overall business strategy. It underpins various business transformation initiatives at the company.

Sudesh Prasad
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in

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