IDEA CELLULAR LTD

About the Company:

IDEA Cellular is an Aditya Birla Group Company, India's first truly multinational corporation.
The group operates in 25 countries, and is anchored by over 1,30,000 employees belonging to 30
nationalities. The Group has been adjudged the '6th Top Company for Leaders in Asia Pacific
Region' in 2009, in a survey conducted by Hewitt Associates, in partnership with The RBL
Group, and Fortune. The Group has also been rated 'The Best Employer in India and among the
Top 20 in Asia' by the Hewitt-Economic Times and Wall Street Journal Study 2007.

IDEA Cellular is a publicly listed company, having listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE)
and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in March 2007. IDEA Cellular is a leading GSM mobile
services operator in India with 67 million subscribers, under brand IDEA. It is a pan India
integrated GSM operator covering the entire telephony landscape of the country, and has NLD
and ILD operations.

A frontrunner in introducing revolutionary tariff plans, IDEA Cellular has the distinction of
offering the most customer friendly and competitive Pre Paid offerings, for the first time in India,
in an increasingly segmented market. From basic voice & Short Message Service (SMS) services
to high-end value added & GPRS services such as Blackberry, Datacard, Mobile TV, Games etc
- IDEA is seen as an innovative, customer focused brand.

IDEA offers affordable and world-class mobile services to varied segments of mobile users. Be it
high end users, or low-end, price sensitive consumers - IDEA's tariff plans are designed to suit
every pocket.

With a vision of delighting its customers while meeting their individual communication needs
anytime, anywhere, IDEA offers seamless coverage to roaming customers traveling to any part
of the country, as well as to international traveling customers across over 200 countries. IDEA
Cellular has partnership with over 400 operators to ensure that customers are always connected
while on the move, within the country or other parts of the world.

IDEA is the winner of 'The Emerging Company of the Year Award' at The Economic Times
Corporate Excellence Awards 2008-09. The company has received several other national and
international recognitions for its path-breaking innovations in mobile telephony products &
services. It won the GSM Association Award for "Best Billing and Customer Care Solution” for
2 consecutive years. It was awarded "Mobile Operator of the Year Award - India” for 2007 and
2008 at the Annual Asian Mobile News Awards.

Service Areas:

The Indian telecommunications market for mobile services is divided into 22 "Service Areas"
classified into "Metro", Category "A", Category "B" and Category "C" service areas by the
Government of India. These classifications are based principally on a Service Area's revenue
generating potential. IDEA is a pan-India operator with services being made available in all parts
of the country.

The telecom service areas have been divided into Established and New Service Areas.

Established Service Areas:

The established service areas are Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Kerala,
Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh (West).

Licenses for the Maharashtra and Gujarat Service Areas were awarded in December 1995, with
network rollout and commercial launch achieved in 1997. In January 2001 the mobile operations
in Andhra Pradesh Service Area were integrated with IDEA through a merger with Tata Cellular
Limited.

In June 2001, the mobile operations in Madhya Pradesh Service Area were fully integrated with
IDEA through an acquisition of RPG Cellcom Limited. In October 2001, the license for Delhi
Service Area was acquired during the fourth mobile license auction, with network rollout and
commercial launch in November 2002.

In January 2004, Escotel Mobile Communications Private Limited ("Escotel"), was acquired
with its original licenses in the Service Areas of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (West) and Kerala. All
these Service Areas were re-branded and integrated with IDEA in June 2004.

New Service Areas:

The New Service Areas are Uttar Pradesh (East), Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Mumbai,
Karnataka, Punjab, Orissa, Chennai & Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir, Kolkata & West Bengal,
and Assam & North East. Licenses for Uttar Pradesh (East), Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh
were acquired through the acquisition of Escotel (Escorts Telecommunications Limited).

Idea launched its services in Mumbai and Bihar in 2008. The Mumbai launch was the largest
Metro City launch in India. In Bihar, Idea acquired 500,000 subscribers in just over 100 days.

Brand Idea was launched in Karnataka and Punjab, through the acquisition of Spice
Communications. The company has expanded its pan-India presence through service launches in
Orissa, Chennai & Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir, Kolkata & West Bengal, and the North East
states in FY10.

Objectives of the study:

 To understand the importance of blueprint at Idea Cellular Ltd.

 To understand the blueprint of Postpaid services at Idea Cellular Ltd.
 To understand how the service personnel interact and support the customers queries.
 To understand the level of interaction between front stage and back stage employees
during the delivery of the services.
Service Blueprint:

In every business blueprint plays an important role .Because it gives the indication that what
process has to be followed in the entire course of action. As before starting with anything there
should be a flowchart the same thing applied to the business industry, here they should have the
complete chart that will gives the direction to them.

Basically in service industry importance of Service Blueprint can’t be avoided. As service itself
includes so many numbers of processes that has to be delivered to the customers in order to
satisfy their basic needs to the complex one.

Developing a Service Blueprint:

Before started with Service Blueprint first as a service provider need to identify all the key
activities in creating and delivering the service in question and then specify the linkages between
these activities. Initially it is better to keep activities relatively aggregated in order to define the
big picture. Now the Service Blueprint for different industries vary from their nature of services
to be delivered to their valuable customers.

Basically Service Blueprint it comprises 5 stages. They are as under:

 Physical Evidence,
 Customers Action,
 Line of Interaction,
 Line of Visibility,
 Support Activity.

Now each one of them are described as under:

1. Physical Evidence:
Physical Evidence is the first component of Service Blueprint. Physical evidence is
nothing but visual or other tangible clues that provides evidence of service quality. It
means that it can be both visible and tangible. Ex: Brochure is the example of physical
 evidence which provides what services are been offered by the organization to meet the
customers demands. So this physical evidence then should be taken into consideration
while designing the Service Blueprint.

2. Customer Action:
After Physical evidence the second component of Service Blueprint is Customer Action.
It means what are the action taken by the customers while participating in the service
delivery process. As without customers participation there can’t be any service delivery.
Because in service there is a simultaneous production and consumption of goods and
services. And moreover customers participation is most necessary as customers
participation enhances service quality and required measure can be taken in the context of
customer complaints.

3. Line of Interaction:
Line of interaction basically deals with the degree of interaction with the front stage
employees of the service organization. As in most of the service organization “Line of
Interaction” plays a pertinent role as the front stage employees they are the ice breaker
to the customers. Because quality of service depends on the how front stage employee
caters to the need of the customers. Apart from that the quality of services enhances if the
back stage employees they perform a better job mostly applicable in case of Hotel
industry.

4. Line of Visibility:
Line of visibility basically refers to the what customers experience at front stage, and the
line of activities performed by back stage employees where customers basically cant see
them. Ex: In Hotel when basically customers pass the order to the waiter where he plays
the role of front stage employees, at a same time the cook who actually prepare the food
he plays the role of back stage employees. So the success of delivery of services here not
only depend upon the front stage employees but also back stage employees. As in this
case if the cooked food is really up to the mark then the same can be presented by the
front stage employee so nicely otherwise how much of effort is made by the front stage
 employees in front of the customers will go for waste if the cooked food is not meeting
customer perceived standard.

5. Support Activity:
Support Activity is the last component of Service Blueprint. As each and every service
require support activity otherwise customers complaints can’t be processed and the same
can’t be improve for future period. Ex: Like in BPO the technical support personal take
care of the all the complaints lodged by the clients otherwise there will not be any After
Sales Services. Because in service industry providing after sales service is really
necessary.

Postpaid Service Blueprint of Idea Cellular Ltd:

Company Company
Physical Evidence:
Brochure Template

Company Published
Magazine & Journal

Customers Produce bill to

Customers Action:
arrival at office the executive

Collect the Making payment to

paid bill the phone bill
 Checking the Making entry
Front Stage Employees:
registration into the system
details

Forwarding the
Receiving the mode
bill to the
of payment
customers

Maintaining Processing data

Back Stage Employees:
database of clients

Displaying
Preparing
report to
report
management

Customer query Meet of Service

Support Activities:
processing personnel

Fig: Blueprint of Idea Cellular Ltd Postpaid (sources: Services Marketing,

Lovelock, Jochen Wirtz, Jayanta Chatterjee).
Conclusion:
The success of service industry depends upon how the industry delivers the service to their
customers and that too how qualitative service they are delivering. So in that context the success
of the service delivery depends on the Service Blueprint it means what are the process should be
included to the service design and what are the process should be eliminated to ensure the quality
of the services. As customers are the king to the service provider so service provider should
understand the fail point of their delivered services. Because that would help them to redesign
their service and deliver the same in an effective manner to delight their customers in long run.

Reference:
1. www.google.com
2. www.ideacellular.com
3. Services Marketing ( Christopher Lovelock, Jochen Wirtz, Jayanta
Chatterjee)