Managing Well
Managed services and mobile packet solutions have helped NSN in a big way
2 011 saw unveiling of new strategy by NSN. The strategy focused on mobile broadband and restructuring aimed at improving the company’s competitiveness and productivity. The focus was also on reducing operating expenses and production overheads.
Keeping in view the broadband focus, the company acquired majority of wireless network infrastructure assets of Motorola Solutions in April 2011 and expanded its operations by adding new products and services. All this helped the company to remain in the leadership position by providing end-to-end services in mobile broadband.
In India, the company leads packet core market as it handles data traffic for 250 mn subscribers. The company has implemented intelligent mobile packet core solutions for Bharti airtel, Datacom, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, and Uninor. The solution has helped operators in reducing total cost of ownership, maximizing revenue opportunities, and addressing growing bandwidth requirements. The company has implemented customer experience management (CEM) for Bharti airtel for optimizing and enriching user experience.
The CEM platform helps in maintaining and storing real-time experience metrics for every subscriber in the network enabling Bharti airtel to proactively cater to the customer needs. For Vodafone, the company has implemented unified billing and charging solutions. This will help in boosting its data subscriber takeup, capturing new revenue streams, and reducing operating costs through simplified operations.
The fiscal also saw appointment of Sandeep Girotra to lead NSN India business in the country from Ashish Chowdhary. There is a lot of expectation from the new chief as he has been associated with NSN for a long time and has a lot of experience working in different capacities.
The company has done pretty well on managed services and also fares well on the new trend where operators are looking for managed services partner with multi-vendor capabilities. On managed services, the company extended its contract with Bharti airtel for 5 years in 8 circles. Under the contract, NSN will manage and maintain Bharti aqirtel’s 3G and GSM networks as well as iWAN (internet Wireless Access Network), the operator’s enterprise broadband service.
On 4G, the company has opened its account by bagging Bharti’s network in Maharashtra and is at par with all the vendors as everybody has got one circle each. This is considered to be the biggest deal as it covers a large state. In case of Bharti, NSN will provide network design, integration, commissioning, and optimization services and full set of care services including hardware, software and competence development services. The company is also planning to use its GNSC at Noida to remotely deliver services for improved efficiency and network performance to Bharti airtel. Plans are that the company will use its TD-LTE 6 pipes radio that reduces site space and total cost of ownership.
In the fiscal, the company expanded its Chennai manufacturing facility from 35,000 to 55,000 square meters and also increased its product lines to 33. The expansion has helped NSN to export approximately 37% of the facility’s production across Asia Pacific. It will also enable the company to manufacture and distribute new multi-radio and LTE products (GSM and LTE-ready 3G base stations and its FlexiPacket radio).
The company has been growing on its manpower strength due to expansion and acquisition strategy. Presently, the company employs 15,000 people (10,000 direct and 5,000 indirect) in India as it is a priority market both from delivery base and global innovation hub. The company deploys around 9,000 people in the services division. The Global Network Solutions Center (GNSC) at Noida and Chennai takes care of international as well as Indian clients. NSN has also been continuously investing in its GNSC to make it a world-class facility and has been even improving on its managed services business. Though the company has been struggling to grab deals when pitted against its Chinese counterparts on the price front, NSN has managed to build long term relationship with its existing partners in India.