Factsheet |
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CEO: Shailendra Gupta Year of Start-up: 1986 Area of Operation: International telecom services and value-added services Address: Videsh Sanchar Bhavan, MG Road, Mumbai-400 001 Tel: 022-2624020 Fax: 022-2624466 Web site: www.vsnl.com |
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SWOT |
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STRENGTH
WEAKNESS
OPPORTUNITY
THREAT
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With deregulation round the corner, India’s exclusive international
telephony provider, Videsh Sanchar Telecom Nigam (VSNL), is getting ready to
play to a new tune–that of open market forces. With its monopoly slated to be
terminated by the end of March next year, this government protégé stands to
face a host of private companies storming its bastion to access a market
expected to be in the range of $5-6 billion a year.
But VSNL doesn’t need to lose heart. Rather than merely reacting to change,
it can formulate strategy to anticipate change, prepare for it and take
advantage of the new possibilities that deregulation throws up. And it is
already making its moves.
Though there are plenty of opportunities for VSNL, the acid test lies in its
approach to customer service and marketing. In the international telephony
business, the company has not had a direct interaction with customers with the
exception of Internet services. Analysts are unanimous in their views that VSNL’s
fortunes will be decided by its ability to maneuver the unchartered waters
called customer service and satisfaction.
In the previous fiscal, VSNL’s net profit zoomed to 87 percent by reaching
a figure of Rs 1,577.60 crore as compared to Rs 840.30 for the same period last
year. But it may be recalled that VSNL’s bottomline for the fiscal 1999-00
took a beating after the ICO fiasco, where it lost investments worth Rs 513
crore. Total revenue for 2000-01 grew to Rs 7,327.2 crore (provisional) from Rs
6,967.6, exhibiting a growth of 5 percent over the previous year.
The volume of international telephone traffic handled rose by 20 percent to
2,694 million paid minutes. But in revenue terms, this growth has been curtailed
to 3 percent on account of the reduction in Total Accounting Rate.
What has been most impressive about the company’s performance for the last
fiscal was its stupendous growth in the Internet subscriber base. Probably, this
is the first sign that this behemoth can not only survive but also thrive in a
competitive environment as it did in a monopoly. The growth in Internet
subscriber base has been to the tune of 72 percent, which leaped to 6,30,970 on
31 March 2001 from the previous year’s figure of 3,66,432. The number of
leased data circuits (64 Kbps & above) has also increased to 4,916 from
1,634 during the year.
During the previous fiscal, VSNL reduced by 40 percent the cost of its
services at stations serviced terrestrial or satellite leased line links. This
was in line with the 70 percent reduction it offered on leased line tariffs at
Mumbai and Cochin. It also reduced and rationalized tariff for web hosting and
co-location, to customers using VSNL servers.
Today, VSNL has got a total connectivity of 1,000 Mbps.