Inside BSNL's plan to reclaim lost market in mobile, landline and broadband

State-run telecom firm BSNL Chairman P.K. Purwar has set sales targets for the company's various business verticals - fixed line, enterprise businesses, Fibre-to-Home and consumer mobility or wireless - to be achieved by the telecom circles in the current fiscal.

The move is aimed at checking the build-up of operational losses that is pushing the public sector undertaking (PSU) into a chronically ailing phase.

Under the new sales plan, each circle has been asked to ensure at least ₹1,000 crore rent income from the unutilised spaces.

BSNL's consumer mobility (CM) vertical has been given a target to achieve two million gross connections every month alongwith a 10 per cent increase in visitor location register (VLR) figures by focusing on sales channels.

VLR is database that contains information of subscribers in a specific location.

Currently going through its worst financial crisis, BSNL is defaulted in paying salaries for the first time in February this year and has been on a continuous decline path despite additions of subscribers.

"The telecom industry is in distress and BSNL is also facing the heat. As a first step towards transformation, I would like to have much more aggressive targets as in the CFA (fixed line) vertical retaining the net landline customer base as on March 31, 2019, and provision to at least double the FTTH (Fibre-to-the-Home) connections as provided in the last year 2018-19. This can only be achieved by sales and marketing", he said in a letter to the Chief General Managers of the circles.

"In the consumer mobility (CM) vertical, we should at least achieve two million gross connections every month with a target of 10 per cent increase in VLR figures by focusing on sales channels, branding at the retailers premises.

"The aim should be to increase 10 per cent at least in the IN or Intelligent Network Revenues in the current fiscal through maintaining up time BTS and increasing market share", the letter, which is almost akin to a sales target, stated.

In the communication, Purwar asked the circles to target 25 per cent increase in revenues from the enterprise business (EB) from existing and new clients as he says this segment has high potential.

To energise the workforce, Purwar has come up with a new slogan --ACTION-- Adopting Changes to Improve Outcomes Now. The earlier slogan was "Service with a Smile".

BSNL is expected to post a loss of ₹14,000 crore in 2018-19 and lower revenue of around ₹19,000 crore as Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has informed the Lok Sabha.

The government is deliberating on its survival plans by way of giving 4G spectrum and a one-time voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) package which together could cost around ₹20,000 crore but there has been no green signal from Finance Ministry.

The communication did not either provide numbers regarding the anticipated rise in revenues or subscribers nor the past figures in these two business vertical categories.

As per telecom regulator Trai figures, BSNL has a landline subscriber base of 2 crore and a mobile subscriber base of 10.5 crore.

Industry figures show BSNL has a base of four million FTTH subscribers.

Regarding the finance segment, the Chairman and Managing Director said: "We shall also pay special attention to earn at least ₹1,000 crore in the current fiscal by renting out the vacant/under-utilised built-up spaces", while stressing on collection efficiency and recovering old dues under the company's Aishwarya project.

"I shall be monitoring closely the key parametres to bring perceptible changes in the functioning of your circle with measurable inputs. We have to focus on reduction our operating costs by rationalising power consumption and greater emphasis on utilising existing manpower instead of outsourced activities," Purwar said.

"There is a need to relook at expenditure and look at every possibility to rationalise and optimise existing resources to cut costs and outsourcing."