Enterprise Connectivity Provider

There's a lot of action happening in this segment, with cut-throat

competition between different brands. For instance, till last year, we had six

brands with sufficient votes to enter the club. This year, the number has

dropped to only five. Sify was unable to make it to the club this time. The

remaining players are the same, with no new addition. Overall, there is only

slight improvement in overall brand performance metrics across all the brands.

It looks as if Airtel has been very aggressive in the market. It's overtaken all

other brands in terms of current ownership, or mass. The brand pull situation is

not as good as last year. Let's analyze analyze individual brands and see where

they've reached.

Till last year, VSNL/Tata Indicom ruled the roost as far as top of mind

recall, current ownership and future intent to purchase were concerned, but this

year is completely different. The most future ready brand this year is Airtel,

and it has left VSNL behind by a wide margin. The brand seems to have really

worked hard to improve its position and reach here. If it continues at this

pace, then it will grab the lion's share of the market pretty soon. It could

actually do much better if it improves upon its brand persuasion, because it's

the least persuasive of all. So, a lot of users can recall the brand name on top

of their minds, but Airtel has not been able to leverage that and changing this

into likelihood of purchase. The brand pull situation of Airtel is better than

that of VSNL and BSNL. Airtel enjoys 66% brand loyalty, with only 14% of the

CIOs saying that they're likely to shift to another brand.

Interestingly, the number two spot has been occupied by MTNL, which comes as

a surprise packet, because till last year, it was last on the future readiness

index. MTNL is the most persuasive brand of the lot, and is second highest on

the brand pull index. Its brand loyalty remains the lowest of the lot though, at

43%, with a whopping 45% of existing CIOs, who don't know which other brand to

shift to. Hopefully, MTNL will cut across all the red tape and bureaucracy and

try to tilt them in its favor.

VSNL's numbers have dropped significantly as compared to last year, which is

why it has landed at the number two spot. If Airtel is moving at a speed of 100,

then VSNL is at 36, so it really needs to shift gears and step on the gas if it

wants to move up. It was the second lowest brand on the persuasion as well as

brand pull index. VSNL enjoys only 50% brand loyalty, and it if it's not

careful, then another 20% of its existing users are likely to shift to

competition.

The last two on the Users' Choice future readiness index are BSNL and

Reliance Infocomm. Both need to pick up considerable speed in they wnat to gain

a significant future consumer share. Let's see what happens next year, with four

brands combating Airtel for the top spot.