I Admire :By Vikram Baidyanath

The one company that stands out in the Indian success story for me has been Bharti Airtel (BHARTIARTL.BO : 615.65 -4.05).
What impresses a young entrepreneur like me is that the company is a first generation enterprise that has emerged as the number one player in a highly competitive environment.
The Bharti Group stands as an ideal example to underline the success story which unfolded by opening up of telecom sector to private participation at the end of the license raj.
The group, which was into phone equipment manufacturing, diversified into telecom services. But the company's turning point came out to be its venturing into GSM-based mobile services. This was one company which pounced on the opportunity of opening up of the telecom sector even as others, including big corporate houses were unclear of the potential of telecom services in the new economic environment.
As is the trend in India, Bharti's success caught the attention of other corporate giants who realised the big opportunity that lay in store in the country's telecom services sector. Subsequently in early 2000s' when the telecom sector was in its second phase of growth leap, groups such as the Tata, Reliance, Hutch, BPL Mobile and Idea entered into the fray. Reliance's entry was particularly considered to be a threat to Bharti's leadership position.
But to its credit, Bharti was successful in tiding over the challenge and still continues to outgrow its competitors.
The key strength that Bharti had was that they chose to strategically build a 'brand' out of Airtel by offering value added features and services that would retain and attract customers thus enhancing their 'value' rather than reduce the business to a 'price war' as was sought by some of the big CDMA players.
The other thing that Bharti really focused on was establishing a world class infrastructure to back their exponential growth. Their partnerships with world leaders like IBM, Nortel, Ericsson were so successful that they quote Bharti's example to bag orders globally.
Bharti Airtel has also managed the financing of their operations very well, which is key for a young company to grow. Quite early in their listing they were able to attract global investors like Berkshire Hathaway and Merrill Lynch to have large holdings which increased investor confidence in them as is evident from their extremely successful run on the stock exchange.
The success of the group has reached such a scale that it was in a position to foray into other businesses as well like insurance, DTH and retail for which it has tied up with global giant Wal-Mart.
The writer is CEO and President, Baidyanath Group