An Investigation of Critical Success Factors in Telecommunication network equipment procurement projects: A case study of the Indian Telecom Industry Bharti Airtel PDF

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Dissertation on An Investigation of Critical Success Factors in Telecommunication network equipment procurement projects: A case study of the Indian Telecom Industry Bharti Airtel...

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An Investigation of Critical Success Factors in Telecommunication network equipment procurement projects: A case study of the Indian Telecom Industry Bharti Airtel Student’s Name Student’s Number

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Contents Abstract.................................................................................................................................................3 1.0 Introduction.....................................................................................................................................3 1.1 Background of the study..............................................................................................................3 1.2Statement of the problem............................................................................................................5 1.3 Study Objectives..........................................................................................................................5 1.4 Research questions......................................................................................................................6 2.0 Literature Review.............................................................................................................................7 2.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................................7 2.2 Project success.............................................................................................................................7 2.3 Critical Success Factors (CSFs)......................................................................................................8 2.4 Critical Success Factors for Procurement Projects.....................................................................10 3.0 Methodology.................................................................................................................................10 3.1 Research Design.........................................................................................................................10 3.2Data Collection Method..............................................................................................................10 3.4 Data Analysis..............................................................................................................................10 Reference.............................................................................................................................................12

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Abstract

1.0 Introduction 1.1 Background of the study Bhurti Airtel Limited is the leading telecommunication in India and offer a wide range of integrated services. The company was established in 1995 as a public limited Company is headquartered in India. It is operated under Airtel network which is a global telecommunications company which spreads its services to over 18 countries across South Asia and Africa. In 2021financial year, the company posted 1, 006,158 $ which was an exemplary performance for the company. In the same financial year, the company recorded a customer base of 321.4 million mobile users and the share issue stood at 5,492.03$ as at 31 st March 2021. The Airtel Company is ranked among the top three mobile operators globally and its network cover a population of over two billion people. Airtel is the largest integrated telecommunication provider and the second mobile operator in Africa. Airtel maintain unique portfolio services including a high speed 4G/4.5G mobile broadband, convergent TV solutions through the Airtel Xstream 4K Hybrid Box, Airtel Xstream Fiber which give a speed of upto 1Gbps , digital payments through Airtel Payments bank as well as an integrated suite of services across connectivity, collaboration, loud and security that servers many business globally.

Bharti Airtel in a major reorganization, splits Indian business into four units (https://africaincmag.com/bharti-airtel-in-a-major-reorganization-splits-indianbusiness-into-four-units/)

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Since the middle of the last century, organisations across the World have adopted various management approaches to bring about the change required to meet their organisational goals and objectives (Essilfie-Baiden 2019). There is no project that shares all characteristics as another. This is partly because every project conducted by an organisation is unique in its own way, with its own sets of strengths and challenges (Collis and Hussey, 2013). Ideally, organisations initiate projects hoping they will succeed; however, due to complexity of projects, and the challenges associated with their management, especially when it comes to the requirements of working out the project within set budgets, meeting predetermined quality specifications, and the requirement to complete the project within the set time frame. The complexity of managing these project constraints explain, to a greater extent, why many projects fail along the way (Kejuo 2012).

Revenue of Bharti Airtel Limited from financial year 2013 to 2020 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/740481/india-bharti-airtel-revenue/) There are many factors that may cause a project to fail, ranging from internal forces like changes in management, operative processes, sills, resource allocations, and internal conflicts among others to external forces such as environmental forces, government laws, monetary markets forces, societal demands, impact of labour market forces, changes in technology, pressure teams, client influence, and influence from other project stakeholders. Consequently, managing a project under the influence of these multiple factors is very demanding on the side of the managers, and this also explains why it is very easy for a project to fail along the way before reaching maturity (Essilfie-Baiden 2019). However, project failures have been reported across all industries and sectors, the information technology industry is in practice the most affected. Essentially,

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this sector is characterised by continuous and rapid innovation, with new technologies coming out frequently, thereby competing and outdoing each other every day.

Bharti Airtel in a major reorganization, splits Indian business into four units (https://africaincmag.com/bharti-airtel-in-a-major-reorganization-splits-indianbusiness-into-four-units/) The telecommunication (in short, telecom) industry, which forms the largest segment of the IT sector, is always the epicentre of these technological evolutions; as such, telecommunication companies are faced with the challenge of having to engage in repeated processes of procuring new equipment and materials to upgrade to the emerging new technologies (Kejuo 2012; and Mukopi 2016). Procurement of network equipment plays a centre role in mobile telecommunication business. The purchase of these equipment are capital intensive and require an established sound process in the procurement execution. These research examined the critical factors that a project manager has to consider when undertaking a telecommunication network equipment procurement with the case study of Bharti Airtel in India. Ten critical factors that determine success of Procurement of network equipment include, supplier process and time, technological standards, price, relationship with supplier, top management support, system training and integration, change management, performance management, security and change management. Out of the above ten factors six of the were identified and ranked in order of importance in the case of Bharti Airtel in India which include, top management support, supplier relationship, technological

standards,

system

training

measurement, security and change management.

and

integration,

performance

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1.2 Statement of the problem According to Mukopi (2016), equipment procuring processes are becoming frequent in the telecommunications industry as the technology rapidly evolves. As such, how to optimise the procurement decisions in order to reduce the costs forms a major factor in their cost strategy and development. procurement

projects

are

becoming

an

important

As a result,

component

of

the

telecommunication industry. Nevertheless, according to Mishra et al. (2011), despite a lot of studies having been conducted on the critical success factors that lead the telecommunication network equipment procurement projects to succeed, many of these projects continue to fail, thereby causing their organisations to incur huge losses every year. In part, this means that the research so far conducted in this area is inefficient, and more needs to be done to identify more factors that may contribute to success of these procurement projects. In this regard, the dissertation aimed to identify the major factors that made the network procurement projects achieve success in the telecommunication industry, with the Indian Telecom Industry Bhurti Airtel Limited as the case study.

1.3 Study Objectives a) To ascertain how the top management support influences the implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry. b) To investigate how change management influences the implementation of telecommunication network equipment projects in the Indian telecom industry. c) To examine how performance measurement influences the implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry. d) To assess the influence of the supplier process and time management on the implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry. e) To

establish

how

the

technological

standards

influences

the

implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry.

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1.4 Research questions a. How does the top management support influence the implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry? b. To what extent does change management influence the implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry? c. How does performance measurement influence the implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry? d. To what extent does supplier process and time management influence the implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry? e. How do the technological standards influence the implementation of telecommunication network equipment procurement projects in the Indian telecom industry?

2.0 Literature Review 2.1 Introduction Project management profession has faced numerous changes due to its dynamic nature of setting. The profession is characterised with rapid technological advancements, unstable financial market conditions and development struggles which creates a difficulties time for the project management team to achieve desired results when they execute projects. Project management has now become more difficult than previously anticipated in all industry sector, which makes it more

difficult

and

complex to define the term “Success.” This is because even the factors to measure success are actually unpredictable due to unprecedented changes that are frequently faced by the project managers. According to Nayak, (2018) the study of project success or failure and the critical success factors entails understanding and improving the project management process. This section discussed and reviewed literature that brings much understanding and explanation of the critical success

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factors in project management. The literature also discussed project success factors and the procurement management.

2.2 Project success It is not easy to define project success, however from the traditional view of project management, a successful project is the one that has achieves all its objectives within the stipulated time, scope and quality as used by Kezner, (2009). This implies successful achievement of time, cost and quality objectives as well as high quality project process alongside budget and specified technology as the standards of judging project success. According to john (2021), the overall project success engulfs the wider and longer term impact of the project management success and project product success. Turner 2004, identified various aspects that gauge the success or the standards for judging project success including achieving set objectives within the set time frame, within the budgeted resources and other specifications especially for the information technology related projects. According to Erling et al (2006), the overall project success considers a wider and longer term impact the project. From the above authors, it is evident that project management success can only be determined at the end of the project, thus means in most cases the success criteria can only be determined months or years after the project inception or after the project completion especially for the public projects. It is therefore, not easy to determine a project success from the above discussed success criteria, Erling et al. (2006). Baccarini (1999) denoted the concept of project success in a different approach, by viewing it as a product success, pegged on the quality and impact of the end product to the end user. This could either be determined either by end user need satisfaction, meeting set organizational objectives or stakeholders’ need satisfaction upon project execution and completion. Project success could also be defined as the “results much better than expected or normally observed in terms of Cost, quality, time frame, safety and stakeholders’ satisfaction” (Ashley et al. 1987). According to Baker 1988, project success ensure technical performance and satisfaction among various stakeholders in the project including clients, project team and end user. Power and Dickson (2003) in their work on managing information system project discussed project success based on the time, cost, user

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satisfaction and the impact on computer operations. Nonetheless, Lim and Mohamed (1999) stated that project managers should not always consider project success as the achievement of predetermined project including time, cost, performance, quality and safety, but also consider project users who do not value similar predetermined goals regarding to the project. Thus, different people will have different perceptions of product success. The above literature agree with Steinfort (2011) who underscores that “success has to be investigated from the perspective of active project team as well as from the clients/ recipient an in theoretical and empirical review of critical success criterion and other factors on any project”.

2.3 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) Over the years, many studies have been conducted to determine various project management success factors that influence success. According to Fortune and White (2006), there exist undeniable consensus between authors and researchers on the major factors that affect project success. Baccarini (1999) and Lue and Walker (1998) consent that defining critical success factors for project is a continuous and an intricate process. In 1961, Daniel developed the first critical success factor concept which elaborated on how to manage information system crises and in 1979, the model was advanced further by Rockart, by identifying the use of critical success factors to create a competitive advantage, Barbar (2010). Remuse (2007) noted that the strength of critical success factors is imbedded on their identification and confirmation

especially by engaging the senior

management teams and any other team close to the work and also concentrating on the key design features for the project success. Critical success factors have been denoted as the main reasons responsible for project success, (Zwikael and Globerson, 2006). This was well supported by Erling et al (2006) who highlighted that critical success factors are rarely specific enough for project managers to act on. According to Erling (2006), affect the critical success factors are the specifications that have been pinpointed as necessary to achieve for a project to receive excellence in undertaking. Where the success factors are not present or not taken into consideration, one must expect challenges or barriers that affect the overall success of a project. Anderson and

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Jessen (2000) emphasized the need to separate the actual tasks from the people associated issues while evaluating the project results. The two identified critical success factors based on project stepwise structure and reflecting on the project progression. The major factors covered under their discussion include the project scope (mission, goals and terms of references), project planning (planning at global and detailed level), Project execution (various project activities and decisions) and Project control (financial and technical support, internal and external communication). Belassi and Turkel (1996) categorised the critical success factors into for major areas; the Project ( the type, size, uniqueness and urgency), the organization (the structure and management support), the external environment (political, financial and technological)n and lastly the project manager and their team (the backgrounds, skills and expertise). Lester (1998) discovered different sets of critical success factors, including senior management commitment, Project risk management and organizational structure. According to Fortune and White (2006), there exist a big disparity between researchers on what factors affects project success. The disparity is evident in the dynamic nature of business environment characterised with fast changes in the technological advancement.

2.4 Critical Success Factors for Procurement Projects Technological advancement is one of the big challenges faced project manager, majorly due to dynamic nature of technology. Telecommunication companies have shown intense investment demand for deploying new technologies or updating the existing technologies to meet and surpass the heightened competition in the communication industry. To fulfil this need, procurement of more equipment must take place, thus resulting to large amount of procurement costs. It is therefore important for telecommunication companies to understand the strategies that optimize procurement decisions and reduce relative costs especially in the circumstance of financial crisis. Anderson and Jessen, (2000) have also underscored various literature on procurement management within project and as a project.

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3.0 Methodology This chapter presented the analytical framework used in the study. According to Bless and Achol (2014) a research methodology guides a researcher in collecting, analysing and interpreting observed facts. Data collection is vital process in most scientific research. In this research data was collected from Bharti Airtel in India as a case study. The data collects was majorly secondary data from the company publications, announcements and financial reports. Other type of data collection method which could have been used however due to language barrier they were not considered include the direct interview based on standard questions formulated to cover the network equipment procurement and critical success factors of in Bharti Airtel. A questionnaire is also a unique data collection tool which reaches a wide range of groups understudy.

3.1 Research Design Research design constitutes the blue print of the collection, measurement and data analysis. Cooper, & Schindler, (2006) ...