Subsequent to the finalisation of the plan, each company within the group will have to sign on a commitment statement promising to adhere to the plan. The group currently employs a silo management technique with all business decisions centralised at its corporate headquarters in Bangalore. As a result, the head office houses silo heads for sales, technology, finance and human resources who may not be line managers. However, all research functions are part of a decentralised activity and depend on the needs and requirements of eachtelephony circle. BPL Mobile is currently India's largest mobilephone service, operating in the circles of Mumbai, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Goa and Kerala.

While further details of the soon-to-be-finalised strategic plans were not available, Krishna Angara, deputy CEO, BPL Mobile confirmed the development. He said that for the last eight months, the Group has started activities to consolidate its position in all circles and aggressively bid for new customers through an acquisition strategy.

For example, in the past five months, BPL Mobile in Mumbai had sub-segmented the market to identify small yet crucial niche pockets of customer base. In this effort, they have identified working women, doctors and teenagers for whom the company is creating specific products.

This effort has been given further impetus by the Group's investment in technology called the Intelligent Network (IN). According to Angara, ``The IN has helped us in delivering very customised solutions with near-individual pricebands varying in time frames and geographical locations.'' The aim in utilising IN is to help BPL in transforming from a cellular airtime marketing company to a relationship marketing company, adds Angara. So, from the identification to the lifespan of a user, BPL aims to be part of his life. To push its reach and contact level with its customers, BPL Mobile is also in the midst of increasing the number of BPL Mobile galleries--the dedicated retail outlets--to further direct communication. The intention is to stop depending on distributors for pushing its products.

The company is also, for the first time, integrating its service options to customers of Mumbai and Pune by introducing an auto roaming number in Pune. Therefore, both circles can actually be treated as one operationally. In this direction, the company will be aiming for a 98 per cent coverage on all Mumbai-leading highways like Nasik-Mumbai and Mumbai-Pune by June this year. The plan, says Angara, is to keep building a set of complimentaryactivities for the customer in the form of a seamless product.

However, while the product may be seamless or similar, the price bands will be kept different as part of BPL's multi-circle strategy. This is because price sensitivity and acceptance levels vary from circle to circle.