Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder, Chairman and Managing
Director of Bharti Group can be labelled as the most ambitious telecom entrepreneur in
India. Sunil a former student of Harvard Business School, graduated from Punjab
University. The son of a parliamentarian, Sunil did not want to follow his father's footsteps.
He had shown an interest in business even from his teenage days. So after graduation, Sunil got together with his friend and
formed a small bicycle business with borrowed capital in the1970s. But by 1979,
he realized
that this business would remain small. So he moved out of Ludhiana, spent a few
years in Mumbai and in 1981, was running an import and distribution operation
out of New Delhi and Mumbai.
By 1982, Mittal had started a full-fledged business
selling portable generators imported from Japan and that gave him the
chance to involve himself in activities like marketing and
advertising. Things went smoothly until the government banned the import of
generators as two Indian companies were awarded licenses to manufacture
generators locally.
Sunil Mittal got interested in push button phones while on a trip to
Taiwan, and in 1982, introduced the phones to India, replacing the old fashioned, bulky rotary phones that were in use
in the country then. Bharti Telecom Limited
(BTL) was
incorporated and entered into a technical tie up with Siemens AG of Germany
for manufacture of electronic push button phones. By the early 1990s,
Mittal was making fax machines, cordless phones and other telecom gear.
The turning point came in 1992 when the Indian government was awarding
licenses for mobile phone services for the first time. One of the conditions for the Delhi cellular license was
that the bidder have some experience as a telecom operator. Mittal clinched a deal
with the French telecom group Vivendi. Two years later, Sunil
secured rights to serve New Delhi. In 1995, Bharti Cellular Limited (BCL) was formed to offer cellular services under the brand name AirTel.
Within a few years Bharti became the first telecom company to cross the 2-million mobile subscriber mark.
The company is also instrumental in bringing down the high STD/ISD, cellular rates in the country
by rolling the countries first private national as well as international long-distance service
under the brand name IndiaOne. In 2001, the company entered into a joint venture with Singapore Telecom International for a
$650-million ubmarine cable project, the
countries first ever undersea cable link connecting Chennai in India and Singapore.
Always on the move and making an impact and excelling in
whatever he did, this clear thinking risk taker has changed the face of the Indian ICT
space. For his contributions he has been honoured with
several awards. He was chosen as one of the top entrepreneurs in the world for the year 2000
and amongst 'Stars Of Asia', by 'Business Week', he received IT Man of the Year Award
2002
from Dataquest and CEO Of the Year, 2002 Award (World HRD Congress). He is the
member of National Council of Confederation of Indian Industry
(CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), Chairman, Indo-US Joint Business
Council, Member, Advisory Committee constituted by Ministry of
IT. Mittal has to his credit the breaking up of the 100 year old monopoly of
state run companies to operate telecom services in India. Now he heads a successful
empire focused on different areas of business through independent Joint Venture
companies with a market capitalization
of approximately $ 2 billion, employing over 5,000 people and still growing.
Bharti Foundation has funded over 50 schools in Madhya Pradesh and also donated
Rs 200 million to IIT Delhi for building a Bharti School of Technology and
Management.
In spite of his deep involvement in work, Mittal the man, is calm,
seldom ruffled and very down to earth. He says he achieves a sense of detachment and peace
with regular practice of yoga. He is thankful for a supportive family including a daughter and twin sons,
with whom understandably he doesn't get much time to spend. His brothers Rakesh
and Rajan are with him in the business.
