Case Study Analysis: Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio in Indian Telecom

This research report is a case study focused on Mukesh Ambani and his venture, Reliance Jio, within the Indian telecom market. The study examines Ambani's entrepreneurial ideas, particularly the establishment of Reliance Jio, to understand real-world business implementation. It provides background on Ambani's wealth and the success of Reliance Industries Ltd, including Reliance Jio's significant impact on the Indian telecom sector. The case study analyzes Ambani's observations before launching Jio, such as the slow pace of the Indian telecom industry and poor service quality, leading to the insight of offering discount and free services. The report details Ambani's business model, including free voice calls and data plans. It also explores future plans, such as JioGigaFiber and a new commerce platform. The case study concludes by highlighting lessons for future entrepreneurs, emphasizing disruptive thinking, alternative revenue channels, and the importance of understanding market dynamics.

Running head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Entrepreneurship
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
This research report is a case study based on the business tycoon Mukesh Ambani.
Mukesh Ambani is an Indian business entrepreneur holding the ownership of the leading
Indian business Reliance Industries Ltd known as Fortune Global 500 as well as India’s most
valuable company by its market value. The case study particularly focus on entrepreneurship
ideas in relation to the recent establishment of Reliance Jio by Mukesh Ambani in Indian
telecom market. The major purpose of the case study is to gain a suitable understanding of
real-life entrepreneur to brush up the real-world scenario of how business ideas and concepts
are implemented in today’s dynamic business environment.
Background of Mukesh Ambani
The real time net worth of Mukesh Ambani presently in the world is $50.2B. Mukesh
Ambani presently achieves the revenue of $90 billion in Reliance Industries Ltd. According
to Forbes’ Billionaire, the richest people in World 2019 list Ambani acquired the 13th
position. The business Ambani built over the decades helped him increase his wealth
tremendously –from US$19.3 billion in 2016 to US$55.2 billion in 2019. According to
Kumar et al., (2018) Ambani’s business strength has been reinforced by the development of
one of his leading business called Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited. Reliance Jio
has been established as an ecosystem that certainly allows Indians to live the digital life to the
fullest first time in India. Holla (2017) criticized that Ambani’s announcement about the ideas
and plans of Jio shock the sector because the share-price of Vodafone and Airtel suddenly
dropped considerably.

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Observation of Reliance (Jio) the founder of the business may have made
prior to the business being established
According to Desk (2016), Reliance Jio overtook rival Bharti Airtel in order for
becoming India’s second largest operator with respect to mobile phone subscribers. Jio
presently has 322.98 million users as well as 27.6% as per the data provided by Regulatory
Authority of India (Mukherjee, 2019). Before the launch of Reliance Jio Ambani, already was
one of successful entrepreneurs in the world by 2010 but he observed the fact that Indian
Telecom industry is moving at a snail’s pace and the industry was mostly acquired by two
Vodafone and Airtel. Despite the emerging nature of economy, Indian consumers in the
telecom sector were not enjoying a smooth and stable mobile connectivity and this
observation made Ambani think of a stable 4G network. Amani observed that the demand of
telecom services in India is rapidly increasing despite the stumbling quality of services.
Thereby, the idea of establishing Reliance in the market was his most appropriate choice. In
this context, Rishi, Kacker and Gupta (2018) commented that while the telecom sector too
witnessed intense disruption, shrinking revenue streams, bankruptcy and eventually
consolidation the last three years have been monumental because 4G network soared and it
has become the catalyst for the growth of mobile data as well as mobile application.
What insight or insight have been followed on from the initial observations
The initial observation which is stated above has certainly generated a
comprehensible insight which has been further implemented during the establishment of
Reliance Jio. Ambani realized that Indian telecom sector was a big market where despite the
poor service quality people were culturally inclined towards the use of mobile network
services. The business insight he gained from the observation is that Indian consumers tend to
look for the discount and offers when it comes to using a product. Arora and Arora (2017)

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also mentioned that marketing practice of ‘offer and discount’ has always hit the Indian
market as the consumers were not much concerned about the approaches behind the offers
and discount. So, Ambani also realized the fact that to attract and hold consumers, they
should be approached with a unique element in the existing marketing practice. Therefore,
the idea of free subscription in mobile network service stroke the telecom sector in Indian as
millions of consumers availed the service and eventually become the consumer of Reliance
Jio.
Whether Mukesh Ambani tested his ideas in ways before proceeding and
how
The businessman Ambani did not experiment the idea of Reliance Jio network before
proceeding but due to prolonged understanding of the market and market dynamics, the
owner grasped the scenario that it would be a massive success. Holla (2017) mentioned that
in the ongoing decade, the country India has observed a rapid growth in cultural move, which
created the opportunity for several businesses. As technology has a burgeoning impact on
culture, the acceptance of 4G network services was most likely high by then.
Business model Mukesh Ambani in their enterprise and revenue model
It has been identified that everything that Jio has done so far is particularly intended at
making money and the tariff plans might have looked perfect but the brand could make more
money by giving a free voice call compared to what other brands make charging the
consumers for it. Rishi, Kacker and Gupta (2018) mentioned that unlike the other telecom
brands Reliance Jio does not have any existing voice consumers, so the brand lose nothing by
offering free voice. So, to enjoy the free voice, customers must have to subscribe to a Jio
data plan. This means as long as average revenue per user remain high, the brand has no issue
giving the voice at free of cost

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Planning for the next phase of the business
It has been identified that Ambani’s next big bet is on fibre to the home offerings.
The initiative is JioG Giga Fiber it is particularly estimated to be the greatest green field
rollout of wired broadband services which would cover 1600 cities in India. Ambani’s Jio
business is planning to create a hybrid, online to offline new commerce platform through the
integration of Reliance’s retail and telecom offerings. Ambani has announced this Jio Fibre
concept which is certainly going to give cinema hall a run for their money. This means by
subscribing to this new service, the users can watch new movies on the day of their release at
the comfort of their homes. Such service has never existed in the nation and while the brand
has not disclosed the pricing, but as per the recent announcement, the brand is most likely to
launch the service in the middle of 2020. Hence, the purpose is to bundle the landline
connection, subscription to the video streaming platforms, a cable and the priority service for
Jio Mobile subscription. This proposed service would allow the users for the annual
subscription plan against the series of services that users can avail.
Lessons might be drawn from the experience of the person, for the benefits
of future entrepreneur
The massive success of Ambani’s Jio certainly provides significant lesion for the
future entrepreneurs. Firstly, future entrepreneurs should focus on thinking big as well as
executing on the ground. This means reliance has always been popular for its disruptive
thinking as well as relentless execution, since the time period of Ambani’s father Dhiubhai
Ambani. This means that the idea is no different this time with free voice calls, zero roaming
charges, unlimited data for the users at night as well as the data cost at one fifth of the sector,
the brand does not intend to be just an another plan in the market, but this should be armed
with a clear vision as well as a suitable target –such as the subscribers do they require in the

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next couple of quarters. () claims that this kind of sound death knell for other smaller firms in
the market according to Reliance Jio’s aggressiveness as well as rocket-bottom pricing.
Disruption: It can be stated that the groundwork as well as the preparation for such
launch have been making for six years because the Reliance bought the firm that had
achieved Pan India 4G airwaves in 2010. This has further led to substantial enhancement in
tower to fibre technology in the last couple of years. This initiative might take few more
years before other player are capable of catching up with Reliance on data side.
Alternative Channel of revenue: Future entrepreneurs need to understand the fact that
Ambani apart from his Reliance Jio, always maintains the alternative channel for the revenue.
Besides, the launch and operation of Jio, Ambani launched Lyf phones which were offered at
the most cheapest price so that it was able to reap benefits because consumers under any
economy level can buy the phone. So, overall purchase of the device was relatively high, and
this eventually doubled the benefits. The initiative certainly helps the brand to learn more
about their consumers’ tastes and preferences. Reliance was able to influence customers’
loyalty by impact the usual habit of consumers.

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References
Arora, R., & Arora, P. (2017). Reliance JIO-Digital Revolution Changing Landscape of
Telecomm Industry. International Journal in Management & Social Science, 5(6),
149-156.
Desk, T. (2016). Reliance Jio 4G launch: Mukesh Ambani Says all Voice Calls will be free
on Jio, data at Rs. 50 per GB. The Indian Express, 1.
Holla, R. (2017). A Study on SWOC Analysis of Reliance Jio. International Journal of
Engineering Research and Modern Education (IJERME), Impact Factor, 6.
INDUSTRY, E. O. I. T. (2018). Reliance Jio—Late, but the Latest and Later?. Business and
Management Practices in South Asia: A Collection of Case Studies, 203.
Kumar, A., Balaji, M., Krishna, U., & Yadav, M. (2018). Jio-Bharti Airtel Data War and
Strategy. In Harnessing Human Capital Analytics for Competitive Advantage (pp.
171-179). IGI Global.
Mukherjee, R. (2019). Jio sparks Disruption 2.0: infrastructural imaginaries and platform
ecosystems in ‘Digital India’. Media, Culture & Society, 41(2), 175-195.
Rishi, B., Kacker, A., & Gupta, S. (2018). Entry of Reliance Jio in the telecom industry: a
ripple in the ocean. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 8(3), 1-17.