An Analytical Study of Strategy Implementation in Vodafone

This presentation analyzes the implementation of big data strategy in Vodafone, one of the largest telecom service providers in Australia. It evaluates the major strategies, leadership models, people culture, change management, and key implementation issues. The presentation also discusses the success of strategy implementation and provides recommendations for improvement.

An Analytical Study of Strategy
Implementation in Vodafone

A brief background of Vodafone
 A telecom service provider
 Provides calling and internet service to Australian customers
 One of the largest service telecom service providers in Australia
 Few of biggest achievements came in the form of mergers with Hutchison 3G Australia and
TPG Telecom
(Vodafone Australia, 2018)

A study background
 Strategy implementation can be a long-term process depending on the strategies being
picked up
 Generally, a strategy implementation finds mixed response of stakeholders and
shareholders
 It is, therefore, important to effectively communicate and follow useful tactics to control
the resistance and promote the implementation
 The presentation talks about the implementation of Big Data in Vodafone
(Hullavarad, O’Hare & Roy, 2015)

Identify the major strategies
 Management teams at
Vodafone understands
the implementation
challenges
 Big data must be used in
meaningful ways
 Predictive analytics is
important during the
implementation process
(Sivarajah et al., 2017)

Evaluate the implementation of the
strategies
Capabilities:
 According to resource based theory, firm’s strategic capability can be defined as its ability to link its
tangible and intangible resources with the internal and external environment
 Physical resources are of least concern to Vodafone
 People-dependent and people-independent is a critical part of Vodafone
 Vodafone manages its technology capability by recruiting fresh and skilled professionals
(Hitt, Carnes & Xu, 2016)

Evaluate the implementation of the
strategies continued…
Systems:
 Contemporary managers have
now added responsibilities
 Their responsibilities are not
just limited to one department
but rather to a multiple
departments
 Vodafone has the
management team, which
clearly understands their area
of work
(Teece, Peteraf & Leih, 2016)

Evaluate the implementation of the
strategies continued…
Leadership:
 Leadership style affect
decision-making,
operations and
employees’ behavior
 It is important to select
suitable models to avoid
potential harms to the
systems
(Anderson & Sun, 2017)

Evaluate the implementation of the
strategies continued…
Models of leadership:
 Different models produce distinguished outcomes
 For example, laissez-faire model is different than the autocratic model
 Laissez-fire is very friendly with employees; however, can hamper the productivity
 Autocratic model encourages an adherence to strict policies and can also cause increased
absenteeism and employee-turnover
(Saleem, 2015)

Evaluate the implementation of the
strategies continued…
Leadership model in Vodafone:
 Leaders are flexible with the leadership models and are able to make the appropriate selection
 The way Vodafone has identified the calling and other telecom habits of the Australian people,
has helped the company to go for implementing the big data
(Vodafone Australia, 2018).

Evaluate the implementation of the
strategies continued…
People culture:
 Vodafone is good at
managing diversity and
inclusion
 Management is constantly
engaged with metrics such
as eNPS and employee
engagement
 Integration is a challenge
considering negative
cultural stereotypes or face
of prejudice
(Dong, Liu & Lin, 2014)

Evaluate the implementation of the
strategies continued…
Change management :
 Vodafone allows enough time to its employees to help them be able to understand the change
process
 Vodafone is on similar track for a big data implementation
 Being slow with the approach can be good for employees not for the company. This can be an
advantage to Vodafone’s competitors.
(Stock & Seliger, 2016)

Discuss if strategy implementation is
successful
 In short-term, Vodafone looks good
due to being the most effective
service provider in terms of price
and quality of service
 In long-term, there can be issues as
management is bit slow with
implementation process, which is
good for its employees not for the
company
 Competitors can take the advantage
of its slowness
(Fu et al., 2017)

Identify the key implementation
issues
There are a number of implementation issues such as follows:
 Extraction of valuable data
 A confusion between business intelligence (BI) and big data analytics (BDA)
 Analytics maturity of organization
 Referring to successful case studies
 Unawareness with an agile big data analytics
 Acceptance for results of data analytics
 Accumulating the adequate skills and resource
(Chen & Zhang, 2014)

Conclusion
 A fair move from Vodafone
 Despite being good through
the transition phase, Vodafone
seems like struggling with a big
data implementation
 Vodafone lacks in areas such
as making timely and
appropriate decisions

Recommendations
 It is recommended to work on a smaller set of data to facilitate a
meaningful utilization of big data
 Understanding the actuality of big data
 Using an agile big data analytics
 Establishing an effective communication
 Identifying the appropriate resources and skills

References
 Al Nuaimi, E., Al Neyadi, H., Mohamed, N., & Al-Jaroodi, J. (2015). Applications of big data to smart
cities. Journal of Internet Services and Applications, 6(1), 25.
 Anderson, M. H., & Sun, P. Y. (2017). Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the need for a new ‘full‐
range’theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), 76-96.
 Cai, L., & Zhu, Y. (2015). The challenges of data quality and data quality assessment in the big data
era. Data Science Journal, 14.
 Chen, C. P., & Zhang, C. Y. (2014). Data-intensive applications, challenges, techniques and technologies:
A survey on Big Data. Information Sciences, 275, 314-347.
 Daniel, B. (2015). B ig D ata and analytics in higher education: Opportunities and challenges. British
journal of educational technology, 46(5), 904-920.
 Dong, J., Liu, C., & Lin, Z. (2014). Charging infrastructure planning for promoting battery electric
vehicles: An activity-based approach using multiday travel data. Transportation Research Part C:
Emerging Technologies, 38, 44-55.
 Fu, N., Flood, P. C., Bosak, J., Rousseau, D. M., Morris, T., & O'Regan, P. (2017). High‐Performance work
systems in professional service firms: Examining the practices‐resources‐uses‐performance
linkage. Human resource management, 56(2), 329-352.
 Hitt, M. A., Carnes, C. M., & Xu, K. (2016). A current view of resource based theory in operations
management: A response to Bromiley and Rau. Journal of Operations Management, 41(10), 107-109.

References continued…
 Rathore, M. M., Ahmad, A., Paul, A., & Rho, S. (2016). Urban planning and building smart cities
based on the internet of things using big data analytics. Computer Networks, 101, 63-80.
 Saleem, H. (2015). The impact of leadership styles on job satisfaction and mediating role of
perceived organizational politics. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, 563-569.
 Stock, T., & Seliger, G. (2016). Opportunities of sustainable manufacturing in industry
4.0. Procedia Cirp, 40, 536-541.
 Stojkoska, B. L. R., & Trivodaliev, K. V. (2017). A review of Internet of Things for smart home:
Challenges and solutions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 1454-1464.
 Vodafone Australia. (2018). Mobile Phone, Tablet and Mobile Broadband Plans. Retrieved from
https://www.vodafone.com.au/
 Vodafone Australia (2018). Mobile Phone, Tablet and Mobile Broadband Plans.. [online]
Vodafone Australia. Available at: https://www.vodafone.com.au/ [Accessed 23 Sep. 2018].
 Wamba, S. F., Akter, S., Edwards, A., Chopin, G., & Gnanzou, D. (2015). How ‘big data’can make
big impact: Findings from a systematic review and a longitudinal case study. International
Journal of Production Economics, 165, 234-246.
 Wang, S., Wan, J., Li, D., & Zhang, C. (2016). Implementing smart factory of industrie 4.0: an
outlook. International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, 12(1), 3159805.