MKT501 Discussion: Vodafone's Corporate Social Responsibility Analysis

This discussion board post analyzes Vodafone's corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, focusing on its approach to stakeholder needs and its integration of CSR into marketing practices. The assignment examines Vodafone's commitment to women empowerment, youth skills development, and environmental sustainability, highlighting specific programs like the Mum and Baby Service and Future Jobs Finder. It explores how Vodafone aligns its business objectives with social purposes, creating long-term value and improving operational metrics. The analysis covers Vodafone's sustainability report, emphasizing its focus on taxation, supply chain management, and digital rights. The post concludes that Vodafone's CSR efforts positively impact its marketing by attracting customers and enhancing brand reputation. The document also discusses the evolution of marketing and the importance of ethical values in business. The student has used the discussion board post to analyze the company's efforts to incorporate CSR into the core operations, and the impact of such actions on the company's marketing and overall success.

Running head: MARKETING MANAGEMENT
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Name of the student
Name of the university
Authors note

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TASK 1
In the classical theory of management, the business was run with the prime motive
earning profit. The management used to focus on main productivity without giving importance to
human relations and social needs. The modern theory of management gives importance to both
of these. Therefore the concept of corporate social responsibility was introduced. By adopting
CSR, companies take into consideration all three elements of the triple bottom line. The people,
planet, and profit are the three elements (Grayson, & Hodges, 2017). Under CSR, the company
tries to incorporate the needs of all the stakeholders, whether they are directly consuming the
product or not. The company tends to be more responsive to the society in which it operates.
CSR is no longer having the same concept as earlier, the companies of the present world pics up
a social issue and try to find the opportunity to remove the problem issue from society. It tries to
create a social impact, which helps it to create a strong customer base. Millennial prefer to
consume those products and services which have a good impact on society (Wang et al., 2016).
The different types of stakeholders are customers, employees, government, and investors.
Apart from this, one of the important stakeholders in the society in which the company exists.
The company which determines to contribute to conducting CSR goes through different stages
before proceeding to operate its activities aligning to the CSR goal. Firstly, it addresses the
different issues through which the company can address CSR. The social issues are then
interpreted in such a way that the company can give its best efforts to achieve it. It is generally
advised to the management department to assess such CSR that a company can attain along with
conducting the core operation of the company. Vodafone is a company that provides connectivity
via networking or the internet. The company tries to focus on giving free of cost services to the
customers to address the CSR goals (Elsakit, & Worthington, 2019).

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Vodafone is focusing on some of the important issues of society, such as gender
inequality, unemployment, greenhouse emission, etc. Some of the women empowerment steps
taken by the Vodafone are given below:
The company sets a target of improving 1 billion women’s lives by the year 2025. The
company claims that this objective can only be achieved by making the digital services of the
company inclusive in nature. In 2016, Vodaphone defined the objective of connecting more
women in the customer base for providing them the innovative digital services and smooth
connectivity (Torkkeli et al., 2017).
Vodacom’s Mum and Baby Service in South Africa.
The program was developed with the prime motive of improving the lives of women and
providing them the knowledge about healthcare and wellbeing information and facilities. The
information is basically concerned with the topic of neonatal, maternal, and kids’ healthcare. The
survey conducted by the company to see the result of the program shows that 98% of the people
have taken the initiative for improving their child’s health with the help of this awareness
program. This is a program that provides information related to healthcare awareness, free of
cost. The information is provided to the customer through messages. The service is available for
English, Sesotho, Xhosa, Zulu, and Africans. The service has provided benefits to 1.5 million
parents by 2017.
Future Jobs Finder
In 2018, the company targeted another social issue of the world that is increasing unemployment
among the young population. Therefore it launched the program named Future Job Finder. This
program provides a platform for the young generation to learn newer skills and attain training,

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which will help them to find jobs in the digital industry. The company was successful in
providing job oriented skills and training to almost 500000 young people who belonged from
different states and countries.
Moreover, the company targets to reduce greenhouse gas emission by the year 2025. It
aims at reducing greenhouse emissions because it is the most significant problem, which is a
threat to the human lives of the earth (Oppong, 2016).
In addition to this, Vodafone is also performing its business activities with integrity. The
sustainability report of the company shows that it mainly focusses on protecting the privacy of
customer data and takes care strongly that no human rights are violated. CSR and sustainability
are the two aspects for any business to become socially responsible.
Overview of corporate social responsibility of Vodafone
The environment in which the Vodafone operates has a lot of scopes to contribute to CSR
activities. The 3 CSR activities in which the company focusses are women empowerment, Youth
skills, and jobs, Energy innovation. The company wants to focus on these activities and thus
conducts its business operation more responsibly and ethically. It tries to maintain its policies
and processes transparent and adopts the full disclosure policies to make the business
accountable for its activities. To maintain sustainability, Vodafone focuses on four main areas of
business that are: taxation, supply chain management, healthcare, and digital rights of its
stakeholders.
The reason behind selecting women empowerment as a CSR objective,
Vodafone's research team provides data that 132 million girls are not provided primary
education. The use of mobile technology can help women to get quality education using the

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digital platform. The company developed digital teaching and distant learning tools to provide
education to the disadvantaged and rural population (McCarthy, 2017).
The instant Network Schools program is connecting classroom studies to the internet to
provide education through the use of solar power tablets and computers. The program run in
association with the United Nations High Commission for refugees. The program has given
quality education to 83500 young refugees (Öztürk, & Marşap, 2018).
The data collected from the Sustainable report of the year 2019 shows that the company
has also focused on gender equality as one of its CSR goals. The recent data shows that 40% of
the total workforce are women, and the company gives employment to more than 36000 women
directly. The women can be seen working in the company at each level, and the report shows that
31% of employed women are at managerial and leadership positions (Chaudhury, 2017).
Task 2
Corporate social responsibility as a marketing practice
In the 1990’s, the concept of marketing was used for applying different techniques in the
marketing mix. The marketing was always a key function of management. However, when the
focus of the business is solely on making profit, it enters into so many agreements and contracts
which are illegal and can turn into a scandal. People don’t trust on the businesses which are
going down at their ethical values. Therefore the business entities of the todays world are trying
to be more socially responsible (Boháček, Linhart & Matisko, 2019).
The social responsibility in the traditional approach was considered as the social
objective for the company. The companies used to consider it as a additional cost and thus face
difficulty in employing their revenues on these. Later on, CSR became an opportunity for the

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companies in which they first analyse the issue prevailing in society and then one isuue is
selected which can be converted into an opportunity (Sheikh & Mannan, 2017). Those social
issues are selected as CSR which can be carried by the company easily while focusing on their
core activities. For example Vodafone invests funds in the CSR activity for providing quality
education by giviving subsidized and free digital services to underpriviledged students. When a
social responsibility is attached to the key operation of a company, it becomes successful in
creating a social impact on the society. The social activity of the company will attract more
customers for buying the key services of the company. This is what the marketing platform does
for the business that is “attracting more customers to the business” (Hall, 2017).
When policies related to CSR is implemented, the focus of the company is not only on
working for social needs but at the same time it is promoting the participation of customers and
stakeholders to the business. The companies are now using it to reach out to new segment of
customer.
The employees also see the prospective of the business future in which they are working.
They look and comapare the ethical values of the companies because present generation do not
only focusses on monetary needs but they are also concerned about the personal goals and
satisfaction. In the annual report of 2018, Vodafone clearly mention that it is focusing on the
working with sustainability and developing sustainability strategy aligning its commercial
objective with it. Vodafone mission statement shows that the company aim is to focus on us of
technology rather than developing it. The business focusses on adopting newer technogy for
providing newer services to its customer base and ensures that the operation of the company and
the quality of the service concerning network is maintained. The objective of the business is to
work for fulfilling social purpose so that they can create a long term value (Rahman, Rodríguez-

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Serrano & Lambkin, 2017). The data given in the finanacial statement of the Vodafone shows
that the sustainaible business metrics are showing improvement and the operational metrics also
showing positive implication because of the sustainability strategy. For example- the women in
management and leadership role is improving since 2016 and it has increased to 29% in 2018.
The estimated female customers do not show an increasing trend but the green house gas
emission has been reduced and it 2.58 million tonnes only. With fulfilling the CSR objective, the
company has achieved its core objective that is customers have increased such as AMAP mobile
customers show an increasing trend from 2016 to 2018 (Davis, Alibašić & Norris, 2018).
If we compare the Vodafone performance as per the industry sustainability, the company
has till now worked on many social issues and identified them as their CSR objective. The social
issues on which Vodafone is continuously working on are; green house gas emission, gender
equality. Women empowerment, right to get primary education, employment opportunities for
youth and so on. The company hass also tried to incorpt the csr activity into the operating
practice of the business. it has been focusing on corporate governmence and some key area such
as electro magnetic fields, wireless products and services that provides social benefits, energy
efficiency for conducting the activities to reduce the environmental impacts. One of the main aim
of the company is to ensure that the marketing activities of the business are aligned and relate to
the CSR activities of the business (Eteokleous, Leonidou & Katsikeas, 2016).
Conclusion and implication of adopting CSR as a marketing
The practice of social responsibility is creating a sustainable approach between the
business operatons of the company and the societal needs while marketing is the activity which
is solely done to attract more and more customers. Both are two different concepts but business
are using them together for creating a positive impact on the company. if ocial responsibility is

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adopted as a motive in the marketing the product, it will have a more positive impact on the
society. The customers are more awareness in the digital era regarding the products and service.
In the year 2015, a strategic report was published by the Neilson.com which states that more than
60% among the 30000 consumers surveyed, do not have problem to pay more than the actual
price for a quality product and to pay a higher price to a brand which can provide them quality
product an services.
It can be conluded from the discussin above that the the marketing strategy and the
corporate social responsibility activities go hand in hand in corporate sector. The more socially
responsible a business is, the more the marketing activity of the company highlights it to create a
wider impact on consumers (Kim, Song & Lee, 2016). Vodafone mission statement shows that
the company aim is to focus on us of technology rather than developing it. The business focusses
on adopting newer technogy for providing newer services to its customer base and ensures that
the operation of the company and the quality of the service concerning network is maintained. it
focus on creating value and reputation among the customers. The company believes that the
ongoing time do not give a company a second chance if it do not maintain its reputation among
the users. It may decrease the share prices of the company, shareholders wealth may deteriorate.

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