Vodafone: Strategic Resource Management and Business Strategy

This report provides an analysis of Vodafone's strategic resource management, encompassing human resource management (HRM), physical resource management, marketing strategies, and information system management (ISM). The HRM section details Vodafone's recruitment, retention, employee development techniques, and practices supporting organizational strategy, emphasizing employee welfare and motivation. The physical resource management analysis highlights the company's investment in network infrastructure and efficient tracking and management of physical assets through regular audits. The marketing analysis explores Vodafone's segmentation strategies, promotional activities like the zoo-zoo campaign, mobile clubs, and Vodafone Play, aimed at enhancing customer satisfaction and market leadership. Finally, the ISM section describes Vodafone's use of transaction processing systems (TPS) and decision support systems (DSS), along with security measures like SAAP and cloud computing, to manage financial and non-financial information effectively. The report concludes that Vodafone's strategic resource management practices contribute significantly to its stability and success in the competitive telecommunications industry.

Running head: STRATEGIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIC
RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

STRATEGIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 1
Table of Contents
Table of Contents..................................................................................................................................1
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Company Background............................................................................................................................2
Human Resource Management.............................................................................................................2
Contribution......................................................................................................................................2
Role of HRM.......................................................................................................................................2
Recruitment and Retention...............................................................................................................2
Techniques used to develop employees............................................................................................3
Contribution..................................................................................................................................3
HRM practices to support organizational strategy............................................................................3
Appraisal of the processes.................................................................................................................4
Management of Physical Resources......................................................................................................4
Role of Physical Resources.................................................................................................................4
Recommendations.............................................................................................................................5
Marketing..............................................................................................................................................5
Role of Marketing..............................................................................................................................5
Marketing Strategies for attainment of organizational goals............................................................5
Information System Management.........................................................................................................6
Contribution of ISM...........................................................................................................................6
ISM processes of Vodafone...............................................................................................................6
Appraisal of Processes.......................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................8

STRATEGIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 2
Introduction
Strategic resource management is related to the continuous analyzing, planning, monitoring
and accessing all resources and aspects necessary for meeting the goals and objectives of an
organization. The management includes human resource management, marketing
management, physical resource management, and information system management (Muogbo,
2013). This report analyzes the strategic management of a well-known organization of
telecommunication sector named as ‘Vodafone'.
Company Background
Vodafone is a very well-known telecom operator headquartered in Newbury, England. It is
the second largest telecom service provider around the world after China Mobile on the basis
of its turnover. At present, it is working with the equity interests in more than twenty-five
countries and working as a partner network in nearly forty-one countries. The main reason
the success of the company is its effective strategic resource management (Group, 2013).
Human Resource Management
Contribution
The human resource department of Vodafone recruits the quality staff for the company and
also helps in building effective relationships between the management and employees to
inverse the efficiency of employees.
Role of HRM
The HR department of the company performs the functions like recruiting, training and
development, staffing, appraising and motivating employees in a well-structured manner. The
effective human resource management enables the management to focus on other key areas
of the business (Anon., 2014).
Recruitment and Retention
The recruitment is done on the basis of the capabilities of the candidates and not on the basis
of the sex, religion, races and cultural background.
The company retain the staff who is really worth for the organization and is leaving the
organization for professional reasons. The organization pays less efforts to the employees
who are not capable of working in the organization.

STRATEGIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 3
Techniques used to develop employees
Health, safety, and well-being policies
Vodafone has designed a complete set of policies for the well-being of employees working in
the organization. These policies state that during working hours, employees need to
concentrate on their physical and mental health first and should not do any work for which
they have not been trained. This policy increases the level of employee satisfaction (Ishola,
2017).
Open Communication system’
There is an open communication system in the company. The employees are welcomed to
give their views and share the problems with the management. It creates a sense of giving
respect in the minds of employees (Kwenin, et al., 2013).
Training and development
The employees are provided training and updates about the changes in the working progress
on continuous basis. This helps the employees to develop themselves to perform better.
Contribution
These techniques helps in enhancing the morale of employees and to force them to increase
their performance for contributing to the growth of the organization
HRM practices to support organizational strategy
The line manager works as the head of the department which helps the top level management
by handling his team and subordinates. Such managers’ report to the top level management
about the performance of their units. The line managers also help the HR department in hiring
the staff as per the appropriate knowledge of their local target market and segments of the
customers. They also help the HR executives in determining the incentive and benefits
structure to motivate the employees towards their work responsibilities and work.
HR department performs the following functions:
Code of Conduct
The company has a strong and strict code of conduct, which is required to be followed by all
the employees. In case of not following the same, the company takes immediate actions.
Rewards and Recognition

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Since the company is working in the retail sector and employees are evaluated on the basis of
their performance. HR department organizes rewards and recognition events on the half-
yearly and yearly basis to increase the morale of employees and to motivate them in a
positive manner.
Health insurance
The organization is more concerned about the health of employees thus, it provides health
insurance to the employees. This insurance helps the employees at the time of any physical
injury or any other health-related issues.
Appraisal of the processes
The above-mentioned steps taken by the company related to employee welfare are working as
an effective tool for increasing the employee satisfaction and also to keep them safe and
secure.
Management of Physical Resources
Role of Physical Resources
Vodafone invests a huge some in managing its physical resources which major includes the
network towers, network transmissions lines, and customer touch points. The organization
works on the theory which indicates that for keep the business profitable, it is required to
manage the resources that are provided to the society by the organization in terms of tangible
sources.
The company has the ability to track, report and manage all the Physical assets in an accurate
manner. For example, if a mobile device or POTS line is no longer deployed but the system
still shows the item as active, the company immediately takes action to save the employees as
well the customers from any type of inconvenience.
All the systems and physical inventory are audited on monthly basis to find out the deficiency
so that the same can be resolved within the period (Systems, 2018).
Objectives Resources Required

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Best network
Provider
Effective management of network towers and bandwidth lines.
Be the first in
customer service
Opening and management of maximum touch point so that to
increase the visibility of the company.
Effective
information
management system
Management of working equipment if the employees.
Recommendations
 The organization needs to invest more in acquiring spectrum license and bandwidth
lines for providing high speed of data and voice transmission to the customers
 It should not place the network towers in the living areas as this can harm the health
of the people living there.
Marketing
Role of Marketing
Marketing is a key process of promoting, researching and selling services and products in the
target market. The bottom line of all businesses is profit. Profit is largely depended upon the
successful sales which are resulted by the effective marketing techniques. The business
strategy is framed on the basis of the marketing techniques and strategies followed by an
organization. Marketing increases trust, awareness, and sales of the organization, which is the
ultimate goal of an effective business strategy (Fejza & Asllani, 2013).
Marketing Strategies for attainment of organizational goals
Vodafone uses a combination of segmentation strategies to divide its offerings into network
services, broadband services, and enterprise services accordingly. It uses demographical,
geographical and psychographic segmentation to serve the customers.
Vodafone has been successful in developing mind awareness with the help of its zoo-zoo
campaign around the country. It also uses positioning strategies on the bases of value.
The marketing objective of Vodafone is to maintain market leadership on network quality,
customer satisfaction and revenue per customer. The company uses product led and
consumer-focused strategy for attaining these objectives (Vij, 2012). The main initiatives that

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are being taken by the company for effective marketing of its products and services are as
follows:
Promotional messages
The company also offers free coupons and discounts to the customers on certain outlets of
food, gym, etc to keep the customer satisfied and increase the satisfaction rate per customer.
Mobile Club
The company creates a mobile club and send messages to the customers about their product
and services. This works as a reminder to the customers of the schemes and offers given by
the company.
Vodafone Play
The company also provides an online channel for watching movies and other shows in form
of Vodafone Play and also offers the free subscription for the users according to their tariff
plan (Roy & Das, 2012).
The offers and promotional schemes provided to customers help the organization to increase
its visibility in the society as well as increase the experience of customers in a positive
manner.
Information System Management
Contribution of ISM
Information system management is an important part in the telecommunication sector. It has
a huge role in collecting, storing and utilizing the information, which is required for decision
making purpose and also for providing the high level of customer satisfaction (Rosca, et al.,
2010).
ISM processes of Vodafone
Vodafone is a conglomerate and very large organization and management information system
help on the ground of wide level business decisions and organizational strategies. The
appropriateness of the transaction processing system is very large the managing the lower
level outflow and inflow of funds and financial resources. TPS is a very effective tool which
is also used by the organization to keep the records for future consideration (Helmhout &
Ibbott, 2014).

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Further, the decision support system is another type of information system used by Vodafone
to help the marketing department by keeping the information related to sales and competitor's
management. The company can get the information about the competitors and can classify
the information at every level to frame the marketing strategies and marketing mix can be
designed accordingly (Racing, 2017).
Along with this, the company uses SAAP and Cloud computing to secure the data and calling
records the customers with the help of information security measures.
Appraisal of Processes
Vodafone is a highly reputed company in form of maintaining the privacy of the customers.
Even the employees of the organization do not have the right to access the call details of any
customers. The company has never faced any kind of data breach situation in till now.
Conclusion
On the basis of above analysis, it can be concluded that strategic resource management
covers all functions and activities that are to be considered by an organization in order to get
stability and success in the competitive environment. The given example of Vodafone is
related to the highly competitive industry in the present scenario. The first analysis of Human
resources shows that company is highly considered in terms of employee welfare and manage
them as an important asset of the organization. The second analysis of physical resources
shows that Vodafone is well aware of the management of its physical resources and
efficiently manages the same by following the audit procedure. The third analysis of
marketing management shows the key marketing strategies followed by the organization in
order to beat the competition existed in the target market. In the end, the analysis of
information management system describes the two main techniques sued by the organization
to manage the financial and non-financial information of the organization. The report was
prepared with a view to providing the information related to strategic resource management
in an effective manner.

STRATEGIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 8
References
Anon., 2014. Our People. [Online]
Available at:
https://www.vodafone.com/content/sustainabilityreport/2014/index/operating_responsibly/
our_people.html
[Accessed 9 September 2018].
Fejza, E. & Asllani, A., 2013. THE IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING IN HELPING
COMPANIES WITH THEIR GROWTH STRATEGIES: THE CASE OF FOOD
INDUSTRY IN KOSOVO. European Scientific Journal, 9(16), pp. 326-335.
Group, V., 2013. History and development. [Online]
Available at: https://www.vodafone.com/content/annualreport/annual_report13/downloads/
history_and_development.pdf
[Accessed 8 September 2018].
Helmhout, A. S. & Ibbott, C. J., 2014. NETWORK ORCHESTRATION:VODAFONE'S
JOURNEY TO GLOBALIZATION. Advances in International Management, 27, pp. 121-
147.
Ishola, A. A., 2017. WORKPLACE SAFETY MANAGEMENT AS CORRELATES OF
WELLBEING AMONG FACTORY WORKERS IN OLUYOLE INDUSTRIAL ESTATE,
IBADAN, OYO STATE NIGERIA. African Journal of Social Work, 7(2), pp. 45-51.
Kwenin, D. O., Muathe, S. & Nzulwa, R., 2013. European Journal of Business and
Management. The Influence of Employee Rewards, Human Resource Policies and Job
Satisfaction on the Retention of Employees in Vodafone Ghana Limited, 5(12), pp. 13-20.
Muogbo, U. S., 2013. The Impact of Strategic Management on Organisational Growth and
Development (A Study of Selected Manufacturing Firms in Anambra State). IOSR Journal of
Business and Management, 7(1), pp. 24-32.
Racing, S. B., 2017. Management Information Systems Of Vodafone Group Information
Technology Essay. [Online]
Available at: https://stonebrakerracing.com/2017/11/07/management-information-systems-of-

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vodafone-group-information-technology-essay/
[Accessed 7 September 2018].
Rosca, D., Banica, L. & Sirbu, M., 2010. Building Successful Information Systems – a Key
for Successful Organization. Economics and Applied Informatics, 16(2), pp. 101-108.
Roy, A. & Das, S. K., 2012. ASSESSMENT OF IMPACT OF ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN
OF VODAFONE ON THE VIEWERS. Zenith International Journal of Business Economics
& Management Research, 2(1), pp. 148-160.
Systems, C. I., 2018. Cass Information Systems. [Online]
Available at: https://www.cassinfo.com/telecom-expense-management/services/telecom-
expense-management/inventory-management.aspx
[Accessed 8 September 2018].
Vij, P., 2012. Analysis Of 3g Uk Mobile Industry And Comparison With Vodafone Network
Based On Consumer Satisfaction Survey. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 2(6),
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