Digital Disruption and Vodafone: A Case Study on Transformation

This report examines Vodafone's digital disruption strategy, focusing on how the telecommunications giant is navigating the changing landscape. The report begins with an introduction to Vodafone, its market performance, and the need for digitization. It then explores how Vodafone is gaining digital business agility, including hyperawareness, informed decision-making, and fast execution. The report emphasizes the importance of creating a digital-ready culture, including putting the customer first. The report offers recommendations for Vodafone to enhance its digital transformation efforts. The report also covers how the pandemic has accelerated the need for digital agility in the telecommunication industry and the importance of technology in this transformation. The report uses the DBT center’s digital vortex model to explain the different stages of digital agility, as well as how Vodafone can use this model to make informed decisions. The report offers a detailed analysis of how Vodafone can improve its digital transformation processes, including recommendations on how to create a digital-ready culture and achieve faster execution.

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DIGITAL DISRRUPTION

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Contents
1. THE CASE FOR CHANGE:...........................................................................................3
2. GAINING DIGITAL BUSINESS AGILITY:.................................................................4
3. CREATE A DIGITAL-READY CULTURE:.................................................................9
4. STEER COLLABORATION;.......................................................................................13
5. DEVELOP YOUR LEADERS:.....................................................................................13
REFERENCES:..................................................................................................................15

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1. THE CASE FOR CHANGE:
INTRODUCTION:
About organization-
The chosen organization for this study is Vodafone, which provides telecommunication
services all around the world. it is basically a British origin company and is now leading the
world of telecommunication. Vodafone is also intending to operate and invest in the
communication growth, hosting and cloud, internet of things, security, fixed connectivity in
all areas and so much more. It is currently serving many places geographically such as
Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, and other parts of Europe. Vodafone was
established in the year 1984 on 17 July and it is headquartered in Newbury (United
Kingdom), (Vodafone, 2022).
Performance of chosen organization in the market-
Vodafone is known to be a “purpose-led” company, it is continually looking for a better
future by serving with a single purpose and that is to connect the people all around the world.
It has a vital role in keeping the economy running as it helps in connecting families, friends,
education, the health care system, businesses, and government (ABOUT, 2022). Vodafone is
a British multinational company; it has customers all around the world in millions. It is
currently operating in 36 different countries and does partnership operations in many places.
In the financial year 2020/2021, it had approximately 30.8 million customers in Germany
alone and 18.32 million in Italy, this data shows the company’s dominations. The company
has its highest share in South Africa’s market, and it owns about 50 percent of the company,
Vodacom. As per the statistics the company has been generating over 40 billion euros each
year with consistency. With this effect, the company was recognized in the year 2016 as the
5th most valuable telecommunication brand in the entire world. It has employed many people
in every corner of the world, if come to statistics the company had over 94,300 employees in

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the year 2021 and all working in different sections; customer care, administration, selling,
distribution, and operations (Vodafone customer base by country 2013-2021 | Statista, 2021).
Need for digitization-
Since the world is accelerating toward digital disruption, it makes telecommunication
companies be at the forefront in innovating and delivering the solution to every upcoming
issue. As it has already been mentioned that Vodafone is one of the leading
telecommunication companies in the world, being the leading company, it has to meet up all
the requirements of today’s generation and for this Vodafone turned to SAP so that it can get
help in transforming the company digitally. The company is integrating every part of its
business with automation as it has become an essential part of today’s time (Grano, 2021).
The reason behind the company moving forward with digitization is because its older
system was holding the company back and was slowing it down, with this issue the company
has to suffer from the fragmented system in its different units and this made it impossible for
Vodafone to get a single view of different operations. Suboptimal system usage was creating
the wrong impact on the employee’s experience resulting in a reduction in the net promotor
(Grano, 2021).
Objectives of Vodafone’s digital transformation-
 For the betterment of customer journey with the application of new technologies.
 Upgradation of business environment and evolution of innovation.
2. GAINING DIGITAL BUSINESS AGILITY:
The pandemic has made digital agility an important tool for every industry in today’s
time. The telecommunication industry is known to adopt the changes as quickly as possible, it
ranked much higher in many such sectors when it comes to the adoption of new technology to
gain agility. With the survey, it has been found that in the time of the Covid-19 crisis the
telecommunication companies have risen up their agility by improving their digitization and

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implementing technologies, which helps in enhancing the company’s data management,
employee experience, and many such areas. With such initiatives telecommunication
companies helps lots of people to go through the time of crisis by making their work from
home easier and more convenient, online purchasing, and easy connectivity with friends and
family overseas (Telecom companies become even more agile, 2021).
The DBT centre (Global Centre for Digital Business Transformation) proposed a
construct of the digital vortex to make it easy to understand the ways in which digital
disruption put an impact on firms and other business industries. They conducted a survey
with 12 industries where they surveyed 1000 executives. It is summed up to the three things
that any business needs in order to attain the complete digital agility in their business (Digital
Business Agility and Workforce Transformation, 2016). This model was represented by the
Global Centre for Digital Business Transformation (2018), the model concludes
hyperawareness, informed decision making, and fast execution. Each is explained below
along with the recommendation for the chosen organization that is Vodafone;
(Source; Digital Business Agility and Workforce Transformation, 2016)

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HIPERAWARENESS- It is defined as the ability which allows the business to detect and
monitor any kind of changes in its business environment. If the organization are hyperaware
means they are keeping eye on every action and their reaction, every single change around
the business and its environment are under their track, this helps the company to be aware of
aby threats and opportunity. Being aware of any threats and opportunities helps any business
in tremendous ways as knowing the upcoming threats company may immediately take actions
to save their work and with knowledge of the opportunity, the company may build up some
strategies to grab that opportunity as quickly as possible (Digital Business Agility and
Workforce Transformation, 2016). To be up-to-date with the ongoing changes in the business
environment, the company takes various steps, that made the company hyperaware;
Two digital accelerators are related to hyperawareness; behavioural awareness and
situational awareness. They function by harnessing data from the business environment, both
internal and external. These data contain information related to the workforce, customers, and
the environment of the operation. This data contains the details of the customer interest,
ongoing and upcoming trends in the market, employee behaviour, their working style, etc.

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In order to enable behavioral awareness in any firm, there is a need to harness data from
the workforce which contain all the internal and external working members of the business;
contractor, suppliers, and team members.
And in situational awareness the instant changes in the market are detected, this includes
the market changes along with competitor actions.
Recommendation for the chosen organization-
In order to become hyperaware, the company needs to strictly trace all the records it
doing inside and outside of the business, this will help it to become aware of any threats and
opportunities if it comes near the business. For this, there should be a team inside the
business to keep the collection of the data and analyze it and understand its patterns of them.
This will allow the company to easily understand its next move in order to beat the market.
INFORMED DECISION MAKING- When a company is aware of its threats and
opportunity now all that is left to do is for a company to take action in order to grab the
opportunity and find a solution for the upcoming threats. For this action the company needs
to make an informed decision, the informed decision making is known to be the ability of any
firm to take the decision in its best possible manner in any given situation. For the informed
decision the fact should be very clear to the company’s professional so at when it comes to
taking the decision it will not get wrong in any sense. It must not be taken based on some
rational thoughts and previous experience, the fact should be solid and clear (Digital Business
Agility and Workforce Transformation, 2016). Informed decision-making consists of
inclusive decision-making and augmented decision-making. It is also about ensuring that
decision is taken by the right people who are expert in the task.

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Recommendation for the chosen organization-
For the right decision-making at any given time, it is recommended to the Vodafone
company to have such expertise inside the business workplace and provide them with all the
data related to the customer, worker, and contractor. The data analysis should be done
properly, the decision in the company should not be taken just based on the previous
experience and thought it should be made on the solid facts and situations that are related to
the current scenario of the market.
FAST EXECUTION- In order to get a fast and quicker result, the company must put their
action into execution as soon as possible. In this, the workforce plays an important role,
because if the company’s work is sincere and effective then it becomes easy for any task in
the company to be executed fast. It enables the company to put their informed decision into
the action or practice. The fast execution is linked to the resources and processes. If the
resources are accurate and the process is pre-organized then the execution becomes easy
(Digital Business Agility and Workforce Transformation, 2016).

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Recommendation for the chosen organization-
It is recommended to the company Vodafone to be up-to-date with the process and the
resources that they have within their organization in order to proceed and take action at a
given instant. For this, the organization must hold for the best technologies and their proper
implementation as it is going to help in executing the task quickly and with effectiveness.
3. CREATE A DIGITAL-READY CULTURE:
The covid-19 pandemic made every organization think beyond the current scenario to
make the business agile in every possible dimension. In order to achieve complete digital
agility, IT plays a very crucial role, as it enables the transformation of the business digitally.
Due to the global pandemic situation, digitization seems to be the only solution to keep
connectivity in all parts of the globe. Since it has become essential, every organization is
running towards gaining digital agility (Chambers, 2021).

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Creating the digital agile culture has now become important for any organization to lead in
this era. There are two types of leaders that create the digital agile culture; formal leaders and
informal leaders. Where the formal leader is concerned it is the role that is directly connected
to the group as a designated leader while the informal leader is a person that is not officially
part of the group but plays an important role. There are many ways in which the organization
can create a digital agile culture;
 To make a digital agile culture the organization needs to recognize the importance of
creating the right culture inside the organization.
 The culture change needs to be prioritized as it enables digital agility.
 The values and behaviors are needed to be shared and modified the foster change.
HOW VODAFONE CAN CREATE DIGITAL-READY CULTURE WITHIN THE
ORGANIZATION;
For Vodafone following method is discussed here which is proposed by “Think with
Google (2017)”, this method will help the organization in gain its digitally agile culture;

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(Source: Features of a Digital-Ready Culture by Think with Google 2017)
Putting the customer first; As opined by McFadden, (2013), in simple terms that putting
the customer first means that the organization put the needs and requirements of the
consumer on their top priority list. With this, the business succeeds in developing a healthy
relationship with their consumer by providing them with their needs and demands and
fulfilling their requirement. In order to provide the customer with their needs and demands
the organization pays special attention and emphasizes putting customer priorities ahead of
every other business of the organization.
As the above study concluded how putting customers first can bring agility to the
business, it is recommended for Vodafone to keep the priorities of their customers as their
one important task. to make this possible the organization requires to keep the track of the
data which will enable the organization to understand the current needs and demands of the
customer along with the current trends in the market. With the help of the analysis of this
data, the pattern can easily be understood and then the implementation of such required task
can easily be taken by the company at any given time.
Collaborative culture; under the collaborative culture, any organization works by
keeping its members together and all the outside working professionals with their tasks up to

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date. With this, a positive environment inside the organization can easily be achieved along
with the trust of the working professionals. Creating a collaborative culture can be a difficult
task at first because in order to make the collaborative culture the organization must know
their employees and their working patterns. Only then they can come together and work as a
single unit. Since the nature of the business market is changing day by day and digitization is
taking place in every working organization. In order to achieve the maximum advantages of
their knowledge, they needed to be united (Wilhelmsen, 2019).
In order to get complete digital agility, Vodafone is recommended to gather and
collaborate with the technical team and connect their working professional so that the
implementation of any new technology can be easy and quick.
Instilling the culture of Innovation; according to (Quarterly, 2017), this time is
considered an extraordinary time for innovation and it is very essential to continue to
innovate and develop new ideas and use them to meet the demands of the current market.
The company is recommended to continuously innovate new ideas and strategies to put
them into practice to achieve the certain goals of the current time.
Becoming a digital champion; according to (What makes a digital champion — and how
to become one, 2020) there are a few steps that are needed to be taken in order to become the
champion in digitizing the entire organization;
 First, the organization needs to digitize its strategies.
 Put your customer at the top priority.
 The organization needs to build an agile structure so that business can be
accelerated.
 The organization needs to embrace microservices.