Vodafone Marketing Case Study: A Comprehensive Analysis

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Marketing Essentials
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Table of Content
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference List................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
Marketing department helps organisations to promote the product and services to the target
consumer market in this study, the role of marketing of the organisation and the interrelation
between the marketing and the other functional department of the organisation will be
highlighted in context of Vodafone.
Vodafone has its headquarters at Newbury, United Kingdom. It was founded by Ernest Harrison
and Gerry Whent in 16th September 1991. The current number of employees working here is
about 98,996. The company has an operating income of about 6763 million euro
(Vodafone.co.uk, 2019).
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Task 1
Role of Marketing
In order to survive and maintain growth of the business of the company in the competitive
market, an effective marketing plan and strategy is needed. The marketing department of the
Vodafone does this work. Therefore, the role marketing plays a vital role in Vodafone. The
marketing department has to visualize the market environment for the need of the customers.
They must gather the information from the market about their existing product, then they must
analyse whether the existing product needs to change or they must put an end of that particular
product (Jain, 2018). They also need to gather the customer feedback about the products of the
Vodafone. They must perform continuously according to the customer needs. In this way, they
can gain the trust of their valuable customers and also attract new customers and increase their
brand value.
Another main role of marketing department of Vodafone is the promotion of their product and
finds innovative ways to promote their products. Unless others, Vodafone found a unique way to
promote their products, The ZOOZOO Ads. ZOOZOO is a character who has an egg like belly
and has a very friendly and funny character. Therefore, the introduction of this ZOOZOO
character in their ads had automatically grabbed the attention of the customers and became a
social media sensation. Vodafone is trying to create an image of customer centric. They will
need to focus on the engagement of the user, the promotions of their products and most
importantly they have to supervise constantly the customers’ needs and wants and the experience
of the customers on the usage of their products.
The functions of marketing are Research, Packaging, Transportation, Risk Assessment and
Quality Control. The marketing department must bring their attention to the buying nature of the
customers and they must observe what kind of product must fulfil the need of the customers. The
packaging of the product also plays a vital role in marketing. The packaging must be appealing
to the customer. The pricing comes along with the packaging. The company must make a
complete balance in case of packaging and pricing. The marketing also involves the
transportation of goods. Vodafone has the ability to transport their products to the customers
within time. Another function of the marketing is the risk assessment and quality control. The
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risk assessment includes the factors that will affect the sale of their product. The quality control
depends upon the ability of the product to stand in the market competition.
Structure of Marketing Department
The structure of the marketing department of Vodafone is shown below:
Figure 1: Structure of Vodafone
(Source: Created by the learner)
The marketing manager of Vodafone supervises the area of the promotion of the product, service
or brand (MENSAH et al., 2019). The individual manages the marketing of all the products and
services of Vodafone. Debbie Morris is the marketing manager of Vodafone.
The role of a team leader is to guide the team members to complete a particular project. The
team leaders of Vodafone develop and implement a timeline for their team, which the team
members use to achieve their goal. The team leaders of Vodafone ensure that the target is
achieved during the given time by assigning different types of tasks to their suitable team
members and if possible, they themselves perform the works.
The role of the staff of Vodafone is to carry out, implement, and manage the work assigned by
their team leaders, which will help the Vodafone Company to meet the mission of the Vodafone.
Marketing Managers
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The Marketing Managers of the Vodafone mainly point their focus on the practical application of
the product or service of the company. They also manage the marketing operations of the
company. The marketing managers of the Vodafone are very effective and efficient about their
work. They possess excellent skills in analytical and communication. They also conduct Market
survey to observe the needs and wants of the customers. It also includes the study of the
competitors of the Vodafone Company. The Marketing managers of the Vodafone Company also
employ the techniques of efficient marketing.
Social Media Managers
The role of social media marketing managers of Vodafone is to lead campaigns of from their
own perspective inside the Consumer team. They bring their attention to increase the brand value
of Vodafone. They can support the creation of innovative content. They create a strategy for
social media, which they will implement it with an ease. The Social media managers of
Vodafone supervise the social media in order to increase the awareness among the customers,
enhance their sales structure and so on.
Marketing Process and Importance of Marketing Environment to Marketing Function
Political The political scenario of a particular country has a direct impact on the
company. As per the Company Act 2006, the companies need to share all
business data except the sensitive data with the stakeholders
(Legislation.gov.uk, 2019). Vodafone has to ensure that no conflict among
the stakeholders is arising.
Economical The GDP growth of the UK in 2018 is 2825.21 USD Billion where as it is
2637.87 USD Billionin in 2017 (tradingeconomics.com, 2019). A good GDP
of country means the people have good earnings. It also implies that the
people can consider themselves in adapting with the latest technologies. This
means expansion of the Vodafone Company. However, in the economic
crisis like Brexit, the company has suffered a lot and they were forced to
change their strategies.
Social As commented by Sutherland (2017), organisations have the responsibility
of meeting the needs of the customers by offering them with their expected
products. In case of the marketing department of Vodafone, they need to
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analyse current preferences of the customers and offer services
Technological As Vodafone is a telecommunication organisation, they must be up to date
with the latest technologies. As this company is a leading global
organisation, they must have to create innovative idea in order to step ahead
of its rivals. Therefore, accompanying with the latest technology is a must
thing for Vodafone.
Legal According to the Consumers Rights Act 2015, the customers must be
informed of the details about the product (Legislation.gov.uk, 2019).
Vodafone has to make sure that the customers are getting their expected
telecom services from them.
Environmenta
l
The first thing for a telecom company is to set up a communication tower. It
produces radio frequency, which is harmful for human as well as animals.
Vodafone being a large company in UK as well as in the world is
responsible for a significant amount of pollution caused by radio frequency.
Table 1: PESTLE Analysis
(Source: created by Learner)
Strength Vodafone is a global leading telecommunication organisation. Therefore, they
have huge market coverage. The revenue earned from the global market is
also huge. Their ads are very innovative in nature.
Weakness According to Sutherland (2017), due to Brexit effect European Union has
been barring UK from doing business worldwide. As an effect, Vodafone is
also struggling in international market due to the aforementioned reason.
Opportunitie
s
They must improve their network coverage. As the people are depending
more on the cellular networks (the number of mobile users in UK is roughly
60 million) (Tigermobiles.com, 2019), Vodafone has a huge opportunity to
improve their growth. They must focus on expanding in the rural areas
Threat Vodafone must face certain threats like high pricing and mobile number
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portability. According to Albishry et al, (2018), due to high pricing most of
the middle class people could not afford the products and services of the
Vodafone; also because of mobile number portability feature, an existing
customer has an option to change from Vodafone to other rival brands.
Another threat that company may face is the saturation. As it is an old
company, they have many customers. Therefore, they are not getting the
suitable amount of customers they need.
Table 2: SWOT Analysis
(Source: created by Learner)
Interrelation between the Marketing Function with the other Marketing Departments
Human Resource Department
Marketing means the expansion of the brand value of the company and communicate with the
customers. These two things that matter most are in the company.
Human Resource on the other hand is recruiting individuals who will supervise those areas.
Therefore choosing the right person for a particular post is very much important. If the right
candidate is not chosen, then the efficiency of the company will reduce and the company will
suffer loss. Again, it is the task of HR to monitor that their employees must remain satisfied and
happy about their work. Healthy work environment will lead to fruitful production in the
company.
Research and Development Department
Research and development is the part of an organisation where the generation of new ideas,
creation of new products and innovation are performed. The R&D department of an organisation
runs on the marketing plan done by the marketing department. The marketing team researches
the market, gather the information about the customer needs, and wants. The R&D department
creates and produce the products according to the customer needs and deliver it within time.
Hence, it can be said that marketing and R&D department are interrelated.
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Conclusion
From the above study, it can be concluded that Vodafone has been very innovative and their inter
co-ordination among the other departments of the company is very satisfying. Therefore, their
business results are satisfying. However, they are facing some hurdles recently due to changing
needs of the customers. Overcoming those hurdles by implementing effective strategy will surely
regain its previous state.
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Reference List
Albishry, N., Crick, T., Tryfonas, T. and Fagade, T., 2018, April. An evaluation of performance
and competition in customer services on Twitter: a UK telecoms case study. In Companion
Proceedings of the The Web Conference 2018 (pp. 1713-1720). International World Wide Web
Conferences Steering Committee.
Jain, P., 2018. Art of Advertising is Infotainment. IMPACT: IJRHAL, 6(2), pp.21-28.
Legislation.gov.uk. 2019. Consumer Right Act 2015. [online] Available at:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/contents/enacted [Accessed on 17Sep. 2019]
MENSAH, L.O., AGYEMANG, H. and NKRUMA, G., 2019. THE IMPACT OF
ADVERTISEMENT ON THE DEMAND OF VODAFONE RECHARGE CARDS. A CASE STUDY
OF KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (Doctoral
dissertation).
Statista.com 2019. Vodafone's revenue by market/country worldwide between 2015 and 201 (in
million euros) Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/241603/vodafone-revenue-by-
market/ [Accessed on 17Sep. 2019]
Sutherland, E., 2017. The implications of Brexit for the governance of telecommunications
markets in the United Kingdom. Digital Policy, Regulation and Governance, 19(1), pp.2-20.
Tigermobiles.com 2019. Mobile Phone Usage Statistics in the UK: How Many Smartphone Users
Are There https://www.tigermobiles.com/blog/mobile-phone-usage-statistics/ [Accessed on 17
Sep. 2019].
Tradingeconomics.com 2019. United Kingdom GDP, Available at:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp[Accessed on 17Sep. 2019]
Vodafone.co.uk, 2019. Vodafone - Voted UK’s Best Mobile Network | Now With 5G. [online]
Available at: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/ [Accessed 17 Sep. 2019].
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