Vodafone Group Marketing Strategies: A Comprehensive Analysis

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MARKETING ESSENTIALS
Vodafone Group
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CONTENTS
LO1........................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction............................................................................................................................. 3
Role of marketing and it's interrelation with other functional units of organization...............3
Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function...............................4
Analyze the roles and responsibilities of marketing in the context of the marketing
environment.....................................................................................................................6
Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational
context............................................................................................................................. 7
Analyze the significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional
units of the organization.................................................................................................. 8
LO2......................................................................................................................................... 10
Compare ways in which organizations use elements of the marketing mix (7Ps) to achieve
overall business objectives.....................................................................................................10
Evaluate different tactics applied by organizations to demonstrate how business
objectives have been achieved.......................................................................................12
Develop and evaluate a basic marketing plan................................................................14
Basic marketing plan for an organization.......................................................................14
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................18
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 19
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LO1
Introduction
According to Kotler and Armstrong (2010), marketing is one of the key elements for product
sales. The marketing relates to satisfying the customers' needs and focussing on making a
demand for the product, rather than making payment a priority. It involves designing a
marketing plan where the customers of different sectors, age groups are targeted. A good
marketing strategy drawn from market research can lead to a great marketing plan, as the
market strategy can be termed as the foundation of the marketing plan. Marketing helps in
understanding the market situation and what will be the demands of products in the future
i.e. what shape will the market take in the future. Marketing helps in gaining loyal
customers and puts the entire focus on satisfying customer needs. According to kariwal and
Mehta (2019), Vodafone which is amongst the top in the number of mobile customers, it
ranked 4 in 2018 globally. The name Vodafone is derived from the voice data fone (another
name for phone) which was incorporated by the company to deduce its meaning about the
voice calling and data handling.
Role of marketing and it's interrelation with other functional units of
organization
The role of marketing emphasizes on definition and management of the particular brand.
The name of the brand is the key point in the branding if the product because it is the way
the customer gets to interact with the product at first glance. Market research can be
termed as the most important factor in the marketing. Market research helps in
understanding the customer's needs, once the product is launched then the marketing
strategy then focuses on the customer's desire and customers demands. It also promotes
the business and mission of the company. Vodafone launches new packs from time to time
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so that the customers stick to their network and they continue to satisfy their customer’s
needs.
Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
1. Reviewing brand experiences of customers.
Considering the reviews of the customers based on the consumption of the product
and then reviewing the product accordingly. Selling the product at the right price is
the basic element in marketing. Vodafone ensures that the customers get the
highest call facility. New towers are built so that there is no loss of signal.
2. Understanding the competition in the market and acting accordingly
Balancing a demand is considered as important in marketing, were influencing the
customers to buy the product plays a vital role. Marketing helps in balancing various
types of demands. Currently, in the market there are more than 10 companies that
provide voice calling and data handling services. Vodafone has to meet their
customers’ demands so that their customers don’t opt for some other service as well
as their offers lure the other customers to join their network.
3. Targeting specific audiences.
Audiences of specific age groups, specific sectors are targeted. Vodafone
strategically targets several age groups at a particular time and offers customized
offers so that the majority of customers are satisfied, for example, if there is a world
cup coming in process, then budget cricket packs will be introduced.
4. Manufacturing new products.
After successful sales of the previous product, and after the product is about to
disappear from the market, new products are to be manufactured based on the
reviews of the past products. Vodafone periodically revises their packs so that the
customers, as well as the company, are benefitted from it.
5. Establishing internal communications.
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For a successful launch of a product, the product name has to be in the market
before the product itself is launched, for this strategy several internal connections
are required, such as the advertisement companies, also the advertisements should
be visible to most of the customers. The product to be sold has to be marketed to
such shops, where most of the customers buy their products.
6. Resolving media inquiries.
After the product enters the market and the media chooses to review it, the
marketing department then acts as a spokesperson and help to resolve the queries
of the media.
7. Identifying effective strategies
There are many strategies for marketing the product but only effective ones are used
for most of the efficient outcome.
8. Conducting campaigns about the product
When the product is new in the market and only a few people know about the
product, the marketing department starts campaigning about the product, it
highlights, about what are the best qualities of the product, and sometimes also
gives some free goodies to increases the demand of the product.
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Analyze the roles and responsibilities of marketing in the context of the marketing
environment.
The role and responsibility of marketing are basically to analyze the market competitors
and gain the feedback of the customers to, design the new products based on the
customer’s criteria. There are lots of technical changes in the market that happen during a
short period of time. Lots of new technologies are emerging such as from 2G to 3G, from 3G
to 4G and now to market is emerging towards 5G which is even faster than the previous
ones. But due to these new emerging technologies, the new equipment has to be acquired.
These new equipment costs and hence the service charges also increase. The marketing
team analyses what results will come if the old equipment is replaced by new ones and
whether the customers are ready to pay the service charges decided by the company. Now
when the service charges are allotted to the services again it is the responsibility of the
marketing team to analyze what is the suitable amount to quote for the particular service
charges. This amount is again acquired by the market competitors. Whenever a new product
is to be launched the marketing team first takes the review of several customers and then a
particular deadline is being given to the production department where the production
department has to submit the proposal regarding the new product or new service which
they are going to work on. Then the marketing team further starts preparing for the
promotions of the particular new product, through the internal connections or the media
interactions and finally when the product reaches the market the marketing team promotes
the product using hoardings, social media, advertisements.
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Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational
context.
As the impact of marketing is increasing with each passing day the impact of marketing is
also increasing. A wider organizational context is related to the expansion of the companies.
Customer needs should be kept at priority and several methods could be implemented to
ensure that the customers are satisfied with the services. Several surveys could be
implemented to discuss what the customer needs are. Monitoring the competition is yet
another task which is to be done by the marketing team to ensure that the quality and
service that Vodafone is providing to its customers are the best and the customers are
satisfied with the experience with Vodafone. Brand image is also one of the tasks which the
marketing team has to ensure. The marketing team ensures to create a positive brand
image of the company. The marketing team endorses the brand Vodafone through various
methods. Innovation is the only way to achieve success if a person generates a new idea, it
can lead to an evolution of new techniques and this can lead to a profit-making business.
Vodafone was the first to launch m-pesa scheme along with the HDFC bank in November
2011. This scheme came with lots of promotions and lots of positive brand image of the
company. Vodafone was also the first to launch international roaming packages which
allowed users to ditch the old methods of using the expensive methods of talking at the
time of roaming. The marketing team is also responsible for communicating with the other
functional bodies of the company to ensure that the product is a success, the brand value of
the company increases and the company makes lots of profits. The marketing budgets are
also maintained by the marketing strategy team, as the marketing budget is covered under
the finance department, which makes the budget from the beginning of the new product
making to the end of the product sales, so the marketing budget has to be as low as it can
be so there are no additional costs and the product price is low. As marketing strategies
require a lot of time and work, short term strategies of marketing are a waste of time and
money therefore long term strategies should be implemented so that those strategies could
last for a longer amount of time and the amount of work that is required to build that
strategy is utilized in some other functional departments of that sector. The quality of the
product is what matters the most, therefore the product should meet up to the
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expectations of the customers after that only the product would be able to reach the
multiple customers and then only the brand value of the product will increase.
Analyze the significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional
units of the organization
1. Department of production
The production department first discusses all the possible outcomes of the future of the
product before the product even enters the market. The marketing department
researches about all the possible competitors and all the possible products similar to the
upcoming prototypes to ensure that their product differs from all the other products,
only a small change in the product ensure that the new product is different from all the
other products. Not only the customer’s present needs but also the customer’s future
needs are kept in mind before going for a new product. The deadlines are laid by the
strategy department and it is the responsibility of the production department to
produce a new prototype of the product during the specified time limit. Several
modifications are made according to the guidelines defined by the consumer. The
market research also helps the production department produce a sufficient amount of
the products within the specified range of time. The job of the market team is to ensure
that the customers’ needs are satisfied, whereas the production team ensures that the
product meets up to the expectation with no flaw in the development of the product.
The production department of the Vodafone Company analyze the customer feedback
about their term packs, long term packs, top-up recharges and then strategizes new
products accordingly so that the new products stay for a longer time in the market.
2. Department of finance
The key role of the finance department is to develop an effective product in the lowest
budget as possible and benefit the customers’ needs. Vodafone ensures that the
product is launched in the assigned budget. Finding new investors for the companies’
new ventures and ensuring that the budget is enough for the new product launch is also
the job role of the finance department. When the marketing team markets the new
product, it becomes easy for the finance team to convince the investors on investing on
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their new product; the investors need some assurance that their money would become
the way for profits, not losses.
3. Department of human resources
This is the department where the workers are recruited. The proper recruitment process
is held and the employers after the recruitment are properly trained in various sectors
before being called as professionals. The recruitment process is also done by the
marketing department if the marketing of the company is good and if the company is
well known, several qualified people will interview for the job role in the company.
4. Department of promotion
After coming into the market it is the responsibility of the promotion team to ensure
that most of the customers know about the product so that the new product is widely
acceptable. The marketing department ensures that the department of promotion
knows about the targeted customers and those customers could avail the total benefits
of the product launched. There are various ways in which the product is promoted,
various hoardings are used for the poster promotion, and Vodafone also lures the
people by presenting various advertisements in an attractive manner so that the
customers find it hard to resist in declining the offer. There is an app in play store in the
android phones where the customers can check their daily usage of the data and then
accordingly recharge their data packs, the new customized built packs are built and
presented to the customers and the customers buy their packs.
5. Risk Management
Due to fewer towers in the semi-urban areas it is difficult to get the signals in those
areas, these are then responsible for the reduction in the customers. This results in the
reduction of the customers and hence several methods are taken into consideration to
solve the problem. These problems are solved by the customer care where the
customers complain about the areas where there are no signals and then the customer
care representative takes a note of it and then the respective customers' complaint is
taken into account within the seven working days, a tower is mostly installed to avoid
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the disturbance in the signals. As the main aim of the company is to increase the
customer count, the company tries hard to satisfy the customer’s needs.
LO2
Compare ways in which organizations use elements of the marketing mix
(7Ps) to achieve overall business objectives
One of the greatest communication sectors, Vodafone operates in the major parts of
the world, whereas the AT& T mobility also known as AT& T wireless. AT&T Mobility
is the second largest wireless telecommunication service provider in the United
States, both the companies use different types of marketing techniques and they
both have different types of targets to achieve, but both the company’s main target
is to satisfy the customer.
The marketing mix comprises of seven elements that are enlisted below, both the
companies have different ways to approach the different elements in the marketing mix.
1. Product
The quality of the products should be in accordance with the customers’ needs.
There should be a variety of services provided to the customers so that they can
choose the most suited products which satisfy their criteria. Vodafone offers a
wide range of products to its customers in the form of various tariff offers and
also various services such as voice, data, and fixed solutions services. The major
target of the Vodafone Company is to satisfy and assist the customer’s
communication needs. Whereas the company AT&T mobility's main target
regarding the customers is to provide them with the highest quality of services,
they ensure that the customer gets a good quality of service in the lowest
budget. AT&T also offers Enterprise Mobility Management (network security and
device control, distribution, workspace management and the entire lifecycle of
application development). The services covered by AT&T mobility also include
the internet of things.
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2. Price
Pricing sectors cover the finance of the services provided. Good quality service at
the lowest pricing is the target of every company; however, some trade-off
between the quality of the service and the pricing has to be often made.
Vodafone ensures that the prices of their packs are competitively placed.
Vodafone also keeps the record of the customers and aims at providing the
facilities which are easily assessable to all the customers. On the other side as
AT&T mobility has a big name in the market has it focuses more on the quality
and hence the pricing is compromised. But AT&T mobility ensures that the prices
are according to the competition in the market. There are several different
packages that are customized according to the customers such as voice services,
data calling services, mobile pack share plan, where the customers could share
their plan with their family members and friend and save a lot of data and talk
time using this service. Several discounts are also offered like the military
discount, cricket packs discount.
3. Place
The main office of Vodafone is in England whereas the main office of AT&T is in
the U.S, but being in the U.S the company has made a wide distribution channel.
4. Promotion
Vodafone uses billboards, advertisements and also social media communications
to promote the communication network and to highlight the brand value it also
encourages various celebrities to endorse their company. AT&T Mobility doesn't
use any methods to promote as they are a leading company.
5. People
According to Shamma and Hassan (2009), AT&T has around 24000+ employees
worldwide. These employees are trained before the assignment of the tasks.
Customer satisfaction is required in AT & T Mobility. Vodafone also uses the
same methodology to maintain a healthy relationship with their customers.
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6. Process
While processing the services to the customers, it has to be made sure that the
service provided is satisfactory to the customers so that the customers don't
switch to other networks. The equipment used for transmitting the signals has to
be updated regularly to avail the best experience of the new technologies which
are emerging.
7. Physical evidence
There are several methods to check the quality of the services provided by the
network, such as internet meters, these are used to check the data rate of the
network provided by Vodafone. While testing the network should be of good
quality so that the customers don’t leave the network.
Evaluate different tactics applied by organizations to demonstrate how business
objectives have been achieved.
There are various tactics that are introduced by Vodafone to demonstrate the business
objectives; they never compromise on their food quality. Several offers are launched
from time to time to maintain their customers, the new scheme launched by them is the
unlimited packs where customers could recharge one time and earn unlimited talk time
and data handling at a very nominal price. Also after the introduction of 4G various volte
services is launched where the SMS packs have become way cheaper and the data speed
has increased drastically. After the introduction of 5G, the 4G services will become way
cheaper than they are now.
Several different strategies are included where business objectives can be acclaimed:-
1. Service and Product strategy
Product improvement and new innovations are the basic criteria of this strategy.
In Vodafone new services are launched from time to time to keep the customers
hooked to their network and with the improved signal quality and reception the
customers are also benefitted from the offers launched by them.
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