Marketing Strategy Dissertation Proposal 475t3s

‘‘An investigation of the effectiveness of the marketing strategy adopted by 02 (UK) and Mobilink (Pakistan) for contract (post-paid) or (pre-paid) customers’’

AIM:To explore whether or not a marketing strategy successful in one market can be transferred from one culture to another (02 to Mobilink or Mobilink to 02)

Objectives:-Identify the segmentation, targeting and positioning of both companies -Evaluate customer relationship management -Analyse effectiveness of brand management MBA, BBA ,International Relations projects are available with Harvard referencing and all are plagiarism free projects. Jahanzeb 00923004604250 [email protected] www.sparklessoft.com

Context:An idea of evaluating business research initially takes place in your mind when you feel that something going on is doing so quite differently from the way you were expecting or when un- necessary success or an obvious failure occur again and again in any field of modern business. How long will it be before everyone on Earth has a mobile phone? “It looks highly likely that global mobile cellular teledensity will sur 100% within the next decade, and probably earlier,” according to Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the

International Telecommunication Union, a body set up in 1865 to regulate international telecoms.An enormous change in the field of telecommunication has already been seen by the researcher in Pakistan as well as in emerging economies countries like India, China before I came to the United Kingdom in 2006. Despite of having some doubts about the instability in the life of the Government of Pakistan from the last three years, The telecommunication sector is still one of the most rapid growing sectors in Pakistan. Telecommunications has become one of the most important infrastructures that are essential to the socio-economic well-being of or technology driven world any nation. The globalization of world economy has further amplified the importance of telecommunications to the nation’s economy. The rationale for critically investigating the two major organizations marketing strategy are to come up with answers of those questions or business thoughts which were started to arise in my ideas when I ed 02 as their network in the result of contract. I have been using 02 mobile connection and phone for last three years. And to critically analyse the each and every aspect of their marketing strategy and its effectiveness was nearly dream to me as I had seen the mobilink (Pakistan) with the quite various way to acting upon on its marketing strategy and its effectiveness in Pakistan.

Literature review A marketing strategy normally includes the segmentation, targeting & positioning and in all you focus on consumer behaviour along with brand managing. As a strategy, marketing seeks to develop effective responses to change market environments by defining market segments and developing and positioning product offering for those target markets.( Hooley, Saunders, Piercy, 2004) One of the most important parts of making the first aspect of marketing strategy appropriate is to analyze and acknowledge the existence and potential of your customers and divide them into a segment and target them accordingly. “Usage, segmentation and relationship marketing are the key marketing activities to obtain the desired results of retaining more customers, upgrading more customer relationship, getting better customers and using existing customers as advocates acquiring new customers”(Weinstien,2004).

Art Weinstein (1987, p 3) has called segmentation “The key to marketing success” (Cahill,J.D,2006 pp3) According to Albinsson and Hensimark (2004), Satisfied customers are less price sensitive they buy additional products and stay loyal longer. In the telecommunication sector it’s not very easy thing to retain your customers with you for a long time because of rapid waves of development and the entry of new companies into the market who attract existing as well as new customers to think for a change and especially these companies always focus on their pricing when they enter the new market. So, knowing your existing customers’ needs and fulfilment according their desire and the market position are other important challenges to organisations which already exist in this sector. Segmentation provides the opportunity for an organisation to critically analyse and evaluate the socio-economic group of customers you have segmented and target them after having market research and surveys. In the process of market research you get the chance to know your competitor’s positions even you know about their strengths their weaknesses and you forecast yourself for the future. If we just have a look at our chosen companies for dissertation mobilink and 02 we will come to know that how effectively these companies targeting their segments. Let’s start with mobilink which is the largest cellular company in Pakistan operating throughout the country. Mobilink is an Egyptian company which started its operations in Pakistan in 1994 and now enjoying over 28 million active customers growing day by day. They were the first in the market in 1994 with the GSM (global system for mobile phone) technology. At that time they had a different market strategy from what idea for customers to have a SIM card which they use in any phone, their segment and target market now become all of the the country. As far as the concern of market research which has been described above did not has a need to check the competitors’ strength because they were only in the market with that new technology. But now their market is quite different even being in the market for 15 years they are being pushed away by another 4 companies in which Telenor, Warid and Ufone are prominent. 02 which is the leading UK company was born in 2002, it was a relaunch of the former BT cell net and since December after leaving Vodafone behind, it has become the market company with over 16 million customers. The O2’s success comes from in the market focusing on the facilitation of existing customers as well as the creation of gaps in the market with the continuous reducing price plans for contracted customers.

According to Al Ries and Trout (2003), positioning is not what you do to a product, Positioning is what you do to a mind of prospect. (Kotler, P pp-135).Positioning is considered one of the key elements of quick success of any company. Before launching of O2 in UK market it was a great challenge to O2 management not only to create and cover the gaps BT left behind but to establish such a position which could lead them into a leading company. They knew that market was captured by Vodafone with their position of quality and high price. So, the O2’s position came in front of us as low price comparatively with more minutes and free weekend calls. Similarly, for being an oldest company in Pakistan’s market mobilink had its positioning surprisingly very high because of their coverage in more areas of country till the Warid comes into the market. But Warid had a quite massive research and the knowledge of market their focus was on all big cities and villages and with the low price mobilink could not sustain their same positioning in the market. One of the another aspects of marketing tools that every marketing strategist needs to focus like all other engineering firm telecommunication company should also possess its contingency plan particularly when any company comes in the market and starts to cover its shares.(Barton, 1993). When Warid came into the market its first attack was on mobilink by giving them tough time for pricing but unfortunately its been seemed they did not recover that launching and they did not have any contingency plan for their pricing. Similar happened here when 02 introduced their weekend plan for contract customers T-mobile and 3 did not compete it and 02 made his position very strong in the market. Customer Relationship Management is another very important area to keep business smooth especially when you feel and face highly competitive environment in the market. According to Nguyen (2007) “The customers are always right’’. Historically Mobilink had a real weak relationship with their customers as it has been mentioned above the launching of Warid had a very strong effect on breaking the position of mobilink in the market because they had a huge knowledge through surveys, interviews that what customers liking or not so when the Warid came in 2005 their target market was all post paid customers of mobilink who were being operating under the brand of mobilink Indigo. It was seen all the industrial customers moved to Warid because of fully flexible tariffs with low pricing and having being given them the offer of keeping their same

numbers which was considered a real surprising thing for the customers of that time in Pakistan. Managing one’s brand has also become the biggest challenge for all mobile phones network providers. After the creation of 02 it was also a massive task for the management of 02 to focus on their brand in comparison with their competitors Orange and Vodafone who were not only investing on their brands through customers’ offers campaigns but also issuing the handsets along with tariff to their monthly customers with their own logos on the handsets. “The official reason of that the operators wanted to make their services easier to use by also getting involved in the design of the applications and interfaces in the mobile phones” (Vesa, 2005) A month ago researcher went to Bristol. Orange company had a massive campaign for their brand at Cabot Circus shopping Mall, their manager was among the people listening their ideas, thinking and recommendations to improve the brand and especially was just focusing on the importance of Orange brand saying that how u get into when at first you just hear about the word Orange. “Managers must spend more time with their customers listening to their needs and interests and how their brand can meet those needs” (Beverland, 2005) Similarly Mobilink was seen much conscious about its brand imaging after WARID came into the market. But the concept of employees training, general surveys campaign and running charity organizations to build up a strong brand image like European companies Research Methodology: Burns (1994) has defined Research Methodology as a ‘Systematic investigation to find an answer to a problem’. In this section, different approaches and methods have been defined, which will be used to collect the data and full fill the objectives set for this research. Research paradigm

(WHY phenomenology)

In this process the dissertation researcher would use phenomenology because he is going to check effectiveness of marketing strategy which is quite related to subjective approach. Answer cannot be in numbers that is why phenomenology will b used Research approach A qualitative approach will be used in this research, which will help in understanding how the mobilink and 02 are applying their marketing strategies in Pakistan and UK

respectively. This research approach will also help me in making any necessary changes to my objectives, depending on my findings. Not just that, it will assist me in understanding the change in the strategies and environments of telecommunication. Although, this method of research is time consuming and difficult to analyse but it will give me deep knowledge of my topic. Quantitative research approach will also be used in this research. This will help in gathering a large amount of data relevant to my research in a economical way. The reason for choosing this approach is that, the data collected from these two companies by this technique would be easy to compare, and it would be easy to focus and cover different situations radical changes arising into the mobile phone industry Research method Interviews will also be conducted in understanding the complex situation, and where in-depth information would be needed, because interviews can explain any situation better than any other way of research. One drawback which interview may have would be the information gathered by the interview, could bias, as it is related to the interviewee perception and view point. Number general articles and case studies, will also be reviewed during the research process, as it will help in giving a more thorough analysis of the mobile network industry. Sampling Sampling criteria will be from interviewing the different departments like marketing department and other departments of both the organizations. Ethical Consideration: As interviews would play a major role in understanding the working of the telecommunication industry in the country, the researcher has to conduct a number of interviews with different individuals related to the organisation. In respecting the privacy of the people and keeping the ethical issues into consideration, all the respondents will be kept anonymous. Further, a copy of the research will be sent to those companies, who would be kept in focus in this study. Methods of analysing primary data Microsoft Excel most of the time will be used to analyse primary data

Time Plan: Time plan allocated to the researcher for the submission of this research is 8 months. So the first phase, of the dissertation would cover the literature review of the telecommunication industry which is expected to be done in 2 month time. Research methodology plays a very crucial part in this research, and hence more time has been allocated for completing this part, i.e. 2.5 month. Then it would be the analysis stage that is going to take further one and a half to two months of time. Final drafting will be done then finally the report will be handed over to the University.

Bibliography

References: Gorden E, greenley. (1989), “An understanding of marketing strategy”, vol. 23 No.8, pp. 45-58 Nghuyen, H., Joseph, S., Newby, M. (2007), “Strategies for successful CRM implementation”, vol.15 No.2, pp. 102-115 Beverland, L. (2005), “Brand management and the challenge of authenticity”, vol.14 No.7, pp 460-461 Barton, L. (1994), “Marketing planning and tools”, vol.12 No. 11, pp. 41-46 Sigala, M. (2006), “Mass customisation implementation models and customer value in mobile phone services”, vol.16 No.4, pp. 395-420 Albinsson, M and Hensimark, O (2004), “Customer satisfaction and retention”, vol.14 No.1, pp. 40-57 Kotler,P.,Dibbs,S.,Simkin,I.2004, Market segmentation. 3rd ed. NY: Haworth press inc,10 alice street Binghamton Daniss, J, Cahill.2006. Lifestyle market segmentation. NY: Haworth press Inc, 10 alice street Binghamton

Vesa, J, 2006. Mobile services in the networked economy: Yurchak printing Inc) Hooley, J, Garaham., Saunders, A, John., Piercy, 2004. Marketing strategy and competitive positioning. 3rd ed. UK: prentice hall international UK limited.

Kotler, P. 2003. Marketing Insights from A to Z. New Jersy, USA: Wiley & sons [WWW] http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1075308409 ,20 November, 2009 [WWW] http://www.mobilinkgsm.com/about/about.php, 23 November, 2009 [WWW] http://www.o2.co.uk/, 21 November, 2009