Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing
Executive Summary
Telecom sector is growing in Pakistan. New entrants are acquiring the licenses to operate and competition is getting tough, but for the customers, it is good both in quality and price. The subscribers of Mobilink sector are more than 15million and this sector is contributing a huge revenue to the government of Pakistan. Mobilink is a subsidiary of ORASCOM telecom. It 1 st began under the umbrella of Motorola and Saif group that later on was sold to ORASCOM(Egyptian based) telecom company. Mobilink is the pioneer in providing GSM services to the customers and has biggest market share in telecom sector by having more than 31million customers. More recently, a Russian based telecom company vimplecom has purchased 52% shares of Mobilink and is making some strategic changes in the organization. Mobilink has a well established marketing department that ensures the continuation of Mobilinks public goodwill and creates a strategy that is in line with the overall business strategy of Mobilink. Mobilink has a mechanized system of marketing that comes up with customer satisfaction, not only to the individuals but the corporate and government as well. The segmentation of Mobilink embodies government customers, corporate customers, youth, ladies etc. The marketing strategy of Mobilink emphasize on the management of cost and quality services. To address these both factors, Mobilink came up with two themes No Samjhota and Pura Signal, Pura Pakistan. Both of them imply that there will be no compromise on the quality and it will be ensured that Mobilink network is available across Pakistan which can be done through cost management. Cost management is also done through a liaison with other networks via site sharing. Mobilink is offering a range of different products, they ensure quality, promotes them via advertisement on TV, news papers, bill boards etc. Mobilink has spent a lot on their brand ambassadors and sponsorship of different awards to attract the people towards Mobilinks products. Placement is yet another very important feature that is under the focus of Mobilink marketing department. Being pioneer and the pro-claimer of best quality, Mobilink has established infrastructure that covers about all of Pakistan and the marketing department highlight this competitive edge over others in the promotions. Mobilink has many strengths and weakness. Mobilink has to maintain the competitive advantage and has to capitalize on the opportunity of growth available in market before other cellular services.
2 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing
CASE STUDY
1.History of Mobilink.
It all began with the joint venture initiative taken between Motorola and Said Group in 1990. Motorola 1 st started its operations in 1928 and was known as Galvin Manufacturing corporation. Through its lifetime Motorala has come up with a range of technologies and products including cellular services and cellphones. Saif Group of Companies is one of the leading group of companies in Pakistan that has subsidaries in oil and gas, power generation, information technology services etc. Later on, in 1992, mobilink was issued a license to launch and operate cellular services in Pakistan and with it, Mobilink became 1 st ever telecom company operating in Pakistan with GSM 900 technology. Mobilink started to provide its services in 1994 after completing all legal and infrastructural requirements. Afterwards, Mobilink was sold to an egyptian based cellular service provider known as Orascom Telecom. Orascom was found in 1950 by Mr. Onsi Sawiris. Orascom telecom is one branch of Orascom group of companies. The concept behind the inception of this group was to enhance the lives of the people of the emerging markets. The operations of Orascom telecom embodies 18 subsidaries and 19 GSM networks. In the middle and near east, it operates in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Pakistan. The license issued to Mobilink in 1992 had a maturity period of 15years. Considering the maturity period, Mobilink was entitled to renew the license in 2007 for further 15years of operations in Pakistan. Mobilink offers pre-paid (Jazz) and post-paid (Indigo) services. It was in 2004 that Mobilink took the initiative of introducing post-paid services in the market with a brand name of Indigo. Mobilink went into an agreement with Motorola in 2005 for the deployment of WiMax. WiMax is a technology that has advanced the services of mobilink from cellular and data offering to high speed broadbank and VoIP services, both for home and business users, on fixed line. Following is the list of Mobilink services. Indigo Jazz Mobilink Black Berry Mobilink Wi MAX Mobilink PCO Mobilink TV Mobilink Game Mobilink Cricket Sim Conference Bridge PCO Cards PIA Reservations Stock Watch Fax Mail Corporate SMS
3 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing SMS Advertiser
Mobilinks market share and number of users are different according to different source. In line with generally common calculations, in Pakistan, Mobilink is at the top in market share i-e 31.5% and customers over 35million. The coverage area of Mobilink is spread in more than 10,000 cities, towns and villages across Pakistan and provides international roaming services in 130countries. In 2010, Orascom went into an agreement with a Russian based telecom company named Vimplecon. According to the agreement, 52% of Mobilinks shares are now held by Vimplecon and 48% by Orascom.
2.Mobilink's Vision "To be the leading Telecommunication Services Provider in Pakistan by offering innovative Communication solutions for our Customers while exceeding Shareholder value & Employee Expectations". 3.Mobilink's Mission To be the unmatchable mobile system of communication in Pakistan that provides the best value to its customers, employees, business partners and shareholders. 4.Objectives 1. To satisfy the customer in whatever way possible. 2. To achieve business excellence and deliver quality services to not only the customers but every stake holder. 3. To develop a level of trust among its customers. 4. To fulfill its social responsibility to the country via different projects meant for the betterment of the society. 5.Objectives (Marketing): Mobilink has two basic services that it provides to its customers. Jazz is promoted with a tag line Apna hai and the Indigo is promoted with a tag line Brings people together. Now the overall marketing strategy of mobilink is to tell the customers that their services are the best for them and it gives them a sense of belongingness with quality services. On a detail level, with Indigo, Mobilink is trying to capture the high level managers and business class. The purpose is to provide post paid quality services on reasonable rates for them. It is promoted in that way that gives their customers a feeling to be a part of elite class.
4 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing Jazz is marketed in a way that it attracts students and common people. This prepaid connection is depicted to be fun filled with added features that no other competitor has. 5.Controllable Environmental Factors. 5.1 Relationship of Marketing department with others: The relationship of marketing department with other departments is based on the fundamental requirement of the organization. Mobilink is technology as well as marketing oriented organization. Marketing department has been integrated with other departments. The overall marketing strategy and the new promotions are communication to the employees of all the departments much earlier than it comes out to the market. The employees receives the emails containing all of the material regarding marketing even the new promotions on television and newspapers. 5.2 Who are the customers Mobilink has both external and internal customers. i. External Customers; These are Mobilinks primary customers. From Government, business class to common, Moblink provides its services to all. ii. Internal Customers. Mobilink has internal customers in shape of their employees. They have a large pool of employees and to retain the subscription of its employees, Mobilink offers very attractive packages to their employees. 5.3 Co-suppliers. Mobilink has two main co-suppliers. One is ZTE and the other is HUAWEI.
5.4 Relationship with competitors through Technology; In Pakistan, Mobilink was the pioneer of providing GSM telecom services. Mobilink had developed a large pool of customers much before the entrance of new telecom companies. Following are the competitors for Mobilink in Pakistan; i. Telenor ii. Ufone iii. Zong iv. Warid Telenor is a Norwegian multi-national telecom company. Since its inception in Pakistan, Telenor has proved to be close in competition with Mobilink. Telenor is growing quickly but it will take Telenor more efforts to stand parallel to Mobilink. According to Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) reports, the market share of Telenor is second to that of Mobilink i-e 21.6%.
5 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing Ufone is a Pakistan based cellular service that was initiated by PTCL. It received a lot of appreciation in the beginning because of being local telecom service providers. The market share according to PTA reports is 21.5% and it remains at third position to Mobilink. Warid is an initiative take by Etesalat, the number of customers in the past have increased very rapidly but due to the late entry into the market Warid has still a lot to cover. The market share according to PTA reports is 18.96% and holds 4 th position in the overall telecom market of Pakistan. Zong is a Chinese based telecom service providers. Zong acquired Paktel telecom service provider to start its operations in Pakistan. According to PTA reports the market share of Zong is 6.77% and remains at the bottom of overall market share positioning. The above data proves the supremacy of Mobilink in Pakistans telecom services. The new entrants brought new technology with them. According to the management of Mobilink, they are always flexible to make abrupt technological changes into their organization. So, any new technology that was introduced by any competitor was abruptly reciprocated by Mobilink. All of the companies for the expansion rely on each other at times. They share their sites with others on charging the fee. It not only helps the companies to expand their operations but also a lower price is offered to the customers via sharing. 5.5 Government agencies and Mobilink, Their relationship; The relationship of government agencies and Mobilink has been greatly enhanced by the use of technology. For instance, the tax payment to Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is done through the NTN (National Tax Number). NTN provides the ease of tracking the tax payer but it also gives ease to the tax payer in order to follow the liabilities of tax payment. Salaries payment and transferring funds are done online. Salaries are sent online to the accounts of the employees that could be retrieved either by check or by ATM cards. It gives the benefit of flexibility to the employees in collection of their salaries and also it provides the timely mode of transfer. 6.Uncontrollable Environmental Factors. 6.1 Demographics; Either in developed world or underdeveloped, demographics play a vital role in the use of technology. In our country, age and gender are the main demographic factors that affects the use of technology. In Pakistan, most of the population is settles in rural areas that have strong
6 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing cultural values. The young ones and the females especially are restricted to use the mobile services. However, in the urban areas, its not the case. According to surveys, youth comprise a big portion of the overall population. Youth is making the cellular companies to come up with newest technologies. To attract that big portion of our population, cellular companies are forced to introduce value addition into the base services. For Instance, youth are more interested in MMS, mobile internet etc. and to attract the youth Mobilink is offering these services and not just that but more. To attract the females, Mobilink has introduced many packages that gives long air time on low rates. Mobilink has also developed a portal that addresses the dimensions that are associated with the females. For the business class and middle aged people, Mobilink and other cellular services had to come up with expanding their network coverage area by introducing new technology to their sites. Like the use of Microwave antennas. 6.2 Economic Factors; The economic factors both on micro and macro level are responsible for the application of technology. In Pakistan, the macro and micro economic conditions are at the developing stage. The volatile political situation has also made it difficult for the economy to grow in the past. Mobilink could only invest to a level where it could make the profit via their investment. The tariff and other taxes, due to the low performing economy limits Mobilink to install modern and sophisticated systems, because of a high price. On micro level, peoples purchasing power is not high enough, Mobilink and other service providers have to curtail their prices on low levels and come up with low rates packages. The taxes on the air time for the customers is also playing its role in demand for cheap rates. Due to the said fact, economy is putting limitations on the installation of the modern expensive systems. 6.3 Technological Factors; Mobilink is entirely dependent on the technology. Any technological change in the external environment put Mobilink in a position of reciprocation. Whether it be the technological change within the organization of competitors or outside, Mobilink has to make changes. The changes are often welcomed but sometimes a few technological changes that are needed to be made are resisted not only within the organization but without as well.
7 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing 6.4 Political Facilitation; Mobile services are helping the political forces by providing them the flexibility of spreading their word directly into the ears of people. Political forces are making use of programmed direct calls of their leaders to the general public to gain their support. They have also established SMS numbers with which general public can assure their support to any specific political party. This service has helped political forces to have information of their support and the number of people listed. This system has helped in creating a more realistic voter list and recently the judgment of supreme court of Pakistan was made because of the technological support of the telecom companies. 6.5 Cultural Change, Country and Organizational; Technology specific to the telecom sector is having a great impact on the cultural change. It has made things quicker, has made the public more vigilant and aware. Technology at 1 st was a want of the public but now it has changed that cultural and is the need of the people. Cellular contacts and the use of internet via cellphone has made the attitude prompt. It also has made people to work at distance and late in the night for the reason that they could be contacted at any point of time with the help of technology. Organizations have also been influenced. The procedures have become well defined, the processes have become more efficient and productivity has increased. The sophistication of automation has resulted in downsizing but at the same time it has provided other sources of earning to the people. 7.Market Segmentation Following are the different segments of Mobilink Government Sector Many government organizations have subscribed to Mobilink. Mobilink has provided them with small units for best quality and network availability at the buildings of the offices. Business class Business class doesnt represent the individuals but the organizations as we that have subscribed to the services of Mobilink, and again in the same manner, Mobilink has provided those organizations with equipment for flawless network availability.
8 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing Ladies Mobilink has established a portal for females known as women portal. SME sector Sports Flight Roaming Youth
8.Product, Price, Placement, Promotion(4Ps) Product; Mobilink is mainly focusing on the quality of the product rather than providing variety. But still, Mobilink a strategy to come up with new products/services in order to meet with the demands of the customers. Pricing strategy
By following the price rates of Mobilink, it could be noticed that Mobilink is employing market skimming strategy. Having the largest coverage area and being one of the most high quality service provider, Mobilink is charging a higher price compared to other cellular services. Mobilink is high passive strategy for their quality and otherwise, on the low active strategy.
Placement
Mobilink is providing services about all over Pakistan. They have left no stone unturned to provide coverage at all places in Pakistan. Their theme of placement is Pura Signal, Pura Pakistan which implies that Mobilink wants to ensure to have maximum area under their coverage.
Promotional Startegy:
Mobilink has a big promotional expenditure. Through observation and the statements of Mobilink officials, it could be comprehended that Mobilink is spending millions on promotional activities on TV channels, news papers, brushes, bill boards etc. In the past and present, Mobilink has hired famous celebrities for their advertising. For Instance, Film actor Shan, String a musical band, Wasim Akram and Ali Zafar.
9 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing 9.SWOT Analysis
9.1 Strengths 9.1.1 Competitive advantage: Mobilink has garnered strength in establishing a well calculated and fundamentally strong longer term business plan that has resulted in sustaining challenges of economy in the country. Mobilink has made great improvements in the infrastructure in 2012. It has expanded its coverage area and has enhanced customer relationship management. Mobilinks subscribers enjoy the pride of having the best services in Pakistan in their reach. Like its early endeavors, Mobilink is the Pioneer in providing services on the motorway M2 phase. Footprint enhancement, voice quality, data network and operationalization of cutting edge technology, this all has been done through the investment of USD 393M by Mobilink in Pakistan. Connecting 20,000 villages, towns and cities throughout Pakistan is an achievement. Mobilink is leading the market by having 34.70 million subscribers. In Pakistan, highest market share of above 30 % remains under Mobilinks belt. Mobilink is the 1 st telecom company in Pakistan that started to provide GSM service in Pakistan. A great number of corporate customers have subscribed to Mobilink post paid connection and Mobilinks Blackberry handsets. In the pursuit of customer ease and satisfaction Mobilink and Muslim Commercial Bank have put a joint effort so that their customers could have access to all banking services via their cellphones. Mobilink has the distinction of being the only cellular service provider in Pakistan that has introduced corporate packages.
9.1.2 Resources, Assets and People: In terms of capital resources, Mobilink has a large pool as it is a subsidiary of multi-national company. Mobilink has the ability and capability of invest billions in different projects. The offices of Mobilink are upto international standards loaded to facilitate their employees.
10 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing The recruiting and selections of Mobilink could be understood by the phrase choosing the best among all. It has resulted in qualified staff both from local and abroad well reputed universities.
9.1.3 Innovative aspect: In 2012, Mobilink achieved yet another milestone by implementing a state of the art system Intelligent Network(IN). Through innovation, previously old technology of interphone was replaced with First GSM Network Connections. The inception of the concept of post-paid and prepaid was done by Mobilink. Being the pioneer in other aspects, Mobilink is also the 1 st one to introduce Mobile Commerce Services.
9.1.4 Location and geographical coverage: In Pakistan, it is Mobiilink again to provide coverage in the northern and other remote areas, such as Muzaffarabad, Chitral, Kaghan, Naraan and Kilaash.
The present theme line for provision of coverage is Pura Signal, Pura Pakistan. It is because Mobilink is again the 1 st one to cover area across Pakistant.
Its very rare/negligible to find No Service message on the network of Mobilink.
9.1.5 Government dealing: Mobilink plays an important role in revenue generation for the government of Pakistan by paying a large amount of tax. Mobilink abides to every rule and regulation in line with the constitution of Pakistan.
9.2 Weaknesses
Regardless of the fact that Mobilink is the market leader, there has been a decline in the market share of Mobilink over the period of past 5years. Advertisement has been on the low, specially for indigo. Mobilink is providing services at a higher price that all other companies. Expensive packages are making it hard for Mobilink to retain its customers.
9.2.1 Quality of network:
11 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing Due to some technological shifts and new projects, the quality has been compromised for some time now. For Instance, the network shift from 900Mhz to 1800Mhz.
Mobilink has been fined twice by Pakistan telecommunication Authority over its bad service. Once it happened when the MSC of Mobilink was burnt to ashes and the other time due to some quality lagging due to handover Takeover project.
9.3 Opportunities 9.3.1 Development: There is a gap that Mobilink can fill by providing attractive packages to elderly people, teenagers, working class and ladies. There is an opportunity for Mobilink to further expand their market share by more advertisements and promotional strategies. The rates could be lowered of calls, SIM, Mobitunes, GPRS to capture the low income class. Before new entrants arrive, Mobilink can target new customers. Mobilink is providing fasted internet by EDGE technology but it can also work on 3G to further enhance its internet services. 9.4 Threats Entry of new telecom companies is expected in the future. There could be a betterment in services to corporate customers by new entrants. Other companies are going into price wars that can decrease the customers of Mobilink. Brand local customers are sensitive, they could be lost due to negligence.
9.4.1 Price Wars: At present, among the companies, the price war is moving into a direction where brand name will be the only survivor.
9.4.2 Unreasonably Restrictive Trade Practice MRTPO 1970, under those provisions, Mobilink could face a legal proceeding by not giving its blackberry customers the liberty to use any other service provider. Marketing Strategy Besides other basic strategies, Mobilink has indulged into marketing strategy as well. There are two dominant factors in the marketing strategy of Mobilink.
12 Mobilink A Case Study on Different aspects of Marketing 1. Cost Management 2. Quality Services It is the achievement of Mobilink to have developed good relationship with customers both corporate and consumers. Mobilink is emphasizing on the provision of the needs and demands of the customers. For Instance, Mobilink has the edge to have the largest customer care center. There are three main customer care centers of Mobilink, the statistics for them are given as under; 100,000 call a day. 20,000 customers connect to the representative in care centers. 250-300 calls are received by each CSR in total duration of 8hrs. http://www.scribd.com/doc/55466988/Mobilink-Marketing-Plan-2011