“A STUDY OF MARKETING STRATEGIES OF VODAFONE-IDEA”

SUBMITTED BY:
ASHMIL ALIAR
REG NO: MB196625

SUBMITTED TO:
Asst. Prof: ADITI CHATTERJEE

Subject: Business & Social Marketing

S.B COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

BENGALURU CITY UNIVERSITY
2019-2021
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

SL NO. CONTENTS PAGE NO.

1. INTRODUCTION 1

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3

3. SWOC ANALYSIS 4
(STRENGTH, WEAKNESS,
OPPORTUNITY, CHALLENGE)

4. OUTCOMES OF THE STUDY 6

5. EXPERIENCE, LEARNING & 7

CONCLUSION

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY 8
 CHAPTER- 1
INTRODUCTION

Introduction
A clear marketing strategy should revolve around the company's value
proposition, which communicates to consumers what the company stands for, how
it operates, and why it deserves their business. This provides marketing teams with
a template that should inform their initiatives across all of the company's products
and services.
A marketing strategy refers to a business's overall game plan for
reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their
products or services. A marketing strategy contains the company’s value
proposition, key brand messaging, data on target customer demographics, and
other high-level elements

About Vodafone-Idea
Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi) is an Indian telecom operator with its
headquarters based in Mumbai and Gandhinagar. It is a pan-India
integrated GSM operator offering 2G, 4G, 4G+,VoLTE, and VoWiFi services.
As of 31 October 2020, Vodafone Idea has a subscriber base of
292.84 million, making it third largest mobile telecommunications network in
India and sixth largest mobile telecommunications network in the world.
On 31 August 2018, Vodafone India merged with Idea Cellular, to form a
new entity named Vodafone Idea Limited. Vodafone currently holds a 45.1%
stake in the combined entity and Aditya Birla Group holds a 26% stake. Kumar
Mangalam Birla heads the merged company as the Chairman. Ravinder Thakkar,
Ex-CEO of Vodafone Romania is the current CEO of the company.
On 7 September 2020, Vodafone Idea unveiled its new brand identity, 'Vi'
which involves the integration of the company's erstwhile separate brands
'Vodafone' and 'Idea' into one unified brand.
It was announced in March 2017 that Idea Cellular and Vodafone
India would merge. The merger got approval from Department of
Telecommunications in July 2018. On 30 August 2018, National Company Law
Tribunal gave the final nod to the Vodafone-Idea merger. The merger was

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completed on 31 August 2018, and the newly merged entity was named Vodafone
Idea Limited.
The merger created the largest telecom company in India by subscribers
and by revenue. Under the terms of the deal, the Vodafone Group holds a 45.2%
stake in the combined entity, the Aditya Birla Group holds 26% and the remaining
shares will be held by the public. Vodafone Idea lost a significant number of gross
and active subscribers in the month of August 2020 after the merger.

Until 7 September 2020, Vodafone Idea Limited operated two separate brands:
Vodafone – a post-paid & Prepaid GSM service.
Idea – a prepaid GSM service, similar to Vodafone Prepaid.
Vodafone Idea also provides services including Mobile payments, IoT,
enterprise offerings and entertainment, accessible via both digital channels
as well as on-ground touch points, centres across the country. Vodafone
Idea has a broadband network of 340,000 sites, distribution reach of 1.7
million retail outlets.

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 CHAPTER- 2
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION

Paper is mainly based on secondary data available from different
published literature and case studies on rural marketing and data is collected
from the unstructured questionnaire is collected from various books, journals
magazines and various search engines on internet to find relevant data.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

• To overview the concept of Marketing Strategy
• To assess the strategies followed by Vodafone-Idea (Vi)
• To know and understand the Marketing Strategies followed by Vodafone-Idea

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

• The study data was collected purely based on secondary data
• Limited access of data
• Limited time period for collecting data.

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 CHAPTER- 3
SWOC ANALYSIS

STRENGTH

• Established brand name.

• Highly capable telecom player bringing expertise from across the world
to India.
• Strong network capabilities across the length and breadth of the country.
• Highly dominant with strong network capabilities in rural markets ahead
of many other players.
• Employer of choice.
• Strong 4G presence in India
• Strong customer base and retail presence.
• Merging of two top telecom companies of India (Vodafone & Idea)

WEAKNESS

• Not been able to exploit the mobile wallet market even after mpesa is in
place.
• Channel sales managers doesn't visit retails often.
• Tendency to become a market follower rather than an aggressor or
leader.
• Difficult in identifying new market trends targeting millennials lack of
clarity of vision (where is the company moving, what new offerings to
highly connected millennials which is enticing etc).

OPPORTUNITY

• Try and bring market offensive strategies to target millennials like the
new airtel post-paid promise or Jio dhan Dhana dhan offers.
• Position the brand more towards the youth.

CHALLENGE

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• Telecom Operator Vodafone Idea is facing massive financial burden
because of AGR dues. Currently, Vodafone Idea has just paid 13% of
the total outstanding AGR dues.
• Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd merged to form India's
largest telecom operator, various integration challenges have emerged
ranging from trimming excess mobile sites and rationalising human
resources even as both brands continue to fight for market share in an
intensely competitive market.
• The merger took a year to complete and was expected to provide more
firepower against the other two players. However, subscribers
left Vodafone-Idea in hordes. The company lost 14 million subscribers
in the June quarter, taking the losses in the past year to about 115
million users.

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 CHAPTER- 4
OUTCOMES OF THE STUDY

OUTCOMES

• Strong network capabilities across the length and breadth of the country.

• Highly dominant with strong network capabilities in rural markets ahead

of many other players.

• Tendency to become a market follower rather than an aggressor or leader.

• The merger took a year to complete and was expected to provide more
firepower against the other two players

• Position the brand more towards the youth.

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 CHAPTER- 5
EXPERIENCE, LEARNING & CONCLUSION

EXPERIENCE & LEARNING

• The Indian telecom industry would see the domination of three telecom giants
of which Vodafone-Idea would be the largest. Additionally, Bharti Airtel and Jio
have been found as the dominating counterparts in the telecom industry.

• The process of branding will be individual for both the companies have been
found to have a complementary nature with respect to each other.

• Due to the merging of Vodafone & Idea, It boosts the pace of the telecom sector.

• It has also been found that the savings, synergies and also the spectrum will have
substantial impact on the escalating growth.

CONCLUSION
The merger between Idea and Vodafone will make them a top
player. For the benefit of co-operative management, synergies of up to INR 670
billion can be acquired & INR 140 billion on operating costs for 4th year. It will
also bring credit for the sale of Towers Assets to a consolidated business.
Vodafone Group owns a 45.2% stake in the joint entity while
Aditya Birla Group has a 26% stake, although both partners have equal rights.The
shareholding of both parties will be equalised over the next few years. Vodafone
Idea’s board has 12 directors — three each nominated by the two partners and six
independent directors The merged entity will have a better hold on digital
services which includes Voice, Data, Mobile payments, IoT, advanced enterprise
offerings, high speed and secure leased lines, digital wallets, MIMO and cloud
services.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1). www.ukessays.com
2). www.economictimes.com
3). en.wikipedia.org