Case study No1: VODAFONE: Developing a total

communications strategy in the UK market.

IN GENERAL: Vodafone is one of the most large mobile operators in

the world.
It has asked to remake an even more high quality and speed network to
adapt to the UK market that was growing extremely fast.
This demand for new services also occupied other industries and
enterprises and made them to rethink about their products at this new
domain. (Ex. Google)
All this enterprises faced also a lot of other changes, to the IP, the
growing and the starting of using the TV more, etc.
This change challenged the English operators such as Vodafone to
continue work hard and apply new strategies in order to accomplish their
goal.

(*) The success followed, and then other operators started to do the same.
The consumers were really satisfied (2003-2008) even though technical
and regulatory changes were happening even more often as the years
were passing.

(*) The competitors at the market were starting to make their strategies
along with the behavior of the consumers; their typical thought was “a
perceived consumer need for
‘Converged’ services” which means that he consumers have kind of the
same needs for services that are close the one to the other such as TV-
Mobile Internet.

(*) All the other operators started to give to the people the famous triple
play, offered for example 3 things to them, mobile internet, stable phone
and TV.

(!!) Vodafone at that period was the only one operator industry in the UK
who was focused on the mobile services and tried to survive at that point
among the others operators just from her skills and quality.

UK MARKET: the UK market in 2009 (were Vodafone was starting to

make their existence loud) was still facing the economical crisis like the
most of the other countries in the EU ( ex. Greece ) and the UK market
was trying to survive in any case. This crisis of course had an impact to
all the mobile operators like Vodafone. Most of the consumers couldn’t
afford having a mobile phone to pay and a stable fixed line for the
telephone at the house. And this is how the packets (ex. Triple play) were
made. They gave the opportunity to the customers to enjoy more than one
service in a lower price.

FIXED PHONE: An other extreme fact is that in the UK the fixed line
telephones had a large drop off between the years 2003-2009 with a lot of
people not using any longer the stable phones and only communicate by
their mobiles.
The percentage of the houses that had a fixed phone was half in the UK
compared to the other Europe (12%/24%).
The national network was governmental ( ex. BT) and the government
saw the changes that they were taking place in the UK and in other
countries and took the decision to work together with other private
operators in order to provide internet and other services to the homes that
were using this network .
Other companies took this advantage and worked together with the BT
and they won!
They got really famous and manage to earn a lot of money.

MOBILE PHONES: From year to year the mobile phone users were
increasing rapidly, and with this augmentation, the prices got also very
high. Because if the demand increases then it is reasonable the price to
increase too.

(*) Vodafone was playing a very good part, by being the third best
company in the UK at that time.

(*) In 2009 Vodafone and one other company shared that they would
extend in 5 the countries provided a network nearly global.
Contracts were made to provide low pay sim cards, and this move got a
lot of customers.
Vodafone was also collaborating with Iphone which got her even more
famous.

TV: The television is or better was very very famous in the UK, started
with 5 channels that were from the state and some others private
channels. However the last years with the advertising and the Internet,
television has lost some of her prestige.
At this case, Vodafone and others operators came up with the idea of a
cable connection to the house ,that were using its packets, which was
coming along with the privileges of a huge amount of channels,
broadcastings and internet.

(*) The number of the houses and the small businesses with the
broadband which was increasing rapidly. Most of the English people had
computers and needed internet what’s why they were choosing
sometimes not so good companies because they gave them good packets
to afford everything.

(*) Vodafone should have followed a strategy like BTS these days.

STRATEGY?: At 2009, Vodafone began an aggressive strategy of

Growth through acquisitions and the company got partner networks in 43
countries and got also operates to 25 other countries. It got very
successful after this strategy and finally got over 300 million customers in
the world.
It was established in a lot of counties such as Australia, Asia, Africa,
Europe etc.
And that was magnificent!
However in 2009 they changed their strategy to focus in 4 very important
things:

I) Provide services to each client like his are unique, and this is how they
raise their performance, through value enhancement.
The important is the relationships between them and the revenue is not
the only one that matters.

II) They expanded in mobile data services, they growth

is un enterprise (business) customers including medium,
and small home/offices and broadband.
They announced that they will follow a market by market approach which
will focus on the service than the technology. And the main target and
priority will be the enterprise and the value consumers.

III) Expansion in new markets, including the expanding in the delivery of

mobile markets and services.

IV) The expansion and the new investments at the mobile data, the
entertainment and the broadband. Also to make more powerful the capital
discipline year by year.

(*) Vodafone was challenged at the 2009, the leadership at the UK was
taken by others operators and she had to do something.
(*) With a lot of work, Vodafone managed to get a very successful place
at the mobile phones world/ internet, the brand was wide known and
along with others companies, Vodafone was even more famous by taking
places to other parts of the UK life (Ex. sports, Formula1)

(*) Vodafone was also trying to provide an upgrading network and to

provide faster speeds and it was already working with suppliers to
accomplish the 4G network, which was a huge thing these days.

SOLUTION: Vodafone was trying to partner with some other companies

that they were leaders at the internet part, and to provide some products
unique and some services that no one other had. Also was trying to fix
some mobiles that have the environment of a computer.

It could follow these options:

I) To continue focus at the mobile data
II) To look for an other operator as a partner and make a better broadband
to offer to the customers
III) To invest to the own broadband of the company

(*) The best partner for Vodafone seems to be the BT, which would allow
to it to gain the access to the network with less capital investment and left
the partnership that she had with other operators.

(*) The construction of Vodafone’s new and own network would make it
to spend a huge amount of money, revenue and capital but it would let it
to integrate to the market and provide a full packet of services and data
that only Vodafone would have under the established brand that has and
the quality that guarantees.