Marketing Strategy For Vodafone Australia †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Marketing Strategy For Vodafone Australia. Answer: Introduction The purpose of the following paper is to determine themarketing plan for the telecommunications company Vodafone Australia. This company is one of the leading ones in global communications. The objectives for making the background plan is the fact that Vodafone needs to grow its market within Australia and outside the country as well (Vodafone Australia 2017). They have been segmenting their markets by taking up certain strategies so that they can grow their business. They have selected their market by focusing on the telecommunications industry and the people who are very much internet savvy. Vodafone Australia was founded in 2009 and have made notable developments in their sector since then (Vodafone Australia 2017). They are behind Telstra and Optus at the moment, so they want to expand their consumer markets actually. Value Analysis In this segment, the value analysis of the organization has to be done since it is important to develop the strategies by identifying what the customers really want and it has to be provided to them in perfect time (Bodie 2013). It is due to the desire of foreign market entry for Vodafone that they have to identify the challenges and resistances so that expand into that market properly. They can try to expand into the Chinese market because it is the biggest market in Asia. All telecommunication companies are eyeing to stretch their business in China so Vodafone should also be doing the same. Product portfolio and value proposition Vodafone Australia provides many services and products to its customers. The most important service they provide is the internet data and a better network all the time. The Chinese people are keen to utilize the opportunities of the fast mobile internet networks that the mobile operators provide (Eggers 2012). Vodafone provides 4G internet at really affordable costs along with prepaid and posts paid cell phones. These phones are also offered at reasonable rates so that the people can buy these products and it will be in line with the current Chinese economy. Thus the value proposition of the products is very much attractive to the customers, and they want to grab some advantages from Vodafone. Their major competitors like Telstra and Optus have also introduced new offers that would be threatening to Vodafone, but they are committed to gift the best network with the best internet download speed. Challenges and resistances There are particular difficulties and resistances in this process as the market entry in the Australian and Chinese markets. One of the most pertaining challenges in Chinese market entry is the Intellectual Property Protection (Drahos 2016). This problem has affected most of the content providers in China. The intellectual property protection is the primary barrier for the managers to expand their market in China. Another important barrier is that there are no clear criteria for the application procedure and the time for review is not adequate as well (Eggers 2012). Costs and benefits There are some advantages of the product, and these products are cost-effective as well. The Vodafone mobile network is used by a huge number of people. They sell various mobile phone and tablets in their retail stores with different cost-effective offers, and they provide the return offers as well (Hastings 2015). The different kinds of mobile phones they sell include the Android and iPhones. Apart from that, they provide free SIM card along with bonus 4G data and additional benefits as well. Portable modems, attractive data plans and prepaid internet benefits are supplied by them as well. Ansoff growth matrix According to the Ansoff growth matrix, Vodafone has to implement certain strategies so that they can grow into individual countries and most importantly in China (Hussain et al. 2013). They have to apply the market penetration strategy if they want to develop their business with the existing products. As they sell the best telecommunication devices available in the market, they should be focusing on the portable modems that provide the fast internet connections. They must try to persuade the current customers to increase their usage of the services they provide. They must also seek to improve the primary and secondary demand of the product by introducing new features and upgrading it different means. They must also do the survey and convince the users of their competitive companies to use their products and experience the differences (Hussain et al. 2013). They might also look to develop new geographic markets. Segmented markets and marketing channels for the products should emerge. Newmarketing strategies should also be formulated in this context as well. Analysis of uncontrollable forces The forces that cannot be controlled are the external forces that have an enormous impact on the businesses. These forces are divided into six segments, and this analysis is called the PESTEL analysis (Jurevicius 2013). Political forces China is a politically stable country and a republic country ruled by the Communist party. There are no such political conflicts, and Vodafone can expect all the government supports if they expand over there (Jurevicius 2013). Economic factors Vodafone has to understand the economy of China and compare it with the global economy. They should be able to scale their product prices according to it so that they do not suffer from the wrath of global inflation (Ferroni and Mojon 2014). Social factors The social factors like the demographic factors have to be analyzed in this context. Vodafone must address these social issues and make their target markets according to the age, gender, income and occupation of their target consumers (Jurevicius 2013). Technological factors China is a technologically advanced country so Vodafone Australia should make the major decisions to implement the technological tools to their products and upgrade them. This will boost the Chinese economy as well. Legal factors Vodafone Australia must abide by all the legal frameworks of the Chinese government if they want to expand their business to China. They can be punished if they violate these rules. Segmentation, target and positioning Vodafone Australia must be segmenting their target markets properly that will be helpful for them to devise their marketing strategies (Riefler, Diamantopoulos and Siguaw 2012). They should be targeting the young people more because they use the internet more frequently than others. If they get good internet speed and the good network, they can communicate faster. This will benefit them as well as cater to the growth of development of Vodafone Australia as well. The additional data benefits will serve as the key to consumer loyalty. Vodafone Australia should be positioning their products like portable modems to capture the attention of the audiences (Riefler, Diamantopoulos and Siguaw 2012). Their brand image should depend on how they provide the services to the Chinese people and what added benefits could be provided compared to their competitors. The age group that they should target must be between 20 and 30 who are addicted to the internet. The brand values and brand image of the products are solid since Vodafone Australia is a well-reputed company in Australia with numerous customers. The data plans at a cheaper rate should be the key to attract the consumer attraction for Vodafone. Their main competitors in the market Telstra and Optus have followed many strategies like strong network support and primary benefits, but Vodafone Australia has adopted policies to give more benefits to customers if they recharge through the official mobile app of the company. This decision will be effective as it will save the time and make faster communication as well (Ramer et al. 2012). Australian market Expansion The competition in Australian market is very much in the modern times and the CEO of the organization Inaki Berroeta has confirmed that they are trying to do their best in their efforts to overcome the challenges in the Australian telecommunications market. Another important thing inb this context is that they have to open more stores around the country so that they can be able to expand their markets in the whole country. They also want to introduce new features within their network like video-on-demand and others (Martin and Foetschl, 2016). This way the Australian customers can be manipulated in a huge manner. The customer servicing issues will have to be discussed and they have to resolve these cases to serve their customers better (Schaarschmidt and Kilian 2014). They will have to indulge into making more content partnerships that will help them to cater to more number of customers. They could even plan to sell off their joint venture partnership with Hutchison. Some of the major offers they have been offering in the recent times are like signing up to Vodafone unlimited broadband data and home phone plus NEON, the customers could be benefitted for a 12 month term. They could tend to offer a three-year strategy and implement it on their customers. This could include a fixed line strategy and bring new lucrative offers to the customers (Singh 2014). They will be continuing with their innovation process and this could be very much effective in beating their arch rivals in the market like Telstra and Optus. They could offer their new phones in New Zealand and in many provinces in Australia and they could even deal with the Netflix-style content with the Sky-TV owned NEON. Vodafone Australia also has announced to to partner with Fairfax media and music streaming platform like Spotify this would provide the customers with free or discounted news and music contributions for the customers. These strategies would really be effective in terms of customer satisfaction and market expansion for Vodafone Australia (Fabling and Sanderson 2013). Marketing Mix decisions Modification of products The product that is the centre of the product, the portable modems can be modified for the use in China. Certain new features can be added to preinstalled games, web browsers and fast internet surfing facilities (Gordon 2012). Core product features The core product portable modem can be introduced in the market in a new avatar by adding those above mentioned features. The packaging has to be done innovatively with a new tagline like World at Your Feet in Seconds' and others. The product can be differentiated by displaying it innovatively to the customers and drawing their attraction. The product quality should be of utmost priority to Vodafone Australia for gaining the customer satisfaction. Selling method and pricing strategies The products will not be sold via retail stores as they will have their own outlet stores. They must design those outlet stores entirely with balloons, banners and attractive interior decoration (Gordon 2012). The pricing strategies should be flexible since Chinese people do not share the same social status. Rich people should buy it at a higher rate while middle and lower class people should be able to avail it at a lower price by showing their income certificates. Pricing comparison If the competitors like Telstra can fix their pricing strategies to get the market advantage, Vodafone Australia should be looking to get the attention by promoting more lucrative offers. For example, if Telstra offers 10 GB 4G data at $70, Vodafone Australia must provide the same at $50 so that customers will find it better to avail Vodafone's offer (Nagle, Hogan and Zale 2016). Communication strategy The target audiences have to be communicated properly so that they can be aware of their daily offers. Vodafone Australia should persuade the recipients to install the official app of theirs to stay connected and follow them on social media where they have a significant presence (Gordon 2012). Potential risks These may bring some potential hazards like fall of the internet speed if a huge number of people avail their offers. The line can become congested, and it will take a longer time to download the files. This may be overcome by installing more towers in China over the main cities (Nagle, Hogan and Zale 2016). Distribution channels The selected core product can be distributed to the customers via different channels like courier or online methods. They must make partnerships with leading logistics companies. Customers can also buy those products from their stores (Gordon 2012). Analyzing competitors The strategic position of Vodafone Australia is always on the high, especially for taking up the rebound strategy and this strategy has paid off really well for them. Vodafone Australia has slammed the Asia strategy of Telstra by various means. They have attempted to occupy the market share to a large extent by introducing these new features. This will seriously strengthen their position in the Asian market. Conclusion This paper can be concluded by saying that Vodafone Australia has taken up certain important marketing strategies that could cater to market development and increase the market share in Australia as well as in China. China is considered as the biggest market in Asia, and it is important to keep a hold in the Asian market to improve its brand reputation. The external factors have been discussed over here in this segment and the paper has contributed to the need of discussing the marketing strategies and plans that they need to develop to grow their market in the global sphere. References Bodie, Z., 2013.Investments. McGraw-Hill. Eggers, J.P., 2012. All experience is not created equal: learning, adapting, and focusing on product portfolio management. Strategic Management Journal,33(3), pp.315-335. Fabling, R. and Sanderson, L., 2013. Exporting and firm performance: Market entry, investment and expansion.Journal of International Economics,89(2), pp.422-431. 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