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Vodafone group

Chapter 1

Firm's Profile

Vodafone Group is a mobile telecommunications company. The company has a significant presence in Europe,the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the United States. In the United States the group's associated undertakingoperates as Verizon Wireless.

From a UK start-up company in 1984, Vodafone is now the world's leading mobile telecommunications company.So Vodafone it's a market leader in its current production. Businesses know that consumers position products inrelation to those of competitors. There can be a ‘pecking order' or ‘product ladder'. Products might be marketleaders. They are usually the main selling product and decisions on prices and promotion are often followed byother products, known as market followers. (Dave Hall et al, 2006)

Vodafone is amongst the major global providers of telecommunication services. The company has a strongpresence in Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain and other European countries. Through its direct and partner networks,its global reach extends to more than 38 countries. Vodafone offers a wide range of mobile services such asvoice, messaging, data, and roaming services to customers and business enterprises. Vodafone has a strongnetwork infrastructure comprising 2G and 3G networks, which are operated over GSM and GPRS networkstandards. These networks enable the group provide high speed data services.

Legal Type Of Firm

Vofadone was formerly known as Racal Strategic Radio Limited and changed its name to RacalTelecommunications Group Limited in 1985. Further, the company changed its name to Racal Telecom Limited in1988; to Vodafone Group Public Limited Company in 1991; to Vodafone AirTouch Plc in 1999; and subsequentlyto Vodafone Group Public Limited Company in 2000. Vodafone Group is headquartered in Newbury, the UnitedKingdom.

Source: http://www.scripophily.net/ratepulicoen.html

Public limited companies tends to be larger and is the second type of o limited company. This company nameends in plc. There are around 1.2 million registered limited companies in the UK, but only around 1% of them arepublic limited companies.

Shares in public limited companies may be freely bought and sold by the general public on the stock market.Owners of plcs are therefore rarely closely involved with the business. The stock exchange is a market wheresecond hand shares are bought and sold.

Operating as a public limited company is associated with both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

All members have limited liability.

Huge amounts of money can be raised from the sale of shares to the public.

Production costs may be lower as firms may gain and this leads to ability to expand and benefit fromeconomies of scale which means as the production increases the cost of production per unit decreases. Inthis case Vodafone will be able to set lower prices than competitors and in this way increase sales revenueand maybe profits.

The great size of Vodafone, can often dominate the market and lead to a market leader where thecompetitor firms will have to follow.

Disadvantages:

There can be potential management problems in the organization.

There may be danger of takeover

There may be danger of shares loosing value through fashion and rumour and this to lead to a reduction ofthe stock market shares.

Some public limited companies such as Vodafone are very large indeed. They have millions of shareholders and awide variety of business interests situated all over the world. So, Vodafone is a multinational company whichmeans that it has production plants in a number of different countries.

Type Of Competition

Vodafone Group Plc is the world's leading mobile telecomunications , with a significantpresence in Europe, theMiddle East, Africa, Asia pacific and the united states through the company's subsiadiary undertakings, jointventures, associated undertakings and investments.

source: http://www.linkedin.com/companies/vodafone

Vodeafone is operating as an oligoply because it a market leader and has its dominant place in the market.Oligopoly is one of the four market structures. At one extreme perfect competition, where there are very manyfirms competing. Each firm is so small relative to the whole industry that it has no power to influence price. It is aprice taker. At the otherxtreme is monopoly where there is just one firm in the industry, and hence no competition ,which involves a quite a lot of firms competing and where there is freedom for new firms to enter the industry, andoligopoly which involves only a few firms and where entry of new firms is restricted. So, oligopoly is a marketstructure where there are few enough firs to enable barriers to be erected against the entry of new firms.

Product Design And UCD Failures

Vodafone the worlds largest mobile operator, is seeking an experienced freelancer to supportin the designand developmentof its exclusive products and specific Vodafone owned devices forall customer target groups.

Vodafone's aim is to grow revenue and improve its profit margin by adding value toits products and services, i.e. Earning more from each product sold. The ‘VodafoneLive' service enables customers to use picture messaging to download polyphonicringtones, colourgames, images and information, through an icon driver menu.Vodafone offers a product with many different features provides customers withopportunities to chat, play games, send and receive pictures, change ringtones,receive information and soon view video clips and send video messages.

Vodafone and other mobile phone industries use different ways in orderto prolongthe maturity stage of theirproduct life cycle and gain more profits. The cell phone life cycle includes design, manufacture, distribution, useand disposal(or alternatively, refurbishment of recycling components).

Chapter 2

Swot Analysis

The purpose of Swot Analysis is to conduct a general and quick examination of a business current position so thatit can identify preffered and likely directions for the future. Swot analysis involves looking at the internal strengthsand weaknesses of a business and the external opportunities and threats. (Dave Hall et al, 2006)

Strengths:

Diversified geographical portfolio with strong mobile telecommunications operations in Europe, the MiddleEast, Africa, Asia Pacific and to some extent the US

Leading presence in emerging markets such as India

Big presence in Japan market

Strategig alliances with Apple iPhone

Weaknesses:

Opportunities:

Focus on costs reductions improving returns

Majority stake in Huthcison Essar in India

Research and development of new mobile technologies

Focus on developing markets ( Africa, Latin America

Threats:

Highly competitive market

Still lags behind major competitors in the US

Extremely high penetration rates in key European markets

European Union regulation on cross-border cell phone usage by customers

Develpment of VOIP communication

Source: http://www.wikiswot.com/SWOT/15_Communication_Services/Vodafone.html

Pest-G Analysis

Pest -G analysis examines the external environment and the global factors that may affect a business. It canprovide a quick and visual representation of the external pressuresfacing a business, and their possibleconstraints on strategy. It is usually divided into five external influences on a business-political, economic, social,technological and green environment. (Dave Hall et al, 2006)

Political This is concerned with how political developments, regionally, rationally and internationally might affectVodafone's strategy. It might include a consideration of legislation, such as consumer laws, regulation, politicalpressures and the goverment's view of certain activities.

Economic This might involve the analysis of a variety of economic factors and their effects on business. Theymight include consumers ativity, their willingness to spend. Economic variables sch as inflation, unemployement,trade growth. Th effects ofchanges in product and labour markets.

Social One social issue that affects the operations of Vodafone in a positive way is the increased population inIndia. So Vodafone operating in a market with high population leads to an increase demand for its products.

Technological Businesses operate in a world of rapd tehnological change. Organisation sneed to regularly reviewthe impact of new technologies upon their activities. Production may become out of date and increase costs forthe business, communication may become inefficient as ICT develops. That's why Vodafone is investing in R&Dwhich is vital in industries where technological change is rapid.

Green Enviromental factors can influence the decisions of Vodafone. Taking into account environmentalconsiderations mayraise costs, but might also generate greater sales. Environmental and social issues are very

important for Vodafone. They use the monitoring aspect of the entropy system for international data gatheringacross their operating companies. This information is fed into their corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and hasresulted in significant data qulality improvements.

Chapter 3

Global MIS/Risks

Vodafone is a multinational company operating in a globalised economy wherethere is free international trade between different countries.

International trade is based on the principle of competitive advantage. This meansthat businesses that benefit from the international trade are those which canproduce their products at the lowest opportunity cost than other countries.

According to Peter Jay the ability to produce anywhere in the world, sell yourproducts anywhere in the world and sent your profits anywhere in the world is calledglobalisation.

Vodafone is a very successfull cell phone company, as it is a market leader in the countries that is operating andthis it has been achieved by its international competitivness. With international marketing firms have to considertheir USP( unic selling point) and their international competitivness in order to increase their global market share.In this effort multinational have to provide greater variety of products better qulity an d at lower price. To improvetherefore their USP and improve their international competitivness multinationals should improgve productivity perworker, invest in research and development and experience further economies of scale. (Dave Hall et al, 2006)

Vodafone In Ghanaian Mobile Deal

Mobile phone firm Vodafone is to expand its presence in Africa which is a less economically developed country bybuying a controlling stake in Ghana Telecom for 452 pounds. Rapid uptake in mobile use on the continent hasattracted foreign firms. Vodafone is attracted by Ghana's strong economy and political stablity. Ghana is the mostattractive markets in Africa. There are currently 2.7 million mobile subscribers executive in Ghana, althoughoverall mobile penetration per head of the population in the west African country reamauins low at 35%. So, as aresult of this Vodafone has recently sought to focus on emerging markets with high potential and less establishedcompetition, existing more mature mrkets such as Japan.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7487821.stm

The Impact Of Vodafone In The Ldc's

As we said previously Vodafone is a multinational company that operates mostly in less economically developedcountries that are becoming emerging economies because it can be benefit in a number of ways. However, theoperation of Vodafone in those countries is acossiated both with advantages and disadvantages.

It can increase the employment and in this way it can increase the income per capita. An increase in domesticcompetition leads to an improvement in the efficiency of local firms and also decrease inflation. It can improve thebalance of payment account of the country if product's are sold abroad and also the curency of the country inwhich a multinational operates in, and also it can introduce new technogy, production processes and managementstylkes and techniques.

Ethical Issues

There are some ethical issues that result from the nature of the operation of different multiationals in the ldc's. Oneethical issue is the exploitation of workers. There are long working hours, they impose over time and also childand labour prisoners.

They might operate in ldc's with lower environmental standards.

Usually they have high orked related accidents and the reason is because it is cheaper for them to have lowersafety standards.

They usually bring their managers ( mddle andhigh level) for ther headworkers and therefore don't givemany opportunties to local managers.

Because of the size and financial size of such enterprises, there are concerns aboutthe ability of goverments to control them and in this way they may be able to avoidpaying operation tax.

Conclusion

The above project is an analysis of a global multinational company which isoperating in different countries and it is a market leader in the products that itprovides.

The results that came out of this project are connected to the marketing strategies that Vodafone uses in order topromote effectively its products around the world through the an appropriate marketing Mix.

I Also saw how different cocial environmental and technological issues benefit the company and which are thethreats that may increase costs of vodafone and maybe decrease profits.

Finally I analysed the operations of Vodafonesin the less econimically developed countries andin which way it canaffect the economy of these countries and the ethical issues that may arrise through such operation.