Change Management Business Report on Vodafone

2010

Change Management Business Report Vodafone Mobile Telecommunication Telecommunicationss Nothing is constant in this world, except change!

Stud ID: 2977269 Word Count: 6757

Karthick Shanmugam Coventry University 5/21/2010

0

CHANGE MANAGEMENT BUSINESS REPORT

May 21, 2010

Contents Vodafone History ............................................................. .............................. ............................................................ ............................. .2 Vodafone Products and Services Portfolio ..................................................... 3 Vodafone Vision and Values...........................................................................4 Mobile Telecommunication Industry and Vodafone ....................................... ............................... ........ 5 Strategic position of Vodafone in the industry ............................................... 7 PESTEL Analysis ............................................................ ............................. ........................................................... ............................ 10 SWOT Analysis of Vodafone plc............................................................... ............................... .................................. 15 Porter’s five forces analysis on Vodafone plc ........................................... 18 Vodafone’s Boston matrix:....................................................................... matrix: ....................................................................... 21 Influence of Technology on Vodafone .......................................................... .............................. ............................ 24 Role of Change Management in an Organisation: ........................................ 24 Change Management: ............................................................. ............................ .................................................. ................. 26 Types of Change: ................................................................ ................................ ...................................................... ...................... 26 Dealing with Resistance to Change:.......................................................... .............................. ............................ 27 Benefits and Significance of Change Management: .................................. 28 Future Directions for Vodafone:............................................................. ............................ ....................................... ...... 31 Conclusion: .................................................................................................. 32 Recommendations ................................................................ ................................ ....................................................... ....................... 33 References ............................................................ ............................. ................................................................ ....................................... ...... 34

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Vodafone History: Vodafone Group Plc is a public limited company incorporated in England. Vodafone is one of world’s leading mobile telecommunications company operating in Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and in United States through the company’s investments, subsidiaries subsidiaries and joint ventures. All of the mobile subsidiaries

in Vodafone group operate under the brand name “Vodafone”. Being one of the leading mobile telecommunications company operating across nations, Vodafone sustains its growth with unique blend of products and services that it offers to its customers. The name Vodafone was chosen by the company from “V “VOice DAta FONE” FONE” to reflect the provision of services offered by the company. 

In 1982, Racal granted UK’s first mobile license and the first ever call mobile was on 1st of January, since then it’s been Vodafone achieving various

milestones in the field of mobile telecommunication. 

In 1990, Vodafone Subscriber base reached 500,000.



In 1991, Vodafone and telecom Finland linked up to make the world’s first international roaming call.



In 1993, Vodafone extended its market with license and partnerships to Australia, Germany, South Africa, Greece and Fiji.



UK’s first Vodafone plc emerged as the Vodafone’s commercial GSM -digital

service launched. In 1996, Vodafone launched UK’s first -ever -ever contract free service (Vodafone prepay) 

2000 the beginning of 21

st

century, Vodafone established multimedia in to

mobile communication in response to the technical advancements and innovation including GPRS, 3G and Wireless internet. Vodafone currently operates in 25 countries and further operates in 42 countries with partner networks. According to the 2009 year end registered mobile subscribers data, the Vodafone group company had 333million customer and that triple digit figures, excluding paging customers. The Vodafone group company had a total market capitalisation of approximately £71.2 billion according to the company’s shares listed on London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ stock market on November 2009.

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Vodafone Products and Services Portfolio: Vodafone offers a range of products and services keeping in mind the choice of customers and their needs, this means of customer understanding enables Vodafone to be on the right track to growth. Vodafone offers its products and services not only to normal customer, but also to those who have disabilities and impairment. Vodafone committed to provide its customers with user friendly products and services unmatched by its competitors. Vodafone achieves competitive advantage over its products and services by adopting itself to new technologies at first. Vodafone offers its customers a variety of products and services.

Products portfolio 

Pay as you go



Pay monthly



Mobile broadband



Fixed line broadband 

Wired



Cordless



Top-ups



3G data cards



Smart phones



BlackBerry business phones

Services portfolio 

3G service



GPRS Vodafone live Mobile Office Voice



Entertainment Games Ringtones Application Wallpapers

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May 21, 2010



Chat



News & Updates



Downloads



Easy payments



Voice activated dialling system for people with restricted sight problems



Text to speech software



Trained staff crew on customised stores



Vodafone live!

Vodafone Vision and Values: Vodafone is a company that believes in its Vision and values and relentless working by its values to reach the vision. Being a telecommunication company that enables people to communicate hassle free, Vodafone believes in listening to peoples their thoughts and ideas would enable the company to sustain its competitive advantage over its rivals.

Vodafone Values 

Speed:

Focussed on pace of the market, and coping up to new technologies.



Simplicity:

Makes things simple for its customers, partners and co-workers.



Trust:

Being reliable and transparent to deal with.

Vodafone Vision The vision of Vodafone is based on its five year (Corporate Responsibility) CR strategy and the last CR strategy was to be developed in 2005, the CR strategy helps Vodafone realise its vision. Vodafone understands the fact that it is never easy to predict the future through identifying the footprints of the company in the past therefore Vodafone perceives the company’s future in understanding d ata services and products offered to the

customers according to their needs. The extensive journey of Vodafone has already

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May 21, 2010

rd

begun with 3 generation mobile internet, mobile broadband, and fixed broad band services by embracing new technologies. 

To be a leader in the world of mobile communications “enriching customer’s lives” by providing communication solutions to business and communities in

the modern world 

Vodafone focuses on making mobile the primary source of personal communication for individuals across the world



Vodafone has clear priorities to capture potential and emerging markets through mobile telecommunication medium and thus bringing socio-economic values in the prospect of operational market



To work on the key areas including Global warming and climate change



To develop sustainable products and services to attain greater level of customer satisfaction.

Mobile Telecommunication Industry and Vodafone: Mobile telecommunications industry plays an essential role in the world’s economy, mobile phones are considered to be the key device that enables the industry to portray its importance in world’s economy. Mobile telecommunication

industry through its various innovations and technical advancements has met numerous milestones in a very short period, than any other industry does. Mobile telecommunication industry due to its increased demand and through its constantly evolving nature serves almost all the industries, sectors, business and individuals across nation. Mobile telecommunication industry due to its increased demand, the necessity to facilitate a no of industries and nations is also at a rise. Therefore more and more of mobile telecommunication industries have been started, understanding the potential growth of the industry and to capture growing markets. There are over 600 mobile operators operating worldwide and over 50 mobile operators have over 10million subscribers each and still counting. The world’s largest and leading individual mobile

operator is china mobile with customer base of over 500million; the UK-based Vodafone is the world’s largest mobile operator group .

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May 21, 2010

The top 10 mobile telecommunication operators around the world are as follows 1) China mobile with overall Subscriber base of over 538 .887million 2) Vodafone with

overall Subscriber base of 427.99million 3) America Movil with subscriber base of over 203million 4) Telefonica/movistar/O2 collectively owns a customer base of over 188million 5) Orange with overall subscriber base of 189million.

Source:http://www.google.com/images?q=mobile%20phone%20subscribers%20per% 20100%20inhabitants&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

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Strategic position of Vodafone in the industry: Vodafone strategies for acquisitions, collaborations and merger with other companies helped Vodafone to become the largest mobile telecommunication company in the world in the year 2000. Vodafone Group Plc (Vodafone) provides innovative and interactive services and other value added services to its customers to remain competitive in the industry. Vodafone’s various services include voice, messaging. 3G services include, GPRS, Vodafone live, Mobile Office, and voice. Entertainment services such as games, ringtones, application, wallpapers. Chat, news & updates, easy payments. Voice activated dialling system for people with restricted sight problems, text to speech software, trained staff crew has been appointed on Vodafone customised stores, Vodafone live! Etc. Fixed line of Vodafone connection provides its customers with fixed broadband. Business oriented services include mobile advertising and business marketing services, incoming roaming and wholesale mobile virtual network operations are under provision. 

On December 30, 2008, the carrier services and business network solutions a

subsidiary of Gateway Telecommunications SA was acquired by Vod acom group 

Verizon Wireless purchased Alltel Corporation of Atlantis Holdings LLC in

January 2009.



On May 18, 2009, Vodacom became a subsidiary of the Company since the

company’s 15% stakes are acquired Verizon wireless on April 20, 2009.



The Vodafone fear not in its confidence, the company committed that UK

mobile phone group to increase its dividend by a minimum of 7% on a yearly basis for the next 3 years. This is the first time Vodafone has committed to a 3years dividend target; however the response from the investors were considerably low. Shareholders side brief that Vodafone ’s decision as “embarrassing”

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May 21, 2010

Vodafone has written-down a £2.3bn flagship on its emerging market, which is

a challenging and edge of competition to business in India.



Vodafone’s shares were likely to “decline”. Since the company’s future at

Verizon Wireless (US mobile operator) is still been unresolved, where Vodafone group has a 45% stake.



Vodafone’s full-year and fourth-quarter results for 2009-simply matched the

expectations, and Mr Colao’s efforts to improve the group’s businesses are at its best in work progress.



Vodafone must realize that the company still trails its larger UK rivals. O2, the

second-leading mobile network operator, who has recorded cash inflow growth of 3.1% in the last 3 months i.e. until March 31.



Vodafone started to sell the Apple’s world popular iPhone, which partly

contributed to the decline in 2.6% of revenue paid by UK customers in the last 3 quarters, which considerably a better performance compared to the last year same period data.



Though Vodafone does not really rely on its European business, the company is

still planning get back to the actual revenue growth in 2010-11, to raise the group sales as it is getting adequate support from the Asian markets and Turkish business which secured considerable growth in the second half of 2009-10.

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May 21, 2010

Vodafone results – this year to March 31

Sales

Pre-tax profit

Earnings per share Dividend

£44.5bn

£8.7bn

16.36p

8.31p

↑8.4%

↑ 107.1%

↑ 181%

↑7%

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f5f9b12a-62b4-11df-b1d1-00144feab49a.html 

Vodafone is planning to produce sum £6bn to £7bn of free cash flow during

each of the coming three years. , compared with 8.31p in 2009-10, the company has planned to increase the dividend to at least least 10.18p by 2012-13.



Verizon Communications doubtfully can afford to buy Vodafone’s stake , which

has been valued at $79bn (£55bn). In the mean Verizon Wirelesses ’ cash may soon be tapped by Verizon communications to maintain the US group’s dividend, highlighted

by Bernstein analysts in March.



Vodafone on Verizon’s dividend states that the “default thing” is the

restoration of dividend dividend payment by Verizon Verizon Wireless to Vodafone. Vodafone

would

look at all the aspects of Verizon Wireless including the case for a merger between Vodafone and Verizon Communications.

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May 21, 2010

Verizon Communications , the US telecoms group that owns 55 per cent of the

mobile operations has blocked the dividend to be paid to Vodafone since 2005. Vodafone differentiates itself as a unique mobile telecommunications operator by providing its customers with value added services and features to enhance the product quality and “value for money” this methodology of Vodafone has a unique approach on customers for its products and differentiates Vodafone from its competitors. Vodafone follows the cost leadership strategy and differentiation but fails to adopt the focus strategy as Vodafone does not focus on a niche niche market. Vodafone needs to compete on a focus strategy in order to sustain its customers from moving on to different networks and thus the company can achieve competitive advantage through driving down the costs.

Current strategy Vodafone’s current business strategy is to “grow through geographic expansion,

acquisition of new customers, retention of existing customers, and increasing usage ) through innovations in technology”. (Source: www.vodafone.co.uk

PESTEL Analysis: The strategic position of a company can be analysed based on the important factors that affects the internal and external factors of the company. The PESTEL analysis focuses on the external environment of the company and gives a complete analysis of the business, and strategic position of the company (Vodafone plc). Political Factors

Political factors influences the company as the business decisions can be changed based on the rules set by the political forces. Business can be affected by the legislation in terms of competition, collusion, acquisitions and mergers, national laws etc.

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May 21, 2010

Rules and Regulations: regulations to limited access to spectrum and tight control over licences for mobile phones, provides complications to the mobile industry. Apart from this political pressure arises due to increase in the issue of radiations that comes from mobile phones and limited usage for children as well as other health issues concerned while using mobile phones.



Infrastructure: To promote more facilities within the business and for increased distribution of network availability, the infrastructure of the company needs to be developed which usually requires constructing more buildings that requires authorization from government and statutory bodies to use their property.



Health issues and concerns: The research towards the effects of mobile phone usage is still in process, and there is no definite public opinion on the issues concerned with usage of mobile phone. Besides these, the technologies in mobile phones are still developing.

Economical Factors

The economical factors can have critical impact on the business and its performance; the economic impact can have a direct impact on business due its effect on supply and demand power. Economic influences include costing, unemployment, increased competitors, growth of economies and scale, etc.

Licence cost : Vodafone and other mobile service providers face economic issues in the cases when there is increased cost for acquiring licences for mobile phones.

Third generation cost : Telecommunication businesses faces severe consequences in paying extreme price for acquiring 3G licences, competition arises in bidding the price for licences and this results in paying very high cost for obtaining the license for 3G. Added, to provide good network coverage, the company need to build more network stations which thereby require a lot of revenue.

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Calling cost : Due to increased competition, costs of calls have been bought down as customer tends to focus more on low-priced products where the demand will be more. Hence to meet the increased demand the Vodafone was pulled out in situation to reduce the cost of calls. Socio-cultural Factors:

Socio-cultural factors include cultural differences and the influence of consumerism. The innovation of 3G technology brings to society a better blend of new series of contents and services. This new technology of 3G will increase the sales revenue of the company especially a company like Vodafone will now be able to offer wide range of mobile phones with latest technologies adopted in 3G which will result in increased sales volume. In addition to this, Vodafone adopts few responsibilities to protect the younger generation of today against the inappropriate content usage and access violation through gambling and unauthorized games.

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Technological Factors

The Increased technological usage in

mobile

phones

created

increased usage of mobile phones among

consumers,

in

the

beginning mobiles were used only for speaking, after the discovery SMS

and

other

advanced

technologies in mobile phones people have got attracted for mobile

phones

not

just

for

conversing but also for other value added

services

offered

by

and

network

features service

providers. The latest technology like 3G, Bluetooth, Wireless and WAP, has made human life very simple to get connect with people across the world. People nowadays can picture or capture videos of memorable moments and share them with others just like that. All this have been made possible through the innovation of new technologies and with the help of a simple device “The Mobile”. Environmental Factors

As the awareness on Eco-friendly environment and other environment related awareness’s keep hitting the daily news

headlines. Industries around the world started focussing on recycling and trying to be environmentally friendly. Vodafone a industry being directly related to very individual and offers services to millions of direct customers. Vodafone focuses on certain environmental factors by adopting recycling program that encourages eco-friendly product promotions and monthly statements. As this will create increased awareness among customers and encourages them to use recycled

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paper products and environmental friendly products, effective usage of mobile phones accessories, etc. Vodafone adapts to unique advertising and uses pre-paid envelopes, recycling bins in the retail outlets. Vodafone advises its costumers to avoid long time usage of mobile phones focussing on health related issues. Environmental factors also include demographical change where in certain population, more young people use mobile phones and in geographical change where there is less youngsters like UK, mobile phone usage will be less as old-age people prefer mobiles only in lesser amount. Legal Factors

This

includes

certain

laws

that

regulate the business. For example the ‘Sales of Goods Act, 1974’ which insists on the fact that all products must meet the purpose they are intended

for.

Some

laws

were

created to regulate and monitor the mobile industries, especially the rule of ‘ban to cell phones while driving’.

Vodafone has marked down a set of marketing strategies In order to retain market leadership; •

Add new customers

•

Sustain the existing customers

•

incorporating new technologies and providing user friendly services

•

Shaping the Vodafone brand while capturing emerging markets.

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SWOT Analysis of Vodafone plc: The SWOT analysis that comes henceforth will provide the company with detailed information of market situation at present and Vodafone plc’s competitive advantage over its competitors. This report will use the SWOT analysis to analyse and evaluate the Intrinsic and Extrinsic environment of Vodafone plc, stating to that eakness will be considered as “Intrinsic” environment of Vodafone Strengths and W eakness plc where as O pportunities and T hreats hreats will be considered as “Extrinsic” environment of Vodafone plc.

SWOT Analysis on Vodafone plc

Strengths:

Weakness:

Omni presence

Legal issues Lack of R & D

Diversified Diversifi ed Geographical Geographical existence existence

Vodafone plc

Opportunities:

Threats:

“Third Generation “ 3G”

Wrong Strategies- effects

Trend of Mobile phones

Environmental hazards-effects

Fourth Generation “4G”

Mobile phone usage rights

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Strengths •

The primary strength of Vodafone is its omnipresence and Diversified geographical existence.

•

Vodafone widespread its brand by acquiring emerging markets and retaining the Vodafone brand name to the existing brand while controlling the existing network and retaining the internet value in each of the acquired markets

•

Choosing and Sponsoring the Famous events and sports games for e.g. Ferrari Formula 1 team enables the company to portray itself uniqueness and brand.

•

Due to the company’s global presence, Vodafone self analyses existing network and incorporates future technologies to enhances the company’s ability to introduce products considering both the pace of the market and stability of the group networks

•

Well trained customer relations crew members and time bound queries handling specialists adds value to the Vodafone’s group . The company ’s strategy in developing a globally specified group standard in customer relations management ensured awareness of its customer base and serve according to their preferences and thus enabling the company to develop user friendly products and services.

•

Vodafone plc has recorded a high operations margin in the last five years of at least 30% has been recorded.

•

Vodafone offers data services in which a customer can access the internet rd using “3G” a 3 generation network that was rolled out in many markets in the beginning of the year 2000.

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Weaknesses •

Vodafone on expanding its brand and geographical existence has invested some quite a huge amount on fixed tangible assets in the past five years on an average has exceeded the depreciation charge by 58% and represented a 50% of operating profits therefore there is a greater chance of the company meeting meet a cash shortage.

•

Exploring new technology will require huge R&D and infrastructural costs. If the company could not meet the profits on resourced project, the company will held under tremendous pressure in recovering the costs spent. On some occasion spent may never be recovered. In addition the company ’s present technologies will not be flexible to adopt new technologies.

• Vodafone as a telecommunications organisation is still considered to be immature and receptive to legal issues when things change rapidly.

Opportunities •

“Third Generation ” 3G Mobile Phones are considered to be a key player in the product and services portfolio mobile telecommunications industry as it will allow the users to access the internet much faster, with greater efficiency and hi-speed data transmissions this effectiveness will also facilitate videoconferencing through mobile Internet at broadband speeds, and restructure future multimedia messaging.

•

The trend of people change from time but in the case mobile phones from the time of mobile phones launched till this moment, mobile phones remains to be a special devise among individuals. This is due to effective service offered by the mobile operators attracting new technologies. There people across the world hold at least one mobile phone for them, we can even say mobile phones are considered to be a ‘must have’ device by people of developed countries. This enables greater opportunity for Vodafone to keep searching for potential markets and increase the count of customers with its extensive products and services.

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Threats •



Failure to build an effective model or technology would put the company under immense pressure and will lead to lose greater amount of money in shot. Wrongly defined strategy would impose a false image on the company’ s brand name

•

Mobile telecomm industry is encompassed with no of rules and remains as a highly regulated industry. Mobile telecommunications operating companies have to abide by the rules made for political and socio-economic without considering impacts of those rules in its organisation values. Examples of these rules would be licensing on certain or further mobile phones and operating infrastructure, Imposing pricing strategy on call rates and network rates.

•

If the use of mobile phones was restricted due to medical and environmental hazards reason, the entire mobile and telecommunication industry would suffer.

•

Users wishing to change their network services provider may expect better service from Vodafone, failing to fulfil such customer will lose customer trust on Vodafone.

Porter’s five forces analysis on Vodafone plc

Porters five forces model helps the organisation to its competitors in its industry, competitor analysis would enable Vodafone plc to understand the various that makes its way in entering it to the potential market, the buying power of customer in a specified region or location, helps in identifying cost effective supplier in the location, product substitute helps Vodafone to identify the substitutes of its products and services offered with local are technical advantage. These five forces will have a direct impact on Vodafone’s strategic competitiveness.

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Competitive rivalry Competition between mobile operators is very high as a number of companies operate in a specified specified location, O2, Orange, Virgin, 3 and T-Mobile. Rivalry is high as when customers from other networks switches to Vodafone and finds there is no brand loyalty i.e. difference in services offered other than price.

Buying power Vodafone’s accounts on the number of customers disconnect the service during one complete year enables Vodafone to know about its customer and their expectations. Customers are provided with a number of choices to choose from new packages, new phones and new tariffs through newspaper, advertisements and mass communication medium the internet.

Power of suppliers Suppliers play a vital role in any industry and notably suppliers in the mobile telephone industry are too strong. Vodafone, Vodafone due to its omnipresence and geographical existence reduces the cost and operates with greater margins than their competitors. This ultimately allow Vodafone to attract increased price from its suppliers and remain competitive than its competitors. Being the largest mobile operator in the mobile telephone industry, Vodafone has a greater advantage of holding suppliers costs down, the company’s sustains returns at higher average.

Threat of substitutes Vodafone faces a low threat threat of product substitutes. The focused focused cost leadership strategy that Vodafone operates under makes it difficult for a similar substitute to be produced at a lower rate by their use of economies of scale, their buying power and their use of temporary price increases that come from suppliers that do not need to be passed on to the consumer.

Threat of entry Even though the threat of new entrants is less for the Vodafone operations, the company must reduce costs below their competitors. This can be achieved by maintaining high levels of efficiency, Vodafone being the major supplier of mobile products and services can reverse the trend set and make it harder for the competitors to make a potential entry.

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Sustainable competitive advantage Vodafone outruns its competitors through its unique and focussed strategies, these unique strategies enables Vodafone to develop unique, differential products and services to its customers. Vodafone products and services are accepted worldwide as cost effective and value for money. Vodafone achieves operational performance by enriching customer value enhancement. Vodafone due to its wide-spread knowledge about various products and services and through core competency possess sustainable competitive advantage not only among its rivals but also in entire mobile telecom industry.

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Vodafone’s Boston matrix:

Boston consulting group is developed by Bruce Henderson. This technique is used to classify a business performance whether low or high by relating market growth rate and relative market share. In other way, it can be termed as ratio between percentage of sales that a business have in the market and the speed of growth in sales. This BCG matrix is used to analyse how successful a range of Vodafone’s products and services are by looking at their sales volume in market and the trend for their products in the market.

High Divest

Selectively grow

Business



Multimedia messaging

 

growth rate

3G Vodafone Live!

Defend Share

Divest



SMS



Analogue services

Low Low

High

Relative market share

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BCG matrix comprises of four segments, which clearly depicts which product and service falling under which category:

Stars (high growth and high market share) Stars are the leaders of the business. They need more investment to retain its market share.  Require more cash and also generates more cash to the business  Steps should be taken to retain the market position, or else stars will  become Cash Cows. Vodafone earns a lot of profit in multimedia messaging, which also  requires more investment and this is met from its own revenue obtained through MMS services. 

Cash cows (low growth high market share) They form the basic foundation for the business and they are the past stars of the company 



They yield more cash to the business

Cash investment is less when compared to stars and earn as much profit as possible 

The products or services in cash cows are located in the mature stage of the product life cycle and not in growing gr owing or declining phase.



Vodafone earns a lot of revenue through SMS, which it yields to other investments as further investment in SMS would yield less or no profit as they are in mature stage. 

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Dogs (low growth low market share) 

Dogs are the cash trap

Dogs don’t provide cash to th e business and has less potential to yield profit to the business 

The products and services that fall under dog category should be minimized to earn more profit in the business



At this stage if business has more dogs, then this means that the business is in a declining stage.



Analogue services of Vodafone comes under dogs category, because these are the services applicable in first generation phones, but now due to advanced technologies like 2G and 3G which offers better clarity for speech, confidentiality, built-in PIN, GPRS, etc customers will focus more on advanced technologies, where the analogue services has come down which no longer earn profit to the business.



Question mark or problem child (high growth low market share) This is the beginning phase of the business, where the company invests large amount of cash if there is low market share.





All the business starts as question marks

Products under question mark can eventually become stars or cash cows or even can also become dogs.





More investment is needed for question marks

Vodafone shows high level of investment in ‘Vodafone Live’ and 3G network, which the company focuses in full term, these can become future stars of the business. 

Based on the above analysis and diagram shows that Vodafone possess a wellbalanced portfolio, however it seem to have some major difficulties with ‘3G’ and ‘Vodafone Live’ which can be described as problem child for the business. Vodafone can adopt a possible way of reducing its investment in ‘dogs’ analogue services and instead invest more from the money earned through ‘cash cows’ SMS to restructure the ‘problem child’ and keeping the ‘star’ multimedia messaging in its same position as of now, high market and high growth rate.

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Influence of Technology on Vodafone: Vodafone provides its wide range of telecommunication services to people around the globe and provides access to people for 24-hours a day. The economic development of a country is supported by the connectivity technology provided by the telecommunication industries. Many families which live in rural and urban areas and people who live far away from their beloved ones get communicated through this mobile technology. People who do businesses even from small scale to large scale need mobile phones as communication is a very important factor in business to develop furthermore. The need for increased movement and security of money has been recognised by Vodafone which was shown by its partnership with Safaricom. As a result, Vodafone set up M-PESA technology, w hich means ‘Mobile Money’ working in funding with the Financial Deepening Challenge Fund (FDCF). This M-PESA technology provides easy and simple access for low-cost money transfer system. This provides an ease of access for top-up technology and in return Vodafone gets a commission in smaller amount. This technology was made available in petrol stations, supermarkets, convenience stores, etc. This will help business to have a secure financial transaction and safe way for wage earners to send money to their home.

Role of Change Management in an Organization Research on many of the Technical industries clarifies that people with varied dimensions of change become the valid reason for project failures. According to study conducted in 248 IT industries, effective implementation of change management in employees was accounted as one of the top-three factors for overall success of the project, in many cases whenever a new change arises, neither the executive nor the front-line employee will be capable of managing those changes.

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“People dimension of change ” requires managing five key goals that form Effective management which is based on the ADKAR model: 



Awareness of the change and definitive need Desire to participate and carryover the change

Knowledge of how to change (and overlook change) 





Ability to implement the change on daily basis Reinforcement to keep the change in place

The process of transition

http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/capability/phi/personal /learningweb/leadership/change /learningweb/leadership/chan ge

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Change Management : A simplest definition for change management is;

“Making change in a planned and managed fashion”.

Organizational change can be defined as; Any alteration in people, “ structure or technology” Even though change has always been a part of manager’s job since ages, it has become more crucial in the recent years.

Types of Changes: There are four different types of changes in an organization with the definite possibility of overlap among them: 

Operational changes:

Implementing changes to the way of ongoing operations of the business, such as the automation of a particular area. 

Strategic changes:

Changes that occur towards the strategic business direction, e.g., moving from an inpatient to an outpatient focus. 

Cultural changes:

Cultural changes are those which affect the basic philosophies of the organization with which the business is being conducted, e.g., continuous quality improvement depends on (CQI) system.

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Political changes:

These sorts of changes occur at staffing in government agencies for high positions with political interference. Though it is understood that different changes make different impacts in various levels of the organization, operational changes tend to have significant impact even on lower hierarchy level of the organizations. The higher authorities at organizations may never notice those changes which roots for employees stress and confusion behind the change and after the change is implemented. Eventually, the impacts of political changes have been felt, only by the top management. Usually these changes are made for Power to lead, and supporters of particular group or entity. Therefore these rules are not really set to make any real changes in technical industries that needed to be incorporated for the organizations development ; The employees at the lower levels of organizations are often not aware off or not allowed at all times to understand changes happening at the higher management. The key concept is, the performers were not much affected, and the reason being that is the employee’s performance does not form the basis of the change.

Dealing With Resistance to Change When ever there is change about to be made in the organization, people refuse to accept the change. Refusal to change weakens the efforts of process betterment. Huge investments are involved in for many corporate changes and efforts made towards corporate change; the only reason is to be halted by resistance among the organization's employees. Organizations also manifest similar behavior to that of individuals when faced with the need to change. Changes may sometimes roots as a threat to people working in the organization. However changes are at the positive facets of higher hierarchy of organizations benefits. Why people resist change? It’s often said that most people hate any change that doesn’t fit in their pockets . There are three main reasons for which an individual is likely to resist change: uncertainty, concern over personal loss, and the belief that the change is not in the organization’s best interest.

Techniques for Reducing Resistance: There are six different actions which a manager can use for reducing resistance.

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These actions include participation, facilitation and support, education and communication, negotiation, manipulation and cooptation and coercion. Managers choose to use any of these actions depending on the type and source of resistance.

Benefits and Significance of Change of Change Management The unique benefits of change management are as follows: 

Understanding Environment : In order to envisage and establish an appropriate relationship with government, customers and society, it is important for an organization to understand, assess and gauge the dynamics in its external environment. Therefore managers by knowing the subject of change management can be prepared to realize whatever is going on in the environment.

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Objectives, strategy formulation & implementation: Another advantage is consequent upon knowing the impact of change at extraneous level on its own internal dynamics, and the prime most is objective setting and seeking competitive advantage.

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Employees: Whenever a change plan is implemented, the employees are the recipients. It is the concern of senior managers to make organization highly reliable in order to have high performing employees in today’s competitive world.

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Technology Issues: Technology is considered to be the heart of economic growth in today’s world but acquisition and integration of technology in its strategy, structure and process is perhaps the greatest challenge for contemporary organizations.

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Operational Change: Vodafone operational

incorporates

change

to

achieve

operational excellence in the field of telecommunication industry, Vodafone due

to

years

of

expertise

in

telecommunication industry plans and implements operational change with greater level of control Unplanned implementation of change would interrupt the ongoing practice of process and may result in dead-stop of ongoing operational process. Even though the operational change in organizations would merely make changes in work model process. People does not really tend to accept change, simply people need not want to change their daily practices and added to it, it does not really mean anything to them or does pay any extra. Vodafone implements operational changes by sharing the changes before it was adopted or put in to business practice. Vodafone counts employees opinions by sharing thoughts about the change to its employees, co-workers and stake holders opinions are addressed with greater responsibility. The change is implemented in various sessions, first the change in process or system is partially or implemented in one division of the business unit, before it is implemented in the whole business unit. This gives the employees at various levels working in Vodafone a chance to understand and realize the change happening around them. The slow and steady implementation of change helps Vodafone employees to learn the new process as quickly and as effectively as possible. By doing so Vodafone implements operational changes in planned and systematic fashion.

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Strategic changes: Vodafone incorporates strategic changes when there is a real and extensive need for them to take place in their organization structure, strategic changes are sensitive to both intrinsic and extrinsic environment, since these changes would make drastic effects on company’s strategic policy and establishment of company’s brand image to the end-user. Vodafone handles strategic changes for acquiring new markets and industries to add to its pride, one of the problems that Vodafone faces in dealing with the change is changing to competitive environment, the ability to change rapidly, efficiently, and successfully in almost all the occasions will make out the winners and losers. In most of the cases organizational changes involves different types and levels of personal loss for the employees and for the company. For instance, change of any kind in the organization always requires some additional input from the people to learn the change in operation, in the employees view point it is a loss of time and energy that could have been used elsewhere. Even though few may welcome the learning opportunity almost of the working resist the change, most of us do not want to invest the time and energy required for change unless we are not satisfied with the current. Secondly, people like to find some goodness about them. Ideally, workers in the organization welcome every opportunity to feel themselves pride about the given task

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Future Directions for Vodafone: 

“Third Generation” 3G Mobile Phones are considered to be a key player in the

product and services portfolio mobile telecommunications industry as it will allow the users to access the internet much faster, with greater efficiency and hi-speed data transmissions this effectiveness will also facilitate videoconferencing through mobile Internet at broadband speeds, and restructure future multimedia messaging.

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The trend of people change from time but in the case mobile phones from the

time of mobile phones launched till this moment, mobile phones remains to be a special devise among individuals. This is due to effective service offered by the mobile operators attracting new technologies. There people across the world hold at least one mobile phone for them, we can even say mobile phones are considered to be a ‘must have’ device by people of developed countries. This enables greater

opportunity for Vodafone to keep searching for potential markets and increase the count of customers with its extensive products and services.

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Overall at present Vodafone holds strategically a good position in mobile

telecommunication industry in financial aspect and commercial aspect, the only thing that bothers the Vodafone plc is the European market. Since the future direction in the European Union is still at stake due to the increased competition and decision postponement on bidding for “4G technology”.

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Conclusion: Vodafone achieves success through its strategic investments, constant innovation, and its focus focus on customer customer services. Vodafone plc has taken various strategies like, branding, which has accomplished using value added services to cope up to the changing environment and customer needs. However, there are still a number of problems lies behind Vodafone E.g., Extreme competition in the European market, the product life cycle point and view for Vodafone is in a matured stage, and the fact that the Japanese and Germany market restricts Vodafone’s goal of being a global leader . As we all aware of Vodafone invested in 4G and high speed broad band market, with less concentration and far behind the trailing tr ailing companies, since 4G is considered to be latest innovation in technology and Vodafone was expected to be a frontrunner. Wherein the trailing companies such as O2, Skype and T-mobile ’s are far beyond and have started targeting broad band users with frontend 4G technology. Vodafone holds a large proportion of market share in developed countries; However Vodafone must also need to concentrate on developing countries also if they wish to remain global leader in the mobile telecom industry. Bringing value to developing and developed countries has been the main motto of Vodafone. It is a clear picture that the recent years of economy is experiencing a greater amount of growth with the growing impact of mobile technology in developed markets. Customers are provided with added up value through innovative functions and features. The impact of technology and Vodafone together helps people to review the employment opportunities and take advantage of them even when they are away in their home towns and villages.

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Recommendations:   

Vodafone must explore the opportunities for materials processing in Kenya Vodafone must try and focus on a long-term business case solution The case study must also involve stake holders both internally and at local levels.

The future of Vodafone and improvement in managing and reporting CR lies in the following areas • Proper training of staffs in customer handling and query handling (Customer service management). • Vodafone’s status of compliance on Codes of Conduct to publicly available codes at local operating level company (network roll-out, content standards, others). • Organising the CR reporting practices of local operating company to ensure consistency in reporting principles at group level.

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References Gelder. D & Woodcock. P, Marketing and Promotional Strategy (2003). Nelson Thornes Jobber. D & Fahy. J, Foundations of Marketing 2nd Edition (2006), McGraw-Hill Education Lynch. R, Corporate Strategy 4th Edition, (2006), (200 6), Pearson Education Limited

Websites http://uk.reuters.com/business/quotes/overview?symbol=VOD.L http://www.businessballs.com/changemanagement.htm#John%20P%20Kotter%27s %20eight%20steps%20organizational%20change http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/13315/vodafone-verizon-andqualcomm-expect-increased-demand-for-m2m-networks-as-they-seal-strategicalliance-13315.html http://www.knowyourmobile.com/blog/5967/vodafone_launches_musicstation_unli mited_download_service.html http://www.management-issues.com/change-management.asp http://www.ft.com/companies/telecoms http://www.vodafone.com/start/investor_relations/strategy0.html www.3g.co.uk/PR/July2006/3382.htm l http://www.vodafone.co.uk http://tutor2u.net/revision_notes_strategy.asp http://www.rcn.org.uk/data/assets/word_doc/0007/288655 http://www.vodafone.com/etc/medialib/attachments/cr_downloads.Par.46720.File.t mp/VF_CR_Dialogue_2_Assurance1.pdf Vodafone Group Plc, Annual Review and Summary Financial Statement (2007), Newbury, London

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Change Management Business Report on Vodafone

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