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things like market research and product development, design, and testing. Marketing
needs and desires, marketers develop strategies that are designed to educate
customers about a product's most important features, persuade them to buy it, and then
to enhance their satisfaction with the purchase. Where marketing once stopped with the
sale, today businesses believe that it is more profitable to sell to existing customers
than to new ones. As a result, marketing now also involves finding ways to turn one-
making regarding product lines, pricing, promotion, and servicing. In most of these
areas marketing has overall authority and it affects the decisions that concern the
responsible for the physical distribution of the products, determining the channels of
distribution that will be used, and supervising the profitable flow of goods from the
to customer wants and needs, organizations are more likely to achieve their objectives
in the marketplace. Of course, organizations have to compete with each other and so
also have to satisfy customers' wants and needs at least as well as their competitors.
Fortunately, organizations can do this in different ways (Proctor 2000). Of all the forces
affecting modern marketing, perhaps none is more important than globalization. Local
companies that never even considered international competition now find foreign
competitors stocked on shelves right alongside their own products. Some economists
argue that local companies should be protected from such competition through
legislation that regulates the flow of goods through trade barriers and other measures. m
Others oppose such regulation, arguing that it only raises prices for consumers.
Globalization, however, is only one force changing the way companies market their
products or services. Another involves changes in the very interests and desires of
consumers themselves. Consumers today are more sophisticated than those of past
generations. Competition also has sharply intensified, as the number of firms engaged
in producing similar products has increased. Another force affecting modern marketing
Environmental concerns have also affected product design and marketing, especially as
the expense of product modification has increased the retail cost. Even the way a firm
handles itself in public life has become significant. No longer may a corporation cloak its
internal decisions as private affairs (Proctor 2000). The paper will discuss about the
Vodafone group PLC. The paper will discuss what is meant of John Kay claims that
Marketing capabilities are sometimes distinctive, sometimes reproducible and that the
importance of the distinction for strategy is this; only distinctive capabilities can be the
basis of sustainable competitive advantage. Lastly the paper will distinguish the sources
m
one of the companies that people come to for their communication needs. Although it is
futile to try to describe the state of affairs in telecommunications alliances because they
change on a regular basis, examining some of the major attempts and events provides
insight into this industry's dynamics and future. There had been three primary global
alliances that include Concert, Global One, and World Partners. These alliances
in the telecommunications industry reveals that most of such alliances are pure play
alliances; that is, ventures in which partners offered unlike products, technologies, and
markets. These markets are usually in the same market segments, such as content,
alliance between Bell Atlantic/GTE and Vodafone Air Touch, a joint venture established
to compete head-on with AT&T in the U.S. wireless market. Another type of alliance is
converging alliances which means two companies from different industries collaborating
Vodafone Air Touch is the world's largest mobile phone group (Harrison, Hitt & Ireland
2001).m
western US states, this acquisition allowed the firm to overcome entry barriers quickly.
The deal is further evidence that Vodafone Air Touch is anxious to achieve national
coverage in the U.S. Late in 1999, Vodafone made a $125.3 billion hostile takeover bid
telecommunications powerhouse. At the time, this was the largest hostile takeover bid
on record. After its completion, this transaction dramatically extended Vodafone's global
reach (Harrison, Hitt & Ireland 2001). Vodafone provides a service that gives business
information based on a user's location, such as the nearest restaurant. The wireless
device a phone can even provide directions to a business that has been selected by the
customer. Vodafone recently announced a $50 million user trial for m-payments in the
United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy. Customers will be able to make credit or debit
payments on a mobile platform, authorizing them with a PIN code (Luftman 2003). m
m
The payment system itself is an open standard and the cost of the call is the only
the financial payments industry that impacts the consumer and the merchant, the mobile
operator, the content provider, and anybody else along the value chain. An even more
disruptive change can soon follow. Such a concept could replace existing payment
tools and move the society closer to the notion of a cashless society (Luftman 2003).
The Middle East magazine (December 2003, p.46) states that despite the sustained
downturn in the global telecoms sector, a host of new tenders for mobile licenses are in
the process of being launched in the Middle East. Iran, Algeria, and Jordan all plan to
issue their second or third GSM licenses, introducing more competition into the industry
and generating much needed revenues for the respective governments. However, the
governments involved will certainly be aware that they are unlikely to recoup any thing
like the same level of license fees that accompanied the first tranche of GSM licenses.
The new licenses may be attractive to private companies both inside and outside the
region, but the optimism and available capital, which buoyed the sector a few years ago,
are gilt a memory. While greater competition is being injected into national markers,
relatively little effort had been put into integrating services in the Middle East until
struck a deal whereby multimedia messages (MMS) can now be sent between the two
networks. It is the first cross-border facility of its type in the region. Bashar Arafeh,
Fastlink's marketing and mobile data services director, thinks the deal could be a
prelude to connecting all cellular networks across the region ensuring that swapping
multimedia messages becomes an easy part of everyday life, similar to the way most
people consider sending an SMS without a thought. In addition, Motorola has signed a
$19m contract with MTC Vodafone to expand network capacity and coverage within
Kuwait.m
The first table will show the annual income statements of the company. Amounts
m
m m m m m
m m m m m
Revenuem Gross Operating Total Net
m m Profitm Incomem Incomem
Yearm m m m
m m
m m m m m
m
m m m m
m 41, 319m (7,601)m (15,153)m (23,081)m
Mar 2006m m m m m
m m
m m m m m
m
m m m m
m 78, 018m 17,136.5m (15,729.1)m (25,896.4)m
Mar 2005m m m m m
m m
m m m m m
m
m m m m
m 61,285.4m 25,745.8m (21,605.8)m (14,841.5)m
Mar 2004m m m m m
m m
m
The table shows that the company is not doing well financially. It can be due to
the rise of competition and the emergence of new players in the telecommunications
industry. It can also be due to the financial problems experienced in the country.
Although it is not doing well financially it is competing well and enjoying success in the
m
system that supports the service industry and promotes its growth. In 1968, Bahrain
became the site for the first satellite earth station of Intelsat's satellite network in the
Middle East (Kamalipour & Mowlana 1994).Bahrain has historically been in the centre of
regional trade, benefiting from its geographical situation and its natural resources.
Today the emirate has turned its attentions to the trade in money and tourists in order to
be ahead of the game in the 21st century. Batelco, was established in 1981 and was the
Standards Organization (ISO) certification, for the quality of its services. Batelco began
installing the $80 million Gulf Submarine Fiber Optic Cable in 1996 which will link
Bahrain to Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, providing high-grade digital
transmission links between the four Gulf states and the world (Nugent 1997). m
m
Bahrain went online in November 1995 through Batelco's network at a time when
many other Middle Eastern countries were reticent about the consequences of being
connected to the unregulated worldwide Internet system. Within a year there were
around 3,000 local subscribers and several Bahrain-based World Wide Web page
design companies. Like many companies worldwide Bahraini firms are using the
Internet to publicize and market their products and services: banks, insurances
companies, even Bahrain International Airport, have web pages. Batelco also provides
an online directory of information about Bahrain and its tourist attractions (Nugent
1997). MTC Vodafone has a worldwide reach and it reaches more places while Batelco
is currently serving only the market in Bahrain. Batelco started earlier than MTC
Vodafone thus Batelco has more experience in the telecommunications industry and it
m
Through the identification of its distinctive competencies and the relating of them to its
core products, a firm can develop purposeful plans utilizing those capabilities. New
a firm identifies its core competencies incorrectly this will result in the firm overlooking
attractive opportunities and lead it to pursuing poor ones. In searching for a competitive
sustainable, these capabilities must be difficult to imitate and should support the
organization's business strategy. Organizations that stress the development of key
capabilities are better able to achieve and maintain a position of advantage despite
capabilities has been identified as one of the primary ways firms can achieve a
competitive advantage (Proctor 2000). In this context, firms must develop processes
that allow them to collect information about market opportunities, develop goods and
services to meet the needs of targeted customers in selected markets, price these
integrative processes designed to apply the collective knowledge, skills and resources
of the firm to the market-related needs of the business, enabling the business to add
value to its goods and services, adapt to market conditions, take advantage of market
Risk is part and parcel of business life and risk sharing with other organizations is
one way of dealing with problems that risk brings. Risk arises in different ways. For
office equipment industries have all come together so that the industry is an amalgam of
other industries. Individual firms trying to compete for the attention of customers
required often exceeds the design, manufacturing and marketing capabilities of a single
company. It is often not cost effective for an individual firm to develop internally the full
range of skills and capabilities required to compete effectively. Indeed, such skills and
resources are more cheaply available through alliances with other firms which can
different companies. Some companies have evident marketing capabilities while others
have a little capability. Vodafone has an evident and unique marketing capability this is
shown thru their success in the foreign markets. People recognize the company and
know the company's different products and services. Marketing capabilities are
reproducible among companies. Even if one company lacks marketing capabilities it can
can also be enhanced through learning new marketing techniques and practices. m
m
The basic logic of the resource-based view (RBV) is relatively simple. It starts
with the assumption that the desired outcome of managerial effort within the firm is a
sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). Achieving an SCA allows the firm to earn
economic rents or above-average returns. In turn, this focuses attention on how firms
achieve and sustain advantages. The resource-based view contends that the answer to
this question lies in the possession of certain key resources, that is, resources having
obtained if the firm effectively deploys these key resources in its product markets.
Therefore, the RBV emphasizes strategic choice, charging the firm's management with
the important tasks of identifying, developing and deploying key resources to maximize
returns. The list of resources in any given firm is likely to be a long one (Fahy 2001).m
One of the principal insights of the resource-based view of the firm is that not all
a given firm's bundle of resources or their deployment is one of the defining issues
within the resource-based view of the firm and one that has been the subject of much
imperfect competition and the RBV is concerned with understanding the persistence of
m
A firm's resources are a source of sustainable competitive advantage if they
possess the three key characteristics of market value, appropriability and barriers to
duplication. A further trait gaining some attention in the literature recently has been
durability of the resource. For example, the life span of technological resources is
getting much shorter due to the pace of innovation, though resources such as corporate
and brand reputation appear to be much more durable. However, as long as a resource
sustainable competitive advantage. Should the resource be durable, the advantage may
last for a longer period subject to the efforts of competitors to duplicate it. A sustainable
superior performance levels or rent. However, to ensure that the level of such returns is
not overstated it is also necessary to take account of the cost of resource deployment
(Fahy 2001).m
between key resources available to the firm, managerial choices with respect to those
resources and the levels of competitive advantage and performance attained by the firm
in the marketplace. One of its key insights is that not all resources are of equal
and pioneer in the telecommunications industry. It was one of the pioneers of the
advantage for the company is its notoriety and reputation. The company is known even
in US markets. People buy its products because they believe that the company offers
the best products and their products are tried and tested. Lastly a source of sustainable
competitive advantage is its distinct marketing strategy. It forges alliances with different
companies and telecommunication industries all over the globe for it not to have
m
across town, between countries, and to and from outer space. One company belonging
people come to for their communication needs. Vodafone is one of the world's largest
mobile phone groups. It is one of the 10 largest companies in the United Kingdom.
Vodafone provides a service that gives business information based on a user's location,
such as the nearest restaurant. The wireless device a phone can even provide
directions to a business that has been selected by the customer. The company's source
its distinct marketing strategy. With proper marketing management and proper use of
the different competitive advantage it has, the company can gain success. m
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