Business and market overview of mobilink

Mobilink GSM (PMCL), a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom, started its operations in 1994, and has become the market leader both in terms of growth as well as having the largest customer subscriber base in Pakistan – a base of over 28 million and growing. We pride ourselves on being the first cellular service provider to operate on a 100% digital GSM technology in Pakistan that also provides state-of-the-art communication solutions to its customers.

Mobilink offers exclusively designed tariff plans that cater to the communication needs of a diverse group of people, from individuals to businessmen to corporate and multinationals. To achieve this objective, we offer both postpaid (Indigo) and prepaid (JAZZ) solutions to our customers. Compared to our competitors, both the postpaid (Indigo) and prepaid (JAZZ) brands are the largest brands of their kind in the Pakistan cellular industry.

In addition to providing advanced voice communication services that makes the lives of millions that much easy, we also offer a host of value-added-services to our prized customers. At the same time, Mobilink places high importance to its coverage, which is why we cover you in 10,000+ cities and towns nationwide as well as over 130 countries on international roaming service. In other words, we speak your language, everywhere.

The company directly employs over 4,000 people and has the largest distribution network with 200,000 outlets across Pakistan. Mobilink corporate social responsibility program contributes significantly in key areas of health, education, social uplift and cultural development causes in Pakistan and the company is the official cellular service of the Pakistan Cricket Board. Mobilink is the only corporate in Pakistan to issue a ‘high-yield’ bond worth US$ 250 million in the International Market and has portrayed a positive image of the country as a secure destination for business activity.

Mission

“To be a superior communication service company in Pakistan that provides the best value to its customers, employees, business partners and shareholders”

Vision

To be the leading Telecommunication Services Provider in Pakistan by offering innovative Communication solutions for our Customers while exceeding Shareholder value & Employee Expectations”.

P-1: Explain the processes and techniques used for auditing the marketing environments.

Environment of every market is changing day by day. This changing environment also compels every organization to change itself accordingly. These changes may not completely transform an organization but it can bring alterations in strategies, objectives and policies etc of an organization. These changes are basically brought to modify the organization according to the market needs. As every business desires to make out through the varying markets, this is where marketing audit comes into play. The term “marketing audit” can be defined as “Scrutiny of an organization’s existing marketing system to ascertain its strengths and weaknesses”.

Philip Kotler in 1977 defined marketing audit as “a systematic examination of an organization’s marketing objectives, strategies, organization and performance”.

Similarly marketing audit can also be defined as “A comprehensive, systematic, independent and periodic examination of a company’s or business unit’s environment, objectives, strategies, and activities to determine the problem areas and opportunities and to recommend a plan of action to improve the company’s marketing performance”. Whatever may be the type or size of an organization is, whether it is a philanthropist organization, a progressive organization, a regressive organization, a government organization, an honorable or religious organization, a public organization or a private organization marketing audit always plays a pivotal role in its success. The idea of marketing audit was basically extracted from financial audit carried by the account department whose basic purpose was to monitor financial activities. As accounting department has to deal with the financial audit in the same way marketing department deals with marketing audit to monitor marketing activities and all the things related to the market of the organization.

Marketing Audit Course: basically there are following four steps involved in the process of marketing audit.

A: Selecting the Auditor: in this stage of marketing audit the decision is taken about the auditor, that who will conduct the overall process of auditing. Usually an experienced outside party is hired for this purpose.

B: Deciding the Areas of Audit: the second step is deciding the areas of audit. In these step objectives, goals and mainly scope and breadth of the audit are decided.

C: Identifying and Collecting Data: in this step the auditors usually identifies and categorizes the sources of data, thus using these sources further data is collected.

D: Report Preparing and Presentation: the last step involves the preparing of data. After it is completed and thoroughly checked it is further provided and presented to the client.

The process of marketing audit is very broad and extensive in nature in a way that it includes almost all marketing related aspects. It basically includes marketing environment, marketing strategy, marketing organization, marketing systems, marketing mix, marketing productivity and profitability.

Marketing environment is very wide in nature. Basically it includes microenvironment and macro environment. So for the auditing purpose different tools are used which may include SWOT analysis, PEST analysis and PORTER Five Forces Analysis etc.

There are also several other purposes and benefits of marketing audit. Some of these are stated as under:

Determination of Work Process: one of the main purposes of marketing audit is that it is very beneficial in determining the working process. It determines and evaluates that what the company or firm is currently doing and assesses its history of work that what it has done in its past?

Future Recommendations: marketing audit’s center of attention is its future recommendations for the firm. It bases its research for this purpose and accordingly provides useful recommendation for the future mechanisms. Thus it is not only useful for historical or current processes but it is also used for following sessions of business.

Opportunity Hunting and exploiting them: likewise marketing audit it also pretty useful in hunting the opportunities that the firm can exploit. Thus different opportunities can be availed with proper handling. Similarly it can also identify the source to be used for availing those opportunities.

Weakness Eradicator: “Nipping the evil in the bud” would not be wrong if referred with marketing audit. Marketing audit not only helps in eliminating the current weaknesses but is also helpful in recognizing the weaknesses that the firm can face in future. Thus with the help of marketing audit proper plans can be set up for eradicating both the current and future weaknesses.

Enhancement in Marketing Planning: marketing audit also plays a pivotal role in enhancing the marketing plan. It brings improvement in the marketing plan of a firm as required which results in making the firm more successful and thus it can work more efficiently and effectively. Similarly marketing audit is also very significant because:

Marketing audit is really helpful in improving marketing efficiency and effectiveness.

Moreover it brings proper awareness throughout the firm about its environment.

It supports building of internal relationship in the firm.

Similarly it is helpful in identifying ill-used marketing resources and thus preparing a proper plan for their favorable use.

It is used for prognosis and diagnosis purpose, similarly for preventive and curative purposes.

It also identifies several areas of accomplishment and the foreseeable challenges that are found in an organization which are a cause of affecting return on investment (ROI).

In short marketing audit provides a snapshot of the whole marketing process of an organization.

P-2: Apply organizational and environmental auditing techniques in a given situation

PEST analysis

PEST analysis is considered on of the most important tool through which external audit is being performed. It is a simple tool that helps the businesses to understand the bigger pictures (macro environment) of political, economic, social, and technological factors. These are the factors that carve the shape of external environment.

PEST analysis is important because its helps the organization to align its activities with influencing forces of change that affects the whole industry. Secondly it enables an organization to identify those areas that can adversely affect the activities of a company so that a proactive strategy can be generated. Moreover it is useful when an organization wants to enter into a new country or region as its use helps to formulate basic assumptions about the business scenario.

PEST Analysis is important because:

Helps the company avoid such actions that can fail for reasons that are beyond its control.

Useful tool for formulating new business strategies, as it helps to identify external threats and opportunities.

Helps the company quickly adapt to the ever-changing business environment.

PEST analysis for Mobilink Telecom

For this assignment we have selected Mobilink Telecom. There are lots of Macro environmental factors which affects Mobilink Telecom performance however emphasizes has been given on major factor. The PEST analysis of Mobilink Telecom is as follow:

Political Environment: like every organization Mobilink Telecom is also affected the political environment up to a greater extent following are the major political factors which need to be addressed.

Government type: in Pakistan nowadays there is democratic government but because of ex-dictator policies and current government inability to manage issues in a wise way it can be clearly concluded that the government isn’t that much able and stable as it was expected to be which is not good for companies like Mobilink.

Rule of law, bureaucracy and corruption: due the amendments made by dictators in the constitution and domination of elite class on key government posts there is no justice and rule of law in Pakistan. Furthermore extra layer of powerful bureaucracy makes it difficult for companies to do business in Pakistan. Moreover corruption is widespread in our society because of lack of honest and improper judicial system which adversely affect the performance of those companies which believes in business ethics so is the case of Mobilink Telecom.

Regularity authorities: though there are regularity bodies in Pakistan like PTA which regulates the Telecom companies. But it does not have tight control on issues which is expected from it because of the mandate given to it.

Tax policy: the tax policy of Pakistan in the recent time was very investment friendly but due to bad economic conditions and increasing budget deficit the government has imposed various extra taxes. As far as Telecom industry is concerned legislator has imposed some extra taxes on this industry the most recent one is around Rs 17 on every recharge of Rs 100. This is negatively affecting Mobilink and its competitors business.

Economic factors: factor like current and projected economic growth, inflation, interest rate, unemployment rate, cost of labor, disposable income and distribution of income etc collectively comprise economic environment.

Current and projected economic conditions: in previous years Pakistan’s economic figures were implying very impressive and promising consequences but it all proved to be wrong. There are number of reason behind this the most prominent ones are that the economic policies were not integrated with political environment in an appropriate manner. Secondly terrorism has affected our economy in a very negative manner. So because of the reasons Pakistan current and projected economic conditions aren’t in Mobilink’s favor. Global financial crises and Recession have spurred the bad economic conditions of Pakistan.

Inflation and interest rate: inflation and interest rate both are very high in Pakistan. Although inflation has cool down up to some level because of global recession but still it very high. In most of countries it is quite natural that when the economic conditions are bad central banks reduces interest rate in order to boost investment where as in Pakistan the case is opposite. The interest rate is high because the government wants to control central bank new notes issuing rate which is currently more than 15%. So collectively inflation (rising cost of buying things) and interest rate (major factor affecting source of financing investment) are presenting very bad picture for Mobilink.

Unemployment rate and cost of labor: due to higher education boom there is a talented pool of candidates (MBAs, Engineers, technical diplomas holder) ready to work in organizations. In contrast the production of new jobs is not competent with supply pool so there is high unemployment rate. In addition because of high supply of potential workers the cost of labor is low in Pakistan which is a positive sign for Mobilink Telecom.

Level of disposable money and income distribution: it is evident that when there are bad economic conditions people of that particular country does not have high level of income which they can spent. Moreover as matter of fact national income distribution is very unequal or unfair in Pakistan due to the domination of elite class on key government posts. Rich is becoming more richer and poor is becoming more poor which is stopping the rise of middle class thus low disposable income and unfair income distribution are significantly bad for Mobilink Telecom.

Socio-Cultural Environment: these factors also affect consumer in deep way because in every purchase decision people are some how affected by their culture etc. Following are important element of socio-culture environment:

Population growth rate and age profile: population of Pakistan is increasing at very high pace. It has more than 160 million people which mean that Mobilink is operating in very big market. As for as age profile of Pakistan is concerned almost half of Pakistan’s population is young according to some estimates and average death age has fallen just below 60. So all this implies that young people are energetic and can work if they get opportunities.

Population education and Social mobility: people of Pakistan are not very much educated. Literacy rate is below India, and Bangladesh but the status quo has been in development process for the past few years. More and more people are getting education which is in favor of Mobilink for the reason that only educated people can or will use its services in well manner. Additionally people are moving from villages to cities in order to get better living although still most of or citizens lives in villages which is somehow a good for the Telecommunication industry because they can expand over there.

Cultural changes and life styles: culture in Pakistan is changing so their lifestyles are too. People are more inclined towards western ways of living and doing things. Hence our culture is becoming materialistic which means more use of technological equipments which includes cell phone so the consequences of cultural changes are good for Mobilink Telecom.

Technological environment: it is the most vital area for businesses today. Important aspects of technological environment are discussed below.

Impact of emerging technologies: technology is the only field in which development take place in its highest pace. New and improved technologies are emerging nowadays in Telecom sector from which Mobilink can benefit a lot in terms of cost and competitive advantage.

Impact of Internet and other communication equipment: the effects of internet are very huge on businesses particularly in communication area. It has helped organization with communicating within and outside stakeholders at an extremely low cost. So is the case of Mobilink Telecom, internet and other communication technologies has helped it to be in touch with its customer at a very low cot thus fulfilling its objective regarding customer care.

Research and development (R &D): this is the most vital field for companies related to technologies equipment business directly or indirectly like Mobilink. Mobilink does not have it own R&D department tough it will benefit from its strategic partnership SingTel a Singapore based Telecom company but still it isn’t enough. R&D helps organizations in gaining sustainable competitive advantage.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats involved in a project or business venture. It involves the specifying the objectives of business ventures or projects and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. This technique is credited to Albert Humphrey who led a convention at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1670s using data from Fortune 500 companies.

Strengths: attributes of the person or company that is helpful to achieving the objective(s).

Weaknesses: attributes of the person or company that is harmful to achieving the objective(s).

Opportunities: external conditions that is helpful to achieving the objective(s).

Threats: external conditions which could do damage to the objective(s).

SWOT Analysis of Mobilink

Strengths

Mobilink’s strength lies in the establishment of a strong, fundamental and coherent long-term business plan, designed to sustain economic challenges in the country.

It has invested heavily in infrastructure, technology, human resources and customer services which has given impetus for a broad-based future planning strategy. It further is investing US $ 500 billion in Pakistan to develop its infrastructure. Therefore it has the competitive advantage of making huge investments in Pakistan which no-one else had made before regarding Telecom.

Pioneer cellular service in Pakistan to provide coverage on the M2 motorway.

Pioneer in GSM service in Pakistan.

With 30 million customers Mobilink is truly called the “King of cellular service providers”.

Mobilink has the highest market share of 37 % not only in terms of number of subscribers but also in terms of revenue.

Large number of corporate customers use Mobilink post paid connection Indigo and Mobilink’s Blackberry handsets.

Mobilink and Muslim Commercial Bank have made a combined effort in order to maximize the ease and the satisfaction of their respective customers by offering them all banking services from their very own mobile handset.

Mobilink is the first cellular service which covered the northern and other remote areas of Pakistan such as Muzzafarabad, Chitral, Kaghan, Naaran and Kaalaash.

It is the achievement of Pakistan’s First GSM service Mobilink to widespread its network across whole Pakistan. Now the theme line of Mobilink is “Poora Signal Poora Pakistan”

Wherever you go wherever you are, you’ll never have the message of “No service” with Mobilink connection.

Weaknesses

Although Mobilink is covering whole Pakistan but its call rates are high and network quality is poor. These are the two major issues which brought Mobilink’s share down to 37% in 2010 from 60% in previous years.

Fewer advertisements now days shows that Mobilink is taking out its investment from marketing &its advertising is not active up to the mark. However if we compare it with Telenor, Zong and Warid we’ll realize that they are heavily marketing their products.

Mobilink’s network mostly remains busy in thickly populated cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Multan so people face a lot of difficulty while trying to connect to their friends and families. However Ufone’s network provides crystal clear voice quality so many of Mobilink’s customers (including me) have shifted to Ufone.

Mobilink has been fined twice by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority over its bad service. It must try and emphasize on providing better services to its customers instead on concentrating only on expansion

Opportunities

Mobilink can lower its call rates, SIM charges, Mobitune charges, GPRS charges and other extra charges in order to capture a larger market to make business difficult for rival companies. In this way it can segment a larger market and may capture the customers of low income group as well.

Through proper advertisement also Mobilink can target as many customers as it can in order to augment and give support to its falling market share.

Mobilink can develop a stronger market by focusing on segments such as teenagers, adults, office workers, girls and ladies as well as old people by offering innovative packages. These packages could be offered keeping in view the time consideration as well as pocket of each segment. These packages could be at low cost for teenagers and grand parents as their pocket is small but could be little expensive for the rest.

Threats

A new market player i.e. Zong is getting immense popularity among teenagers and youngster students because of its very low call rates and attractive packages. It is expected from the mushroom growth of its customers that it will soon capture a large market share hence if Mobilink keeps its call rates high it is expected that a large percent of young Mobilink users will switch over to Zong.

Better Packages by Other Cellulars Companies like Telenor offer better packages for corporate customers, Telenor Postpaid connection “Persona” is a good example of it.

Wireless local loop (WLL) service providers are also targeting areas which are less developed

Current price war among cellular service providers may reach at a position where only brand names survive.

M-1: Make an effective judgment that how best the studied organization audit the marketing environment

Auditors must prepare for the marketing audit by holding discussions with the CEO and executive staff, and briefly reviewing some financial and marketing data. Audits are often in two parts:

The first part begins with a meeting between the auditors and business unit management, and reviews of the unit’s financial statements, product literature, and organizational plans exhibit as follows. The auditors explain objectives, procedures, time frame and expected audit output, and required participation from each manager. Participation usually comprises an initial two-hour interview; then others are designated for potential interviews and provision of operating and financial information. The auditors typically tour manufacturing and other operations areas to better understand product features, quality levels, and cost differentials that distinguish the business from competition. The auditors also review customer service, shipping, credit operations, order entry, advertising, research and development, and manufacturing engineering. The auditors collect memos, reports, and analyses that help them understand the firm’s marketing strategy and business processes.

The second part of the audit is typically more time consuming than the first part. It comprises customer and trade surveys; further secondary data gathering; analysis of competitive products; evaluation of marketing strengths and weaknesses; interviews with industry experts; detailed analysis of internal financial, sales, and operating information; and second managerial interviews. Management is formally surveyed to compare its views on the firm and competition with customer viewpoints. Finally, all data must be analyzed.

The audit concludes with the presentation of findings and recommendations, first privately to the CEO and one or two executive staff, and then at a day-long meeting with the entire management group. The goal is to gain a common understanding of audit findings so a consensus on future marketing needs, opportunities, and actions is formed.

D-1: Evaluate the process and techniques used by the studied organization for auditing the marketing environment against the defined process.

After doing the PEST and SWOT analysis of MOBILINK Telecom we found that due to the new fiscal policies imposed on business, the unstable economy of the country, the impact of social and cultural trends of the region and along with these the frequent changes in technology which work as a back bone for the telecom industry creates some hurdles in the organizations success.

Sometimes the government polices affects the organizations in favor of public but sometimes it affect both the public and organizations like the increase of extra Rs.2, in total they are charging Rs. 17 per every Rs.100 recharge which discourage the cell phone users to making more calls as they do before.

The solution for the above is to increase the duration of happy hours and offer more discount packages that will encourage the costumers in making calls and will increase the call traffic which goes in favor of the company.

Technology plays a vital role in field of communication or we can say that it serves as a back bone for the organizations like MOBILINK. But to make communication more accessible scientist do more and more invention and that result in rapid change of technology which means organizations should need to be updated with the latest technology as per customer demand because if they do not so they will lose their customers .

Nowadays cellular companies are moving towards banking system well due to which Mobilink has introduced the facility of paying utility bills system with Mobilink.

In Pakistan people are moving from villages to big cities. They are gradually shifting from their old cultures to the western life style. The emphasis is more on getting good education and lives. The larger proportion in the population of Pakistan is comprised of young. This means that they are the majority users so organizations should try to focus more on this segment of market.

If we look at the age profile of the Pakistani people we will find that almost half of the population consists of young people who are the trend setters not the trend followers and it is very difficult to induce them. Almost all of the young people use cell phone for daily chit chat or messaging services. MOBILINK should make such polices to encourage this segment of market to use their services instead of their competitors

Few years back the economy of Pakistan was booming with high ratio the environment was very investment friendly more and more foreign investors were trying to invest in Pakistan which gives a big boost to Pakistani economy but suddenly due to the change in government and terrorism confrontation in this region the investors with drawl their money but leave behind a large pond of skill full and talented unemployed personnel

Every year a large number of graduates complete their graduation and move out in the search of jobs and similarly due to the current economic conditions globally organization cut off their employees in order to reduce the burden of salaries and tries to earn more profits. MOBILINK should move out in search of these people who can benefit their business they should negotiate with the local institutes to pick the best among them. And try to benefited of their talent and cut down the surplus in the organization.

P-3: Identify the main barriers to marketing planning

A marketing plan “outlines the exact actions you aim to carry out to interest potential customers and clients in your product or service and influence them to buy the product or services you offer”.

(Reference: http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/marketing/g/marketplan.htm)

There are six essential reasons for making a marketing plan:

It enables you to recognize your target market.

It enables you to think about making both short and long term marketing strategies.

It focuses at the business as a whole and keeps market objectives together.

It allocates fewer resources to create the greatest possible return.

It helps an organization to measure their progress and outcomes.

It gives clearness to who does what, when, with what marketing tools.

A strong marketing strategy is a key component of any successful organization. But every now and then, sending a useful message to customers becomes puzzling and complicated because of barriers that take place behind the scenes during marketing planning. These barriers range from an enterprise failure to place its customers first, tensions between marketing and sales teams. A marketer role is to investigate clients’ demands and then explore the potential for revenue.

A badly planned marketing and communications plan leaves the customers trying to bits and peaces of various messages together with the hope of understanding what the company is trying to say. An effective marketing plan allocates customer satisfactions at the heart of its branding, public dealings, sales and marketing strategies. Barriers to this integrated marketing planning consist of conflicts to change and departmental capacity or budgetary constraints other obstacles to the company are unclear criteria for rating the segments, an ineffective positioning and marketing mix for each target segment and failure to gain acceptance from top management. Marketing team inability to communicate one shared voice to all stakeholders so that everyone hears an uncluttered message is another major problem.

There are a few other barriers that affect the marketing plan of any organization, they are given bellow

Economical factors

Every business is affected by economic factors locally and internationally. Whether an economy is operating in boom, recession will affect consumer self-belief and behavior. This will have impacts on the nature of competition faced by the company. Economic factors affect the purchasing power of prospective customers, hence it affect company sales and profits.

Technological factors

Technological factors are very important for competitive advantage. Technological factors can reduce barriers to entry, decrease minimum efficient production levels, and affect outsourcing decisions. Technology is altering the manner in which business operates. Internet is having a deep crash on affect on every strategy of organizations.

Political factors

Political factors comprise of government regulations and legal issues and describe both formal and informal set of laws. Changes in laws and regulations may affect marketing strategy and policy. Other factors comprise changes in the areas of toxic waste control, one and the same employment prospect, product protection, advertising, price control also affects the marketing plan of the company.

Culture

People approach towards business and toward the organization products and variation in customer lifestyles and values can affect the company marketing planning. Inaccurate information about population culture and promoting products are not best suited for customer demands can affect the success of an organization marketing campaign.

P-4: Suggest how organizations may overcome barriers to marketing planning

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