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Designing global strategy for a mobile company based in UK.
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Unit 7: Strategic PlanningSeptember 2011 Session
Development of Strategy for
Prepared by:
Bashir [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Table of Contents1.0 Company Profile:.................................................................................................................3
1.1 Mission:............................................................................................................................3
1.2 Vision:..............................................................................................................................3
1.3 Organizational structure:..................................................................................................4
1.4 Products:...........................................................................................................................5
1.6 Market Position and share:...............................................................................................5
2.0 Analysis of external environment:.......................................................................................6
2.1 Major changes in external environment affecting strategy:.............................................8
3.0 Review of existing business plan:........................................................................................9
3.1 Internal environment analysis of the company:................................................................9
3.2 Competitive Position of the organization:......................................................................12
4.0 Development of Strategy Option and selecting the right strategy:....................................16
4.1 Development of Mission and Vision:.............................................................................16
4.2 Setting Objectives:..........................................................................................................17
4.3 Crafting Strategy to achieve objectives: ...........................................................18
5.0 Implementation of strategy:...............................................................................................22
5.1 Proposed organizational structure for Simplecall:.........................................................22
5.2 Time Frame:...................................................................................................................23
5.3 Resource requirement and allocation:............................................................................24
5.4 Monitoring and evaluation system:................................................................................25
6.0 Conclusion:........................................................................................................................26
References:...............................................................................................................................27
2 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
1.0 Company Profile: This report is designed to evaluate current strategy of Simplecall, a UK based
Telecommunication organization providing international call services. After the evaluation of
current strategy and finding out loopholes in it by using different tools, an alternative future
strategy will be proposed. Guideline for implementation including resource requirement,
timing and control method will be given.
First of all, it is important to look at the current mission, vision and other sides of the
organization to understand its current activities.
1.1 Mission:
A mission statement gives direction to the business. It helps everyone in the organization to
maintain the values that it shows (Talbot, M. 2003).
Mission of Simplecall is:
‘’To provide international call service to the ethnic minority with crystal clear sound quality
and transparent billing’’.
1.2 Vision:
Every organization should have a vision for long term (eg; five years). It is detailed than
mission and highlight a greater area which could not be accommodate in mission statement.
Before creating a vision statement it should be consulted with all the stakeholders. Most
important is it should be inspirational for all and realistic as well (Crowly, D. John,1994). On
the other hand, it should not be so specific that it hinders in change management.
Simplecall’s current vision is outlined below:
To be first choice of employment in terms of flexibility, encouraging innovation and
developing a sense of ownership.
Delivering a crystal clear long distance call quality with honest and genuine billing
Having a strong partnership with suppliers in order to cut cost and transfer this saving
directly to customer.
3 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Researching and innovating new products in order to make it easy for customer to call
and staying up to date with the technology development.
1.3 Organizational structure:
Marketing, Finance, Admin teams are completely based in London but development,
technical and customer service has a subdivision in Bangladesh. Marketing team has a small
retail team who work for recruiting new customer physically through company’s direct shop
in different locations of UK. Development team has three members in London and other five
in Bangladesh. Their responsibility is to develop software, database and website according to
company’s needs. Technical team handle technical infrastructure such as server, router,
switch, etc. They ensure uninterrupted call quality. Customer service’s (CS) responsibility is
to handle complaints and support of existing customer. CS department consists of 6 members
in Bangladesh who works in call centre of Simplecall to support online customer.
4 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Functional Management Board of Directors
Marketing Development
Technical
Customer Service
Managing
Director
Finance & Accounts
Administration
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
1.4 Products:
Simplecall is an online based business. Simplecall promote and sell its product through
simplecall.com. It also has a calling card named Simplecall which it distribute using
Payzone’s distribution channel. They have sixty small retail agents who use Zamir Telecom’s
infrastructure to make a calling card with their business name. For example; Digicom telecom
at Whitechapel has made a calling card named ‘’Digicom’. Digicom sells this calling card to
retail customers.
Any customer who has a landline or mobile with bundle minutes of calling landline can use
simplecall to make international calls. Customer from all over the world (only where VOIP is
legal to use) can register with their mobile and landline at simplecall.com. After successful
registration customer will dial access number for the country where they want to use this
service from. After dialling access number customer just need to enter destination number
with country code.Simple call has its own web phone. If a customer does not have a landline
or mobile with contract minutes then he can download web phone and use Simplecall to
make international calls directly from PC.
1.6 Market Position and share:
Simplecall has started business only five years ago. Though its progress is noticeable but still
they are lagging behind from giant international call provider such as Lycatel, Lebara and
Nowmobile. It is a favourite service for most of Bangladeshis. Recently it became 13 th in UK
telecommunication industry as the fastest growing telecommunication service in UK. It has
2% market share of total international calls from UK.
5 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
2.0 Analysis of external environment:Organizational performance and effectiveness depends on successful management of
opportunities, challenge and risk presented by changes in external market (Philip R. Walsh,
2005). Therefore, organization should always keep an eye on external factors and there
influences on organizational strategy and performances. PESTEL analysis is an effective tool
to analyze external environment. The acronym PESTEL stands for Political, Economical,
Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal factors which are external issues that impact
business of any organization. Organization has no control over PESTEL factors but it has to
accommodate and design strategies around these factors.
Figure: PESTEL ANALYSIS
Political factor:
Different political parties have different political vision. Therefore, political party’s objective
and working style affects business organization. On the other hand, organization has also
influence over political parties to have pressure on them to have business friendly political
strategy. Therefore, Politics and business are inter connected (Mcdonald, 2004). UK political
situation is stable. There is high tax for business in UK and VAT has already increased to
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Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
17.5% from 1st of January. Similar to other organization increment of VAT has forced to
increase per minute calling rate to international countries which has brought customer’s
dissatisfaction. Some of the customer has left Simplecall and using service from other
organizations based in outside UK who has not been affected by this VAT increment.
Economical factor:
Worldwide recession is going on. Recession has increased unemployment in UK. Especially
people of minority communities have lost job. Therefore, people are in pressure to live their
minimum by saving every penny possible. Hence, it may affect Simplecall’s profit margin.
Because people will talks less than previous years.
Socio-cultural:
Recently governments specially from developing countries, media and social activist have
started the new movement to have pressure on organization whose activiteies have a negative
socio-cultural influence on environment (Porter, M. and Kramer,M. 2009). As corporate
social responsibility (CSR), Simplecall is working with local authority to organize summer
school which gives them practical knowledge about working environment. There are two
types of potential customers. One segment is educated and will be able to use internet another
segment is uneducated. So, Simplecall should design their strategy to reach both educated
and uneducated customers. In UK, ethnic people from same cultural background stay together
in same area. Following are the some example of ethnic minority population in London.
Area Ethnic Minority
Whitechapel Bangladeshi
SouthHall Indian
Upton Park/East Ham Pakistani,Srilankan/Indian/Bangladeshi
Dalston Afgani/Turkish/ Caribbean
Tooting Pakistani/Indian
Table: Demographic distribution of ethnic minority in London
Technology:
Most of target customers of VOIP lives in developed countries such as UK, USA, Canada
and Italy. Technological facility such as internet speed, new mobile technology- Iphone,
7 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
blackberry etc is available in the market. As market is innovative of technology, organization
should be able to cope with that.
Environmental:
Developed countries are very much aware about environment. Therefore, Simplecall should
take the responsibility of creating awareness in people. Their product such as calling card and
advertisement materials- leaflet, poster should not affect environment pollution.
Legal:
Though VOIP is banned in some countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia and Asian countries but it
is legal to operate in most of the developed countries. Simplecall should obey law of the
country and should not try to operate in banned countries.
2.1 Major changes in external environment affecting strategy:
Simplecall started its journey at 1999. At that time, international call was very high. People
used to use telephone both in the street mostly set up by BT. Then it was the time for calling
card which was a bit complex for users. Because, users need to first dial access number then
pin number and then destination number. Even after that getting response from other side was
not ensured. Therefore, when Simplecall launched its journey on that situation, the
completely market environment was friendly and attractive. Because Simplecall offered
international calls which was 90% cheaper than BT calls. Simplecall also reduced complexity
of making calls.
But recently, current entrants of mobile virtual network providers in UK (MVNO) like
Lebara, Lyca, Nowmobile, Vectone, Delight, GT and fierce completions among them has
brought direct calls to customers as well as brought the rate down in the minimum level. On
the other hand, Because of recession, people has went to the peak of cost sensitivity and
because of the influence of globalization, global international call providers like localphone,
rebtel, vopium has entered into the UK market.
All these forces from both locally and globally has a big influence on Simplecall’s
profitability in short term and even very existence of simplecall is in question in long term
period. Therefore now is the time for Simplecall to act accordingly and should have a unique
strategy to face completion both locally and globally.
8 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
3.0 Review of existing business plan:After analysing external environment, it is required to look at internal factors and existing
business plan. Therefore, strategic analysis is needed to check internal environment, strategy
gap and the competition in the market. Strategic analysis will help in analyzing and
understanding current position of Simplecall. It will be done by internal environment analysis
and competitor analysis.
3.1 Internal environment analysis of the company:
For internal analysis we will use SWOT as a tool. It is a deep study of strength, weakness,
opportunity and threat to the organization (Pinson, 2008).
While analyzing by SWOT, following areas of the Simplecall is evaluated:
Management Capabilities
Marketing
Research Development
Information Technology
Finance
Human Resource
Strengths:
Strength refers to the unique expertise and skills of the organization which if managed
properly can bring competitive advantage for the organization (Giligan et al, 2003).
Following are the strengths of simplecall:
Strong Management Team with experience in telecom sector.
Healthy financial position with insignificant debt.
Modern information technology infrastructure with latest high speed server, routers,
Switch and PC.
Creative development team with meritorious educational background.
Per Second Billing.
Free web based SMS.
9 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Competitive lower price.
Crystal Clear voice quality.
Instant top up facility by online and Payzone.
Multilingual customer service.
Weakness:
Weakness refers to those areas where organization is weak than other competitors.
Organization should always try to find its own weakness and try to convert it to the strength
(Giligan et al, 2003). Simplecall’s weakness are listed below:
Very low market share.
Bangladesh centric management team. As they are serving ethnic minority from all
over the globe, they should have multicultural human resources.
Only few suppliers for international call connectivity.
Weak in web based marketing.
It is focused on only Bangladeshi community. Though Indian and Pakistani
community in UK is 6 times and 3 times more than Bangladeshi in UK respectively.
It started since 2004 but still their presence in other global market for example; USA,
Austrilia, Canada and Italy are not significant. They have only few customers from
these countries.
It is difficult for a new customer to understand ‘’How to use this service?’’. New
customer gets his log in details from email then log on to his profile. But, there is no
clear instruction for showing the specific access number that is required for this
customer.
If a customer neither has free landline minutes nor internet, Simplecall does not have
any service to offer to this customer.
Opportunity:
It is the scope or chance in the environment which if used properly opens the window of
success to the organization. Opportunities of Simplecall are listed below:
Using VOIP is at least 90% cheaper than making direct calls from local mobile operator.
But, still comparing to total ethnic minority in the world, more than 50% of the people do
not use or know about VOIP service. So, there is an opportunity for Simplecall to grow
geographically. (Market Development).
10 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
There are more than one million Indian, 0.7 million Pakistanis, 0.3 million Bangladeshi,
one million Caribbean in UK(UK National statistics).. But simple call has only 7000
active user for Bangladesh, not more than 500 user for India and a very few Pakistanis.
There is no Caribbean user for Simplecall. So, there is still long way to go for Simplecall
even in UK. (Market Penetration).
Most of the mobile operator is offering free internet now in mobile. If Simplecall develop
mobile dialer, then customer will be able to use it from their mobile without wasting their
mobile contract /free minutes monthly bundle.
Threat:
Threats are those elements which blocks strategy implementation, affect organizational
achievement and if not managed on time and in right manner, it will attack very survival of
the organization (Giligan C, and Wilson M.S. Richard, 2003). Threats to Simplecall’s are:
Simplecall is mainly a web-based product. So, it has to face competition both locally and
globally. Concept of using internet to make cheap international call was unknown to most
of the people just a year ago.
Simplecall was one of the few service providers who introduced it in UK market. But now
as people are becoming aware of this service, more Web-based non-UK companies like
www.rebtel.com and www.1pinless.com are trying to enter UK market.
New technology is developing day by day. With the introduction of SKYPE now it is Free
to talk internationally. Moreover, you can not only talk, you can even see your friends and
family abroad by using SKYPE.
11 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
3.2 Competitive Position of the organization:
To find out competitive position of Simplecall, we will use Michael Porter’s five forces
model. An organization’s success and failure highly depend on forces it receivers from
different stakeholders and how organization effectively deals with those forces (Porter and
Milar, 1985).
Figure: Porter’s five force’s model
Bargaining power of Buyers:
It is the freedom of customer that he can buy from wherever he wants and whenever he
wants. The more alternatives available in the market, the more customer has the options to
move (Porter, 1985).The more power the customer has, the lower will be the transaction price
which directly affects profitability of organization (Campbell, 2004).12 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Target customers of Simplecall are ethnic minority from all over the world specially from
Asia. VOIP is a daily essential for ethnic minority whether in UK or any other part of world
to call their family in back home. As Asian people is more family oriented. On the other
hand, Asians are of low income group in any developed country such as UK, USA or Canada.
So, market is very price sensitive. For following reasons, bargaining power of customers is
very high:
Customer has more choices in the market. Calling cards are available in the streets. So,
every time customer goes for a calling card, they might change their mind to buy different
calling card.
There is no binding of long term contract. So it is easy to shift to different product at any
time.
Bargaining power of Supplier:
Supplier is the entity where the organization collects its resources from. These resources fall
into four categories, human, financial, physical and intellectual (Campbell, 2004). Simplecall
has to take service from some organizations for technical purposes such as keeping their
server in safe place. Following are the list of supplier for simplecall. Pay Zone ,Pay Point,
Money Brooker, BTCL, Epsilon, Gamma Telecom, Server space and Inter route. For
following reason bargaining power of supplier is very strong for Simplecall:
Simplecall is very small company compare to its competitor. For example, Payzone
serves to T-mobile, O2, Orange and all other major mobile operator.
The more a company consume in term of minutes, the less is the price. Simplecall
consumes less minutes compare to its competitors.
Suppliers do not only offer service to VOIP operators, they have other industry to
serve. For example, Server space can serve to company who needs to keep their server
in a safe place.
Threat of substitute product:
A substitute can be regarded as something that meets same needs as the product of the
industry. Substitute of making calls are internet based chat. Now mobile operator like 3G is
offering free MSN and Facebook from mobile. You can use a 3G mobile even to make free
international calls by using SKYPE. Only problem is that the person you are calling to,
13 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
should have good internet connection. Because of low internet connectivity in developing
countries threat of substitute is insignificant.
Threat of new entrants:
World is becoming global village. Moving to one country to another is becoming easier now.
Because of high standard life style in developed countries and unemployment problem in third
world countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Africa, people are coming to developed
countries. So demand for VOIP is growing day by day. Google and Microsoft is thinking of
coming to this industry. Companies from other countries are trying to reach UK customer
through online marketing. So, threat is high for new entry.
Competitive Rivalry among existing firm:
A pierce competition is going on in UK and global market for VOIP service provider.
Diagram below shows competition in UK market:
isisisikdjfkdjfkdjfkjfkls
LLLL
Figure : Competition on UK market for VOIP.
ISD mobile operator (Direct international calls):
Calling from ISD mobile phone is the most convenient and easy to use. You can call direct
from your mobile without need for dialing an access number or pin number. But it is
competitively costly than other group of service provider. Lycaltel is the market leader with
14 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
SIMPLE
CALL
ISD Mobile operator
Lycatel, Libara,Now & Vectone
Web-Based VOIP provider
Rebtel, Localphone, 1pinless etc
Calling Cards/Access number
Lycatel, Nowtel,Valuecall etc
Pure minute,Hello
Nomi,Talkhome.
Access number
Dial a code, O2, Vodafone, BT etc
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
strong brand identity. Libara is a challenger. Vectone has newly launched their mobile and
trying to get customers by competitive lower price of 1p Weekend calls.
Web-based VOIP provider (Pinless Service):
Simplecall is in this group. Simplecall is most popular in UK for Asians. Local phone is
another UK based company who competes with Simplecall within UK. Rebtel is global
leader for web-based service. But it is still unknown to UK.
Calling cards:
Calling card is the most favorite service among all other segments in UK. If a customer
spends £5 a week for international calls, he will spends more than in £4 in calling cards and
another £1 for ISD or access number service.
Access numbers:
Dial a code is a company which is working with T-Mobile, orange and 3G. You can use all
these mentioned network for international calls by using a code from this company.O2 and
Vodafone has also access number to make international calls. This kind of service is still
unknown to people hence it is not a major competitor for Simplecall.
15 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
4.0 Development of Strategy Option and selecting the right strategy: Strategy is a choice from different options which gives direction to the business for ensuring
profitability both in short and long term. Five tasks of strategic management should be
followed while developing strategy for Simplecall.
Task1 Task2 Task3 Task4 Task5
Figure: Five Task of Strategic Management
4.1 Development of Mission and Vision:
Simplecall’s mission is to be first choice for international calls around the globe for
Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indians.
16 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Develop
Strategic
Mission
And
Vision
Setting
objectives
Creating
Strategy to
Achieve
Objectives
Implementing
And
Executing
Strategy.
Evaluating
And
Correcting
Revised
needed
Revised
needed
Improve
Change
Improve
Change
Recycle
As Needed
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Simplecall has some long term visions as well which are:
To start MVNO (Simplecall mobile) in very short time to face the competition in the
market and forces from MVNO.
Innovating software to facilitate free international calls through new mobile
technology such as fringe and viber using blackberry and iphone.
To expand the business globally and
Create brand identity among ethnic minority especially Bangladeshi, Indian and
Pakistanis.
4.2 Setting Objectives:
Following are the objectives for next five years:
Reaching all the major communities in UK, Specially, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and
Caribbean. We will bring 70,000 Indian, 50,000 Bangladeshi 25,000 Pakistani and 15,000
Caribbean customers within next four years time.
To grow geographically to USA, Australia and Canada starting with USA first.
To increase profit margin by 20% within next four years.
To decrease operational cost by 10% within next four years.
Getting strong distribution and supplier channel within UK to reduce sales and production
cost.
Developing website from global perspectives.
New innovative product development and hence differentiating our product from other
competitors.
Recruiting and developing strong sales and marketing team with ethnic background within
UK and globally at the long run.
17 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
4.3 Crafting Strategy to achieve objectives: Opening direct shop
Internet Café Agent
New product development
New York office
Direct shop
Calling Card agent
Search engine optimization
User friendly website
Social network marketing
Figure: Strategic Direction for Simplecall
Above diagram shows future strategy of Simplecall. To implement those strategies option we
will first look at following theories. We will align our strategy with the learning from
theories.
18 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Strategic
Direction
For
Simple
call
Market
Pene
Tration
UK
Market
Development
USA
Global
Market
Development
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Growth strategy:
o Ansoff Matrix.
o BCG Matrix.
Competitive strategy:
o Cost leadership
o Differentiation
o Focus
Strategy clock
Game Theory
Growth strategies:
Growth strategies seek to find out opportunity of growth for the organization. Ansoff matrix
shows four routes to growth: market penetration, market development, product development
and diversification (Kotlar,2008). Simplecall has only occupied Bangladeshi community in
UK, but other community users are still very less. So, we have suggested Simplecall to
penetrate market in UK. On the other hand, there is a big market in USA for Simplecall
because of more than 0.3 million Bangladeshi community there. So, we have suggested
Simplecall to develop market in USA for Bangladeshi community.
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Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Figure: Ansoff Matrix
The Boston Consulting group matrix is used for organization’s which has more than one
product. This matrix classified product as Stars, Question marks, cash cows and Dogs
depending upon future growth rate of the product and present market share. Simplecall has
currently four products in UK, Simplecall online (Star), Own brand calling card called OBC
(Cash cow), Direct shop/stall (Question mark) and retail calling card( Dog). It is suggested to
Simplecall to shut retail calling cards and to put emphasize on ‘’Simplecall online’’ and
direct shop.
Competitive strategy:
Organization works in a competitive environment. Product that brings better value to the
market wins the competition. An organization can have competitive advantage on low price,
differentiating products from others or by focusing on a specific market (Porter, 1985).
Simplecall is a small company compare to existing company. So, it is not possible for them to
compete on cost. But they can compete on differentiation or focus with differentiation. We
have suggested simplecall to start offering a bundle offer of international minutes
(Differentiation). We have also suggested Simplecall to design a special offer for customers
who spend more than £50 a month (Focus). Observation shows that people spending more
than £50 a month are married single in UK. This segment of customer talks to only one
number most of the time. So it has been suggested to Simplecall to design a special offer for
this segment of customers. For example; call only ‘’one number’’ in Bangladesh for 2p a
minute. Other number in Bangladesh will be charged 2.9p a minute to cover the loss of profit
incurred from the offer.
Strategy clock:
This is an extension of Porter’s generic strategies to have competitive advantage over others
facing market strategies which has been offered by Bowman. Strategy clock gives direction
to management on how to deliver better value than competitors (Bowman et al. 1995).
Strategy clock gives direction from two different angles; perceived value VS price.
According to this clock there can be six different strategy.
No Frill strategy: Low price for low perceive quality of products offered to price sensitive
customer.
20 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Low price strategy: Price is lower that competitors but maintaining minimum value of the
product.
Differentiation strategy: Differentiation products from competitors which can be valued
higher by the customers. As value is perceived higher, organization may charge more than
average price.
Hybrid strategy: This strategy says differentiate product from competitors but keep the price
normal for long term benefit.
Focused differentiation: Differentiate product but target a segmented group of customer to get
the best out of differentiation. As target market is segmented, higher price can be charged.
Fail strategy: If product is perceived lower value but organization charge higher price,
definitely this product is not eatable by market.
In the development of strategy for simplecall, as competitors has increased with better
products which has forced simplecall to put the charge down. Therefore simplecall should go 21 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
for hybrid strategy to be able to increase price. Simplecall should innovate new product but
price should be kept in moderate level.
Game Theory:
Business is like a game. It is like playing mouse and cat with competitors. When new strategy
is developed, competitors develop counter strategy. Then organization should be able to
quickly adopt and change new strategy. To benefit from the strategy organization should put
it in competitor’s position and anticipate their probable reaction. Organization should have
set of back of strategies ready and through it after getting competitors reaction. Therefore,
when simplecall start its new strategy with focus differentiation, it should be also ready face
reaction of competitors.
5.0 Implementation of strategy:By whatever method strategies are selected, there will come a time when every organization
will need to put its strategies into practice. (Lync, R.2006). To implement strategy we need to
find out answers for following questions:
Formulating strategy into task for every department. Who will do what?
How much budget needs to allocate for every department? How much will be spent?
What is the expected outcome from every department?
5.1 Proposed organizational structure for Simplecall:
In line with the strategy development above a matrix organogram is most suitable for
simplecall.
Country/
Department
Marketing Finance HR CS R&D
UK Marketring
head
Finance
head
HR head CS head R&D
head
USA USA head USA head USA head USA head
Bangladesh -------------- ------------- ------------- BD head -------------
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Managing Director
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
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Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
5.2 Time Frame:
Activities/
Year
Functions 2011 2012 2013 2014 Depart
ment
Market
Penetration
Opening
direct shop
10 shops 22 shops 35 shops 50 shops Sales
Internet café
agent
East
London
15 cafe
West
London
30
South
London
50 cafe
North
London
90 cafe
Sales
New product
Development
Throughout
the year
Throughout
the year
Throughout
the year
Throughout
the year
Market
ing
R & D
Market
Development
in USA
Inauguration
of office
--------- --------- Start --------- Top
Manage
ment
Promotional
activity
--------- --------- TV/Paper/
Bill
board
Only
Tv/Paper
Market
ing
Direct shop --------- --------- --------- 10 shops Sales
Global
Marketing
Search
engine
optimization
Google,
Yahoo,
Bing, Ask
Link
exchange
with
Potential
Websites.
Affiliation
Yahoo/MSN/
GMAI
Web
dev.tea
m
User friendly
website
Easy
Registration
process
Lay out
change
Putting
comment in
every page
Develop
ment
team
Social
network
Facebook Twitter Email
marketing
----------- Market
ing
This strategic plan is designed for next four years starting from 2011 to 2014. Simplecall’s
market share is still low in its home country UK and product is in growing stage of life cycle.
So our strategy focuses on penetrating market over next two years. With more experience and
24 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
financial ability from local market, we have suggested simplecall to develop their market in
USA from 2014. Within this time period company will gain capability and expertise to face
global competition. Simplecall is mainly online business. Most of its customer register online
and top up online. But it is true that they spend very less as because they have options of
communicating via facebook, MSN chat or skype. After careful review, analysis and
comparisons of Simplecall’s website with its competitors it has been suggested to simplecall
to make it more user friendly and easy to understand. Following are the suggestions given to
Simplecall for website redesigning and development:
1. To make registration process more easy. Registration will be step by step with less
information to provide. Customer should be able to register only by providing their email
and contact number. After submitting this page customer will go to next page where they
will select their country and city and the country he calls most of the time. At the time of
registration customer will provide their own password. Providing above information
customer will directly log on to his profile and there he should be able to see his log on
details and most importantly his access number and rate to dial international numbers.
2. After logging in customer can see their so many links. There comments on every page to
explain the meaning and aim of that page.
3. To provide a phone book (Name of the person) in direct call number link.
5.3 Resource requirement and allocation:
Our strategy for simplecall is of three dimensions; Market penetration, Market development
and Global online marketing. Every functional department has role to play in this strategy.
Sales department needs 10 sales employees for direct shop implementation. They need to
laptop, speaker, leaflet, poster and most importantly training. Simplecall needs to find out
space or shop in different areas of London to find place for opening these direct shops.
Following tables illustrates resource allocation in brief. It is functional managers duty is to
revise these allocation plans and submit their revised proposal to top management for further
consideration.
25 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
Department Activity Resource Budget
Marketing TV advertisement Adv creation £ 20,000/year
Marketing Paper advertisement
And design
Graphic designer
and paper adv cost
£ 35,000/year
Sales Direct shop
implementation
10 laptop and 10
speaker,10 printer
£ 7000 in total
Sales Internet café plan Big sticker and
design materials
£ 5000 in total
Human Resource Direct shop/Internet
cafe
Hiring 15
executives
£ 150,000/year
Sales department Direct shop Renting space for
shop
£ 60,000/year
Development Website
development
Hiring and
training one
more employess
£ 150,00/year
5.4 Monitoring and evaluation system:
We will implement balance scorecard technique to check whether our strategy is achieving
objectives or not. The balance scorecard uses strategic and financial measures to asses the
outcome of a chosen strategy (Lynch,R,2006). We will check whether our strategy is meeting
target from following perspectives:
Financial perspectives: We will compare every year’s contribution towards objectives at
the end of fourth year. Is the profit margin increasing yearly?
Customer perspective: Is our customer more satisfies than before? We will measure by
looking at numbers of new customer recruitment and numbers of customers leaving us.
Internal perspective: Is our employees happy working with us? We will measure by
looking at job turnover rate in every year.
Future Perspective: We measure by looking at contributions of every employee towards
profitability, success of new product development and performance of R &D.
26 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
6.0 Conclusion:Strategy is the set of tactics which can be made by keeping up to date about change in
external environment, analysing internal factors and facing competition in the market. A best
strategy can be failed because of wrong selection and mistake in implementation process.
Therefore, the right resource should be used in right time and by right people. Progress of
strategy should be monitored in timely interval and corrected by using correct monitoring and
evaluation system.
27 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
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28 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]
Unit12 Strategic Planning, Icon College of Technology and Management
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29 | P a g e Bashir Jaman [email protected]