strategic planning -a case study on simple call

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]


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.



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.


Functional Management Board of Directors

Marketing Development

Technical

Customer Service

Managing

Director

Finance & Accounts

Administration


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.


http://www.simplecall.com/


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



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,



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.



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.



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).



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.


http://www.1pinless.com/

http://www.rebtel.com/


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]


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,



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:

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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


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


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.



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.


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


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.



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.


Strategic

Direction

For

Simple

call

Market

Pene

Tration

UK

Market

Development

USA

Global

Market

Development


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.



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.



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]


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 -------------


Managing Director


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



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.



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.



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.



References:

Bowman et al. (1995) The essence of competitive strategy, Prentice Hall.

Campbell David et al (2004) Business strategy, 2nd ed. Oxford: Elsevier-Butterworth

Heinemenn

Crowly,D.John (1994) Developing a Vision: Strategic Planning, Greenwood Press, USA.

Gavitti,G and Rivkin,J W.(2006) How strategist really think, tapping the power of analogy,

Harvard business review, April Issue

Ghemawat, P. (2007) Managing differences the central challenge of global strategy, Harvard

business review, March Issue.

Hitt, A Michael et al (2009) Strategic management: Competitiveness and Globalization, 8th

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Johnson,Gerry et al (2008) Exploring Corporate Strategy, 8th ed: Essex: Prentice Hall

Kim,C.W. and Moubborgne, R. (2009) How strategy shapes structure, Harvard business

school review, September issue.

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Inc

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McDonald, M (1996) Strategic Marketing Planning, 2nd ed :The Cranfield Management

Series, London.



Porter, M. E and Kramer M. R. (2006) Strategy and society-the link between competitive

advantage and corporate social responsibility-HBR, Decemeber issue.

Porter M.E and Millar V.F.(1985) How information gives you competitive advantage.

Harvard business review, July-August 149- 60

Pinson,L. (2008) Anatomy of business plan,8th ed. Tustin ltd.

Philip R. Walsh, (2005) Dealing with the uncertainties of environmental change by adding

scenario planning to the strategy reformulation equation, Management Decision, Vol. 43 Iss:

1, pp.113 - 122

Talbot, M. (2003) Make your mission statement work, 2nd ed. how to book Ltd. UK.


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