Giffgaff Performance in the UK - Essay Example

? Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 4 2. Gifgaff-Introduction 4 2 Competitor Analysis & Business Strategy 4 3. Analysis 5 3 Environmental Audit 5 1.2Internal Audit 10 3.3 Resource Based View & Core Competency 11 4.0 Key Business Challenges 12 5. Leadership Orientation- Giffgaff 14 5.1 Organizational Dynamics 19 5.2 Leadership Trait 20 6.0 Conclusion & Recommendation 22 Reference List 23 List of Tables Table No. Table Name Page No. 1 PEST 5-7 2 SWOT Analysis 10-11 3 Resource Capability 12 4 McKinsey 7S Framework & Giffgaff 15-19 List of Figures Figure No. Figure Name Page No. 1 Cost Leadership Strategy of Giffgaff 5 2 Revenue Decline of the UK Telecom Industry 7 3 Increase in Data Usage 10 4 Reduction in Mobile Voice Cost 13 5 McKinsey 7S Framework 14 6 Present Lattice Structure in Giffgaff 19 7 Proposed Organizational Structure for Giffgaff 20 1. Introduction In this paper, the researcher will shed light on state of art mobile phone service provider Giffgaff which has established its strong presence in telecom service industry of United Kingdom (UK) within few years of its inception. 2. Gifgaff-Introduction Giffgaff is SIM-only mobile network which was created by Gav Thompson in the year 2009 with an intention to attract digitally-savvy customers and the company is headquartered at Uxbridge, Greater London (Marketing Society, 2013). The company is subsidiary of Telefonica and currently it operates with 35 to 40 employees. The mobile operator has differentiated its value proposition by incorporating the community-powered model which works in similar pattern as web 2.0 technologies (Gifgaff, 2013). Interesting fact is that, the organization is run by its member partners and these members get rewarded for various activities such as increasing the channel length by bringing new partners, helping the company to earn revenues or promoting the brand etc. 2.1 Competitor Analysis & Business Strategy UK telecom operating industry is hypercompetitive due to presence of many big players with similar kind of product offerings such as Orange, T Mobile, Vodafone and O2. In such context, it was difficult for small player like Giffgaff to enter the UK telecom operating business without formulating unique value proposition statement. Giffgaff decided to work as mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and operate through O2 network. However, both O2 and Giffgaff decided to target different customer segment and work as separate network player in UK. A comparison between network plans of different competitors can be depicted in the following manner; Figure 1: Cost Leadership Strategy of Giffgaff (Source: Marketing Society, 2013) As Giffgaff uses customers as promoter members and online platform to offer its plan hence the company is able to reduce significant amount of operational cost. The company has also reduced cost of its marketing activities and cost optimization strategy of the Giffgaff has given them the cost benefit advantage to reduce the price of offering in comparison to big players such as Vodafone, T Mobile, O2, Orange etc. However, Giffgaff targets young, digital savvy customers who are ready to engage with the brand and promote the brand by themselves hence it can be said that target market for the company is small. Online community of the company was created in order to handle customer queries of target market in efficient and responsive manner in comparison to call centres of big telecom operators (Marketing Society, 2013). From generic strategy viewpoint, Giffgaff’s business strategy can be viewed as excellent example for focused low cost strategy. 3. Analysis 3.1 Environmental Audit The study will try to understand the macro-environment of UK in terms of political, economic, social and technological factors in order to understand the business position of Giffgaff. Table 1: PEST External Environment Characteristics Opportunity/Threat for Giffgaff Political (P) Government has deregulated the telecom industry which has opened door for many international telecom operators to establish operation UK. British telecommunications regulator such as OFTEL has introduced new data regulation acts in order to control activities of telecom 'carriers' and ISP's. Enhancement in regulatory restrictions will definitely increase cost for MVNOs like Giffgaff. However, low corporate tax rate (less than 22% actually) of the country will help Giffgaff to increase its operating profit margin. Economic (E) Per capita income of people of UK has been reduced by 0.5% due to sovereign debt crisis and laggard effect of economic recession. Regulation of OFTEL has also increased cost for telecom operators. Giffgaff has the opportunity to attract customers looking for low cost telecom services due to reduction in their disposable income. Flexible plan of the company will also attract price sensitive customers looking for differentiated product portfolio. Social (S) Due to change in lifestyle, customers are looking for online telecom services for the sake of time saving. Demand for mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is growing at a pace of more than 10% in the country which shows the rising demand for online telecom operator. In such context, Giffgaff has the fast mover advantage to attract customers who ready to work for the telecom operator as partner in order to access fast and low cost telecom services. Technological (T) In UK, broadband telecom up gradation such as ADSL2+ has already been rolled out which is expected to increase speed of the telecom services. Up gradation of DSL broadband service can also be termed as recent technological development in UK telecom sector. Giffgaff will benefit from the roll out of ADSL2+ technology and the company has already incorporated the technological up gradation in order to increase its network speed. (Source: OFCOM, 2010) After understanding the country specific business opportunity for Giffgaff, the researcher will try to understand the telecom operating industry by using Porter Five Force framework. Buyer Power According to the report published by OFCOM (2010), top four telecom operators such as Vodafone, T Mobile, O2 and Orange have more than 70% of market share, hence it can be said that the market is consolidated in nature. Low switching cost has increased buyer power significantly in the industry. Customization or incorporation of latest technology (for example, Giffgaff has incorporated MVN framework) in the existing operating service has been done purely on the basis of customer demand. The declining trend in retail revenue can be depicted in the following manner. Figure 2: Revenue Decline of the UK Telecom Industry (Source: OFCOM, 2010) It is evident from the above figure that, preference of buyers and availability of alternate options to buyers have significantly impacted the retail revenue for telecom players in the industry. Hence, buyer power in the industry is estimated as high. Supplier Power Big telecom operators can access the technological supply through reverse e-auction while abundance of telecom supplies has further decreased the magnitude of supplier power. Small companies like Giffgaff can also access technological supply from open sources. Scott (2012) pointed out that many of the telecom operators in UK are planning to access telecom supply through network virtualisation. Mobile operators are using cloud database services from small scale start-ups instead of accessing supply from Oracle blades, Cisco, IBM and other big players. Currently in UK, there are more than 100 virtual telecom suppliers are present and presence of 59 SLAs has conjointly increased supplier availability for telecom operators (Scott, 2012). Abundance of suppliers has reduced the switching cost for telecom operators, hence, it can be said that supplier power in the industry in low. Threat of New Entrant Setting telecom operation network in nationwide manner requires investment of huge capital. It is difficult for a small and new competitor to bear the cost of developing infrastructure through technology integration because the whole process requires extensive amount of capital deployment, management skill and technological credential (OFCOM, 2010). Hence, it is difficult for new entrants to penetrate in the market and compete with existing big telecom operators of UK. In UK, revenue for telecom operator and network provider has been continuously declining despite the increase in number of network connection annually. Decline in retail revenue for existing telecom players might be caused by increased operating cost, reduction in retail price in order to survive in competitive business environment, stringent government norms regarding carrier distribution etc. It is difficult for new entrants to achieve the break-even in UK telecom sector due to high degree of saturation. Therefore, threat of new entrant is assessed as low. Threat of Substitute Threat of substitute for the industry is very high due to the fact with the advent of mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and web 2.0 technologies, many of the small telecom operators in UK are trying to innovate alter medium operating in contrast to broadband based carrier service. Apart from MVNO, research & develop agencies are working on broad band technologies such as ADSL2+ to upgrade the carrier system. According to Scott (2012), big telecom operators are developing technologies in order to increase the penetration of virtual network which is being seen as probable substitute of telecommunication through SIM cards. Latest technologies such as Skype, video calling and social networking have also emerged substitute for SIM based telecommunication. Companies like IBM and Cisco have already started working on developing wireless software and radio access equipment in order to provide virtual network solution to customers (Scott, 2012). Such technological development can be potential substitute of SIM based telecom services. Industry Rivalry There is little scope to differentiate with telecom network service due to lack of availability of differentiating elements. Existing players are competing fiercely with each other in terms price, speed of broadband, storage capacity etc. Small players like Giffgaff are establishing partnership with O2 to become MVNO which is another emerging sector in telecom industry of UK. Existing telecom operator and network providers are competing with each other in order to reduce call charges, charge for call minutes etc which are the reasons behind telecom boom in terms of increased call minutes and number of connections in UK. Emergence of SIM-only service and network sharing has further increased threat for traditional players like Vodafone, O2 etc. New entrants like Giffgaff is offering SIM-only service which provides bundled offering of call minutes and text messages in comparatively lower monthly rental plan. However, volume of internet data usage in UK telecom sector has been significantly increased in recent years. But, due to inclusion of metered fee and separation of add-ons charges from actual data revenue, overall data generated revenue has not been increased much. Figure 3: Increase in Data Usage (Source: OFCOM, 2010) Hence, it can be surmised that industry rivalry has been very high in UK telecom industry. Above mentioned industry matrices are showing that Giffgaff has significant opportunity to increase penetration in UK telecom operating market by integrating three verticals such as data service, low MVNO operating model and SIM-only services. To understand the business opportunities for Giffgaff, the researcher will conduct the SWOT analysis. 1.2 Internal Audit Table 2: SWOT Analysis Strength Weakness Low cost operation helps the company to offer cost effective SIM-only service to customers. Online community helps the MVNO handle customer query in more responsive manner in comparison to most of the big telecom players in the country. The company has small target customers which is affecting top-line growth of the company. Being an MVNO has always the risk of suffering from poor signal strength or network problems. User community based business model will not be profitable if the company has planned to expand the dimension of its target customer segment. Opportunity Threat Giffgaff should focus more on internet data services rather than utilizing resources to improve its not so profitable call services. Even, the company can implement plan to integrate ADSL2+ technology in order to improve quality of network service. Over dependency on SIM-only service might not prove profitable in long term perspectives due to declining retail revenue trend for telecom operators. Lack of call centre infrastructure might create problem for the company to deliver customer services customers from remote local. Giffgaff has the threat of brand cannibalization from O2. (Source: Marketing Society, 2013) 3.3 Resource Based View & Core Competency Research scholars such as Barney (1986, 1991 and 1997), Rumelt (1986) and Grant (1991 and 2011) pointed out that organizations can achieve competitive advantage by deploying its internal resources such as financial capital, human resources, technological capabilities etc. Such theorization of resources is known as ‘Resource Based View’ or (RBV). Although Porter (1985 and 1991) stressed on business processes which can give affirm sustainable competitive advantage but research works of above mentioned scholars gave equal importance on resource capabilities of organization. Research works of modern research scholars such as Adner and Zemsky (2006) and Kraatz and Zajac (2001) revealed the fact that resources have to be rare, valuable, inimitable and non-substitutable in order to provide competitive advantage to firms. Hooley and Greenley (2005) and Attia and Hooley (2007) argued that not all but certain resource capabilities can help a firm to improve its performances. For example, telecom giant like Vodafone can utilize its financial resources to integrate latest technology in service processing which can significantly improve operational efficiency of firms. Discussion of resource capabilities is incomplete without mentioning the concept of Core Competency which was result of seminal research work of Prahalad and Hamel (1990). According to Prahalad and Hamel (1990), there are certain resource capabilities known as core competency which are critical for firms. Table 3: Resource Capability Tangible Resource Intangible Resource Core Competency Giffgaff uses network capacity of O2 while financial revenue growth also helps the company to finance its strategic objectives. Sole call centre facility of Giffgaff is able to handle thousands of billing activities in one day. The company uses Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to integrate its customer data base with operational framework. In the initial stage, Giffgaff has used brand name of O2 develop trust factor among customers. Today, the company has developed strong positive word of mouth about its service matrix which can be classified as intangible assets. The company has intellectual property resources such as Cloud data storage, mobile virtual network capacity etc. The company is able to provide network services to customers at 50% cheaper rate than competitors. Online community of the country can handle queries of focused target customer group in quick, responsive and error free manner. (Source: Lithium., 2012) 4.0 Key Business Challenges Kaplan and Norton (2001, 2004 and 2006) proposed balance scorecard to measure performance of companies. However, Giffgaff is too small to implement balance scorecard model to measure its business performances but it can definitely take necessary measures to improve its weak areas. Although is getting attention from young and digital savvy customers in the initial years of operation but the real challenge for the company is to remain profitable in sustainable manner. To remain profitable in long run will not be easy for Giffgaff because retail value growth for telecom operator and network provider in UK is sliding at a constant pace. Cost per voice call is also reducing at constant pace for customers. The declining trend for voice call cost can be depicted in the following manner. Figure 4: Reduction in Mobile Voice Cost (Source: OFCOM, 2010) In such context, it will be challenge for Giffgaff to maintain profit margin despite decreasing price of SIM-only mobile network plan. Second challenge for the company establish trade off between expanding network operation across the country and handle millions of customer query through its online community model. According to OFCOM (2010) report, it is very difficult for network operator to expand business in UK without establishing call centre network. Hence, such assumption raises question over sustainability of online community model of Giffgaff. Lastly challenge for Giffgaff will be to expand its target customer base in order to attract larger set of customers and open bigger revenue source. Maintaining sustainability and profitability of being a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) will be the greatest challenge for Giffgaff. However, the above challenges are pretty much strategic in nature but one need to remember that Giffgaff follows social community structure. In such context, Vincent Boon (Giff Gaff's head of community) pointed out that apart from above mentioned challenges; there are two special challenges that are needed to be addressed by Giff Gaff (Rispens, 2013). These two challenges can be summarized in the following manner; 1- At present, company structure of Giff Gaff is pretty loose hence it is challenge for the company to give a systematic shape to the organizational structure which can engage customers and encourage them to be part of the company without expecting financial benefits. It is evident that Giff Gaff will not be able to provide same amount of margin to members when its community size will be increased and in such situation, it will be challenge for Giff Gaff to maintain attractiveness of its community based business model. 2- Giffgaff is still not able to use the Web 2.0 technology or social networking models up to its potential level in order to provide responsive service to customers. The company is facing problem regarding budget allocation on its digital marketing techniques in order to achieve sufficient customer penetration. Hence, setting proper digital networking strategy will be key challenge for Giffgaff. 5. Leadership Orientation- Giffgaff Modern management scholars such as Winch et al (2012) and Parker and Craig (2008) given importance on project based approach which can be used by organizations to improve its business process in systematic manner. In such context, McKinsey 7S Framework can be used to understand the strategic dimension of Giffgaff. Figure 5: McKinsey 7S Framework (Source: Witcher and Chau, 2010) Table 4: McKinsey 7S Framework & Giffgaff McKinsey 7S Elements Giffgaff Perspective Strategy (Hard S) Giffgaff follows focused cost leadership strategy in order to offer SIM-only network service to target segment of customers who are digital savvy and looking for responsive customer service. Giffgaff operates its business in 100% online manner and till date, the company has not created any big budgeted advertising or established call centres (except call centres for billing activities). Member community of the company extracts information about the customer from their transactions and further uses this information to contact potential customers. Structure (Hard S) Giffgaff follows community based structure and the organization structure of the company is more or less similar to Lattice Management Structure with unique infimum and supremum. At present, Giffgaff maintains online community and employee base of 30 to 40 staff. Entire work function of the company is controlled by Gav Thompson and top level management group. According to the above model, member g1 has the capability to handle customer queries (m3) in responsive manner but doesn’t have the skill to promote the SIM-only offer through digital medium (m2); while member g2 has the skill to promote the SIM-only offer through digital medium (m2) but doesn’t have the capability to handle customer queries (m3). Now, when these members work in a looped group then these workers naturally share knowledge and as a result, mutual transfer of knowledge has been occurred between members. System (Hard S) Integrated online communication backed by ERP system and Electronic Data Management (EDM) system is used to maintain its financial and operational procedure. Due to dissimilarities in operational structure and target market, it can be said that the Uxbridge based MVNO is not an immediate competitor for Vodafone, T Mobile, O2, Orange etc. Hence it can be said that, Giffgaff is one of the key player in its own segment and it will always has the fast mover advantage in comparison to other segment specific Competitors. The organization takes help of the organic business system by decreasing spending on advertising and focusing more on building human networks. Entire business system of the organization is automated through online databases. Shared Value (Soft S) Core value of the company is to provide mutual benefits to members and maintaining its operation through online only platform in order to ensure environment sustainability. Currently, Giffgaff operates its business with 35 to 40 employees but these employees are recruited as members from customer group. Although formal training is given to members in online community to handle customer queries but careful analysis of the organizational structure of Giffgaff clearly indicates the strong control of Gav Thompson over the function of the channel or better to say member pyramid. All the members in the organization share the common value system of providing low cost services to customers and community based business structure is key mantra for the organization. Skills (Soft S) Knowledge sharing ability of members in the organization is probably the greatest strength of Giffgaff. Technological skills in terms of web 2.0 architecture, analytics and other interpersonal skills of members are the important skill set for the organization. Founder of the company Gav Thompson confessed the fact that Giffgaff is created on the basis web 2.0 frameworks such as social media networks like Facebook, Twitter or knowledge sharing open source like Wikipedia (Marketing Society, 2013). In the initial phase, Giffgaff launched beta which was collection of various social media tools and created in order to invite customers to create blog or make videos and upload it in YouTube. These videos were made to promote the offering of Gifgaff and customers taking part in such promotional stint got rewards in terms of free SIM cards, free calls or cash prize (Marketing Society, 2013). Style (Soft S) Giffgaff is the brain child of Gav Thompson and the person uses mix of servant leadership, democratic leadership and charismatic leadership styles in order influence activities of team members. There is no doubt in the fact that Gav Thompson is not only the founder of Giffgaff but also the key decision maker for the company. From leadership perspective, organizational structure of the company reflects the leadership dimension in Giffgaff. Fact is that, community based business model is relatively new concept hence research works on organizational structure for community based business model are still at the budding stage. Staff (Soft S) Employees are treated as members in the Giffgaff and they work under a team level format in order to offer responsive service customers. Community based team level management format has also helped the company to adopt low-cost business model. Giffgaff uses community based business model by incorporating customers as the partners. These customers have formed online community to redress customer query on behalf of Giffgaff. Such unique human resource model has significantly decreased operational cost for the company. (Source: OFCOM, 2010, Marketing Society, 2013, Gifgaff, 2013 and Lithium, 2012) 5.1 Organizational Dynamics Careful analysis of the organizational development (OD) context for Giffgaff reveals the fact that member community model is extension of lattice management structure proposed by D’Orey (1996). D’Orey (1996) and Cheung and Vogel (2005) defined lattice management structure of as partial or cyclical alignment of human resource elements through a network which has unique infimum and supremum. Figure 6: Present Lattice Structure in Giffgaff (Source: Solesvik and Encheva, 2010, pp. 701 – 717) In SWOT analysis, it has been observed that major weakness for Giffgaff is its small structure which creates problem for them to access target larger customer base. The researcher will not suggest Giffgaff to change its MVNO status or online only network operator status because being a MVNO is the unique positioning statement for the company. But, the company should expand its organizational structure by recruiting more members in order to expand its target customer base. Giffgaff should change its positioning statement in order to attract bigger target customer segment and they can do it by implementing holistic marketing plan. Inside the organization, Giffgaff should adopt the following organizational structure in order to support the change in positioning statement. Figure 7: Proposed Organizational Structure for Giffgaff (Source: Solesvik and Encheva, 2010, pp. 701 – 717) Research scholars such as Yukl (2010), Vardiman, Houghston, and Jinkerson (2006) and Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005) pointed out that an organization can never run its operation smoothly without the guidance of a business leader who can communicate the objective in clear and precise manner. The proposed model is based on social exchange theory given by various research scholars such as et al. (2006) and Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005). According to the above model, Gav Thompson should use four top level management contact points in order to communicate the vision statement to employees. Various cross functional department should work under the supervision of these four contact points. 15 interrelated functional groups will work under the supervision of four contact groups. Due to flexibility of the model, inclusion of member partner will not decrease the efficiency of the group rather the structure will work in better manner as the size of the framework increases. Adopting the structure will definitely help Giffgaff to cover large network area and target larger customer set. 5.2 Leadership Trait In such context, Lewin’s (1947) organizational dynamics (OD) can leaders of Giffgaff to adopt new organizational structure. Unfreezing Careful analysis of the research works of Small and Minkes (2010), Zangoueinezhad and Moshabaki (2009) and Solesvik and Encheva (2010) reveals the fact that managing organizational member is an important aspect for an organization during change process. In the unfreezing stage, Gav Thompson should use the charismatic leadership style in order to influence behaviour or members in the organization. In this phase, leaders of the organization will communicate the vision statement related to its business expansion strategy to organizational members in order to create the drive among them for welcoming the change. Change As mentioned by Wrench (2005) and Yeo (2005), members in the organization should be encouraged to share knowledge and expertise with each others during the change process. In this phase, leaders of the organization should provide rewards and benefits to organizational members in order to encourage them to take part in organizational change process. Using transformational leadership will help Gav Thompson to integrate the interest of organizational members with the objective of the change process. Proper training and development programme should be designed for organizational members in order to help them to get accustomed with implemented technological process. Refreezing Voelpel, Leibold and Mahmoud (2004) defined refreezing as the fitness alert for organizations. In this phase, Gav Thompson should use democratic leadership skill in order to include organizational members in the decision making process in order to restore the benefits of newly implemented system. Taking help of the research work of Kamp and Hagedorn-Rasmussen (2004) and Konrad (2003), it can be said that leaders of Giffgaff should try to diversify its workforce in order to create the scope of knowledge which will ensure sustainability of the refreezing phase. 6.0 Conclusion & Recommendation Throughout the paper, the researcher has used Voronov’s (2008) strategic organizational learning model and Herzberg (1968) two factor theory in order to understand existing business opportunity Giffgaff. It is evident from the above discussion; low cost leadership mode of Giffgaff is vulnerable to external challenges such as maintaining profit margin from its SIM-only service, expanding business operation and ensuring sustainability of MVNO. Much of the strategic recommendation for the company has already been discussed in previous section hence no further discussion is needed in this section. However, it is recommended to the company to establish partnerships with internet carriers in order to offer lucrative data plan to customers and use integrated marketing communication (IMC) to improve its positioning statement. Giffgaff might face challenges regarding non-availability of financial and technical resources to re-position itself. To address these challenges, Giffgaff should establish partnership with resource rich big players in the industry. But key challenge for the company will be to motivate its members to help the company to reposition itself. According to Vroom (1964), motivation is the product of expectation of employees about the outcome, behavioural alignment of employees with the organizational objective and valence of action of employees. 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