The primary purpose of the paper is to critically analyze and evaluate the Australian based leading telecommunications company Telstra. The article will also demonstrate the marketing plan of the organization, which will include business goals, target customers, marketing or branding strategies, sales forecast, and even marketing budget. The paper will discuss the research on marketing trends and developments applicable to the business services and products as well as the competitors and another relevant factor. The article will provide three marketing opportunities for the company to accomplish its business within the country and the relations with the customers.
Telstra is an Australian leading provider of internet access, telecommunications networks, and market voice, pay television and other services and products. It is one of the best-known telecommunications industry and founded on 1st July 1975. Telstra competes in telecommunications markets and offers a full range of services throughout the country (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). It provides more than 10.3 million mobile services and 8.8 million fixed-line, including 7.2 million 3G services. It is mostly focused and also offer a wide range of services in many areas, including many that are not typically connected with the telecommunications industry. They expand the Telstra Next G network and Telstra Next IP network to provide effective synergic work including Web and Audio Collaboration services and applications, Instant Messaging (M), video and presence (Aichner, 2014). Telstra is going to invest $50 billion to GDP of Australia by 2030 to provide the 5G high-speed network to its customer.
Marketing is considered to be a significant element in Telstra due to increase in competition within the telecommunication industry. Thus, it becomes vital for Telstra to strengthen its marketing plan and strategies to compete with the competitors and achieve the desired target.
Business goals
The objectives and aims of Telstra are as follows:
Target customers
Telstra targets the customers who can use phones of any age group. Hence, its target market is not limited to any particular age group. It aims to target school kids, business people, students, farm workers and people who are not capable of buying phones. Its target market changes depending upon the situation as the young generation are more interested in using phones for telecommunication purpose (Kumar, Dixit, Javalgi & Dass, 2016). Thus, it provides more services and products for the young generation. Whereas, for the older generation above the age group of 60 it provides with services and products that are easy to use. It comprises 25 to 30 different target markets that range from international markets, government departments, large corporations, small businesses, households, and individuals.
Marketing/branding strategy
Telstra makes use of a new strategy to improve the experiences of customers and simplify their cut costs and structure. The marketing strategy of Telstra is very successful as it provides customers with a GSM network that covers 94% of the country’s population and regions. Telstra makes use of customer segmentation where it has launched customized services for the young generation where it targets the people below the age of 25 (Cerf, Greenleaf, Meyvis & Morwitz, 2015). As per the expenditure and habits of the young people, it has introduced brand Communic8 which provides SMS promotional activities. Telstra also makes use of a customer-focused marketing strategy to understand the need of the customers. Thus it improves and develops innovative strategies. Telstra has redesigned incentive and profit sharing systems that aim to increase productivity and service quality.
Moreover, the company utilizes the value of differentiation strategy that puts a great impact on the economic condition of Telstra environment while it puts a little impact on the business. Therefore, the company has developed wireless applications taking into account economic environment that could reduce traffic, resource occupation and improve accuracy (Gattorna, 2017). To make a wide variety of unique creative business and equipment, it maintains a close co-operation with handset manufacturers. It is observed that high speed and a huge range of Telstra network could fulfill the requirements of the customers who possess the highest demand for wireless broadband. The major competitors of Telstra are Virgin mobile, Vodafone, PCCW Global, Foxtel, and Optus (Möller & Parvinen, 2015). This intense competition between the companies affects Telstra financially. It has been reported that due to this competition Telstra has faced 14.4% fall 2017 despite $1.8 billion profit for the six months that ended on December 2016. Also, the company has faced $3.6% fall in the total revenue and 0.7% fall in the total income.
It has been observed that Telstra and Foxtel will be able to leverage market power in the emerging market where it will reinforce or protect existing market power. This could be done by making proper use of the advantages that are gained from the market power. This will help Telstra to leverage market power into the emerging markets for the supply of new services and products (Woerner & Wixom, 2015). Therefore, even in new and emerging markets the full ownership of Telstra’s main pay copper network and TV distribution network and its 50% shareholding in Foxtel’s pay TV operator acted to stifle competition. After the analysis of sales forecasts, it is observed that the annual income of Telstra in the year 2016 is estimated at $26, 738 billion that has been decreased by $26,013 and $26,011 billion in 2017 and 2018 (Fullerton, Brooksbank & Neale, 2017). To digitize the business and networks for the future, it makes a strategic investment of about $3 billion. Telstra is going to shift 40% of its marketing budget out of traditional advertising and into customer relationship marketing (CRM).
Based on its marketing strategy the company possesses three marketing opportunities to enhance its business within the market. Firstly the company gets a significant opportunity to invest in new digital technology that will shift the company into a new phase of the digital strategy. It will help the company to improve and simplify its online relationships with its customers (Kohlbacher, Herstatt & Levsen, 2015). It also provides the company with an opportunity to become a revenue generator from the cost center. It will help the company to develop the legacy systems that will provide customers with various applications that are easy to use. Telstra would get an opportunity to enhance stakeholder experience and product homogeneity. It will help the company to differentiate themselves from other businesses within the market. All these opportunities will help the company to enhance its business within the country to improve and develop new marketing strategies to meet the requirements of its customers (Petersen, Kushwaha & Kumar, 2015).
The three identified marketing opportunities will help Telstra to focus upon their marketing strategy and plan as well as maintain a strong relationship with their customers. The company gets an opportunity to make efficient use of digital strategy by utilizing new digital technology. It will help the company to improve and support the product features of the customers. With the use of digital marketing strategy, the company gets an enormous opportunity to provide high-quality service to its customers (Pisano, 2015). With this opportunity, the organization aims to become the first digital company to expand its marketing, service, and sales to all parts of the business. The digital marketing strategy would be helpful for Telstra to update its customers regarding the products and services and to make it available over the phone or in the store through digital channels. For example, by making use of digital strategy, the company would find different ways to improve field force of customer involvement. This will help the company to build digital improvements that will increase options of self-service by making use of My Account service. The opportunity to enhance digital strategy will develop technical support model to provide relevant information to its customers related to the products and services (Banerjee, 2017). This would be helpful to the customers to manage their needs for telecommunications that are provided by Telstra through digitally, contact centers or stores.
Another marketing opportunity for Telstra is to become a revenue generator from the cost center. Such opportunities would provide various applications for the company such as Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) for the accounting sector. This will help in connecting functional requirements such as client invoicing, time tracking and data management. This application is aligned with legislation that will help in processing change management. The significant benefit of this opportunity as it facilitates with marketing programs that will develop Marketing Automation Software and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (Jones et al., 2015). Such marketing programs are considered to be automated, and lead generation system that will Telstra to deliver Marketing Qualified leads (MQLs). Such B2B marketing opportunities help the company to reduce funnel leakage, improve the productivity of the sales team and also improve lead conversion.
Moreover, Telstra will also get an opportunity to make use of stakeholder experience and product homogeneity. This opportunity will help the company to differentiate themselves from its competitors. It will be beneficial for the company as it helps the company to understand the needs and problems of its customers related to their services and buying process (Appiah-Adu & Amoako, 2016). Thus, it creates B2B Customer Lifecycle Blueprint that will optimize their experience with the customers. Such blueprint will help in mapping the need of the system integration to personalize the experiences of stakeholder. This would also be beneficial for the employees of Telstra to have easier access to data, support communication management tools and personal touch. With the help of this opportunity, the company would be able to make partnership structures that will focus on gaining success within the market (Stark, 2015).
Telstra is highly recommended to upgrade and improve its infrastructure and should develop their network more to provide a smoother and faster experience of their consumers. They should also offer more options regarding mobile plans to help to the various demographics of their consumers. It will be more beneficial if the organization can come up with the customizing application, for example, create a center for customers where they able to get all the latest news, updates as well as promotions.
In comparison to Optus and NBN, Telstra still has a higher price, and it can come up with plans that would offer better value for their consumers’ money and flexibility. Telstra can achieve success by including services like providing wireless games and free polyphonic games. To be profitable and successful, an organization should have an appropriate strategy and attentive plan that should be followed by all the senior managers. It must be focused to provide better services to its consumer and try to recover the fall of market share due to its bad service. Apart from this, this organization can also build more vending machines that enable accessibility to consumers to add credit or pay bills. Telstra can generate promotions and discounts that reward their consumers for being loyal. To attract new users, it can also sign deals with other organization to offer more contests. Telstra also needs to develop its roaming services so that customer cannot face any problem to receive emails or make phone calls. By making such significant and necessary changes, it will authorize Telstra to better deliver the products and services to their consumers all over the country, and it will in return grow their business domestically as well as internationally. The company must make use of a digital marketing strategy to provide convenience to its customers by making the life simple.
Conclusion
In today’s context, the businesses are getting new opportunities to improve and develop their marketing plan and strategies that help the companies to expand its business across the world. Thus, the paper critically evaluated marketing strategies and opportunities for Telstra that will also help the company to attract the customers and maintain a strong relationship with them. It is observed that the company would make wise use of marketing opportunities to achieve their business goals to satisfy customer needs. All these opportunities mentioned in the paper will prove to be beneficial and effective for the company to enhance their business.
References
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