Vodafone information system
Group
Laith hirzallah
Noha ayman
Noha noweir
Noha soliman
Yara ashraf
Irene kaldas
Table of Contents
– Executive Summary 3
– Company Background 4
– Local Area Network 6
– E-Commerce 8
– E-Commerce and Market Efficiency 9
– Hardware 10
– Software 11
– Data 12
– People 13
– Procedures 15
– Employees’ views on information system used 17
– Information Security 18
Executive Summary:
Vodafone is one of the leading telecommunication companies in Egypt with a market share of 20 million customers. After providing a small overview of how the company started and how it rose to what it is today, the paper will undertake the assignment of analyzing its information system. Due to the vast amount of information and complexity of Vodafone’s information system, the main focus will be on the information system present in Vodafone’s marketing department. The marketing department does not have an information system on its own rather the combination of different information systems. Components of the information system in marketing department will be broken down under the five categories; Hardware, Software, Data, People, Procedures. Several questions will be answered such as what hardware does marketing department use, what software is installed on the hardware and how is it accquired, how the data is collected, stored and circled for later use, what is the hierarchy in the department and the division of tasks on the employees and how the marketing department operates and its daily functions. In a nutshell, the marketing department, with its different divisions and sectors, inputs information to and generates reports from its Data Warehouse, utilizes the Seibel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to gain customer insight and performs feasibility reports and calculates marketing break even points by extracting financial information from the Vodafone billing systems. Each process is described in detail later on. Also, an employee’s evaluation on the information system present is included. Moreover, information will be supplied from the Information Technology’s perspective. Topics such as Internet connection, E-commerce, Web 2.0 and Information Security will be touched upon. After this thorough analysis, one can only reach the conclusion that the information systems implemented in Vodafone are crucial for the marketing department and the reason behind its effectiveness and efficiency thus yielding these successful results.
Company Background:
Vodafone Group Plc is the world’s leading mobile telecommunications company, with a significant presence in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the United States through the Company’s subsidiary undertakings, joint ventures, associated undertakings and investments. Vodafone stands for voice, data and phone. Vodafone Group Plc is a public limited company incorporated in England under registered number 1833679. Its registered office is Vodafone House, The connection, Newbury, Berkshire, RG142FN, England. Since its launching in 1982 in the UK, Vodafone has been operating in 92 countries worldwide; 33 countries where Vodafone Group owns all shares and 59 countries operating under partnerships. The Company’s ordinary shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Company’s American Depositary Shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The Company had a total market capitalisation of approximately £63.6 billion at 30 July 2009. In terms of the number of subscribers, Vodafone Group is the second largest company in the world with 333 million subscribers.
Launched in 1998, Vodafone Egypt is a total telecommunications provider, covering a wide array of voice and data exchange services, as well as 3G, ADSL and broadband Internet services. Its headquarters reside in the Smart Village whereas customer call center in Zahraa. Telecom Egypt acquires 44.7% of Vodafone Egypt’s corporate share. With its appealing and successful marketing campaigns such as “Make the most of it” and “the Power is in your hands”, Vodafone Egypt serves up to 20 million customers. Also, Vodafone Egypt is considered the leader in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Egypt. In Vodafone Egypt, CSR has a department of its own where it operates individually and independently engaging in philanthropic and community support projects. Those also include environmental issues, education development, health support and employment engagement programs. An example of those is Vodafone’s Hurgahada Recycling Plant and “my health in my school” project. Currently, we are witnessing the “Vodafone Literacy Initiative Campaign” on billboards and television ads where the aim is to eradicate illiteracy in the upcoming 5 years.
Local Area Network:
A network is a group of computers that are connected together over a transmission line. The three basic types of networks are Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), and internet. Vodafone opts for connecting its computers through the LAN. By using the LAN, computers are connected together in a single company site. LAN is inside the company to help easy secure sharing of information in addition to the internet service. The LAN connects the computers which are located in a single geographic location on the premises of the company that operates the LAN. The LAN consists of a switch which is a special purpose computer that actually sends and transmits and receives messages on the LAN. Each device on the LAN has a hardware component known as a network interface card (NIC) that connects the device’s circuitry to the cable. The NIC works with programs in each device to implement protocols necessary for communication. Since the marketing department mainly uses Dell laptops, they are filled in with an onboard NIC which is an NIC built into the computer itself. Each NIC has a unique identifier called the MAC (media access control) address. The computers, printers, switches, and other devices on a LAN are connected using unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable. In a building with several floors, a switch is usually placed on each floor and the computers on that floor are connected to the switch with the UTP cable. The switches on each floor are connected together by a main switch. The connections between all these switches are done by using an optical fiber cable. The signals on the cables are light rays and they are reflected inside the glass core of the optical fiber cable. The core is surrounded by a cladding to contain the light signals and the cladding is wrapped with an outer protective layer. Optical fiber cables use special connectors called ST and SC connectors.
In order for a LAN to be fully functioning and working, all devices on the LAN must use the same protocol. The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) sponsors committees that create and publish protocols. The committee that addresses LAN standards is called the IEEE 802 Committee. Therefore, the IEEE LAN protocols always start with the numbers 802.
Vodafone takes usage of the wireless LAN which has become quite popular recently. In wireless devices the NIC has been replaced by a wireless NIC (WNIC). Such devices can be cards that slide into an expansion slot or are simply built-in devices. The WNIC operate according to the 802.11 protocol and connect to an access point (AP). The AP processes messages according to both the 802.3 and 802.11 standards because it sends and receives wireless traffic using the 802.11 protocol and then communicates with the switch using the 802.3 protocol. The transmission speed of a wireless LAN reaches a speed of up to 54 Mbps.
E-Commerce:
E-commerce is used through the Vodafone website where customers can register and have online accounts, purchase products or register for services online using an E-payment system.
Vodafone is a merchant company as it takes title to the goods that it sells to the public market. Being a large scale service company, Vodafone is a Business to Consumer (B2C) Company, providing its customers with top notch quality services, receiving feedback on them and constantly modifying them in order to ensure customer satisfaction at its finest. In addition it’s a Business to Business (B2B) Company, communicating with other business such as retail store managers who are in charge of the sale of Vodafone’s products or Software manufacturing companies that provide different types of software to be used and implemented in Vodafone’s various departments for diverse uses. Moreover, it reaches out for companies that offer them with products and services. Examples of such companies are marketing/Research companies, Technical supplies companies and financial reporting companies. Furthermore, Vodafone could be classified as a Business to Government (B2G) Company as, like every other organization in Egypt, it has to follow certain rules and regulations imposed by the government, and is obliged to pay certain taxes to it as well. So there is a relationship between Vodafone and the government.
E-commerce helps improve and better market efficiency of Vodafone through several ways:
1- Disintermediation: helps reduce the number of middle men in the supply chain by reducing the number of store retailers
2- More information is provided about the prices and offers that are provided to the customer in a more appealing manner
3- Knowledge about price elasticity:
– Direct interaction with customers and collecting feedback about prices
– Information will be more easily collected from customers and more efficiently as well.
4- Advertising about new offers on its homepage, informing web viewers about its various online services such as E-Bill, purchasing new phones, SMS news alerts and many more.
Hardware:
The usual protocol for in Vodafone is that each employee has his own computer however each marketing department employee has a Dell laptop. This is to enjoy the comfort of mobility thus enhancing their creativity as marketing employees are required to move around and have one on one interaction outside the office with the target market.
Software:
The operating system in the marketing department is Microsoft’s Windows XP. Since all employees are familiar to this operating system due to its popularity and all programs are compatible to it, it makes sense to use it instead of Vista or Windows 7 which are new to the market and are known to crash and have glitches.
In Vodafone’s marketing department, they use customer service – E CRM system for customer relation management and also for fulfilling their marketing functions. Electronic CRM makes use of information technology (IT) such as internet, email, fax and PDA technologies to integrate internal organization resources and external marketing strategies to understand and fulfil the customers’ needs. This system is called Oracle’s Siebel CRM system and it is obtained commercially off the shelf (COTS) then it is customized by the IT department in Vodafone to suit and fit their business needs.
The reason why Vodafone chose Oracle’s Siebel CRM is that it benefits the marketing and customer data management capabilities of Vodafone. Consequently, Vodafone is able to establish an array of satisfied customers. Secondly, it provides complete control and tight tailoring of CRM to the needs of the business. Hence, it enhances the customer experience and provides competitive advantages to Vodafone. Finally, with the prebuilt integration, it coordinates business processes, business rules and decision support resulting in reduced operational cost.
Data:
Mainly managed by CRM (Different reports & queries mainly managed by technology with a specific system) to run queries and generate reports. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely-implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers. It involves using technology to organize, automate business processes and sales activities, marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract new clients, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service. Data is stored in a data Warehouse. According to our interview, Data is stored on the intranet in a virtual drive to be shared easily; operating system used mainly is Windows XP, although some departments need UNIX systems. The database management application system is also crucial. Database management system (DBMS) is a Program that creates, processes, and administers database. According to the interview, database management application system (DBMS) is mainly used by experts, but it is very efficient.
People:
The hierarchy of the marketing department is as follows:
1. Marketing Manager
2. Group Product Manager
3. Product Manager
4. Junior Product Manager
5. Assistant Product Manager
Organization of the marketing department is as follows:
Sectors:
1. Data
2. Roaming
3. Sector (customer and corporate)
4. ADSL
Departments serving these sectors:
1. Marcom: responsible for the Vodafone marketing advertisements whether television, radio or online ads.
2. CVM: responsible for customer research and analysis where it gains feedback from Data Warehouse and E-CRM to generate new products and developments that suit the target market needs.
3. Pricing: responsible for testing the feasibility of the new product ideas through examining and analyzing financial information from the billing system.
The CVM and Pricing department have a parallel relationship where they interact with each other frequently. Also there is a strong cooperation with the technical department within the information technology department.
Procedures:
Marketing Department Functions:
Marketing employee/manager attends focus groups designed to receive feedback and interact directly with the target market. The employee records these information into a report saved on the company’s data warehouse. Also, the employee extracts information from Oracle’s Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to gain insight on customers buying pattern. The Customer Value Management department combines the different information sources (warehouse and Siebel).Both information sources are compared together to formulate a development in the existing products or a new product and generate a specific profile of the target market. Siebel’s CVM software is used to produce data about the target market. The employee conducts focus groups from the specific target market to test their reactions towards the new developed products. In addition, surveys are administrated to a large target market consumer sample and results are obtained, summarized and analyzed. This is possible through Vodafone’s reporting tools that provide accurate information at the optimal time improving the marketing department’s decision making. The pricing department has authority to access the financial information system. Part of the decision making process is preparing the product forecast to determine whether operating costs outweigh the profits. The product forecast is used to determine the number of consumers needed to breakeven. The breakeven point is a point where the company generates neither profit nor loss. Below is a diagram of the previously described business process.
Employees’ views on the information system used:
When an employee was inquired on whether the information system in Vodafone assisted him in achieving his goals, he replied saying,” Of course it helps, the system is all user friendly and easy to use, in addition to that it helps with everything we need and its specifications meets our requirements.” So employees were rather biased towards Vodafone and stated that everything was very close to perfection with no detectable flaws in the system and that it carries out the tasks very effectively and efficiently. In addition, when asked about the ease of use of the database management system, he replied saying,” The DBMS is mainly used by experts, but it is very efficient.” Last but most definitely not least, when he was asked about the efficiency of the internet, we got exactly a one worded response,” Excellent.” Vodafone employees take a great deal of pride in their organization, and always want to project its positive and powerful image onto the public.
Information security:
Information security is important for protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction. The terms information security and computer security are fields that are interrelated often and share the common goals of protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information; however there are some subtle differences between them. Information security is concerned with the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data regardless of the form the data may take: electronic, print, or other forms. Whereas computer security can focus on ensuring the availability and correct operation of a computer system without concern for the information stored or processed by the computer.
Governments, corporations, financial institutions and private businesses amass a great deal of confidential information about their employees, customers, products, research, and financial status. Most of this information is now collected, processed and stored on computers and transmitted across networks to other computers. Many data concerning a business is qualified as confidential information, this type of information should not fall into the hands of a competitor. Such a break of security could lead to massive losses in a business. Protecting confidential information is a business requirement, and in many cases also an ethical and legal requirement.
Because of the importance of keeping information and avoiding any break of their security, Vodafone put the information security as an important issue inside the company, that’s the reason behind making a fully functioning department that is a sub department of Technology and it is responsible for secure information sharing, firewalls, and network security.
