INTRODUCTION

Arptel operates as a leader in the ……… (CLI) and Voice testing solution provider within the Telecom and Whole Sale Voice Domain in the Telecom Industry. Arptel is also the second largest solution provider in SIM Box Detection with over 220 clients covering both categories of leading Tier 1 – Telecom Operators, and Tier 2 and Tier 3 – Voice over IP Providers.

With the transformation in the telecom industry and due to the change in the user of telephony and messaging, Arptel intends to enter into a new area of business, and by this method, bring back the customers to conventional telephony. Arptel has committed themselves as an advocate towards transitioning consumers back to using conventional calling and messaging as opposed to applications such as WhatsApp, Viber, GTalk, Messenger and other over the top solution. Arptel sees itself as an essential service provider in the telecom industry by working towards it and being committed to supporting customers and the communities it operates in. Further, marketing itself as “Make Telephony Great again”, Arptel also is a proud co-sponsor of SMS telecom world and Capacity Voice in reinvesting in the industry it operates (Arptel 2019).

The “Marketing plan” establishes goals and strategies of the organisation’s marketing campaign. However the “marketing planning process” is a specific and methodical series of steps in developing the “marketing plan” that will help the organisations in providing a clear map of the company’s goals and how to achieve them through suitable corporate governance by establishing specific missions, goals and strategies. (Hordkova et al. 2017). The 6 steps of a marketing planning process can be outlined in the following manner –

• STEP 1 – ANALYSIS OF MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES – This would provide planners with up-to-date market information and to understand the market potential as well as which prospective market there would be;
• STEP 2 – SELECTION OF TARGET MARKETS – By selecting the target market, it would enable Arptel to reinforce the outcome of the other steps and expand its resources.
• STEP 3 – CONDUCTING OF SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS – The assessment of the marketing environment or conducting a SWOT analyses which would assess the  company’s strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Kotler et al. 2012, p. 57), would in turn help evaluate internal and external factors effecting the business and the market;
• STEP 4 – DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MARKETING STRATEGIES – The designing and developing of marketing strategies allow a suitable decision to be taken and also for the decision to grow within selected markets. To this end, it would be necessary to define the market segment and target audience, in order to identify, understand and decipher the needs and wants of the target customers, so that a strategically effective and efficient market planning process can be designed to satisfy the needs of customers.
• STEP 5 – PLANNING OF MARKETING PROGRAMS – The “how” of the planning process allow organizations to clear sales forecasts, measurements on budgets and deciding on the marketing mix based on the 4 P’s (Product, Place, Price and Promotion).

• STEP 6 – MANAGEMENT OF MARKETING PROGRAM – The management of the marketing program is putting the plan into action allowing the realization of financial and strategic objectives as per established goals and strategies.

EVALUATION OF THE LEAST EFFECTIVE KEY COMPONENTS OF THE STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING PROCESS AT ARPTEL

As stated by Horakova et al. (2017) a “marketing planning process” needs to be a continuous process and not a one-off situation. The article further states that an organisation is more assured of sustainable success, when the organisation has planned and presented itself to supply market anticipations and the customers’ buying behavior.  Further the author states that planning activities should be carried out at all levels of the organisation in order to ensure success. All processes and activities planned should be in line with the overall direction of the organisation and also within the ambit of the developmental projections and objectives of the organisation. Planner collaboration is an integral part in all levels of the process when it comes to distinguishing between strategy and tactics. Further, it is necessary to realise that all planning activities are also in support of the overall goals of the organisation.

Arptel’s marketing strength is in its emphasis on the backend technology along with its industry acceptance and the direction towards working in identifying and notifying gray routes and Over The Top (OTT) by-passed voice traffic detection, and also seeing this as the best approach towards supporting its brand image and in turn increasing market share and shareholder value.  Based on the above mentioned paragraphs, it could be seen that Arptel, by establishing clear strategies and a market planning process targeted to enable the organization to achieve its goals, has expanded itself significantly in terms of resources. Arptel has also systematically adopted and maximised various available facets of the organisation to support and boost its strategies.

When analysing Arptel’s “marketing planning process”, certain areas have been identified for improvement. These opportunities reside in;

• Step 3 –  where inadequate understanding and assessing of the shifting marketing environment is noticeable as either threats or opportunities; and

• Step 4 – where effective market segmentation and market positioning is lacking.

Both above points reinforce that Arptel’s attitude to technology variables (segment specialisation), behavioral/psychographic variables (individual or customised marketing), and sustainable brand promotion (Kotler et al. 2012, p. 57) are lacking.

Arptel operates in a relatively inelastic market going through a rapid evolution, which is a monumental transition from a regulated market to a competitive market. With technological changes, the industry is writing the rule book on-the-go, and how and what the future will look like, especially in the next ten to twenty (10 to 20) years, it would be hard to predict whether Arptel can adapt to the continuous rapid challenges of change in the 21^st century. However, the market’s inelasticity has resulted in the company making exponential profits. This has provided it with the necessary revenue to fund research and development and also to explore ambitious marketing  activities. 

CONSIDERING THE FUTURE TRENDS

In the telecom industry, with operators focusing towards data services, and other vendors such as Google and Facebook entering the voice and messaging domains could result in progressively diminish the inelasticity of the voice business within the telecom industry. (Wired 2016).  Furthermore, the role of millennials (ages between 18 to 35) as the main constituent of future customer-base, their values and their peculiarities in their unique approach to making choices must be seen as essential to the future success of the telecom operators and Arptel. Romanluk (2012) emphasises the importance of conjuring up one’s target market to the extent of predicting what customers will do and how they will live their lives. Excessive stereotyping exists that can be misleading in one’s effort to target future customers, specifically millennials – a hyperconnected consumer group. Romanluk (2012) picks out narrow-casting as an issue undermining the targeting aspect of an organisation’s planning process. Debunking the stereotypes associated with millennials, this digital native generation, and developing marketing tactics to appeal to them as they grow older and become middle-aged, is therefore an existentially critical task.

How millennials will manage their communication mediums, and in particular their relationship with a mobile operator or a hand held device would derive their strength from monopolistic attributes of the markets they operate in, will have a significant impact on Arptel and its brand. Kotler et al. (2012, p. 188) defines consumer behaviour as ‘the study of how individuals, groups or organisations select, buy, use services and goods to satisfy their needs and wants’. Understanding the realities of consumer behaviour is therefore essential in the success of one’s business. Considering the pace of change happening in the marketing landscape in response to the digital consumer, understanding the millennial mindset, predicting how it will make choices in the next decade or two, and being able to influence that behaviour, is critical for Arptel to align itself to the future marketplace by a constantly developing strategic marketing planning process keeping pace with the changes and challenges of the 21^st century.

The smart phone and subsequently social media have changed the way consumers interacted with their mobile phone and with the changed marketing landscape of those products (Lovell 2017). Similarly, with the emergence over the top cheaper voice service providers such as Viber, Whatsaap it can entice consumers to move away from conventional international direct dial calling. The launch of 5G is likely to result in yet another step-change that has impacted the industry. Evidence-based marketing (Rowley 2012) is handicapped by the virtue of its ultimate need to look backwards, as it relies on evidence that are essentially lagging indicators. Best and latest knowledge as the author claims, if divorced from innovation, cannot respond to the dynamic market conditions. For Arptel to integrate into what has already taken place and extrapolate to what will happen in the future and overcome dangers as seen by the events of last decade, it is timely that Arptel should be grounded in a sound understanding of marketplace realities (Rowley 2012, p. 539).  Implications and repercussions of not responding to the dynamic utilities market conditions, not aligning Arptel to the future market needs and not anticipating the future needs and behavior of customers can be fatal.  In this regard, Nokia is a good notable example (DePillis 2013).

Recommendations

It would be seen that conventional and traditional voice services are globally in a decline, which has had a significant impact on Arptel’s brand positioning. However it has also shed light that it is rather inevitable that certain telecom operators and voice over IP operators would not cease to exist in the near future. Further, with the prospect of millennials choosing to opt for cheaper and free voice and messaging service alternatives, it would call for a paradigm shift in terms of defining and marketing for segmented markets of the future.

Millennials being the focused segment of the telecom industry in the future, it would be seen that the demographics of this segment are not all the same. Hence Arptel would need expertise and strategies to be considered within the marketing planning process.   Theories such as  Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” (Maslov/1970) and Freud’s theory of “psychological forces” (Reynolds & Gutman 1988), though they are still applicable, it would need to transcend the future advances in the telecom and technology industries that will be realised within the next decades. What is inevitable is that customers and in turn markets will further deviate from the traditional norms, What is inevitable is that customers and in turn markets will further deviate from the traditional norms, and Arptel will find it hard to control its brands, as it will be at the mercy of the consumers’ opinion (Crav/ford 2017), unless Arptel takes the initiative and becomes an industry leader/disrupter in such markets

Arguments to the contrary (Gross 2015) only deny the inevitable, and with respect to industries such as Arptel, where the regulatory barriers to competition are being progressively dismantled, the fate of the brand will rely on Arptel’s marketing planning process to carefully identify what will be most important to millennials to encourage brand advocacy. It would also need to focus and develop strategical marketing planning approaches to address the transition to the middle-aged and beyond.

On technology variables and segment specialisation of its marketing planning process, and as prescribed by Horakova et al. (2017), Arptel needs to use the concerted effort of its functional groups, and play a major role in becoming a play-maker in new disruptive technology (innovation) development. Marketing planning process needs to explore how to project Arptel’s brand as a pacesetter (brand promotion) in developing and adopting the new technologies, converting part of its intangible services to meaningful benefits for customers. This approach will create a distinct point of difference (AIB 2016, Topic 5) for BBC amongst other brands and hence provide it with the necessary differentiation to achieve brand positioning/advocacy. It also helps Arptel to play a major role in writing of the rule-book for a market that is very unpredictable, whilst appealing to customers’ base-value satisfaction, and better embracing a holistic marketing concept of integrating ‘relationship marketing, integrated marketing, internal marketing’ and social responsibility marketing (Kotler & Keller 2016, p. 43).