Marketing Mix

Product:
Wateen offers 3 major product offerings: a) Calling Cards b) Entertainment & TV services c) Broadband & Internet services

Promotion
Promotion is a very important element in the marketing mix.
Wateen promotes its products by: Advertising Billboards in Busy Localities Above the Line Advertisement (Use of the mass media) Television Ads Newspapers Ads Through Franchises Below the Line Advertisement (Use of resources other than mass media) Outdoor Advertisements Telemarketing Various competition schemes

The company had issues regarding its product awareness and delivery of the product. In Wateens case, the product WiMax has to struggle a lot in getting a market share. Wateen has placed two ads in the print media for Wimax. One was related to the product launch The product was advertised and promoted before it was in a formal position to be launched. The second advertisement from the campaign was based on good advertising strategy. It focused on corporate image of the company and the feeling that there is a new entrant who will be offering value services in Telecom Sector. The advertisement was not offering anything in particular and hence is the right Pre-Launch Ad before products are practically ready for delivery.

Pricing

The pricing strategies of Wateen were not very good. They were charging upfront payment which was too high. Potential customers were not willing to pay such a high price for a new product. Most people thought of it as a sly marketing plan; they charge you high fees initially so that even if a user isnt satisfied with the service, hell think thrice before switching to another service. Wateen soon recognized the problems with their pricing strategies through the poor market response they received after the launch. They reconsidered their prices and lowered them to match the customer expectations but they are still not low enough to gain positive market response.

Placement
Wateen is located in 17 cities throughout Pakistan. The phases have been covered with a total route of 350 plus kilometers. First Phase: Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Faisalabad Second Phase: Multan, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Sukkar, Hyderabad,
Quetta, Abbotabad, Jehlum, Peshawar, D.I. Khan, Sialkot, Gujrat and Sargodha.

Product Life Cycle

Wateen is currently in the growth stage. Sales tend to grow at this stage. Promotional expenditures are less than what they are at the introduction stage, when new customers are lured. The Product-Awareness Advertising that is initiated in the Introduction stage is kept for the growth stage also. In case of Wateen Wimax, huge advertisements were done way before the product was launched and when they finally launched it, it was nothing like what they had advertised. This brought a critically negative impact on the brand reputation and the customer confidence was shattered.

Suppliers /Renowned Partners

Renowned partners such as Motorola Pioneer of Six Sigma Technology Motorola has signed a contract with Wateen to expand Wateens WiMAX network, enhancing coverage and doubling the capacity of the network which covers a population of 30 million across 22 cities in Pakista Cisco Cisco provides all the equipment for networking. Cables , Routers and video conferencing equipment also are provided by CISCO.

Wateen Customers

Wateen Customers are as follows

Faysal Bank Alfalah Insurance Bank of Punjab HSBC Bank Alfalah Barclays Telecom Providers: Warid Zong

Corporations are charged Rs. 50,000 per month and 20,000 for installation cost.

Benefits Qucik Service 3 hour Response and Action time Dedicated Bandwidth and Dedicated Fiber optic channels

Telecom Carriers use Wateen Fiber Optic to transmit Voice and information data.

Production Operation

Franchise He receive call from customer. He fills in Wateen Form and form details are filled in Wateen Online Database , advance cash payment is taken and is sent to Head Office within 2 days. Head Office (Lahore) Information control officer receives request for new CPE and opens New User Account and new user is allotted Bandwidth. After 4 days New CPE is installed at customer home place.

HR Practices

Hiring Head office is located in Main Boulverad, Lahore. Over there HR and relevant supervisor take written test or Interview Firing In order to fire an employee one month prior notice is given to the employee and in previous year large scale corporate restructuring helped Wateen to retain profitability.

Motivation For motivation some Paid trips are given to Top management and 20 Leaves are given with one month basic salary. Bonuses After the end of year people who are part of organization are given bonuses. In year 2008-2009 bonuses were not given.

Political

Political influence takes place when a new project is undertaken. In order to place fiber optic cable permission is taken from city government but if government changes project may be delayed or sometimes suspended. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority is the regulatory body

Economical

Pakistan is considered a developing country by the World Bank with GDP per capita $2600 in 2006. 48.7% of Adult are literate rate and life expectancy is around 63 years. Population was estimated 165 million in 2007 and is expected to grow 2.09% annually. Currently, Pakistans economy is at a critical stage. Taxes, unemployment are high. The real interest rates are negative. GDP growth rate 3% and inflation was 12-15% Recently Wateen had downsized its employees by cutting 550 jobs. In last 2009 quarter Wateen earned strong Rs 830 million despite recession

Social

Pakistan has opened up in terms of its society i.e. culture, religion and customs. It is has become a part of the global village due to its technological advances. Currently there are 564,352 broadband subscribers and till 2013 it will touch PTCL leads the race having more than 148,000 DSL Increase trend towards broadband from businesses, students and most importantly households. People are becoming quality conscious. They have started demanding after sales service and warranty. Consumer behavior is changing thus.

Technological

Wateen has its own backbone (Optic Fiber from Trans World Associates Pvt.Ltd) and own international gateway. Introducing Wimax service had given it a competitive advantage. Wateen Telecom chose MOTOwi4 WiMAX technology and IMS Core technology , based on the IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard. Through its Wimax network, Wateen now offers services that include triple play offerings such as local and long distance telephony, video conferencing, broadband Internet and data connectivity, high-quality TV, video security/surveillance and high speed, high quality interactive gaming. The WiMAX network is a critical component of Wateens vision to create a world class communications network in Pakistan

Organization Structure
CEO / Tariq Malik

General Manager / Shahid Miah

General Manager Enterprise

General Manager Human Resources

GM Consumer Sales

GM Regulatory Affairs

General Manager Finance

GM Information Technology

Head of Legal and Company Secretary

Organization Structure

Features Mechanistic Organization Small Span of Control Centralized Communication Formal Channels Work Specialization Rigid Structures

Competitive Strategy
Differentiation Strategy Wateen has opted for differentiation strategy as it is targeting individual consumers and corporate clients.

For Individual consumer it has provided variety of broad band packages according to download necessities of users.
Corporate clients are charged 40-50000 Rs./ month as they are provided Internet Services as well as Virtual Private Network (An Advanced type of Local Area Network)

Wateen Customer care is not given much focus by Wateen and customer are left with frustration . Online help is not efficient and most of times delaying solution to problem or incapable of solving problem. A problem may be solved within 3 days to a Week.

Wateen has other products but they are not well known to customers. Wateen primarily gets its revenues from Broadband and calling card.

Mostly Wateen users complain they are not receiving data download speed as promised by Wateen People receive only 10-12% of the stated bandwidth

Generally users are not satisfied with their internet service providers. Wateen has problems in dense areas , Areas with bushes, trees and closed areas (Tall buildings). Data download becomes slow or connection comes to halt

Strengths

Wateen was pioneer in WiMax Technology. Wateen users can have Wifi Access easily without any additional device It is covering 22 big cities of Pakistan Wateen main advantage over competitor is portability and high speed Wateen has strong financial backing from Middle East Investors. Wateen being subsidiary of Warid Wateen targeted initially Corporate clients but now individual consumers. Lowest Wimax Internet Service Packages. Strong customer base for Wateen till 2009 company had more than 100,000 customers.

Weaknesses

Wateen does not have DSL at present Wateen does not have strong management It is incurring huge supplier cost as CPE of Motorola costs more than Rs.18000. Wateen infrastructure cost is relatively high as compared to competitors only to cover Lahore 250 Towers are installed. It is covering low number of cities only 22 cities. Wateen charges on browsing web (Limited Downloading Packages)

Opportunities

Wateen can hire visionary management from different Telecom organization. Wateen can acquire smaller service providers to grow its customer database. Wateen can also launch Fixed line Broad Band. Wateen can provide web hosting to its customers for a minimal fee. Increasing number of WiMax users by introducing Wateen Dongle USB Wateen can go for Brand repositioning . Organization can purchase CPE from different suppliers

Threats

Wateen is having stiff competition from Existing competitors LinkDot Net , PTCL , WorldCom Political instability is causing market to be uncertain. Corporate sector is in flux and thats why it is difficult to provide services to other corporate clients. Wateen lost its being Competitive advantage of being sole WiMax when other New Entrants ( Witribe , Qubee, Mobilink Infinity ) have also targeted customers with Wimax Services. New entrants like Witribe is targeting customers with Wimax USB. PTCL planning to increase data download speed (1 Mb to 2 Mb)

Competitive Analysis
10% Existing Competitors New Entrants

48%
Highest DSL M.share 3.1MB/s

18%

7%
Orascom Group Fixed Line DSL

14%

3%

Cable net Mareket hare

Fixed Line DSL