Strategic Marketing

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 1

Week 4 (Individual Assignment)

For the selected approved case study organization, you are required to create a

situation analysis to include stakeholder and customer analysis of the selected

organization.

Muyanja Michael Davis

R2005D10892966

Strategic Marketing (22646)

28-March-2021

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 2

Introduction

American Tower Cooperation (ATC) have many different portfolios in various countries and

ATC Uganda is among them. ATC core business is to provide space at heigh and ensure power

availability on their telecom sites for Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to install equipment

and pay monthly rental fee. The business market is customer driven, making sure customer

needs are meet. The government of Uganda set a target of 99% of 4G network coverage in

Uganda by 2040. ATC and another competitor have a role of facilitating the coverage

expansion by building new sites. The internal target set by the shareholders and executive group

level is to increase the revenue by not less than 10%. This to be achieved a lot of analysis and

innovation must be done on both the internal and external business environments. The situation

analysis at ATC Uganda is necessary including understanding the contribution of each

stakeholder to business, and customer analysis. The tools used are SWOT analysis and PESLE

analysis. The major source of information was from the virtual interview with different

departmental heads, Key account managers and some suppliers or vendors. All the findings are

limited to ATC Uganda and to be used for academic purpose putting in consideration the

undisclosed of company information policy.

SWOT analysis

Situation analysis of ATC Uganda was done using SWOT analysis tool. SWOT analysis was

essential in helping to identifying the existing resources, capabilities, deficiencies, current

opportunities, and threats existing in the market.

Strength

The company has enjoyed competitive advantage over its competitor by hiring highly skilled

and experienced employee. Empowering and providing employees innovation platform that

has enable them to meet organizational goals and objectives. ATC Uganda has also investment

a lot in requiring and using new technology, equipment, and materials to meet customer’s

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 3

demand. Also ensuring power availability on site that meet service lease agreement (SLA) as

agreed with customers. Lastly having site visibility using network operating center (NOC) that

monitors site faults by triggered site alarms. immediately regional maintenance team is

informed to go and attend to the faults.

Weakness

ATC Uganda have internal challenges. Weakness are factor that may hinder achievement of

desired goals (GÜrel & Tat,2017). long time taken to approve or make decisions unlike our

competitor who has a short delivery period. The poor technology and system adoption most

especially the vendors who are reliable to faults causing power outages. The payment system

needs to be reversed, vendors run out cash flow yet have pending payment and this affect

ongoing works.

Opportunities and Threats

Opportunities are external changes creating new business option; 5G technology leading

construction of new sites to facilitate the new technology. Secondly the target to have 99%

network coverage to MNOs by 2040 set up by the government of Uganda. Thirdly the demand

from MNOs for continuous quality improvement in their services. Lastly high data demand

from customers that require venturing into fiber.

Threats are the emerging dangers that must be avoided: New rising competitor in the industry,

need to understand their business operation model then come up with strategy. The delay of

imported materials has reduced our customer trust due to prolonged sites delivery period.

Another is the relocation of sites due to emerging building blocking site coverage. Lastly

increased costs per site because of taxes, lease fees in developing city, town, and municipals

including additional legal requirements in those areas.

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 4

Customer analysis

ATC customer are the MNOs, Radio stations, Banks to mention a few, A lot of information

about customer has been collected and it evident that the key customers are MTN and Airtel

all those are MNOs, the business has provided key account managers to ensure their needs are

identified and met. Also, how can there be brought closure? Geo-marketing is done to show

all customers the potential business that can be achieved when they move onto ATC sites. For

future needs ATC must understand how are the customer needs and requirements changing?

Which customer should be pursued and how to pursue them?

Stakeholder analysis

The key stakeholders of the business are shareholders, employees, customers, and vendors.

Freeman (1984) argues that there is excessive breadth in identification of stakeholders. It is

important to know and ensure that all stakeholders fulfill their obligations for the success of

the business. Are the shareholders funding all the projects and setting realist business targets?

Are employees able to carry out they duties? Do customers pay? and understand the way

forward for customers with debts. Vendors or suppliers need to deliver sites in time with the

required quality and clearly assessment of performance of different stakeholder is important.

Critical evaluation

The Swot analysis of ATC Uganda has created an understand some of the critical issues faced

by the company that have been causing a decline in operational performance. According to

Swain (1993) goes ahead to explain benchmarking as the process of measuring your company’s

strategies and operation against ‘best in class’ companies, both inside and outside your own

industry. Despite producing high quality site for the customer, the challenge ATC Uganda has

long delivery period compared to the competitor. A lot of bureaucracy and approval are

required to authorize use of organizational resources. This must be addressed under the

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 5

organization culture and use automated system that send alert to individual that must approve.

The use of workflow, smartsheet and oracle and having centralized data center for all site

information can help to give site details without vendors to do surveys which takes time. when

delivery period is reduced, customer will request for more sites.

The core competency of ATC Uganda is providing quality work for customers and ensuring

tower availability on site is above the agreed service lease agreement (SLA) with the customer.

Competitive strategy aims to establish a profitable and sustainable position against the forces

that determine industry competition according to Michael Porter (1985). A lot of capital

investment has been made to ensure sites are powered without outages. These include

electricity connections, standby generator, solar and backup batteries. All these power sources

are utilized with solar and batteries in the lead to minimize site operation cost. In addition, the

network operation center (NOC) which is monitoring center for site alarms and in case of any

fault, alarms will be seen and escalated to regional engineer for rectification. In the process,

the company is able serve all its customers efficiently and effectively.

Application of theory

Based on the strategic management theory, the existing business environment is very dynamic,

unstable, and sporadic, and even disordered (Dagnino et al., 2017). Understanding the business

situation and how the strategies are developed, implemented, and it is important to evaluate if

such changes damage business’s existing competitive advantage (Porter, 2015). Thus, strategic

management in ATC Uganda market environment is still viewed as a new area that act as a

baseline of decision making for key stakeholders in managerial positions. it is essential to

consider potential occurrence of cognitive distortions (Porter, 2015). Thus, the strategic

situational analysis of ATC Uganda will include its business environment, changes in consumer

behavior, and changes in behavior of suppliers and competitors. Also take note of factors

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 6

affecting the business negatively. A business strategy is reported to go beyond grouping of

customers and their needs but also determine whether its short term or long term. The skills

and innovations of managers and employees is the center of strategic management theory

within the current market situations.

Stakeholder theory argues that firms should create value for customers not just only

shareholders, stakeholders include any business, entity or individuals that are affected by the

company activities according to Freeman (1984). Marketing primary focuses on the

relationship between the organization and its customers. There is broad acknowledgement firm

have a primary responsibility to generate high returns for shareholders (Bhattacharya &

Korschun, 2008). Stakeholders include customers, employees, vendors, suppliers, government,

media, financial institutions and more. When stakeholders are not satisfied and feel let down

the company will never survive. The need to evaluate the interest and influence of all

stakeholder is important in laying strategies on how their expectation will be met. Another

important aspect is communication that ensure receiving and distribution of information to

stakeholders, to understand who needs to know what and when. ATC Uganda is dedicated in

offering quality services to customers, and always surveys are carried out to identify the needs

of all stakeholders. In the process of continuous improvement all the identified challenges are

addressed to satisfy the customer and business.

Conclusion

To conclude, ATC Uganda’s technology-based solutions enables the company to offer an

outstanding environment for customer to come to our sites. This is results of power availability

for customer’s equipment, and security. In, addition, the company offers a collection of support

services towards ensuring customer satisfaction. Key customers have account manager to cater

for their needs. The company has also exceled at establishing and grabbing unique business

opportunities, an aspect that has positioned it as a leading company in passive infrastructure in

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 7

telecommunication industry in Uganda. The utilization of Swot analysis provides an overall

understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the company, as well as the strategic options

emerging for the opportunities and threats that face its business environment. ATC Uganda

still experiences challenges in terms of its expansion plans, especially in rural area which are

remote with limited transport facilities. The company has given MNOs support to increase their

coverage in the country. As a result, the company’s management take advantage and utilize

this situational analysis, customer analysis, and stakeholder analysis, to come up with suitable

strategic planning for future of the company.

(1595 words)

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 8

References

Bhattacharya, C.B., Korschun, D. (2008). Stakeholder Marketing: Beyond the four P’s and the

customer. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 27(1), pg. 113-116.

Christopher, M., Payne, A. and Ballantyne, D. (2002), Relationship Marketing: Creating

Stakeholder Value, 2nd ed., Oxford.

Dagnino, G., King, D., & Tienari, J. (2017). Strategic management of dynamic growth. Long

Range Planning, 50(4).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318435852_Strategic_management_of_dynamic_gr

owth

Freeman, R.E. (1984), Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Pitman, Boston, MA.

Freeman, R.E. (1999), Divergent stakeholder theory. Academy of management review, 24(2),

pp.233-236.

Gürel, E., & Tat, M. (2017). SWOT analysis: a theoretical review. Journal of International

Social Research, 10(51).

Jeston, J. and Nelis, J. (2008) Business Project Management, Butterworth-Heinemann. pgs,

271 - 276.

Kotler, P. (1972) Marketing Management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Kotler, P., Gregor, W. & Rodgers, W. (1977). The marketing audit comes of agell. Sloan

Management Review. Winter, pp. 25-85.

Parmar, B.L., Freeman, R.E., Harrison, J.S., Wicks, A.C., Purnell, L. and De Colle, S., 2010.

Stakeholder theory: The state of the art. Academy of Management Annals, 4(1), pp.403-445.

Porter, M. (2015). Shared Value and Strategy, Paper Presented at the Shared Value Leadership

Summit, FSG, New York, NY. https://ww.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/items.aspx?num=49202.

R2005D10892966 MUYANJA MICHAEL 9

Pulendran, S., Speed, R., & Widing, R. E. (2003). Marketing planning, market orientation and

business performance. European journal of marketing.

Smith KG, Grimm CM, & Gannon MJ. (1992). Dynamics of Competitive Strategy. Newbury

Park, CA: Sage.

Swain, C.D. (1993), ‘Competitive benchmarking’, in D. Bernhardt (ed.), Perfectly Legal

Competitor intelligence, London: Pitman Publishing.