Analysis of “Promotional and Marketing”
Activities of M2M Communications Limited
M2M (Machine to Machine) Communications Ltd has been Bangladesh’s leading vehicle tracking company since the 2011. This company have got license as a vehicle tracking service provider from “Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission” (BTRC) in 2014 and became member of “Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services” (BASIS) in same year. M2M refers to “Machine to Machine” communication through GPS & GPRS both.
Basically, Vehicle Tracking Solution (VTS) remains the company’s core business. This company of today has evolved into a highly sophisticated technological company offering leading edge fleet monitoring solution to both individual and organizations throughout Bangladesh. M2M provides tracking service in all over the country for all kinds of vehicle like car, pick up, Covered van, Truck, Bike, Bus. Many other companies like Grameen Phone, Monico, Finder, N Track, Prohory etc also providing Vehicle Tracking Solution (VTS) Moreover to overcome competition M2M trying give their best effort to provide better service.
The market of M2M Communications not new at present M2M of AMCL takes position in the Rapid Growth stage in the product life cycle. This can be shown in a figure:
Broad Objective
The general objective of this report is to prepare report based on marketing services of M2M Communications. As per requirement of BBA program of BRAC University, one student needs to work in a business organization for three months to acquire practical knowledge about actual Business operation. The objective of this report is to get a good understanding of overall process and procedure of Marketing department and how they arranges different events.
Specific Objective
– To present an overview of “M2M Communications Ltd”.
– To describe my job part of “M2M Communications Ltd”.
– To submit a brief description about the Marketing department and their activities.
– To understand how to organize an event and what are requirements behind this.
– To know how “M2M Communications Ltd” build their customers relationship.
Methodology
For flat and accurate study everyone has to follow some rules & regulations. The study materials were collected from two sources:
Primary sources:
– Practical work.
– Face to face conversation with the associates of M2M Communications Ltd.
– Direct observations.
Secondary sources:
– Files & Folders.
– Websites.
Services of “M2M Communications Ltd”
M2M Communications Provide Vehicle Tracking Solution (VTS) is an electronic software based device installed in a vehicle to enable the owner to track vehicles location. To identify vehicle current location M2M Communications Ltd uses Global Positioning System (GPS) module for accurate location of the vehicle and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) for communicating the vehicles location to a remote user. User can get service through both computer and mobile phone instantly
Through this comprehensive solution, a subscriber can learn the real-time position of his vehicle, and apply rules on the vehicles (e.g.: speed limit, No Go Area, etc.). In addition, subscribers can also secure their vehicles by subscribing to security features like remote immobilization, panic alarm. Some of the other features are: Speed Violation Alert/Report (speed of all vehicles can be controlled, monitored, and hence when violated, immediate contact can be made to reduce such violation); Area Alarm (an area can be assigned to vehicles, the owner/authorized person will be notified, if the rule is violated); ‘No-Go’ area (A ‘No-Go’ area can be created for the vehicles, the owner/authorized person will be notified, if the rule is violated); in addition, the car owner can find out whether the ignition is on or off; if on, then whether the vehicle is moving or stationary, thus vehicles can be monitored even if they are switched off.
KEY FEATURES OF SERVICE:
- 24 Hours Real-time Tracking- Track your vehicle anytime from anywhere. Every 25 second later you’ll receive your vehicle’s update position on Google Map using M2M COMMUNICATIONS LTD interface. You can also know your vehicle’s previous movement record through M2M COMMUNICATIONS LTD Communications Ltd website. This is possible through SMS also.
- Emergency Engine Blocking- When your vehicle has been theft or moved from your specific location without your permission, you can immediately block your vehicle’s engine via SMS or M2M COMMUNICATIONS LTD Support Center.
- Geo-fence Alert- Users are able to setup and configure monitoring activities and alerts to the vehicle using web service or GPRS enable cell phone. If Geo-Fence violation occurs, an SMS will be sent to a contact number.
- Over Speed Alert- If the vehicle has been configured with a maximum speed limit and when the vehicle speed exceeds the limit, system will send an over speed alert SMS to owner instantly.
- Current Engine Status- Any time you can know about your vehicle’s engine status. Green will stand for running-status, Blue for neutral-status and Red for off-status.
- SMS notification for breaking news (Push SMS). 75 SMS free for every monthly subscription.
- Necessary reports can be generated in excel and pdf (Speed analysis, Over speed, expenditure, Trip)
- Multiple vehicles can be managed in one interface.
- Unlimited push-pull number can be assigned.
- Viewing car location through mobile as well.
- 4 breaking News SMS will be generated (Geo fence break, Exterior battery cut off alert, over speed alert, SOS alert), Mail notifications will be available. (Push mail)
- Unlimited geo-fencing
- Provide tracking accuracy through north-west/south-east, etc. options.
- Delivered last 3 months reports (Customized possible)
- Monitoring Fuel Consumption through Travel Distance Graph and minimize expenditure very easily
Promotional & Marketing Strategy
The marketing mix is a business tool used in marketing and by marketing professionals. The marketing mix is often crucial when determining a product or brand’s offering, and is often synonymous with the four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place; in service marketing.
Product – A product is seen as an item that satisfies what a consumer needs or wants. It is a tangible good or an intangible service. Intangible products are service based like the software company, the hotel industry and the financial industry. Tangible products are those that have an independent physical existence. Typical examples of mass-produced, tangible objects are the motor car and the disposable razor. A less obvious but ubiquitous mass-produced service is a computer operating system. Every product is subject to a life-cycle including a growth phase followed by a maturity phase and finally an eventual period of decline as sales falls. Marketers must do careful research on how long the life cycle of the product they are marketing is likely to be and focus their attention on different challenges that arise as the product moves through each stage.
The marketer must also consider the product mix. Marketers can expand the current product mix by increasing a certain product line’s depth or by increasing the number of product lines. Marketers should consider how to position the product, how to exploit the brand, how to exploit the company’s resources and how to configure the product mix so that each product complements the other. The marketer must also consider product development strategies.
Price – The price is the amount a customer pays for the product. The price is very important as it determines the company’s profit and hence, survival. Adjusting the price has a profound impact on the marketing strategy, and depending on the price elasticity of the product, often it will affect the demand and sales as well. The marketer should set a price that complements the other elements of the marketing mix.
When setting a price, the marketer must be aware of the customer perceived value for the product. Three basic pricing strategies are: market skimming pricing, market penetration pricing and neutral pricing. The ‘reference value’ (where the consumer refers to the prices of competing products) and the ‘differential value’ (the consumer’s view of this product’s attributes versus the attributes of other products) must be taken into account.
Promotion – Represents all of the methods of communication that a marketer may use to provide information to different parties about the product. Promotion comprises elements such as: advertising, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion.
Advertising covers any communication that is paid for, from cinema commercials, radio and Internet advertisements through print media and billboards. Public relations is where the communication is not directly paid for and includes press releases, sponsorship deals, exhibitions, conferences, seminars or trade fairs and events. Word-of-mouth is any apparently informal communication about the product by ordinary individuals, satisfied customers or people specifically engaged to create word of mouth momentum. Sales staff often plays an important role in word of mouth and public relations.
Place – Refers to providing the product at a place which is convenient for consumers to access. Place is synonymous with distribution. Various strategies such as intensive distribution, selective distribution, exclusive distribution and franchising can be used by the marketer to complement the other aspects of the marketing mix.
Promotional & Marketing Strategy of “M2M Communication Ltd”
Product
Importantly product line of the M2M Communication is new way to govern business in Bangladesh at this moment. M2M Communications Ltd is vehicle tracking software providing company. Today’s era is all about technology based so that to secure the vehicle from theft this service is playing important role. All over the country huge number of vehicle and most of the owners are always being worried about the security of their car. So, the product is appreciative to all owners of the car.
Price
Pricing strategy that the M2M Communication follows is effective because as newly established company and to cope up the competition their price of their service is low then others competitors like Grameen Phone, Nitol, Monika, Finder and others main competitors. For example device price of Grameen Phone is 11000tk and in opposite M2M Communications providing same service to the customer only at 6500tk. Likewise monthly service charge also less than Grameen and others.
Promotion
As a company, dealers and distributors play a major role in serving customers, while growing and sustaining markets. M2M has a network of strong and dedicated distributors and channel partners. That network has helped M2M’s name and its promise of reliable quality to every part of the country. The power of this highly efficient and motivated network goes a long way to create goodwill for M2M brand among consumers besides creating availability and after sales services. A direct channel partner, who is authorized to purchase the product directly from the company and sell. They have monthly or weekly targets given to them by the company .If they succeed in achieving those targets then there is a certain discount, which is offered to them.
They are also rewarded on the basis of per device sold. New plans launch ideas and sales strategies are shared with them at frequent meetings.
Place
Main sales and service center is situated in New DOHS, Mohakhali, Dhaka. Likewise, in every division M2M has sales and service installation point to serve customer. Customer gets free installation service from metropolitan area. Moreover M2M provide service all over the country by engaging their own technician for little amount of transportation cost that is accept by client.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
- Long-term market experience
- Good market reputation
- Technical expertise
- Good location of their business
- Loyal employees
Weakness Internal
- Average quality products
- Insufficient training facility
- Costly training program
- Employees have low educational background
- No automated machine
- Do not have enough professional
Opportunities
- Availability of manpower
- Availability of supplier
- Government support
- Less Competitors
Threats External
- Quality Factor
- Dependency
- Price wars with competitor
According to their business circumstance I have found some strength, weakness, opportunities and threats to their business. So I suggest them to use their strengths to recover their weakness as well as to take the opportunities and they must have to consider the threats.
Strength of M2M Communications Ltd.:
Long-term market experience: The development of the vehicle tracking device in Bangladesh is associated with one of the name M2M Communication Limited (Machine to Machine) to achieve the object of self- reliance and development in the backward areas. M2M communications Ltd was established in 2010 at Mohakhali Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh with a promise to introduce better service to the respectable client. So they have a long term market experience and they know this market very well.
Good market reputation: M2M Communications Ltd is dedicated to total tracking solution under one umbrella with total quality, committed & service to meet customer’s requirements. So they have good market reputation. M2M Communications Ltd tries to fulfill their customer’s demand on time. So customers are loyal to the company and it helps them to create a good image in the market.
Technical expertise: From the beginning of the journey of M2M Communications Ltd they do not have enough employees but they have some employees who have good technical skills. They are trying to use their technical skills to educate other employees.
Good location of their business: Their main factory situated at Panthopath in Dhaka. Beside this they have their head office at495/32, Mohakhali DOHS Dhaka and install point in seven divisions. So, they have good location coverage of their business.
Loyal employees: Their employees are very loyal to the company because the company cares about them. They work like a team. Most of the employees have long term working experience with the company. So they know about the company very well.
Weakness of M2M Communications Ltd
Average quality products: M2M Communications Ltd has several competitors such as N Track, Grameen Phone, Finder, Monica and they also have some other competitors. Their main competitors are Grameen Phone and N Track they produce high quality device but M2M Communications Ltd is not able to maintain as high quality product as their brand value of the competitors are producing. M2M Communications Ltd produce average quality product because of their limited resource.
Insufficient training facility: They do not have enough training facility for their employees. They have some trainers but they are not sufficient for a good training program. So it is a major weakness of their company. So we think they should arrange interactive training programs.
Costly training program: M2M Communications Ltd has some technicians who actually monitor the production process. But, rests of the employees are unaware about the production system. Because, their training program is costly; so that they can’t provide training to everyone.
Employees have low educational background: Their employees do not have good educational background. They work within the company for a long period of time. They know about the company as well as their role in the company, but their educational knowledge is not that much strong enough so far.
No automated machine: M2M Communications Ltd has assembled module of the device manually and i think it is a major weakness of their company. As a result to build a device it takes lot of time and it’s not an easy task. For this purpose they need high skilled employees instead of automated machine. From the interview we found that now they are aware of this problem and they are trying to bring automatic machine form abroad as early as possible.
Do not have enough professional technicians: They have some professional technicians but they are not enough to run the business in long-term. It is their one of the weakness. So we think they should hire some professional technicians so that they can train their existing employees.
Opportunities of M2M Communications Ltd:
Availability of market: It is about more or less 15 lack vehicle is running in Bangladesh. On the other hand day by day amount is increasing. Here is a surprising issue is that one third of the vehicle is not covered by Vehicle Tracking Solution (VTS). According to this view there is lot of possibility to make market fruitful.
Availability of supplier: all over the country it’s a recently growing sector. Newly many other companies are already established. Chronologically, demand of this service become popular to make security of vehicle. In the same time to suppliers of this device are also giving support to develop. M2M communication Ltd has a contract with the supplier named NEXIGATE to deliver device and many other many supplier are also ready to produce device.
Government support: As it’s a newly growing company and therefor vehicle tracking service provider has responsible to pay little amount of tax to the government.
Fewer Competitors: Comparatively, to high amount of market only few number of company established in Bangladesh.
Threats of M2M Communications Ltd:
Quality Factor: M2M Communications Ltd providing service based on GPS & GPRS technology to noticed the exact place of car where that existing, but sometimes customers get wrong information. On the other hand camera resolution is very low quality.
Dependency: Already mentioned that M2M Communications Ltd have contract with the device manufacturer company named NEXEGADE to supply device. Without “NEXEGADE” M2M Communication have not own manufacturing ability of device.
Price war with competitor: Like “M2M Communications Ltd” some other company already have launched their business of Vehicle Tracking Service. Usually price war rising day by day and it is great threat of M2M Communications Ltd.
Recommendations Based On Experience.
- M2M should advertise more for attracting all level of customers.
- M2M should encourage the Advantage of technology to the customers
- M2M Communications should also be aware of significant changes bring VTS Customer.
- M2M Should be enhance accuracy level
- Different between air road & on road decreasing
- M2M should have Marketing and Sales department.
- M2M should have to provide good working environment.
- Should arrange more and more campaign in public place to increase M2M customer.
- Monthly service charge should decrease.
- Price rate of device should also change because it’s high then others company.
- Better to manufacture device by own hand.
- After sales service should be developed.
- Create more distribution that is direct work with M2M Communication.
- Advertisement should increase through Radio, Newspaper, Poster, Banner
Conclusion
By birth this company’s main concern is only for providing “Vehicle Tracking Solution” (VTS). Indeed company has made eight thousands of client and in average company’s monthly revenue is sixty lac BDT. Basically M2M Communication Ltd hasn’t enough brand value to the client but in the present they focus them with the name of their valuable client as well. Recently some of other companies like Moniko, Finder, N Track, Prohory and so on are started business of “Vehicle Tracking Solution” (VTS). Usually it’s a great threat of M2M Communication Ltd, but they aren’t worried about them. In a word M2M don’t concern about that company. At present their main competitors is Grameen Phone (GP Track). GP Track and M2M Communications both in average providing same service by using same module but GP Track is in first position in this sector. Moreover, M2M Communications Ltd has aim to overtake GP by providing better service.
