Vodafone

Fulfilling Service Gap in a Business Set Up

Introduction

The rapid erosion of Western nation manufacturing companies' share of world markets by Pacific Rim competitors has over recent years stimulated research on how to achieve and sustain competitive advantage[1,2,3]. Prompted by writers such as Ohmae[4] and Pascale and Athos[5], many researchers have focused on using the Japanese as a standard against which to measure manufacturing excellence[6,7]. Possibly the most frequently mentioned issue when examining how Western companies could learn from the Japanese and regain world class status is to accept the views of individuals such as Crosby[8] or Deming[9] and adopt a total quality management (TQM) philosophy within the manufacturing sector. This paper discusses fulfilling service gap in a business set up-Vodafone in a concise and comprehensive way.

Fulfilling Service Gap in a Business Set Up

In advising Vodafone on TQM it is frequently stressed that quality should not be managed just as the interface between customer and supplier, but instead should encompass all relationships within the organization through the creation of internal marketing programmes. Atkinson[10], for example, states that “Emphasis should be on the internal dynamics of the organization, recognizing that meeting the requirements of the internal customer is as important as meeting the needs of the external customer”. Oakland[11] also stresses the same point by recommending, “For Vodafone to be truly effective, every single part must work properly together...failure to meet the requirements in one part or area creates problems elsewhere”. It is comments such as these which have resulted in Schonberger[12] proposing that departments must consider themselves as members of a “customer chain”. In fact recognition of the importance of internal customer management has caused Christopher et al.[13] to suggest that “quality has become the integrating concept between production and marketing...making operational the connection between what the customer wants and the activities of the firm”.

Assistance for manufacturers seeking to understand how to manage the internal customer process has to a certain degree been provided by lessons learned in the service sector. Attention began to be directed at marketing management processes within the service sector at end of the 1970s. Various writers[14,15,16] have identified the critical importance of sustaining customer loyalty by emphasizing the capability of employees to deliver consistent service quality. Gronroos[17,18] proposed that achievement of this goal required adoption of an internal marketing strategy to develop quality conscious employees. He suggested that internal marketing is a holistic process which integrates the multiple functions of the firm by ensuring employees understand all aspects of business operations and are motivated to act in a service-oriented manner. An important factor influencing the internal marketing concept was Gronroos's conclusion that if firms wish to build stronger relationships with customers, this is only feasible if preceded by attention to integration of service provision processes across the entire organization[19].

Research Aims and Methodology

Although academics frequently mention the term “internal marketing”, a number of writers[13,20,21] have suggested that many organizations practice the concept but do not use the terminology and are also more likely to refer to the activity ...