ST10004099

Working TitIe
Impact of Branding on Revenue of
TeIecommunication Industry in the UK







Section One

Introduction:
Branding is an important aspect of any organisation across the globe
especially in the United Kingdom. t is also considered as the most valuable
intangible assets of any organization. Brand strategy decisions generally come up,
when a company is about to develop or buy a new product or service that should be
branded or if already established brand portfolios are being restructured. (Kotler et
al. 2006). Within the telecommunication industry, branding has taken its toll over
revenue. With the increasing competition and economic crises in the United Kingdom
will be able to analyse how branding can have a positive or negative impact on the
overall revenue of an organisation in the telecom industry and how companies are
inclined and dependent on branding as a strategic marketing tool in order to gain
maximum profit. am keen on critically evaluating and analysing the importance of
branding at present in the telecom industry in order to generate maximum profit and
how various companies are applying more emphasis on branding and their various
style of branding which attracts the consumers. This dissertation's objective is to
compare the branding styles of the companies, effectiveness of branding in gaining
market share and how it was able to contribute towards the revenue of these
companies. would concentrate on the revolutionary branding strategies used by all
the companies in telecom industry in the UK and what were the pros & cons. Also if
any branding procedure and be developed upon to maximise the revenue. n the end
this research should give us a transparent approach towards branding which can be
taken up by a telecom company in their future planning and higher profit margin.

RationaIe Justification of this research can be made with the analysis of the
research within the telecommunication industry in the UK. n the mainstream of
telecom industry in the UK, branding is pre-eminent within all the telecom service
providers. n spite of the economic crises in the UK since more than couple of years
the revenue of the telecom industry was not deeply affected. With UK government
aiming very strongly to stabilize the economy of the country, telecom industry has a
healthy support from the government. And UK is one of the biggest markets in the
world to provide network on a 3g platform with world's leading companies like O2,
Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone and 3 Mobile. With the increasing competition in the UK
market, branding of their product and service have become an important aspect of
their economic growth and revenue. From political point of view, UK government
and especially OFCOM (The independent regulator and competition authority for the
UK communications industry) has stopped the licencing for new masts in the country
this means companies have to manage the customer expectation with the network
share they already have and this makes branding all the more important factor of all
to attract more customers and generate revenue. So doing rigorous analysis on the
current branding strategy of the companies will let us know its impact on the revenue
and the research should be able to project the improvisation which can be
undertaken in future branding strategies. My another aim is both to selectively
highlight relevant research on building, measuring, and managing brand equity and
to identify gaps in our understanding the impact of branding.
Considering the economic aspect, UK's economic crises has had very less
impact on telecom industry however companies like 3 Global has not reached the
break-even point yet. This means apart from the other aspect of business strategies
of these companies, some companies have not given utmost importance to
branding. And with the help of this research should be able to show the critical role
of branding which has been successful in the past for the other companies like
Vodafone, UK. Well, according to me the foremost stakeholders would be the new
entrants into the telecom industry and this research would give them a clear picture
of the impact of branding in the UK. This research can also prove beneficial for
existing companies, as they can analyse the difference when other companies had
made through the mode of branding. Some new companies may also take this as a
new business strategy. Government will also be interested to progress of this
industry with ambition of getting the economy of the country back on track as this
industry has the potential to make steady progress in future as per OFCOM. And
finally, for the fresh management graduates or new managers can take this research
as a working tool or a guide which may help them improve their skills, strategies or
gain efficiency in their work.

ConceptuaI Underpinnings According to Schmitt and Rogers (2008), in the
increasingly connected and wireless world of the new millennium, marketing
management has ventured beyond its traditional offline boundaries in order to take
advantage of new technologies and media. This has resulted in a significant demand
for a vast range of high quality of content that in turn is putting pressure on branding.
This clearly states in the modern world branding should be taken right at the top of
the priority list which some companies had done in the past but few failed to do so.
My research will clearly state the branding strategies used by all the companies and
a comparison will help them understand what points were lacking or were ignored so
that it can be worked upon in future. The consumer-based perspective looks at
consumer perception constructs such as attitude, awareness and liking for a brand
and translates these perceptual measures into brand equity measures such as brand
affect. (Bousch et al. 1987). This clearly supports my thinking of integration of
branding may be difficult to achieve as compared to digital convergence. But the
main reason is consumer's perceptions are driven less by integration of the product
than by the clarity and consistency of the brand. Branding is a process which
involves goal-oriented planning, synchronization and control of all activities of the
brand. Branding concentrates on the stakeholders as well as the customers and the
products, which is not the same case in product branding. So taking into
consideration that good branding ideas creates a positive picture in customer's mind
but have a very minimum impact on revenue, does prove the point that branding is
not only about communicating to the customer about the quality of the product and
how good the service is. And this research is to make companies realise that
branding also include what is the company doing to protect the environment, how to
make sure of positive impact and how the people related to the brand live by the
brand and this strategies creates a positive impact on revenue at the same time.

Purpose The purpose of my research would include the following points which will
service as a base of this research on branding and its impact.
1) To identify the different branding styles and its impact on revenue of the
telecom industry in the UK and also to assess the performance of
branding.
2) To find out the reasons behind the complacent behaviour of few
companies towards branding.
3) To make the companies aware of the impact of branding on revenue if
used in a positive and unconventional manner.
4) To understand the positive or negative impact on revenue of new branding
styles and to promote it.
5) This research will also show, how only branding of the service or product
provided are not the only things that consumers expect from a brand but
also other aspect like business ethics.

Research Questions This research will concentrate to answer the following
questions:
1) Does branding have an impact on revenue?
2) Can different branding styles be taken into account in order to increase the
revenue share of branding?
3) Can branding work as a revenue multiplier?
4) s branding a make or break factor when the same branding strategies are
used or a launch of new branding procedures should be a focus aspect of
branding?
5) Analyse a brand and Branding in subject market?
6) Can Branding increase market size of the subject product or area and
eventually increasing the profit share?


Scope The research will eventually be useful to find out new possibilities of
branding strategies and this study will be restricted to the telecom industry in the UK
and the companies who have the potential to understand the vital role branding plays
and the companies have done this in the past. With my working experience with 3
global services, UK, intend to carry out this research in good faith to gain access to
their database, experience of managers and their branding strategies as my
research concentrates on the branding aspect of marketing strategies. The scope of
my research would be confined to few telecom service providers e.g. Vodafone, UK
or 3 UK and views of managers of these companies who will be closely working with
brand management. The primary research would consider feedback from the project
managers of branding and employees associated with them. Secondary data would
be accessed via the various case studies on branding, the regulatory of telecom
industry in the UK, OFCOM who not only regulates the companies but also maintains
the data and studies on them. Finally this research will help us understand the
various branding ideas, its positive and negative impact and thus using those
branding strategies in the future to generate revenue for the organisation.

















Section Two
Research MethodoIogy

Research Strategies To gain maximum outcome of the research it is very
important to identify the research methodology and its strategies. My research will
take a nductive approach because using this approach should be able to observe
the current trend and strategies of companies for branding and then should be able
to draw a specific pattern followed by the organisations to create hypothesis and
finally would be able to form theories around this with proper observations so that
these strategies can be used or worked up in future. Generally inductive approach
helps to carry out reasoning within the research as informal logic and critical thinking,
which is exactly what this research need. Because branding is strategy used by
almost all the organisation and no hard & fast rule is set for branding, will be able to
apply my thinking and logic towards this research which will be beneficial in future.
With this approach i can also be able to logically form a general proposition on the
basis of observed fact. For instance, we see that the branding strategies are one of
the main features of telecom industries and therefore we understand that they exist
as revenue generator. Answer to another question "Which research strategy should
be used? is case study as this will allow me to provide a clear picture of current
situation of branding in the telecom industry and also compare different branding
strategies of various companies which will help to find out if those strategies had
worked in favour or against which is exactly this research require. This also helps in
finding out, if any strategy was left untouched or was not explored enough and how
this can be put into effect in future. This approach will give me the freedom of
interviews with the managers in the respected field; can have observations via
various case studies on branding in telecom and questions answered directly by the
concerned managers within telecom industry. And the benefit of the freedom is
because, branding is a subject that does not have a set rule to be applied during
execution or there is no copy book situation in fact getting various ideas on branding
via managers and how that affects the revenue of an organisation are the sole
reasons of follow the case study strategy. Finally, it must be remembered that these
strategies should not be thought of as being mutually exclusive (Saunders et al.
2009)
SampIing Strategy Even though the ideal procedure of sampling in my view is
probability sampling where sampling is done in a random manner and the entire
population can be covered but as per the features of my research non-probability
sampling of judgmental sampling will be best suited. Through this process i will be
able to focus on people who are specifically involved and play a significant part in
branding and understand its impact on revenue. Although i will not be able to give a
chance to entire population but i will be able to balance it across the groups e.g.
managers, employees working with branding team, consumers etc. Branding is a
huge prospect and population involved will also be humongous, taking this into
account and with the help of judgmental sampling i will be able to select the group
based on my purpose of my research. And this will also make sure that appropriate
people are selected for obtaining data.

Data CoIIection Synchronising the data with the research purpose is of utmost
priority and would consider the collecting data which will be both primary and
secondary. Primary data will be collected with the help of interviews with the
branding managers and employees in the team which is according me a distinct
advantage to the research. As this will also help allow me to build rapport with the
other person, increase the level of trust and gain cooperation which may increase
the level of transparency in their answers. Questionnaires will also be another option
to collect primary data as will be able to collect the precise data in relation to the
research because think people are more truthful when it comes to the controversial
questions, because of the anonymous nature of the questionnaires. Secondary data
will be primarily collected via desk study and case study however will not be limited
to this. Observation and knowledge of the current research topic can also be used as
secondary data. Hence a qualitative approach will be deployed with regards to data
collection of my research.

Data AnaIysis With the fact and data broken into pieces data analysis will be
considered with caution. The aim of this process is to assemble or reconstruct the
data in a meaningful or comprehensible fashion. (Jorgensen 1989). As the data
collection will be on the basis of qualitative approach my first aim will be to
intensively examine small pieces of data and aligning them accordingly. shall
classify data into meaningful categories and sort those data into small chunks and
then align them in their respective preferences. With my research on branding my
expectation on data collection will be from various sources like interviews from
different managers of different companies so aim will be to segregate and assemble
the data with the meaningful outcome. As mentioned earlier about the inductive
approach, data analysis will also be on the same lines. will have to analyse the
repetitive words, phrases and the points which makes the difference considering the
pattern matching analytical coding. With the research on branding and its impact and
interviews from various managers, predicting the pattern of the outcome will be
based on theoretical idea. For instance data collected through interviews and
questionnaire and secondary data will be merged according to their matching
patterns. After segregation and verification of all the accumulated data should be
able to draw a reliable conclusion which will give a strong hold to my research.

'aIidity & ReIiabiIity A good qualitative study can help us to "understand a
situation that would otherwise be enigmatic or confusing (Eisner, 1991). This is
obviously co-related to the validity and reliability of the collected data. As the primary
data will be collected through interviews with different managers and employee and
those people will again go through the second process of primary data collection
which questionnaire, comparison of those data will definitely tell us how valid and
reliable the data is. Also, the questions in the interview with the managers and
questions in the questionnaire asked will be on the basis of the secondary data
which to certain extent will prove the reliability and validity. Triangulation is one of the
approaches that will be considered to validate both secondary and primary data
because this process helps us to compare those two sources with the single theory
related to branding and its impact on revenue. Reliability of the data can be
assessed through proper referencing and collecting the secondary data is from valid
sources and is not too old. For instance the their will be certain strategies in branding
which was used in the past with good effect however those strategies may not work
in current business situation. Finally to achieve these qualities for the data will
make sure that the data is not collected from a single source e.g. secondary data will
not only be collected via books, journal article but also via regulators and from the
companies itself.


Access Getting access will be the most crucial aspect of my research. Secondary
data access will be gained through books, journal articles, business news articles
etc. from library, electronic sources and articles on the OFCOM website. The difficult
part will be the primary data access. First and foremost strategy to gain access to
primary data from any organisation will be to make them understand the possible
benefits out of my research which may help them in future. As my research will be
based on the impact on revenue, is should be able to manage and negotiate with at
least one organisation as the main motive of any organisation is make profit and my
research will be good source for them at least. have worked for 3 Global Services,
UK in ndia (they have a huge base in ndia) with my contacts in 3 UK, should be
able to manage access to managers in 3 UK to gain access to the primary data. So
am pretty sure will be able to negotiate to gain access to reliable primary research
data.
















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References:

Schmitt, B and David, R (2008) Handbook on Brand and Experience Management,
Edward Elgar Publishing LTD, Cheltenham

Bousch, D. Shipp, S., Loken, B., Genturck, E., Crockett, S., Kennedy, E., Minshall,
B., Misurell, D., Rochford, L. and J. Strobehl (1987) Affect Generalization to Similar
and Dissimilar Brand Extensions, Psychology and Marketing

Jorgensen, D (1989) Participant Observation: A Methodology for Human Studies,
Sage Publications, CA

Eisner, E. (1991) The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative inquiry and the Enhancement of
Educational Practice, Macmillan Publishing Company, NY

Kotler, P., Pfoertsch, W. and Michi, (2006). B2B Brand Management, Springer,
Berlin

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A (2009). Research Methods for Business
Students (5th edn), Pearson Education Ltd, Essex.