SMP assignment maxis

Introduction
Maxis Communications Berhad, or in short Maxis, is a Malaysian mobile network operator headquartered at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was started in the year 1993. It uses the dialling prefix identifier of "012", "017" and “0142”. Their mobile services are provided over the 900 & 1800 MHz GSM band and as July 2005, the 2100 MHz UMTS band. Majority of the company's stake is owned by Malaysian billionaire Ananda Krishnan. The company has total subscribers at 13.95 million as of December 2010. The company primarily operates across Asia-Pacific.

Maxis provides a full suite of communications services on multiple platforms to meet the growing needs of individual subscribers, families, small and medium enterprises, large corporations and the government in Malaysia.

Maxis was also the first telecommunication services provider to introduce a range of smartphones to Malaysia such as the BlackBerry phones and the ever popular Apple iPhone.

VISION AND MISSION OF MAXIS
Vision
The vision of Maxis is to bring the future to their customer’s lives and business, in a manner that is simple, personalised and enriching, by efficiently and creatively harnessing leading-edge technology and delivering a brand of service experience that is reliable and enchanting. Besides that, Maxis want to become Malaysia’s leading mobile communications service provider today and become the nation’s premier integrated communications service provider in the foreseeable future.

Mission
Below are the missions that Maxis uphold in order to reach their vision:

Maxis aim to keep everything we do as simple as possible. For example, customers must understand what Maxis is telling them because Maxis strive to communicate with their customers in a way that is straightforward and easy to understand.

Trust is crucial in every successful relationship and this is true between customers and Maxis, just as it is true between the company and its employees. All good relationships are built on trust which inspires confidence, and, assurance, conviction and reliance. To be trustworthy is a way of life.

Creativity defines Maxis as a company and therefore differentiates themselves from their competition. It inspires not only the communication style of Maxis to the customer and stakeholders, but also how do they answer the phone, designing their stores and deal with challenges. In Maxis, every employee have creativity in their DNA

To lead people into new territories, we have to be brave. So every employee in Maxis must have the courage to try new things, to take the occasional calculated risk, to go where other competitors have not been. It ensures that we stay at the forefront and that their customers benefit from new and better ways of doing things

it means doing the right thing, rather than the easy thing. It means having the courage of Maxis’s convictions. Brave is the quality of a true leader in the ever growing industry.

Services by Maxis.
Maxis provides a variety of mobile communication services. They offer prepaid call plans, monthly subscription plans, International Roaming, MMS, WAP (over both GSM and GPRS), Residential Fixed Line services, Broadband Internet Plans and as of early 2005, 3G services to both prepaid and post-paid subscription customers.

For business customers, Maxis offer VSAT services (satellite based communications) and BlackBerry based mobile services besides regular services. Maxis also provides an online Music store for its customers to download multimedia content.

Maxis most popular service is its prepaid brand Hotlink, which currently serves over 8 million customers in Malaysia. They are currently heavily promoting a new IDD 132 service, which offers cheaper calling rates mobile & landlines in selected countries, at a rate of RM0.08 sen (roughly 3 US cents) per minute which is, at certain times for many subscribers, even cheaper than a local call.

Maxis was involved in a price war with its competitors (particularly DiGi) in the prepaid SIM market which was driven its Hotlink starter pack prices down to RM6 (about US$1.2).

Value Chain
A value chain is a chain of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product or services for the market. The value chain contains two types of activities. The first one is primary activities which is where most of the value for customer is created as this activity is mostly done in order to sell their product or services to the customer. The second one is support activities which facilitates the performance of the primary activities.

The above is a visualization of an Organization’s Value Chain

Primary Activities
Inbound Logistics and Outbound Logistics
This is the activity where the supply chain is managed.Maxis is the leading telecommunication company in Malaysia as they have their own equipment that enables them to provide services to their customers in Malaysia. Technology advancement in high speed broadband and also the demand for them allows Maxis to build more cables in Malaysia to ensure coverage and delivery of their services to Malaysians.

Operations
This is the process where Maxis transform all the inputs which is the equipment and technology they have into finished products and services such as voice calls, SMS, mobile internet broadband and etc. Maxis broadband coverage is considered the widest in Malaysia.

Marketing and Sales:
This is the process where Maxis identify customer’s needs and wants and also the generation of sales. In true customer orientated fashion, Maxis have prepared offering such as high speed broadband to Malaysia where the need and also want for high speed broadband increases. Maxis have their own website and a Facebook page in order to interact more with their customer. And in the sales department, Maxis have provided many options for their customer to subscribe to their network such as through the customer’s own phone by activation code, their very own Maxis Centre and from third party dealers.

Service:
This includes all area of service such as receiving customer’s registration forms, after-sales services, complaints handling, individual customer handling, auto-billing and any other services that involves Maxis.

Support Activities in Value Chain

Firm’s Infrastructure:
This activity includes and is driven by corporate or strategic planning. Maxis, Board of Directors and management have established numerous processes for identifying, evaluating and managing the significant risk faced. The Board is supported by a number of established Board committees in the execution of its responsibilities namely the Audit, Nomination and Remuneration. The organization structure sets out clear segregation of roles and responsibilities.

Human Resource Management (HRM):
Employees are an expensive and vital resource to a company therefore; Maxis manage recruitment and selection, training and development, and rewards and remuneration. Maxis consider their employees as HUMAN CAPITAL. Maxis can never achieve their success today without proper HRM strategy. Maxis uses the following techniques to retain their employees:
Recruitment
Internship Programmes
Selection
Training and Development
Compensation
Maintenance

Benchmarking
Maxis is a network that thrives on innovation and creativity. Together, they deliver wonderful experiences, through better coverage, better connection and better speeds. Maxis also allows advances such as fibre wire, 2G, 3G, the latest 4G LTE,Femtocell, satellite, Wi-Fi, and fixed lines to work together as an integrated system for people and businesses, a first in Malaysia. And by investing in the latest cutting-edge technology, Maxis is able to assure their customers only the best in the near future.

Equally important to Maxis is consistency in quality, wherever their customer may go in Malaysia. To date, their 2G and 3G networks serve more than 95% of Malaysia’s population with voice, messaging and light Internet usage, and more than 81% with high-speed wireless Internet at a minimum speed of 21Mbps. 70% of our 3G sites are DC-HSPA+ which provide speeds up to 42Mbps. And in main cities, Malaysians can enjoy “Maxis Utopia” or Wi-Fi Hotspots to keep everyone connected.

The Maxis network is not just limited to mobile services. Their high-speed fibre Internet is also accessible to over 1.3 million homes and offices. And to keep everyone connected, Maxis have dedicated engineers to monitor their network 24/7 to ensure everything is taken care of.

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTH

State of the art and a pioneer in the telecommunications industry have allowed Maxis to be one of the market leader and also a known and effective branding in Malaysia. Maxis have always been a company that provides high network quality and also excellent customer service all around Malaysia. Maxis is also a known capitalist in the fast growing broadband and data opportunities such as their recent unveiling of the super-fast 4G LTE broadband service and they are also the first company to provide 4G LTE service in Malaysia.
Maxis have striven to make their brand synonymous with premium branding and they have done so by being a long-term iPhone plans and also bringing in the latest iPhone to Malaysian market. A prove of their effort is that they are voted as Malaysia’s Most Valuable Brand 2012 at third place.
Maxis also have much wider 3G/3.5G broadband coverage than other competitors such as Digi. They also have the largest subscriber base for broadband in Malaysia with 39% shares. Besides that, Maxis have good loyalty program which is their Family Plan which is one of the best available family plan in Malaysia.

WEAKNESS
Although Maxis have the widest coverage of 3G/3.5G broadband service in Malaysia, the coverage in rural areas is still lacking as rural areas is Malaysia is big and to build more network towers will cost more. Besides that, the rates from Maxis are always higher compared to competitors.
Maxis might have one of the fastest mobile internets in Malaysia but the mobile internet data is always limited causing customers to need to pay more in order to continue using Maxis Mobile Internet service. Maxis is still a growing enterprise, therefore their capital expenditure is limited and Maxis can only selectively grow its enterprise business.

OPPORTUNITY
Malaysia is one of the fastest growing consumers for smart devices such as smartphone and tablets thus demand for those products is high. Therefore Maxis can choose to provide more smart devices at affordable packages to attract customers. Besides that, many areas are still underserved with slow and limited broadband services offer great growth opportunities.
There is also potential for triple play if tie up with other content providers such as Astro providing broadband internet, mobile internet and also pay TV services in Malaysia. Young Malaysians nowadays are also data hungry as 32% of Malaysian population is under 15 years old which can be a prime target for broadband services over the next 15 years.

THREAT
With the cooperation of Apple Inc. and also Maxis competitors such as DIGI to sell iPhones as soon as it is released in Malaysia can threaten Maxis’s position as the leader in iPhone distributor of Malaysia. Besides that, new competitors such as U Mobile in introducing unlimited mobile internet plans at affordable rates will cause more customers to choose prepaid broadband over post-paid which are Maxis main customer targets.
There is also a big demand in fast network and also high quality calls from customers as other countries are already adopting them. If other competitors decide to bring the technology first, Maxis might lose their customer base as their customer base is also not that big compared to their competitor.

Marketing Plan (4P’s)
PRICE

Maxis strives to provide the best value for post-paid users with value plan starting from as low as RM28.

PRODUCT

PROMOTION

PLACE
In an increasingly competitive and complex communications industry, the pace of technological innovation is such that no single company can survive if it operates alone. And Maxis has long recognized the need to work with a range of different partners locally and globally to broaden their range of offerings and to enhance their capabilities as the preferred communications solutions provider.
Maxis Partners

Maxis Alliances

Customers
Different age group or target audience, Maxis cater with different packages and plans. Basically there is a plan for everyone no matter their age, gender or culture backgrounds.

School Students
School students often find low cost products or services more attractive therefore they will go for prepaid subscription plans.

College Students
College students also find low cost and affordable products or services attractive. College students will now need Internet as they are now interested to connect online socially and also to do assignments. The broadband plans by Maxis’s Hotlink Youth Club which allows them to use Mobile Internet packages and normal calls at affordable price.

Family and Friends
Maxis is known for their Family and Friends package plans which allows a post-paid subscriber to have multiple supplementary lines. These packages also have very low rates when use to contact from the primary line to the supplementary line.

Working Adults
The trend in the business world is that now everyone can work anywhere anytime thus most working adults now will be subscribing to high speed broadband plans in order to stay connected and do their business anywhere and this is also where Maxis thrives in.

Competitor
SWOT Analysis
STRENGTH
DiGI is one of the competitors in Malaysia telecommunication industry. DiGi is also the leader in Mobile Broadband and Mobile Network service provider. DiGi’s rates for mobile internet are also the most competitive among telecommunication companies in Malaysia. DiGi also thrives in the Mobile Broadband with their stable mobile internet connection that they have promised with the customers.

WEAKNESS
As DiGi’s strategy to be the leader in Malaysia’s Mobile Broadband, their voice call revenues are declining. DiGi also lack money needed to invest on maintaining and upgrading their network with latest equipment. Besides that, the market is very saturated and DiGi need to find innovative ways to acquire new subscribers to their network.

OPPORTUNITY
As there is a big demand in high speed broadband coverage in Malaysia, DiGi can do strategic collaboration or joint venture with company with more coverage around Malaysia such as Celcom to provide better coverage of high speed in Malaysia. Besides that, there is also demand for smart devices such as Apple’s iPhone where DiGi can collaborate to bring in the device at a more competitive price.

THREATS
In the rapid technological advancement age, the demand for high speed broadband is very high and if DiGI is not able to do so they might be left out by their competitors. As customers now are more knowledgeable, their bargaining power increased thus DiGi must price their services strategically.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Competitive advantage exists when a firm’s strategy gives it an edge in attracting customers and defending against competitive forces.

Maxis’s competitive advantage over its competitor (DiGi) is as follows:
Maxis is the first telecommunication company in Malaysia to introduce 4G LTE network which is the latest standard for wireless communication of high speed data for mobile devices.

Maxis excellence in customer service as they are more experienced in Malaysia telecommunication industry. They also have more service centres around Malaysia compare to DiGi and they are can be easily found in main cities with dense population.

Maxis is known as the leader in broadband in Malaysia because they have one of the widest coverage range in Malaysia

As Maxis is the first company to bring in 3G and now 4G LTE network, they have the highest quality and coverage in Malaysia and if other telecommunication company wants to adopt the technologies, they must rely on Maxis line thus Maxis can collect rental of their equipment or commission from their competitors usage of Maxis service.

Strategies
LOGISTICS
For managing the logistics, Maxis has chosen their best partnership companies in order to manage and assist in logistics department. The company that is chosen by Maxis is SIP e-logistics. SIP e-Logistics, a company with more than 10 years of experiences in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry, experts at knowing what types of inbound supplies chain planning issues FMCG manufacturers face. They have used that knowledge to build specific solutions that solve such pressing issues to help maximizes profits. Their solutions are perfect for companies in FMCG industries that are serious about improving bottom-line performance and keeping customers happy in getting their products.
In squeezing costs from inbound logistics merchandising to coordinating marketing services for the lowest total cost to analyzing product line profitability through prompt information gathering via GPRS wireless technology, SIP e-Logistics has helped many clients to improve financial and operational performance, to increase market share and to adapt quickly to change.
SIP e-Logistics' core services are to provide Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies in Malaysia with total solution for inbound supply chain service management such as inbound merchandizing logistic service, marketing services, timely sales, inventory and competitor pricing report via the internet using GPRS instant wireless data transfer technology.

OPERATIONS
A detailed budgeting and reporting process has been established. Comprehensive budgets are prepared by the operating units and presented to the Board before the commencement new financial year. Upon approval of the budget, the Group’s performance is then tracked and measured against the approved budget on a monthly basis. Reporting systems which highlight significant variances against plan are in place to track and monitor performance. These variances in financial as well as operational performance indices are incorporated in detail in the monthly management reports. On a quarterly basis, the results are reviewed by the Board to enable them to gauge the Group’s overall performance compared to the approved budgets and prior periods.

MARKETING
The marketing strategies that Maxis can apply are:
- Liaising and networking with a range of stakeholders, e.g. customers, schools, students and partner organizations
- Communicating with target audiences and managing customer relationships
- Sourcing advertising opportunities and placing adverts in the press (local, regional, national and specialist publications), radio and television.
- Managing the production of marketing materials, including leaflets, posters, flyers, newsletters and e-newsletters.
- Liaising with designers and printers
- Organizing photo shoots
- Arranging for the effective distribution of marketing materials
- Maintaining and updating customer databases
- Organizing and attending events such as conferences, seminars, receptions and exhibitions
- Sourcing and securing sponsorship
- Conducting market research such as customer questionnaires and focus groups
- Contributing to and developing marketing plans and strategies
- Evaluating marketing campaigns
- Monitoring competitor activity like Celcom, Digi and U-mobile.
- Supporting the marketing manager and other colleagues.

SERVICES
Main importance of Maxis is that they have corporate plan in order to maintain their position in market to serve the customers. As a responsible business, Maxis have embedded the principles of corporate responsibility (“CR”) in their day-to-day operations. Sustainable and ethical ways of doing businesshave been at the core of Maxis' initiatives.
Maxis can provide online internet registration for their network plans so customers can conveniently register for a new plan and Maxis can have the SIM cards send to the customer’s doorstep.

CONCLUSION
At just six years old, Maxis Communications might seem young to be Malaysia's leading mobile telecommunication company. However, despite its relative youth, the company has matured rapidly and amassed the country's largest subscriber base of more than 7 million users. Going forward, while its eyes are still on the mobile business.

Maxis will also grow its broadband business, invest selectively in its own fixed-line footprint and leverage on the HSBB initiative. It intends to capitalise on its large customer base to push more content and offer broadband services. it has its eyes set on future growth and regional expansion - and there has been no shortage of rumors about its aggressive search for a new international partner.