Swot Maxis

Maxis Berhad started their operations in the year 1995 being the leading mobile communication service provider in Malaysia with more than 11.4 million mobile subscribers up to date. (Maxis Berhad, 2011) SWOT is the acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats where it will be used to assess the business as it is important for companies to analyze SWOT on their companies. It will also be analyze in this report on how the strengths will be used to overcome the weaknesses as well as the opportunities overcoming the threats. Strengths and weaknesses will be analyzing on the company’s internal factors whereas opportunities and threats will be analyzing on the company’s external factors.
There are several main telecommunication in Malaysia comprising Digi, Celcom, U-Mobile and Maxis. As compared to the above competitors, Maxis’ strength is that Maxis had a wider coverage in most towns around Malaysia and also covers north-south highways. Also, compared with other competitors, the customer service quality is better in terms of efficiency. Maxis is one of the pioneer telecommunication companies apart from Celcom and has the latest technology HSDPA(3.5G) or Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) . Maxis provides affordable plans/packages to different types of consumers whether its a prepaid customer or postpaid customers with phones available in 12 months or 24 months. Apart from that, Maxis also provides the best deals to thier consumers especially the prepaid segment which the prepaid segmentation is large. In addition, Maxis also has very strong marketing people as they are always the first telecommuncation company to introduce new mobile plans, ie: when Maxis launche thier i-Phone 4 pricing, after a few hours, Digi also launched thier i-Phone 4 pricing at lower price but longer contract period of 24 months to 36 months. Maxis’ also having the lastest technology as well as having the most comprehensive services ranging from fixed line to wireless broadband as well as thier recently launch Multiple-play Service. As Maxis’ brand name has been in Malaysia for a long time, it therefore creates a brand professionalism that creates trust to the subscribers.
It has also been analyzed that Maxis do have weaknesses and once identified, it will need to be brought to attention so that it can be solved. Such weaknesses are such as bad interruption of line in certain areas especially in rural areas where most of these areas are dominated by competitor Celcom. As with the new initiative from Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission(MCMC), users are now able to switch thier numbers to other telecommunications with the existing number therefore Maxis may have loose some of thier customers to other telecommunication company. As due to Maxis wants to decrease unnecessary costs, therefore Maxis has allowed some areas as an opportunity for dealers to take up the business franschaise at that area. Since then, it makes Maxis having a bad name and a bad representation from the dealers or agents. In addition, the products varied too much until the employees may not understand customer’s needs therefore there are times that the calls are not handled professionally. Lastly, Maxis focused too much in profit making as they offered data packages that charges customer after they have exceeded thier allocated data whereas other telecommunication companies does not charge customer after the allocated data which may explains why there is a decreases in Maxis share market in this telecommunication industry.
As the telecommunication industry is still growing in Malaysia therefore there are still growth opportunities for Malaysians to own a handphone. This provides more opportunities to Maxis to improve on thier services and also to develop more products for the growing demand. In instances, since new technologies has been developed, there are many new gadgets produced by phone manufacturers therefore, there are room to develop products for such market. Maxis may also take advantage on the Malaysia’s budget 2011 on imposing 10% tax exemption on mobile phones to provide more affordable phone packages to subscribers. Maxis also has the opportunity to develop in other countries as the telecommunication industry has almost reached the peak therefore by expanding to other undeveloped countries, the number to subscribers will increase as well as the profits will boom. Maxis may develop applications to integrate phone usage more into our lives and in result encourages more users to use thier phones as one of the payment methods.
Lastly, in terms of threats, as per discussed above, there are several competitors who offers lower or even better coverage and even with better deals are often a threat to Maxis as it will definitely affect the telecommunication industry. Also discussed above is on Mobile Number Portability(MNP), it may also be considered as a threat due to the number of customers porting to other operators by porting thier numbers together. There are also other factors that may be a threat, ie; financial crisis as at 1997, there are many who cannot afford to pay thier phone bills due to loosing thier jobs. Lastly, the new government laws on telecommunication towers may be a threat as due to the public’s health concern, the government had issued laws that some of the telecommuncation towers needed to be teared down. Therefore, with the enforcement from the government, Maxis needs to adhere to the laws, as if laws are not adhere therefore, Maxis will have trouble with the law.
In my opinions, some recommendations to improve the business of Maxis are to readjust the charges charge to customer so that it will be charged at cheaper rate to encourage more customers to subscribe to Maxis. Also, Maxis should try to provide wider coverage especially in rural areas so that those who are in rural areas will be able to use Maxis’ services because since now. Malaysians are getting more tech-gadget as well as utilizes the internet for many other matters therefore if Maxis improves their coverage, therefore customers will be confident to utilize the broadband services. Users now can use the internet to browse to check their emails, face book, twitter and etc.
On the other hand, Maxis could try to decrease the number of employees resigning in order to ensure the quality of the customer service employees so that they can provide their best services as well as to solve the customer’s issue. Maxis can search for other alternatives or get consultation from the HR on how to retain the employees since employees are the main asset for the company. Lastly, Maxis should try to develop more services that can be offered to customers so that customers will have a variety of different services to choose from as well as to use. Maxis should use more of marketing strategy to market their services and products in order to improve sales as well as to maximize shareholders wealth.