1.

0 Executive Summary

Celcom was invested in 2008 with 100% shareholders and one of the
market leaders of mobile communication provider in Malaysia. They have the
widest coverage area with 9.2 million users on its network. Its business provides
pre-paid and post-paid mobile service. Celcom Ace targets consumer users as
their market, which has high social life and need to communicate regularly with
their colleagues. Celcom has segmented their target market specifically, which
are Generation Y and Millennial as secondary target market.

In order to gain more market share by 5.4% within 1 year, Celcom are
trying to come up with new innovation of pre-paid card services, which can fulfill
its target market needs and wants. By innovating Celcom Ace with unique
features, such as free SMS, Group Call, and credit transferring Celcom can
compete in the market to reach the marketing objective. Moreover, Celcom Ace
will be distributed in every Celcom branch, Blue Cube outlet, and participating
dealer, such as convenient stores, and cell phone shops. In order to promote
Celcom Ace, Celcom will use broadcast advertising as their primary promotion
media as broadcast ads can reach nationwide coverage.

The market research is conducted to identify the needs and behavior of

the target market. Celcom also conduct focus group and survey, to analyze the
customer’s attitude towards competitors’ products. The focus group was
conducted to gain reflection of the satisfaction level towards Celcom Ace. And
lastly, we predict that the sales revenue of Celcom Ace will reach RM 3 million in
the first year.

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2.0 Introduction

According Axiata; Celcom is one of the market leaders of mobile

communication provider in Malaysia. Based on the data, Celcom has 9.2 million
customers currently. (2008) Since the competition in the industry is getting
tougher, Celcom must overcome this situation by innovating new products and
ideas to serve their customer better than the competitor. Celcom Ace is the latest
product innovation from Celcom to serve the generation y and millennial to
compliment their lifestyles. Celcom Ace offer a low rates to communicate among
them, it also has group feature that allow them to get 60 minutes free call for
each individual to call among their group member. Beside that it also gives free
400 SMS that can be use by the Celcom Ace users.

3.0 Current Marketing Situation

Celcom was invested in 2008 with 100% shareholders and one of the
market leaders of mobile communication provider in Malaysia. They have the
widest coverage area with 9.2 million users on its network. Its business provides
pre-paid and post-paid mobile service. Also, Celcom has achieved substantial
development in mobile broadband, m-commerce, enterprise solution, and bulk
wholesaler service. In order to gain more market share, Celcom keeps maintain
to have the widest network coverage in country by continuing investment in
network area, capacity, and performance of its services.

3.1 Market Description

Celcom Ace targets consumer users as their market, which has

high social life and need to communicate regularly with their colleagues.
We have segmented our target market specifically, which are Generation
Y aged between 16-33 by 2010 and Millennial aged 8-14 as secondary
target market.

According to Hawkins, we know that Generation Y is characterized

by a strong sense of independence and autonomy and they like the ability
to customize products to their unique needs. These consumers are

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Internet savvy and use email, cell phones, and text messaging to
communicate. In addition, this group leads in every cell phone data
service from text messaging to web browsing. (Hawkins, 2007) Hence, we
can say that their spending pattern is very consumptive and willing to
spend for certain amount for their social life, so therefore, we are offering
Celcom Ace with features and benefits that fulfill the needs and wants of
Generation Y.

We are offering a pre-paid card with low rates and additional

features, such as free SMS, group call, and credit transferring within the
same provider. The rates competition between competitors has led us to
come up with this idea. By offering low rates and such new features we
believe that this will lead us to gain more market share as we provide the
needs and wants for Generation Y. The consumers that are not satisfied
with their current pre-paid mobile SIM will enter this new market in
order to fulfill their needs and wants by purchasing our new Celcom Ace.

3.2 Product Review

Our New Product, Celcom Ace, has the following benefits as

explained in details:

 Low rates (App 1.1)

 Free SMS (App 1.2)
 Group Call
 Credit transferring (App 1.3)

Basic feature:

 20 Aces
 Card expire
 Reload
 Broadband
 GPRS, WAP & 3G
 I-ring
 Airtime share

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  IDD

Enhance feature:

 *888# Access
 International Roaming
 Voicemail
 Call waiting/hold
 Group call
 Missed call notification
 SIM card rescue
 SIM card Upgrade
 Smart SIM
 SMS Extravaganza (App 1.2)

First year sales revenue is estimated to be RM 3 million. This

estimation is based on the additional estimated 500.000 new customers
within one year, which for each pre-paid card will be priced at RM 6.

3.3 Competitive Review

In mobile communication industry Celcom has major competitors,

which are:

 MAXIS. Maxis are the market leader in this industry as they are the
first mobile communication provider in Malaysia. The customers
are very loyal to Maxis. Basically, Maxis provides the same
products and services with the other competitors, but Maxis are
doing well on their marketing, this makes their sales are high and
gain big market share. In broadband connection, Celcom and DiGi
are doing better than Maxis.
 DIGI. DiGi claims that they are the leading mobile communication
company. However, they are only ranked the 3 rd in market share.
They provide a comprehensive range of affordable, convenient,
and easy to use services.

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 3.4 Distribution Review

Currently, Celcom has 550 outlets nationwide, including its own

branches, key dealers, Blue Cube outlets and micro kiosks in shopping
malls. (the star, 2008).

4.0 SWOT Analysis

4.1 Strength

Celcom Ace has features that compliment a high social life of the
target market, who seeks a low rate for call and SMS services. Since
Celcom is one the leading brands in mobile communication provider
industry, it is easy to launch and get recognition from the market. Celcom,
which has the widest coverage in Malaysia, will support its features to
gain the customer satisfaction. Celcom Ace has a lot of unique features
that can be customized by the users to reflect themselves. Moreover,
Celcom Ace provides features that can make your communication
activities easier, such as group call, free SMS, and credit transferring. And
in addition, we set the start up SIM card price at RM 6, which is affordable
to our target market.

4.2 Weaknesses

As people know that Celcom is a provider that sets the price and
rates relatively higher than the competitors, it might occur a doubt in
customers mind about the Celcom Ace that gives low rates and unique
features. There will be terms and conditions to activate some enhance
features that might take time in the process. This might affect customers’
mind of this product as some of the customers will think this features are
complicated to be used.

4.3 Opportunities

The number of foreign students in Malaysia is increasing rapidly.

Since Malaysia is developing to be a service country that provides good

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 education, medical, tourism, and public services, this can be our
opportunity to gain more market share as our target market is Generation
Y and Millennial, which most of them are students. The government policy
is also important for running a business; business cannot be invested in a
country where the policy is not stable. As we know Malaysian corporate
tax is considered as one of the lowest in the world, which is very suitable
for business. Hence, Celcom is benefited by the low tax, so they can
compete in the market by setting low rates and providing a lot of unique
features without so much worry about loss. As many other companies see
the competition as threat, Celcom identify this as an opportunity to be
creative and motivate themselves to come up with new ideas that suits
their consumers.

4.4 Threats

As we know that Celcom is one of the market leaders of its

industry, where in between Maxis and DiGi, the competition of each
company is very strong. The competitors also have similar products that
have similar target market as Celcom Ace. There is a high chance of its
competitors will launch the same product features in their latest product,
where they have eliminated the weaknesses that Celcom Ace has. So
therefore Celcom need to develop and innovate another unique service in
order to retain customer loyalty in the market.

5.0 Objectives and Issues

According to the analysis above, Celcom has the following objectives and
issues for 1 year.

First Year Objectives

During this year, we are targeting to get the customer awareness

and aim for 5.4 percents share of the Malaysian Pre-paid communication
provider market.

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 Issues

The main issue that we can see obviously is our image as a

provider that set the price and rates higher than other competitors.
Hence, we will try to change this image by investing more sources in
marketing in order to create the image as a creative, innovative, and
friendly mobile communication provider in Malaysia.

6.0 Marketing Strategies

Celcom Ace marketing strategies will be based on Celcom Ace positioning

of the product competitive advantages. As our primary target market, Generation
Y, which is young adults; called teens and twenty-something, which are very
consumptive and willing to spend for certain amount for social life. They are also
technology savvy and use a lot of cell phone, Internet and text messaging service
to communicate.

6.1 Positioning

Based from our product differentiation; we position Celcom Ace as

a new pre-paid card which understand the need and wants from young
generations. It gives the privilege of low rates and ease to communicate in
their social life.

6.2 Product Strategy

Celcom Ace basic feature and enhance feature has been discussed
in the product review. The next step that Celcom will take is to launched
Celcom Hi-5 which is used as CDMA card for CDMA phone that also can be
purchased in Celcom branch at low price, with the same basic feature but
has lower rates than GSM card that available now in the market. The
packaging will be bold green with blue stripes that reflects company color
in the eye of customers.

6.3 Pricing Strategy

Celcom Ace will be set at the price of RM 6 for retail and RM 5 For
wholesale price. We set a lower price than our existing product such X-

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pax and Celcom Blue because we want to expand the market by 5.4% and
generate sales by 500,000 units. We also want to create a new image for
this particular product by setting a low price and offering lowest rate.

6.4 Distribution Strategy

Celcom Ace will be distributed in every Celcom branch, Blue Cube

outlet, and participating dealer, such as convenient stores, and cell phone
shops. This is because Celcom has a good relation with their clients and
those retails shop are the best distribution channels as the target market
are often to come and purchase their new SIM card in these places. In
order to support their distribution channels partner Celcom have special
price and/ or commission with their partners, and also give a supporting
print ad such as posters, to increase the awareness.

6.5 Marketing Communication Strategy

To inform people about our new product and its featured services,
and also to change our image, we are going to reinforce the brand name
and focus to the product’s differentiation and competitive advantages. By
the help of advertising agency, we can decide and select the best media
and timing to reach potential target market. After all, we use advertising
as our primary method to promote our product and choose public
relation and sales promotion to aid our promotion.

To get a nationwide coverage, we will use broadcast advertising

such as TV, radio, and Internet. Since we know that by using TV, radio,
and Internet the expenditure per target audience is affordable and also
attractive and effective to get the market attention, so we decide to use
broadcast advertising as our primary promotion media. We use broadcast
advertising to inform and persuade people to have preference and liking
to our product. As a help to inform people about our product, we will use
print ads, such as fliers, posters, and we will put the ads in newspapers
and magazines. In order to get people’s awareness, we will go to selected
campuses in Malaysia to promote our new product. Here, we will give free

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 sample of Celcom Ace for limited quantity. Celcom also will use spoke-
person and group references to promote the benefits of using Celcom Ace.

6.6 Marketing research

As a leader in the market, Celcom understand the essential of

market research in order to serve their consumer better. The market
research will identify the needs and behavior of the target market. Celcom
also conduct focus group and survey, to analyze the customer’s attitude
towards competitors’ products. The focus group was conducted to gain
reflection of the satisfaction level towards Celcom Ace; and how the
features benefits are being use by the group. This research will give the
feedback of the product success rate to be launched and accepted by their
potential target market.

6.7 Marketing organization

Celcom’s Chief Marketing Officer is Mr. Chee Pok Jin, and Head of
Marketing Senior Vice President is Mr. Zalman Aefendy Zainal Abidin.
While there will be other regional sales and marketing managers for each
branch.

7.0 Action program

The Celcom Ace will be launched in December 2009. There are some of
the implementation programs to achieve the company objectives.

November

We will start to do road show and campaign to create awareness and educate the
dealers about the product benefits. It will be held in public places as Sunway
Pyramid, Bukit Bintang Junction, and Cinneleisure to get the target market
attention since these is a crowded place and most young people are hang out in
these places. We will use spoke-person and opinion leader to promote Celcom
Ace on the road show.

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December

The advertisement will begin in the first week since it is a holiday and it will easy
to get attention of the target market. The chance of having a crowded promotion
events and print ad being notice also high because by this time there will be a lot
of promotion and high buying power among the target market. This will
encourage the target market to purchase Celcom Ace on due to previous
promotion and reference from the opinion leader that been used in November.

January

To gain more new customer; Celcom will open one week booth in selected
campuses to promote Celcom Ace to those unreached target market on previous
month due to some circumstances, such as foreign student went back to their
home countries on holidays season. This month they will give a free keychain
and Celcom pens for limited period.

February

We will still continue the advertisements to generate more sales, and conduct a
special event on Valentines Day for the Celcom Ace user and their group
members.

March

The spoke-person will have a television ad to create awareness from east to west
Malaysia, radio ads will also start on this month.

April

In this month we will conduct survey and customer feedback from our current
customer in order to provide better services. The radio and TV ad will continue.
We will also create a competition among partners to motivate them.

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8.0 Budgets

The predicted sales revenue of Celcom Ace is RM 3 million in the first year. The
price of retail of RM 6 and RM 5 for wholesaler, the cost of production is RM 2.5
for 500,000 units of Celcom Ace SIM Card. As we prevent to have a high amount
loss in the launching year, we put the estimation of having RM 175,000 loss due
to promotion expenses. The break even units are:

1,250,000 = 357,143 units

RM6-RM2.5

9.0 Controls

Celcom as always will conduct a well managed control plans for each
products that they have. Annual report will be held in the end of the year by the
Head quarter to review year sales volume and revenue. On the other hand,
regional sales and marketing manager for each branch will hold monthly report.
This reports will gives feedback of the success of product acceptance by the
target market and how it competes with the competitor products.

10.0 Conclusion

To conclude, Celcom is one of the market leaders in the industry

currently. In order to get the customer awareness and aim for 5.4 percents share
of the Malaysian pre-paid communication provider market. Meanwhile, the
image as a provider that set the price and rates higher than other competitors is
obviously seen. By innovating new pre-paid card service, which has unique
features, such as low rates, free SMS, Group Call, and Credit transferring, and also
we target to Generation Y and Millennia we believe that Celcom can change its
image and gain 5.4% market share within 1 year.

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11.0 References

 2008. Celcom Targets Younger Mobile Phone Users. (online). Available:

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story. 2009
 2009. (online). Available: www.celcom.com.my. 2009
 2009. (online). Available: www.maxis.com.my. 2009
 2009. (online). Available: www.digi.com.my. 2009
 2008. Celcom (Malaysia) Berhad (CELCOM). (online). Available:
http://www.axiata.com/operating-companies/malaysia. 2009
 Hawkins. Mothersbaugh. Best. 2007. Consumer Behavior Building
Marketing Strategy. 10th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

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12.0 Appendixes

 Appendix 1.1

Phone call rates among Celcom Aces:

National
00.00-11.00 11.00-17.00 17.00-24.00
RM 0.015/sec until 30th RM 0.015/sec until 80th RM 0.015/sec until 130th
second second second
RM 0.01 for the next sec RM 0.01 for the next sec RM 0.01 for the next sec

Phone call rates to other operators:

East Malaysia West Malaysia

00.00-24.00 00.00-24.00
RM 0.05/sec for the first Flat rate
2 minutes RM 0.02/sec
RM 0.01/sec for the next
3 minutes (until the 5th
minutes)
Scheme repeated every 5
minutes

 Appendix 1.2
 SMS Extravaganza rates:

Pay RM 2 to get 400 SMS to all operators from 00.00-16.00

 Free SMS among Celcom Aces users from 22.00-07.00.

 Normal SMS rates:
East Malaysia West Malaysia

00.00-11.59 12.00-23.59 00.00-11.59 12.00-23.59

10 get 100 10 get 10 10 get 100 10 get 100
RM 0.01/SMS for RM 0.01/SMS for RM 0.01/SMS for RM 0.01/SMS for
100 SMS after 10 SMS after sent 100 SMS after 100 SMS after
sent 10 SMS on 10 SMS on regular sent 10 SMS on sent 10 SMS on
regular rates rates regular rates regular rates
*Regular rates: RM 0.005

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  Appendix 1.3
Credit and airtime transferring rates and regulation:

Nominal (RM) Active Time (days)

0 - <2 0
2 - <5 0
5 - <10 3
10 - <20 7
20 - <25 15
25 - < 50 15
50 - <100 22
100 - < 150 30
150 - >200 45

Regulations
Transfer fees RM 0.6
Note: International different rate
applied due to the adding cost of
sending SMS in the particular country’s
rate.
Max credit transferred each RM 200
transaction
Minimum credit transferred More than RM 0
Minimum sender balance RM 5
Threshold to transfer RM 5 + RM 0.6 = RM 5.6
Transaction per day Unlimited
Max total nominal transferred per day RM 200
Max total nominal transferred per Unlimited
month
Denomination Unlimited. Max RM 200

 Appendix 1.4

This assignment has given me chance to learn more about marketing plan,
how it is very crucial to company in order to achieve its objectives and goals. The
marketing plan has play an important role to generates sales and gain market
share. As a marketer we must know how to prepare a great marketing plan in
order to present it in real life job and or clients.

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 There are some parts of marketing plans that give me more information and
understanding about the use of marketing plan in real business life, which I will
face after pursuing my studies.

In executive summary I have learned that this part is one of the most
important part in every marketing plan since it is the first page that the reader
will take a look. It must be simple but consist enough information about the plan
to attract the reader, if it boring nor irrelevant the reader will not continue their
reading, which make the plan became a useless plan even though there are great
ideas in the initial plan. This part must show the attraction of the new product
benefited the company and the customer, which will lead greater number of
market share and profits.

By doing the marketing current situation, I have learned that as marketer we

need to be critical about the current situation of the market industry in order to
make a decision and chose the marketing strategy. In this part, I learned that the
marketing segmentation must be specific and chosen wisely. The details of the
target market preferences, lifestyle and their buying behavior need to be
explained well in this part. While the product review must be set and made to
fulfill the needs and wants of the target market. It means the product feature and
use must be relevant with the target market needs and complimenting their
lifestyle and easy to modify due to give the product competitive advantage.

The competitive review shows the SWOT analysis of the main competitor,
this will give us the benefit to learn about their positive and negative of our
competitor and we can come up with best strategy to overcome the threats and
win the competition in the market. This also made me learn to see threats and
competitions as a motivator to be creative and innovative rather than see it as
and obstacle in real life. I also found out that choosing the right distribution
channels is also a success factor in delivering our product to the end user, in this
case to the target market. By having a good relationship between our companies
and distribution partners will help to promote and create high sales.

SWOT analysis; as we know that it give the analysis of the strength and
weaknesses about our product and company. By identifying our positive and
negatives side of our product or company, we can use it to compare to
competitors strength and weaknesses. It also shows the opportunity to launch
new product and make a decision or strategy to compete with our competitor,
which also called benchmarking.

In the process of doing this assignment, I also learn that marketing strategy
and marketing communication strategy are different. In the marketing strategy
we are concentrating to create the impulse of product purchase by using product
feature, packaging, distribution channel, and price strategy. It also set the
product positioning in the consumers mind, to create unique image and brand
recall. While, in marketing strategy is to create awareness of the target market
and how to educate the partners about the product feature and it benefits for the
users. As for the distributor partner they learned about the product unique
selling point so they are willing to carry our product in their store.

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 Marketing research does give a great contribution in marketing plan because
base on the research we can choose which media to use as marketing tool, what
is the needs and wants of the target market. It also can be use as customer
feedback, which can be used for further information when launching new
product or to add new features in existing products.

In every big company there will be a proper organizational chart for each
department. This is done in order to divide the job and responsibilities for each
person in each level. In the marketing organization there are few types to be use
in the company some may divided the team based on regional or geographical,
while other will divide based on products. In this assignment I use both terms;
the teams divided based on product and in each product team will be assigned
regional marketing and sales team.

Action plan I learn that we need to schedule our promotion program in order
to achieve our marketing objectives. We must come up a strategy in each month
over a period, to have proper time lining in promoting the product to the target
market.

Budgeting is another most important part in marketing plan; as it will be the

biggest factor for the investors or boss to decide whether the product plan is
worth to carry on. While control give the company feedback and quality control
of the services and product so then they will earn trust and loyalty from ther
customer.

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