Mobinil Competitive Strategies

Table of Contents 1.

Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1

2. Literature Review........................................................................................................................ 3 2.1. What is Competition? .......................................................................................................... 3 2.2 What is a Market? ................................................................................................................. 3 2.2.1 Perfectly Competitive Market ........................................................................................ 3 2.2.2 Oligopoly Market Competition ...................................................................................... 3 2.2.3 Monopolistically Competitive Market............................................................................ 4 2.2.4 Monopolistic Market ...................................................................................................... 4 2.3 Competitive Strategy: ........................................................................................................... 4 2.3.1 Overall Cost Leadership ................................................................................................. 4 2.3.2 Differentiation ................................................................................................................ 4 2.3.3 Pricing Strategies: .............................................................................................................. 5 2.3.3.1 Competitive Pricing ..................................................................................................... 5 2.3.3.2 Competition-based Pricing .......................................................................................... 5 2.3.3.3 Destroyer Pricing ......................................................................................................... 5 2.4 Benefits of Competition ........................................................................................................ 6 2.4.1 Higher Quality Products/Services .................................................................................. 6 2.4.2 Lower Prices ................................................................................................................... 6 2.4.3 Variety of Goods and Services ....................................................................................... 6 2.4.4 Strengthening Domestic Economy ................................................................................. 6 2.5 Competitive Intelligence Gathering: ..................................................................................... 7 2.5.1 Ethical and Unethical Behavior ...................................................................................... 7 3. Company’s Profile ...................................................................................................................... 8 3.1 Mobinil’s Vision ................................................................................................................... 8 3.2 Mobinil’s Mission ................................................................................................................. 8 3.3 Code of conduct .................................................................................................................... 8 4. Interview ................................................................................................................................... 10 5. Analysis..................................................................................................................................... 15 6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 18 7. References ................................................................................................................................. 20

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1. Introduction In this paper we will discuss the different competition issues facing companies within the market. Generally speaking, competition is a contest between groups of people seeking a certain common goal. In business, companies hope to reach a certain position that can’t be shared. Some companies aim to take leadership of the market. Others aim to make the highest profit or have the best image. These aims lead to rivalry between companies. We chose this topic in particular because we realize the importance of understanding the market and all the changing aspects within it. Any company should not only concentrate on the development of its products and its financial stability but it should also be aware of the external forces that could affect its performance. It should be prepared for any changes that could weaken its position and always keep an eye on the decisions competitors take that could allow them to be in a better position in the market. Mobinil Egypt is one of the most successful telecommunication companies in Egypt. It was founded in 1998 with the hope of offering people simple means and products to make communication easier for them. Upon its foundation, Mobinil was introducing a new product to the Egyptian market. In order to do that successfully, Mobinil had to study the political, economical, social and technological aspects of the market. After it was clear that such business had a high potential of success in Egypt, other companies were encouraged to follow in Mobinil’s footsteps and so Mobinil was no longer the only mobile service providing company in Egypt. Throughout the paper we will discuss what competition is and the types of market where it occurs. The strategies that companies adopt in order to outperform their competitors and the benefits of competition to society. Furthermore, we will study the ethical and unethical ways through which companies gather information about their competitors. We will also analyze the procedures Mobinil took in order to adapt with the new changes in the market and the strategies it adopted in order to maintain its position in a market now shared with two very strong competitors. Mobinil aims to always be one step ahead of whatever competition challenges come its way.

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A deeper study of Mobinil’s success will be discussed in this paper and an interview will be conducted with one of the executives within the company in order to gain first-hand information about how Mobinil handles the tough competition and the benefits it offers so that it doesn’t lose any customers and gain new ones.

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2.

Literature Review

2.1. What is Competition? Competition is the struggle and rivalry between matching contenders. The business’ existence and survival as well as its periodic profits depend on the behavior of competition. The competitive position of a certain business entity refers to its position in its industrial field, with reference to its actual output. It also refers to its strengths and weaknesses compared to its competitors. Nevertheless, conditions of competing in an industry depend on the ‘Forces of competition’ represented in: the power of supply and demand, competition state between existing companies, the threats rivals bring in and finally, the threat of substitute goods. (A to Z Management Concepts and Models 2005: 94-95)

2.2 What is a Market? A market is a mechanism through which producers and consumers interact in order to exchange goods. Nowadays, a market is not only referred to as a ‘place’ since both the sellers and buyers could never meet face to face, but still exchange goods through E-commerce. The market share expansion is what most competitive companies aim to achieve, as it refers to maximizing the total percentage of the total market sales made by the company. (Borrington and Stimpson 2006: 248-252) 2.2.1 Perfectly Competitive Market It is a market the seller and buyer have fairly little control over and could make almost no influence on the market price. This occurs as a result of there being a huge amount of sellers who provide the same product, and buyers that each purchase only a small amount of the goods. In this market, two conditions must be satisfied: first, that the products offered perfectly satisfy the same wants of the consumers. Second, is that the sellers and the consumers are so many that none of them can affect the market price. In this case, it is the market that determines the prices and the sellers are referred to as ‘Price takers’. (Mankiw 2004: 64) 2.2.2 Oligopoly Market Competition Consists of products that have few sellers that do not compete aggressively. As for instance the Airline routes. These competing companies may avoid direct competition in order to keep prices high. This sort of

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market is considered as a transit between extremes of prefect competitive and monopolistic markets. (Mankiw 2004: 65) 2.2.3 Monopolistically Competitive Market Is a market consisting of sellers that offer slightly different products, or non-perfect substitutes. In this case, some chances of setting prices by each seller becomes possible. An illustrating example for this market is magazine sellers, where they compete for readers. However, each magazine provides different topics and articles and can set its own price. (Mankiw 2004: 65) 2.2.4 Monopolistic Market These are markets that have only one seller that provides the good (whether services or products) and he is free to set the price, which is referred to as being ‘Price maker’. This market is the total opposite of competitive markets. Monopoly occurs as a result of take-overs, mergers and collusive agreements. (J Evol Econ 2006: 176; Mankiw 2004: 65)

2.3 Competitive Strategy: “An effective competitive strategy takes offensive or defensive action in order to create a defendable position against competitive forces and outperform competitors in an industry.” (Porter 1998: 34) Some types of strategies are: 2.3.1 Overall Cost Leadership It is a strategy that is only concerned with lowering prices. Even though quality and creativity are important, a company adopting this strategy’s main objective is to control spending as much as possible. That could be done by minimizing the costs of R&D, advertisement, etc. However achieving this goal requires strong strategic planning in order to eliminate waste and operate efficiently. The product wouldn’t have the best quality in the market, but it would have the lowest price and so would attract a lot of customers and increase revenues. (Porter 1980: 36; Whleen and Hugur 2010: 234) 2.3.2 Differentiation This strategy involves the quality and innovation of the product. A company following this strategy’s main objective is to create a product that is unique from all others in the market. This could be achieved 4

by providing good customer service or making exceptional advertisement campaigns, etc. However to accomplish this goal, the business’ production costs tend to be high so the product is expensive. But despite the high price, the good quality and exclusiveness of the product creates brand loyalty among customers, and some are willing to buy the expensive product. (Porter 1980: 38; Whleen and Hugur 2010: 234)

2.3.3 Pricing Strategies: 2.3.3.1 Competitive Pricing It is a competitive strategy as well as a pricing strategy. It is based on setting the price for a specific product equal to or just below the competitors’ price in order to be able to enter and grow in the market (Borrington and Stimpson 2006: 309) 2.3.3.2 Competition-based Pricing It is a strategy that is being used by some firms in order to base its product price according to other competitors price so they are able to compete fairly and in order to avoid price wars. As in some markets such as petrol companies’ markets. There are a lot of firms but they agree to put similar prices in order to avoid price and competition wars. (Stimpson 2002: 184) 2.3.3.3 Destroyer Pricing This pricing strategy is considered unethical by some people. It is based on observing the price of competitors’ products then deliberately setting much lower prices in order to try to force them out of the market, aiming to take higher market share or to become a monopoly in this specific market. (Stimpson 2002: 184)

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2.4 Benefits of Competition “Competition forces firms to strive for efficiency.” 2.4.1 Higher Quality Products/Services As more and different levels of competition increase, firms are prompted to produce goods and products of higher value and less changes in quality at a fixed price. That is so consumers could get the opportunity to purchase products of a superlative quality at the best price. (Understanding your competitors 2004: 2; Stimpson and Farquharson 2010: 88) 2.4.2 Lower Prices Goods and products’ prices indicate the cost of their production. So, in order to deliver products of low prices to the consumers, companies try to reduce the cost of production to the minimum effectively. As a result, companies are forced to control their use of resources and eliminate wastes. (Stimpson and Farquharson 2010: 88; Understanding your competitors 2004: 1) 2.4.3 Variety of Goods and Services As firms are always searching for new markets to present their products and make use of, they try to predict consumers’ future demand and provide new products and services that could attract more customers and increase their needs and wants. Firms also try to produce goods that could satisfy different tastes and segments of the market. As a result firms respond by producing the products which the consumers ask for and there is a diversity of products in the market (Understanding your competitors 2004: 2; Stimpson and Farquharson 2010: 88) 2.4.4 Strengthening Domestic Economy Since the high competition between local firms improves the quality of their products, this could make the firms more qualified to trade in foreign markets and so support the country economically. (Stimpson and Farquharson 2010: 88)

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2.5 Competitive Intelligence Gathering: Competitive Intelligence gathering involves collecting information about competitors instead of consumers. This data could represent records of sales, number of employees, etc. They could be stolen or illegally acquired by unethical competitors. (Murphy and Laczniak and Bowie and Klein 2005: 64-65) Managers should benefit from publicly available information in order to be aware of all what is happening in the market and so perform their duty to shareholders and stakeholders efficiently. They should also use the information to set strategic plans that could not be determined in the lack of understanding the market’s competitiveness. Moreover, when introducing a new product similarly related to competitor’s, learning from their previous mistakes could help avoid repeating them. And learning their current strategies could give the business an opportunity to create an exclusive launch for their product that could be more attractive. (Wright and Eid and Fleisher 2009: 8-10; Murphy and Laczniak and Bowie and Klein 2005: 65-66) 2.5.1 Ethical and Unethical Behavior Some businesses carry out competitive intelligence by going through the published material and public documents of businesses. Others perform market surveys and assess the position of the competitor’s products in the market. Companies could also study the websites of competitors and gather as much information as possible or they could read reviews written by independent parties regarding the competitor’s company. (Understanding your competitor 2004: 9; Murphy and Laczniak and Bowie and Klein 2005: 69) However it has warranted a bad reputation over the years due to the questionable and sometimes illegal behavior of some businesses. It was alleged that some businesses’ employees were encouraged to conduct conversations with competitor’s employees that could trick them into revealing confidential company information. Others allegedly hired private investigators to spy on their competition or persuaded their competitor’s suppliers, engineers, agents, etc. to reveal confidential records. Also due to the developing of technology and the use of the internet, some data could be published on websites and chat rooms without the consent of the company. (Murphy and Laczniak and Bowie and Klein 2005: 69)

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3. Company’s Profile Mobinil Egypt was started in May 1998 with the hope of becoming the leading mobile service operating company in Egypt. Its two main shareholders, “France Telecom (Orange)” with 71.25% shares and “Orascom Telecom Holding” with 22.75% shares, have given it the international experience to become one of the largest wireless service providers in the Middle East. The main headquarters are placed in Cairo, but the company has a lot of offices located in different cities of Egypt. Within Cairo, there are more than 44 Mobinil shops as well as more than 50 shops in Egypt’s different regions. Mobinil’s main competitors are Vodafone and Etisalat. Over the past ten years, Mobinil’s customers’ trust in the reliability of its services, due to its constant strain to keep its promises, has boosted its leadership force. Mobinil first started with providing its customers with mobile network voice lines and mobile phone accessories. Then, as technology developed, it offered them USB modems containing data lines that customers use to access the internet from any place. And lately, they’ve developed a 3G technology where customers could access the internet from anywhere without the help of any external devices.

3.1 Mobinil’s Vision “To be part of people’s daily lives by providing reliable and simple products and services that help people interact and communicate better.”

3.2 Mobinil’s Mission “To maintain our position as the leading mobile service provider in Egypt, providing the best quality service to our customers, the best working environment for our employees, top value for our shareholders and proudly contributing to the development of our community.”

3.3 Code of conduct In order to remain on top, Mobinil employees have to follow a high standard of guidelines in their day to day activities. Some of these standards are:

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Seeking Excellence

Mobinil has set professional working, value loyalty and top quality as their number one priority. Applying the highest service standards, externally and internally, as well as the non-stop updating, in both capabilities and professional knowledge fields, allows the company to maintain its competitive position. 

Friendly

Generating strong and encouraging working relationships in a positive and sympathetic working environment is their recipe to success. Treating everyone with nobility and high respect, while satisfying their customers, is also an enjoyable prospect. 

Dynamic

Being passionate about the business and leading the trend in all fields that involve Mobinil is a very basic attitude in the work frame. The company is always ready to adapt to its customers varying needs. 

Simple

Mobinil employees tend to use straight forward, understandable and clear ways in their dealings. Their tools are convenient and simple styles in satisfying their customers. 

Humane

Corporate responsibility is a vital part of Mobinil’s regular activities as well as their strategic planning. This responsibility’s purpose is represented in their spreading of hope and giving back to the community.

3.4 Mobinil’s Achievements Mobinil has proudly received a lot of honorable awards for its exceptional behavior and is always aiming for further achievements all along its way. Some of these recent awards were: 

Best Investor Relations Award for 2009

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OHSAS 18001 : Occupational Health and Safety

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Best Practice Award in HR development

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4. Interview We conducted an interview with a Geographical Marketing Specialist in order to gain first-hand information about Mobinil. These were his answers:

Q1: What is competition to Mobinil? A1: The aim of competition to Mobinil is being on top. It tries its hardest so that it’s always number one.

Q2: What, in your opinion, are the strengths and weaknesses of Mobinil? A2: We believe our strength is that Mobinil is an Egyptian company that operates only in Egypt with the main purpose of serving the Egyptian people; so they feel that the company is a local one aiming to please only them. However, its weakness could be an internal issue concerning the management of the company. Sometimes due to the two main shareholders (mentioned above), there could be some conflict in opinion, and that has an effect on the decision making process. For example, last year (2010), our main focus was improving the quality of our lines and Vodafone’s goal was becoming market leaders. Vodafone almost fulfilled their goal, so Orascom Telecom Holdings’ shareholders’ opinion was to prevent Vodafone from being the market leader, but France Telecom’s opinion was to ignore the leadership issue for the time being and focus on our own target. This lead to some management difficulties.

Q3: How do you deal with two important forces of competition; customers and suppliers? A3: Suppliers are not usually a very important threat to Mobinil, due to our established position. As a result, a lot of suppliers want to deal with Mobinil so we usually have a lot of offers from different suppliers. As for customers, Mobinil tries to satisfy them as much as possible. However, both forces don’t have that much bargaining power because there is a significant number of each.

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Q4: In any situation concerning competitors, do you take offensive or defensive action? Do you try to destroy competitors or just maintain your position? A4: That’s not how the market really works. For example if Vodafone targeted a certain region to boost its sales in, Mobinil wouldn’t target the same region, but try to focus on another one. As it would require much more effort to reach our goal in the presence of the competitor and it would be more expensive due to the advertising campaigns. As for destroying competitors, that’s not really our aim since each company has its own market share, we just compete on gaining the remaining percentage of the market.

Q5: Do you sometimes form alliances with your competitors in order to reach a common goal? A5: Yes, there are a lot of deals we do with Vodafone in certain situations but not much are done with Etisalat. One of the very recent alliances Mobinil formed was during the 25th of January Revolution, when the government forced all mobile service companies to cut off their service. The people were planning to boycott network companies for a couple of days so Mobinil, Vodafone and Etisalat joined forces and created offers to compensate people for their inconvenience and try to win back the people’s appreciation.

Q6: What are your future plans for growth and development? A6: Due to the incompetence in managerial and communication skills I mentioned in your second question, no long term plans, for example five year plans, are set ahead of time. So the employees don’t really know the general purpose of the company. However, short term goals are set at the beginning of each year so that employees know what they are doing for a certain period of time.

Q7: According to what are these short term goals set each year? A7: There are a lot of factors on which we base our goals. It’s usually according to the competitors’ previous actions and the ones anticipated for the future. For example when Vodafone’s advertising campaign expressed their aim of increasing their market share, Mobinil set a target to improve the quality of its product and increase its customers’ loyalty to it.

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Q8: How do you anticipate your competitors’ future moves? A8: When a company’s been in business for at least ten years, it gains enough experience to help predict its competitors’ moves. Besides, when companies have been operating in the same market for a long of time, they kind of understand each other’s strategies and can easily guess each other’s routines. For example, we know that one of Vodafone’s marketing strategies is creating new advertisement campaigns at the start Ramadan so Mobinil is usually ready with its own strategy. However, sometimes companies have new ideas, that haven’t been done before so we usually have our ways of finding out about them.

Q9: What do you do with the information you gather? A9: The company has a “Quick Team” which specializes in coming up with ideas that are suitable for a certain event in a very short period of time. For example if we discover that Vodafone is releasing new offers or features, the quick team responds with an idea in return so we are always one step ahead of them.

Q10: What were the company strategies before Etisalat entered the market? A10: Before Etisalat entered the market, the company strategies revolved more around the products price. Any increase or decrease in price didn’t significantly affect our profitability due to the large number of customers. And we didn’t really focus on the development of technology because people were price sensitive and didn’t have high technological perception. So we usually adopted pricing strategies when issuing new offers. Q11: How where your strategies affected after Etisalat’s appearance? A11: When Etisalat first entered the market, its strategy was Market Penetration, where they set very low prices in order to attract customers. But this wasn’t very effective because Mobinil’s quality customers where already loyal to it. They didn’t care about the low prices but more about the quality and brand name of Mobinil. However, Etisalat did succeed in taking a small portion of Mobinil’s market share. As a result, our strategies couldn’t revolve around the price anymore, since any decrease in price would affect the profits greatly and Etisalat already had a lower price. Then when Etisalat introduced the advanced technology to the market, for example the 3G feature, Mobinil tried to develop its products technologically and offer more advanced features. 12

So the company’s strategies shifted from pricing strategies to adding value and differentiation strategies.

Q12: How do you differentiate your products? A12: We have a team called the “Innovation Team”. Its main function is designing creative ideas, whether technological features, price offers or even product names. Its mission is to make our product unique from any other in the market. We also try to provide our clients with good customer service in case they needed any help with our products. This is usually achieved by hiring employees with good social skills and training them on how to deal with clients and maintain their satisfaction. Q13: How do your managers encourage the creativity of your “Innovation Team”? A13: This team has just been developed recently so its members haven’t really had the opportunity to spread their wings yet. This is because the company wasn’t qualified enough to execute their plans and weren’t really familiar with their work yet. But the company is on its way to get more acquainted with the new system. Managers try to give them recognition for their work and support their ideas but they don’t get any special treatment, they’re just like any other employee.

Q14: How do you satisfy different segments of the market? A14: We’ve recently created a team responsible for making offers suiting the youth segment. And as a Geographical Marketing Specialist, my team and I try to tailor offers that are appropriate for each region, but sometimes people are not very accepting of different facilities offered to others. Business men are also provided with special features due to their different work requirements. So we usually just consider the different activities of each segment, and then try to design offers suitable for each.

Q15: How do you manage costs if needed? A15: Due to the strong competition, we try to keep our prices reasonable within the market, so sometimes we have to reduce our costs. We do this by moderating advertisement expenses, either

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by not hiring any celebrities to star in our ads or hiring ones that aren’t as famous as others so they don’t take much money.

Q16: How do you spread awareness of Mobinil other than TV advertising? A16: The company’s “Public Relations Team” is responsible for sponsoring sports matches, financing restaurants or hosting charity events that improve the image of Mobinil and make it more favorable amongst the people. They are also responsible for giving out free promotional items and encouraging the “word of mouth” concept, where people recommend dealing with Mobinil to their friends and acquaintance and so they have more trust in Mobinil’s credibility.

Q17: Throughout this entire interview you mostly mention competition examples between Mobinil and Vodafone. Isn’t competition as strong between Mobinil and Etisalat? A17: No, it’s not really as strong as competition between Vodafone because it has been our competitor for much longer than Etisalat has and it’s more established in the market. Moreover, Etisalat follows strategies completely different from Mobinil’s, due to its new entrance in the market and it’s relatively small market share. So when Vodafone releases a new offer, we have to come up with a matching offer to face the challenge immediately but when Etisalat releases a challenging offer we don’t respond as strongly as we do with Vodafone, we take our time in designing what we want.

Q18: Finally, what do you think makes Mobinil different from any other telecom company in Egypt? A18: Mobinil was the first company to introduce the mobile service in Egypt, and we tailor our strategies and offers according to the Egyptian culture. Moreover, our chairman Mr. Naguib Sawiris is a well known Egyptian business man who has an active role in the community, socially and politically, so the people feel connected to the top management of the company.

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5. Analysis As we mentioned in the literature review, every company has its purpose. From an interview conducted with a Mobinil employee, we learned that Mobinil’s main aim is becoming the market leader and being on top of its competitors. One of Mobinil’s main strengths is its local image. People believe that they are an important part of the company and so are encouraged to deal through it. However, as the interviewee mentioned, the issue of the conflict of opinion that happens between the two main shareholders should be resolved; as it could lead to prolonging the decision making process, demotivating the employees and making them lose focus. A company with Mobinil’s size and experience should not face such managerial in-competencies. A company should be aware of what is happening in the market and should put its competitors’ positions into consideration. Mobinil sets its goals each year according to its competitors’ pervious and anticipated decisions. There are ethical and unethical ways in learning the competitors’ future moves. Since Mobinil has been operating in the same market with its competitors -especially Vodafone- for a long time, their routine became predictable and easy to guess, this is an ethical way of gathering information. However, when we asked the interviewee about what happens when the competitor creates new ideas, he just said that Mobinil has its ways of finding out. Are these unethical methods? For example, planting spies to their competitors or tricking their employees into giving away confidential information? As Porter said, suppliers and customers are a very important force of competition. Suppliers and customers have a high bargaining power when they are the only ones in the market and there isn’t a sizeable number of each. However, this is not the case with Mobinil. Due to its status, it has a lot of suppliers and customers, but they should not be taken for granted. Mobinil should maintain a good relationship with its suppliers and try to satisfy its customers so that it doesn’t lose them to its competitors. Porter also said that, in competition, companies try to take offensive or defensive action towards their competitors. However, Mobinil doesn’t take such action; they don’t attack other companies but try to beat them in another territory. To them this is a way of reducing costs 15

because they don’t have to spend as much on advertising campaigns and promotional offers. But to consumers, this might not be a very good move because then there is only one dominant company in a certain region and not as much alternatives from other companies. They also reduce costs by not hiring celebrities to star in their ads. This is a smart decision because a good ad doesn’t necessarily need a celebrity, but it should have a creative idea. As stated in the literature review, a company follows either Overall Cost Leadership or Differentiation strategies. But when the interview was conducted, we realized that before Etisalat, Mobinil didn’t follow either of these strategies since they had a lot of customers and there weren’t many alternatives in the market. They gave some attention to pricing strategies – because Vodafone was a strong competitor– but they didn’t believe that price reductions were really necessary. That’s because the reductions wouldn’t have significantly affected their profitability due to the large number of customers. They also believed that, since there weren’t many competitors, differentiating the products wasn’t important. People didn’t have high technological perception back then and Mobinil didn’t feel inclined to upgrade its technological aspects. When Etisalat entered the market with its high technology (3.5G) and very low prices in comparison to the market price, Mobinil was forced to implement these strategies quickly so that it wouldn’t lose a large number of its customers. It started reducing costs by applying the cost reduction methods mentioned above and gave more attention to the quality and sophistication of its products. For example, it developed a 3.75G technology in order to outperform Etisalat. It differentiated its products by offering good customer services and exceptional offers to its clients. It also formed an “Innovation Team” within the company so that it could provide creative products and unique ideas. To us, the fact that they deliberately set high prices because they were the only ones in the market is somewhat unethical. They still could’ve made high profits without exploiting consumers. Moreover, Mobinil shouldn’t have needed to feel threatened in order to work harder on improving its products.

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Even though the “Innovation Team” has been formed recently, Mobinil should be conscious of its importance. This team’s efforts could be their chance to get a competitive advantage in the market. They should create a system to encourage the members of this team that isn’t discriminative towards other employees; for example, giving them recognition and awards for their high achievements. Other than the Innovation team, the interviewee talked about many other teams. The “Quick Team” whose job is to take quick action in a short period of time. The “Public Relations Team” which is responsible for improving Mobinil’s image and spreading awareness of it through sponsoring sports matches, financing restaurants or hosting charity events. And many other different teams created to meet different requirements. For example, a team for the youth segment that specializes in designing offers that are affordable and suitable to the young generation. A team for the business segment that provides offers suiting businessmen’s special working conditions and a team for different regions that tries to tailor offers that are appropriate for each and every region according to its needs. All these teams signify that Mobinil has a good teamwork competency within the company which is one of the factors that help it in becoming successful in its field. Mobinil’s managers should provide a good working environment for these teams so that they could all work in harmony together. Also Mobinil’s efforts to produce goods that satisfy different segments of the market could help in expanding its market share since, as stated in the literature review, firms try to produce what consumers ask for so that they are always interested in dealing with them. Finally, we don’t really agree with what the interviewee said about Mobinil not taking Etisalat’s actions very seriously. We believe that Mobinil should be more aware of its competitors –especially Etisalat– and should not underestimate them any longer because sooner or later, Etisalat will establish its position in the market and will be a strong threat to Mobinil. They should also shift the general attitude of the company towards accomplishing their targeted goals rather than just boasting their achieved ones so that they’re not taken by surprise when their competitors are close to outperforming them or if a new company enters the market.

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6. Conclusion To sum up, we will go quickly through a brief reminder of the processes and steps we went through throughout these papers. We have started with the Literature Review where all the theoretical rules, views and expectations or calculations were illustrated and stated by highly respected authors. The references to the used articles were stated as well for future checks. This has been almost the hardest part of our project since it needed great efforts in reading many articles and reviews, rejecting the useless information and gathering the significant ones from many resources that included books, articles and internet sites. A great harmony between our team members was a must at this part more than ever. Four main subtitles were treated in the literature review, and these were chosen as the basic foundation for any competition existence. This part was aiming from the very beginning to be compared with one of the real-life businesses to see how far these reviews were applicable in our daily life and to be able to judge any unethical behaviors or wrong decisions taken by our chosen company as well as appraising its behavior whenever found the best to be used or applied as stated by our researches. Secondly, we moved to introducing our chosen company’s profile to clarify up what it is about; its mission, vision, goals and its achievements as well as its leadership. Understanding our company’s field of operating was very important in deciding on the interview questions that linked both the company’s actual specializations, on which our questions were based, and the information gathered from our research. The interview was held with a marketing employee in the company because we believe the marketing department is one of the departments most involved in the market changes and competition. Our guest reflected an overconfident picture of Mobinil’s employed staff that was somehow not very welcomed as we expected more humble answers to our questions. But yet this confidence seemed not to be born from nowhere, our employee showed by that confidence a very high belief in his company and very high trust in all its operations and strategies. We believed that trusting in his company that much was an effective way of always being motivated and willing to try his best efforts for its own good. A simple paraphrasing for his answers were made 18

after recording the whole interview on tape, however full honesty in transmitting all the information we got into words was highly considered. Finally, we reached the analyzing part of the project. It was the most exciting part of the project as it allowed us to express our own opinions and judgments freely after being loaded with the theoretical points illustrated in the books and facing real life applications of these theories. A great use of our actual management syllabus was made concerning critical judgments on the company’s behavior and served as a strong background for all our views. The comments including both appraisals and disagreements were made on the points that were found to be crucial and significant, and yet relative options or views were mentioned as being voted for from our point of view, for a better company image.

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7. References Books - Barrington, k., Stimpson, K. (2006). Business Studies O-level, Cambridge press: Cambridge University. 3rd Edition. - Bowie, N.E., Klien, T.A., Laczniak, G.R., Murphy, L., (2006). Marketing Ethics, Pearson Prentice Hall: New Jersey. 1st Edition. - Farquaharson, A., Stimpson, P. (2010). Business Studies, Cambridge University Press: United Kingdom. 2nd Edition. - Hunger, J., Wheelen, T. (2012). Strategic Management and Business Policy, Pearson Prentice Hall: Boston. 12th Edition. - Mankiw, G. (2006). Principles of Economics, Manso: South Western Ohio. 3rd Edition. - Motta, M. (2004). Competitive Policy, Cambridge University Press: United Kingdom. 1stEdition. - Porter, M. (1998). Competitive Strategy, Free press: New York. 1st Edition. - Stimpson, P. (2002). A.S level and A-level Business Studies, Cambridge University Press: United Kingdom. 1st Edition.

Articles - Eid, E.R., Fleisher, C.S., Wright, S. (2009), Westburn, Competitive Intelligence In Practice: Empirical Evidence from the UK Retail Banking Sector, Vol.32, No9-10, PP.941-964 - Gaffard, J.L., Quéré, M. (2006), Springer-Verlag: What’s the Aim for Competition Policy? Optimizing Market Structure or Encouraging Innovative Behaviors, Vol.16, PP. 175-187 - (2004), Thorogood Publishing: Understanding Your Competitors, Vol.5, No1, PP.57-66 - (2005), Thoroogod Publishing: A to Z Management Concepts and Models, PP.94-96 - http://www.mobinil.com/aboutmobinil.aspx 20

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