A 9 page paper assessing the hypothetical acquisition of Vodafone by Virgin Mobile Telecom, both British companies. Most of the paper is a SWOT analysis of Vodafone, written in full paragraphs without the standard bullet construction. An assessment section contemplates the advantages that Virgin could gain in acquiring Vodafone in this hypothetical acquisition. Includes one chart. Bibliography lists 21 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: CC6_KSmgVirgVod.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
simply Vodafone before acquiring US-based AirTouch in 2000 and now Vodafone Group, is a British public limited company headquartered in Berkshire. It provides a full range of international mobile
telecommunications services, including equipment sales and rental, messaging, third-party charging and now wireless Internet access. Europe is now considered to be the region of most promise for growth in
cellular service and particularly wireless Internet access; Vodafone is particularly favorably poised to hugely benefit from the trend. Vodafone is the only truly global cellular service provider, operating in
many countries and in all of the worlds leading cellular markets. Virgin Mobile Telecom also is a public British company, and one that
has entered the cellular services industry in a manner that none other has perfected. Whereas other cellular services companies build physical network infrastructure, Virgin Mobile Telecom merely purchases rights
of use of others equipment (T-Mobile may sell Virgin stake, 2003). Richard Branson of Virgin Group was able to enter "the cell-phone business without even building one transmission tower.
Branson simply purchased idle cell-phone capacity from a British also-ran and launched his own phone service, Virgin Telecom" (Baker and Capell, 1999; p. 56).
All other facets of operation are similar to other cellular services providers; the primary difference with Virgins approach is that it is able to avoid the high costs of
establishing a network. What this means, of course, is that Virgin is able to charge less for service yet realize higher profit margins than its competitors. SWOT Analysis Strengths
1. Vodafone has been active in Britains cellular telephone market for some time, and gathered 20 million customers with its purchase of AirTouch.