Global Human Resource Management at Coca-Cola

Almost every profit making organization seeks to be the number one brand amongst its competitors. For Companies who are leading businesses in their respective competitive industries, they have an utmost priority to defend their brands from competitive attacks. Defense strategies are employed or used mostly by market leaders in an attempt to constantly retain their market share. Defensive strategies are important for the following reason; A new or existing competitor can incredibly damage your business. The more lucrative the industry seems the more likely competitors will attack and try to get a piece of it (which includes your market share) and in extreme cases, totally destroy your company. For this reason, leading companies task their marketing experts and brand managers to develop effective defensive marketing strategies to help them retain their market share whiles recording incremental sales and profit ideally. The six types of defensive strategies in marketing include the – Position, Flank, Preemptive, Counter offensive, Mobile and Contraction defense strategies.

In this study, we will discuss how the six types of defense strategies devised by Kotler is used by the Mobile telecommunications network(MTN), the leading telecommunications company in Ghana to retain its market share over the years. At the end of September 2017, the total subscriptions of mobile data in the country was 22,865821 with a penetration rate of 79.94%. MTN’s data subscription of mobile data in Ghana was 12,925,524 at the end of September 2017. Their market share for the month under review was 56.53%. This is more than half of the entire market. This makes them the leading telecommunications company in Ghana. The total subscription for Vodafone was 3,889,821. This reflected in a market share of 17.01% making them MTNs major competitor in the industry. Airtel, Tigo, Glo and Expresso recorded a market share of 11.89%, 13.25%, 1.28% and 0,04% respectively. (Source; National Communications Authority,2017). 

Position defense strategy is employed by leading companies to strengthen or sustain their current market position. By using this marketing warfare strategy, the defender(leading company) will aim at maintaining its position in the minds of its customers. This is attained through consistently reminding customers about the status of the brand, setting up entry barriers, coming up with exclusive distribution contracts and getting patents. So for instance MTN launched campaigns such as MTN business to tell the story of how MTN seeks to integrate technology to enable businesses grow by sending out a message that, whether you are a startup or a multinational company, the company can help you run smarter, more efficient and more profitable. This helped them position themselves still as a company whose aim is to see businesses grow.

When a leading brand uses the flanking defense, it seeks to retain its market share by diversifying into new markets. The notion behind this strategy is that, when you lose market share in the existing market you can make up for it in these new markets. MTN used this defense strategy when they ventured into providing the much appreciated MTN mobile money service to its clients. From providing data services, MTN moved to developing a platform that will help their clients send money virtually from one mobile phone to another. This service didn’t only help them retain their market share but also win over a piece of its competitor’s market share. They were however, able to associate their brand well with this service before their competitors started with Vodafone cash, airtel money and tigo cash.