Business Processes and Strategies for Verizon

Contents

1 Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………………………….2

2 Operations Strategy…………………………………………………………………………………….2

2.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………….2

2.2 Corporate Vision ……………………………………………………………………………………..3

2.3 Global Strategic objectives ……………………………………………………………………….3

2.4 Business generators, Business winners……………………………………………………….4

2.5 The Core Competencies …………………………………………………………………………….4

2.6 The Value Chain ……………………………………………………………………………………..5

2.7 Operations Strategy Implications (Store Level)……………………………………………6

3 Product & Service Design……………………………………………………………………………7

3.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………7

3.2 Product Life Cycle…………………………………………………………………………………….8

3.3 Unsuccessful Product and Product Re-design: ……………………………………………8

3.4 Operations Challenge of the Product/Service Mix……………………………………….9

4 Suggested Areas of Improvement and proposed improvements……………………….9

4.1 Process…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 9

4.2 Store and Production Design…………………………………………………………………….……9

4.3 Wished-for Improvements………………………………………………………………………..9

4.3.1 Process…………………………………………………………………………………………….……………9

4.3.2 Store Resourcing……………………………………………………………………………….………….10

5. Conclusion and Recommendations……………………………………………………………….10

6. References…………………………………………………………………………………………………10

1 Executive Summary

This report has been equipped to evaluate the processes and strategies for Wi-Fi service and production operational capability of Verizon. Theoretical frameworks have been applied to evaluate the company’s operational strategy in terms of it product and service offering. While the report considers Verizon overall strategy, it also focuses on the daily operations of Verizon Business Partners. Particular focus has been placed on the daily operations processes of the Verizon Wi-Fi Stores in US. The study is a outcome of investigation, case study analysis, online available data, interviews, discussions and insights from Verizon existing employees, application of theoretical concepts, models and prior experience. The study evaluates how Verizon has been able to position itself as a leader in its market segment and analyses the strengths and weakness in the company’s existing strategy. Upon dissecting various aspects of the company’s processes at store level, it provides an appreciation of the company’s efforts to endlessly evolve in the changing market conditions by integrating new operational practices and product design and being innovative to stay at par with its rivalry. Finally, upon identifying the areas of improvement in the company’s existing strategy, the report proposes changes and recommendations that can be incorporated in order to further ensure operational efficiency thereby maximizing profits and increasing its value offering.

2 Operations Strategy

2.1 Introduction

Verizon is known around the world as the top producer of wired and wireless communication. Verizon has developed a strong and dominate presence within the market place in their respective market and the reason for this is due to the fact that Verizon is always looking for ways to improve itself and adapt to the changes within the world of technology. The Company has a unique business and operation model in the Wi-Fi industry. Verizon’s operations are in the US and overseas. Verizon US maintains overall control on the sourcing and new contracts.

Verizon

Company Stores

Sub Stores / Franchise

Sub Stores / Franchise

Sub Stores / Franchise

                                     Figure 1: Structure of the Verizon partner model

2.2 Business Vision

When we take a look at Verizon’s mission statement, Verizon has a ultimate set of principles that drive their business and lasts to make them leader.  Their mission statement reads, “As a leader in communications, Verizon’s mission is to enable people and businesses to communicate with each other. We are also committed to providing full and open communication with our customers, employees and investors.”  According to the video on their main website in regards to “Who they are”, Verizon states that “…we believe in technology, to open new worlds, to solve complex equations, to take you to new places, or to just make life just a little bit better.” This corporate mission pertains to what is known as the “Verizon Promise,” which has progressed through the years. Such evolution is a sign of the company’s continuous development and version to account for new technologies and needs in the market. For example, Verizon Wireless was established in 2000 to address new and emerging wireless telecommunications technologies and equivalent demand in the market. The following are the components of Verizon Communications, Inc.’s mission statement:

• We deliver the commitments of the digital world to our customers.
• We make their innovative lifestyles probable.
• We do it all through the most consistent network and the cutting-edge technology.

The Verizon Corporate Vision statement also focuses on the following key areas:

• Being better than the rivalry
• Guaranteeing a value product
• Providing exceptional service
• Building long-lasting relationships with its employees and the communities within which it operates.

Obsessive for

Quality

Obsessive for

Winning

Obsessive for

Service

Obsessive for

Relationship

                           Figure 2: Corporate Vision

A clear corporate vision guarantees that the company and its partners can work towards meeting mutual goals thereby increasing its business in a potentially worthy cycle. Figure 2 shows the graphical representation of the Verizon Vision. The overall global vision decodes into specifics at a country level in a unified manner so that the overall strategic vision is kept in mind at all times.

2.3 Global Strategic objectives

Strategic objectives follow to the company’s vision statement, Verizon’s key strategic objectives are:

• Targeted global growth – competitors.
• Service Offerings expansion – competitors.
• Use Company owned stores in the US as a test bed for new innovations – IT Strategy.
• Rise investment in training to provide a consistent service and decent quality of products – Human Resource Strategy.
• Allow master partners to apply their data and experience of the local market – Knowledge Management Strategy.

2.4 Business generators, Business winners

Business generators are the elementary standards the product meets to quality for selling. Business winners are the measures that win the customers when it comes to buying. Figure 3 shows the business generators and business winners for Verizon.

Order Winners: Satisfactory answers to customer queries and related service package Service offerings related to customer requirements.

Potential Order Loser: No related service package available. No confirm statement to queries.

Order Qualifier for a customer ordering on store service package

Ease: Live interaction about service offerings, on spot order completion

                                 Figure 3 Business generators, Business winners

2.5 The Core Competencies of Verizon have evolved over time. Their unique sets of strengths have helped the Company dominate the Wi-Fi service industry.

Superior Quality and Consistency 

Verizon Competitive advantage – Global Leader in Wi-Fi Service Industry

Unique Global Model: Permits flexibility at regional Level.

Rigorous on core competency of delivery

Leaner store: Enhanced Operating Margins

                                                             Figure 4 Core Competencies: Verizon

2.6 The Value Chain

It is vital to ponder how a customer necessity drives Verizon to generate the service. The customer need that drives the complete value chain is the need for a trustworthy, scalable and reliable solution, reasonably priced that ties the customer needs. Verizon has absorbed on these key customer needs throughout the value chain, and has not permitted any deviances in this area. This has strenuous their strengths in the segment Verizon focuses on – Wi-Fi service industry. Its worldwide operational model permits for well-trained staff and flexibility at a country level to tailor service offerings to suit customer needs. Operational requirements have provoked the use of technology to make the customer experience more elevating, they were the first to launch 5G in US that allows customers to access internet at much higher speed. A grouping of the Company level strategy and the Operational Strategy has resulted in Verizon having a reputation for reliability and consistent – these strategies have ensured that Verizon stays to meet its customer needs.

Course Flow & Infrastructure: Unified from the customer point of view.

Customer Need: Reliable service provider. Trustworthy service offerings

Operational Strategy: Experiment with the use of technology to ease the transaction

Global strategy: Franchise Model, Investment in staff, Robust Quality Control.

                                                                  Figure 5: Customer Value Chain

2.7 Operations Strategy Suggestions (Store Level) Verizon operations strategy largely focuses on the providing high service value to the customer:

1. Minimize operations cost: To minimize the operating cost by refining the competences and process at the stores.
2. Strategic store locations to ease the customer service: To leverage the tactical location of the store in order to ease quick service to the customer and maximize the income.
3. Manufacture oriented store designs: To utilize the manufacture oriented store design in order to ease efficient production and quick service to the customer.
4. Use of Verizon PULSE sale system: Use of Verizon PULSE system to better operating efficiencies, provide corporate management with relaxed access to financial and marketing data and reduce time consumption and expenses.
5. Product and process innovations: To encourage an innovative culture that upsurges both quality and efficiency.
6. A focused service offering catalogue: To maintain a focused service offering catalogue that is designed to present an attractive quality offering to customers, while minimizing order errors.
7. A complete store operations evaluation program: To utilize a complete store audit program to ensure that stores are meeting both as the prospects of the customers.

The Secure Model of Performance Prioritizing would help Verizon in prioritizing its operational strategies based on the order-winning standards and the current matters it faces in relation to the competition.

A. Surplus zone – Verizon invests in promotional strategy to a larger extent. It offers many discount plans to appeal customers.

B. Appropriate zone – Verizon has got an excellent delivery service through which it stays ahead of its rivals. The ‟1 hour activation luxury” of Verizon has given the brand a strong image among the customers. This gives Verizon a clear stability between its competitors and customers.

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C. Improve zone – Verizon need to keep evolving its product quality in order to maintain reputed. It needs to innovate on the WI-FI services and prioritizing all features that relate to the customer. For example, WI-FI packages based on different needs of data consumption. The fastest mobile networks overall scores reflect the Verizon brand for the customer in figure 10.

                                             Figure 6: Comparison to competition

D. Vital action zone – In order to increase the service to customers, Verizon should ensure speedy delivery of Wi-Fi Routers to customers. For this, Verizon need to work on its current process design. There should be enough space and staff for service and extra field technicians to handle any failures during peak periods or any period during the year.

3 Product & Service Design

3.1 Introduction

Verizon has positioned and established itself as the innovator in the 5G WI-FI service delivery. Automatic cars, intelligent communities, industrial IoT, immersive education—they will all rely on 5G Wi-Fi Solution. A reasonable degree of flexibility is available where clients can tailor their WI-FI package and can choose to purchase “combo solution” thereby providing healthier value for money. Verizon has successfully executed this concept of mass customization by supplying to customer’s individual needs through unique combinations of sectional components. Verizon standard product and services offering is universal across the world – quality WI-FI delivery in approximately 1 hour. The target segment is a cost aware consumer whose prime concern is ease. It is useful to study the company’s product performance and use it to assess how successful the product has been, this sets the stage for Verizon product redesign.

3.2 Product Life Cycle

• Brainstorming phase – The notion of WI-FI had been around for a while and was adopted by Verizon in the 2000. It started from USA and then established its stores in Europe and other parts of the world, which were controlled by the USA headquarters.
• Concept Expansion phase – The concept of WI-FI took a concrete hold in the market. Local partners took over the standing stores in Europe. There was a pattern shift as the online ordering and interactive TV ordering replaced the old methods. This period witnesses a significant rise in sales.
• Service -There was nearly 80% change in service offering catalogue.  New service from 1G to 5G was introduced to the stores. The ‟1 hour activation” program was highly stressed upon. Also, Verizon launched new iPhone apps and the WI-FI-tracker to maximize its services.

3.3 Unsuccessful ideas and Product Re-design: A good example of how Verizon handles its failed product is to look at a how the business dealt with its product failing in the past. It was a bold move for the company to acknowledge that their Go90 failed to deliver. Additionally it is stimulating to see a corporation openly admit shortcomings and use customer feedback constructively to revise their strategy and approach. In an effort to project their core competency, the company reorganized its offerings. They tested several combinations of Data, Voice and video to finally arrive at an offering that was welcomed by the public. It is useful to note that the end customer was deeply involved in the procedure of the product being re-designed and influenced the outcome largely. This method of using customer feedback can be credited to the company observing an increase in sales following the redesigning of their product policy. Figure 12 and Table 1 iterate this. 

                                       Table1: Full-Service Providers Ranked by Attributes

3.4 Operations Challenge for the Product/Service Blend. Better hiring practices and imposing a stringent code of ethics will help the business to follow the credo. Additionally the 1 hour activation guarantee that was initially introduced but later cancelled at certain period of the year due to weather conditions to prevent accidents. This is one of the examples of a service delivery challenge the company faced. Recognizing that the 1 hour activation was an attractive option for the customer, Verizon reintroduced the concept, however allowing itself some leeway and positioning it as a “gift” to the client.

4 Recommended Areas of Enhancement and Wished-for improvements

4.1 Process: One of the common problems faced at the Verizon Roll Call is that by its nature, the roll call is not balanced, and this is because of two factors: (1) Time consumed for each activity is not the same. (2) Since the course of action is not automated, individual competences of team members results in an uneven flow of work. The above two reasons tend to source inefficiencies in the roll call and results in bottlenecks, especially during peak hours in the evenings or on holidays. Another major concern facing the local partners is that the drivers are not furnished with a GPS based navigation system, efficient on-time deliveries are mainly dependent on the topographical knowledge of the individual drivers and once again, it is left to an individual’s competences to ensure on time deliveries, which holds for 70% of the total sales.

4.2 Store and Production Design: While the typical dimensions of the floor enhance efficiency and facilitate optimum usage of floor space, not any serious health and safety hazards exist for team members. The store I studied was one of the busiest Verizon store in Colorado, USA – as it handled sales for Central Colorado (in terms of sales / and number of service activation request processed), so clearly there quite literally is manpower for improvement. Primary investigation suggests that during peak hours the demand is quite higher than the volume of the manpower resulting in severe delay in service times. Additionally, there is no devoted parking for the Field technician driver in the vicinity of the store. This sometimes under pressure does illegal parking in the loading areas in front of the store and the Co-op Parking. This creates blocking conditions for the customers and other road users in the proximity for the store with legal implications.

4.3 Wished-for Improvements

4.3.1 Process: The roll call needs automation in order to identify consultation, recharge with activation and other time consuming orders. The supply of mobile phone with blue tooth headset and navigation system would enable a reduction in the delivery times, and thus driving up complete efficiencies.

4.3.2 Stores Resourcing: The store needs additional resources to create more ease for managing orders and people particularly during peak hours. Consideration should be given to the idea of breaking the operations of the Verizon store for Central Colorado into a couple of more stores nearby to manage the demand. The parking for the Verizon delivery drivers should be clearly marked. The drivers must be limited from using the loading area to eliminate the congestion conditions. Agreed these changes to the store resourcing, and operational aspects, we believe that the store can create a improved, more efficient atmosphere within the store, and drive up efficiencies across the value chain.

5 Conclusion and Recommendations: Based on our study of Verizon operations, and its global operating model – we summarize that Verizon is currently in a state where they are introducing big changes to the technology and customers.  The telecom industry is undergoing a meaningful evolution. Content, media, and communications are converging like never before, and Verizon is one of many players working to reinforce its position in the market. Verizon appears to remain a reliable income stock, one that seems likely to continue its streak of paying uninterrupted dividends for more than 30 consecutive years. The company’s reputation scale, hard-to-replicate network possessions, mission-critical services, brand credit, and massive subscriber base remain important competitive edge.
 As organization works to cut costs, reduce debt, and continue investing in 5G and new businesses, such as media and advertising, Verizon should become even better positioned to deal with intensified competition in wireless markets. Overall, Verizon seems likely to continue generating predictable results in the years ahead.

We recommended few suggestions on the roll call model and introduction of intelligence in that system to identify type of service request based on urgency, new or current customer etc.

We also suggested having at least one new store of open nearby to share the demand load.

We observed parking issues during our discussions and we also found that dedicated parking should be assigned to prevent any illegal parking in front of the store.

Verizon has been focusing on its service aspect, and in an increasingly customer centric world it is critical that Verizon improves its hiring / training practices and deliver world class customer service along with the best in class product that it currently offers.

6 References

1. https://www.verizon.com/about/our-company/history-and-timeline/2017
2. https://uptakedigital.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001167933-Why-Software-Is-Eating-the-World
3. https://www.verizon.com/about/our-company/5g/what-5g
4. https://uk.pcmag.com/news-analysis/92008/verizon-is-heading-toward-a-gigabit-cdma-free-future
5. https://www.myndnow.com/news/bismarck-news/verizon-wireless-slowly-phases-out-3g-speeds/1321547901
6. https://www.cnet.com/news/verizons-50-5g-home-broadband-service-just-launched/
7. https://www.simplysafedividends.com/intelligent-income/posts/94-verizon-communications-vz
8. https://www.phonearena.com/news/Verizon-AT-T-T-Mobile-Sprint-best-network-speed-tests_id105723
9. https://www.marketforce.com/2017-study-on-americas-favorite-wireless-carriers
10. Ekpe, E. O., Eneh, S. I., & Inyang, B. J. (2015). Leveraging Organizational Performance through Effective Mission Statement. International Business Research, 8(9), 135.
11. Kirkpatrick, S. (2016). Build a Better Vision Statement: Extending Research with Practical Advice. Rowman & Littlefield.
12. Pace, S. (2017). Shaping Corporate Brands: From Product Features to Corporate Mission. International Studies of Management & Organization, 47(2), 197-205.
13. Singal, A. K., & Jain, A. K. (2013). An empirical examination of the influence of corporate vision on internationalization. Strategic Change, 22(5‐6), 243-257.
14. Verizon – Who We Are.
15. Verizon Communications, Inc. – Form 10-K.
16. Verizon Wireless – Official Website.

From this assignment the most important learning was an exposure to Operational strategy and flow of Verizon stores and franchise. I learned how operation needs to be kept on rolling successfully without much impact to customer service. The services can have flaws but they need to be cleaned up as a part of continual improvement process. I would be keen to follow the same observation in different area of my organization; it can be team management, project management, service management, etc.

This assignment also gave me a golden opportunity to interact and understand the mindset, severity and approach in a live environment. I discussed some of the techniques how to handle customer and pressurized situation.

I also had a chance to do weekly webex sessions during my assignment where we had some good discussions and exchanged our thoughts, discussed day to day operations, issues and  exchanged ideas for improvement. For eg: I advised them if they can create some category menu for the enquiry customers and customers with some severity issues on their roll call. They seem to agree with this idea and have documented to be raised in their internal meetings to take it further.

Another suggestion to have dedicated parking and educate drivers to not to get pressurized due to work load or delays which causes them to do illegal parking and rash driving. I also suggested to have training sessions for the same.