History
Lets analyse the mobile phone history to highlight three very distinctive market entry strategies. Citycell not very far back dominated as a pioneer with a premium positioning in the market. The product was positioned for the elites to be used as a privilege. Now the brand holds the third position in the market. Grameen Phone entered the market in 1997 with clear strategy of bringing the phone to masses. Currently, it has the biggest customer base and the most extensive network. Aktel was the third entrant placed between Grameen Phone and Citycell. The brand appealed to the young professionals. During its brand launch, Grameen phone was experiencing network congestion with over capacity. Aktel moved in with the positioning of offering stable network and access to uninterrupted service. AKTEL took the second position in the market. Lastly Sheba came with nothing unique to offer until the brand transformed into Bangla Link.

Competition
At this point of competition, mobile phone usage is pervasive. Sometime in future the market will hit the plateau for new users. The competition will then look inwards to get market share and classic marketing phenomenon will initiate, PRICE WAR. With any technology driven market, the product differentiation is minimal with continuous pressure of being commoditise. The only way to avoid price war is to continually offer value to consumers, thus giving them a reason to buy. Right now the mobile phone users see very little product differentiation in terms of real value. So the companies are using promotions to push the sales figure. Promotion is never a growth strategy but a temporary tactic for spiking quarter sales. Let's take a quick look at Bangla Link's market entry strategy.

Earlier, the Sim Card was one of the main switching costs for the mobile phone users. Bangla Link removed it by subsidising handsets with low sim card price. They had to penetrate the market with aggressive marketing strategy to spare no reaction time for the industry. Some people may paint it as suicide but Bangla Link saw this as an investment. It is about competing for the future.

Secondly, it is quickly extending its network facility within the country. Bangla Link understands that to make a permanent dent in the market, it must challenge the present market leader. Grameen Phone's main competitive advantage is its extensive network,

Thirdly, it focused on SMS by pushing 1000 free sms through its package offers. At the same time it extended the validity of pre-paid cards to six months and one year. Most of the prepaid cardholders are value-oriented users, with growing portion being young users

The young are defined as innovator in marketing terms. They are the first people to adopt new technology and use it as a life style product. Any company that wants to hold the key to future market share must tap into the younger user base for product adoption. This group talks less and type more, a habit they adopted from using the Internet. Bangla Link is trying to ensure that young users associate with the brand as saviour, someone who helped them in their tough times. When this young group joins the work force, Bangla Link will be able to command loyalty and help its bottom line.

So far its marketing strategy is sound but it will be interesting to see how it competes in future. Currently all the players are quietly building their network capabilities. Once the extensive network coverage is in place, the market can expect the next wave of innovative service offerings with competition intensifying even more.

Future
The current mobile market is divided in two groups: prepaid and postpaid. Prepaid has become the main service adoption for large segment of value seeking customers. At the end of the day, Bangladesh is an emerging economy where staying connected is the only real reason for many users. So to prosper here, business should adopt economies of scale that means extending network facility to broaden the market. It also means companies should concentrate less on variety and more on fulfilling customer's basic need. Especially in present context as the threat of substitute is all too evident.

For growth strategy a business needs to imagine new user base. So it matters how broadly a company approaches a market. If the product has to be redefined for the market, the business must do it. But while developing the distinct value for each target group, the carriers must develop insight into group's unique needs. In that respect the carriers have to think really hard before taking the present packages to villages for significant product adoption. One may argue that Grameen Phone is already targeting this group, but the question is how unique is their product offering.

In recent product launch DJUICE with remarkable success positioned itself with its target market. Yet the young urban users did not have exclusive right to the package offer. In Singapore, Singtel provides special package just for students subject to verification. If the package is available to everyone, then the brand gets diluted. The value gets lost, as the target group does not feel special. All the players really need to customise their promotion, from mass marketing to mass customisation. And make sure that the brand or the product is distinct in each target market.

In anticipation of the eminent fight for market share, all the players forgot its initial core and loyal customer segment, the post paid users. This segment is loyal yet do not see any reward for their blind following. All the present marketing efforts are geared towards increasing the prepaid user base. Prepaid is important growth strategy but not at the expense of postpaid users. Here is a scenario: all the prepaid card users will use multiple phones with different sim cards. Customers will use the sim that provides the best offer in the market and switch from one offer to another. That means no firm in the market will have any bargaining power which does little to help its bottom line.

Some time in future, the business focus will move away from customer acquisition to customer retention. The struggle will be more about preserving the existing market share. Being able to cater to existing customer base will lead to strong competitive advantage and create brand loyalty. The new focus will be to maximise its new and existing customers' lifetime value. The value of this approach is known as customer lifetime management (CLM). CLM involves capturing and analysing data about customers for the purpose of marketing to and serving them on the basis of the value they are expected to create during their "lifetime" with the company. Building CLM capabilities will also allow a carrier to examine the usage, characteristics, and behaviour patterns of its subscriber base systematically and to identify ways of boosting the value of particular segments. By capturing the inbound and outbound calling profile of each customer, for instance, the carrier can identify how and when he or she uses the phone and can then tailor offers to stimulate new usage patterns and to boost retention. If a customer, say, never calls between the hours of 10 AM and 11 AM, offers providing free on-network calls during this period has been shown to stimulate additional usage not only for that hour but also throughout the day. Further, these customers' perception that they are receiving increased value reduces their chances of churning, and the shift in network usage away from the peak-usage hours helps limit capital expenditures.

So the phone companies should take a fresh look at customer loyalty and create value on reward basis. The clients can pick up points for talk time, a viable method for building loyalty, similar to airlines mileage programme. At least it will help to reduce the customer defection rate and establish a switching cost for the user.

As of now the competition has very little to show for, most of the offering is smoke screen. In terms of real value, the customers have yet too see anything. Currently users can download ring tones, send customised greetings and adopt various phone packages. But none of these will lead to continuous consumption pattern, like talking. Nobody will send continuous greeting, or download ring tones every day. The current market trend is about product proliferation that is further confusing the clients. What is the real value? Extending validity for prepaid card is real value, not how much you can charge in the card. The phone companies are perhaps moving in the wrong direction to establish product differentiation. Time has come to develop real value with mass customisation and rethinking of established marketing strategies.

Mustafizur R. Khan is CEO, Brand Ideas Ltd. @gmail.com