Nhamo yemumwe hairambirwe sadza is a Shona proverbs that is literally translated, “Another person’s woes are not reason for you to refuse sadza (that’s the staple food around here).” Telecel has just said that to NetOne’s face. They have announced a promotion they are calling bundlemania to promote their WhatsApp, Facebook, Megaboost and WiFi bundles.
So, every time a customer purchases one of those bundles through the Telecel 8480# short code, they earn points for it. They get 1 point for every 50c they spend. The more points you have the higher your chances of winning in a random draw that will be conducted periodically. Prizes include cattle, laptops and cash.
Obert Mandimika, the Telecel Branding and Communications Director says they are doing this to reward their customers who have been buying these bundles so much. I say they are doing it because they see the frustration that OneFusion customers have right now and they are calling all of them to move to the red side of town. Good move.
Mandimika actually says explicitly:
On top of wanting to give current bundle users an opportunity to win some of our many prizes, we are also asking those who have not used our bundles to do so and experience our affordable services while also standing a chance to win
Telecel’s Megaboost bundle is really a direct competitor of the NetOne OneFusion, one of the most popular bundles ever created in Zimbabwe.
OneFusion customers not only have been messed around by the fact that they could not use the bundle the way NetOne promised they would but NetOne has gone on to revise the packages, chopping up the offering. They did this at the wrong time really. POTRAZ of course has ordered them to compensate their complaining custormers
Beware though Telecel
I am very skeptical about promotions as a strategy. Now, with this bundlemania Telecel is going into a double promotion. Megaboost itself is a promotion and one that was not successful when implemented as OneFusion by NetOne. On top of that bundlemania is a promotion for uptake of another promotion.
That can be a costly move. Genius but costly and Telecel have to watch out and not get carried away.
Promotions require the executing business to have a clear exit strategy and a defined exit point in terms of time or mileage reached. the homework becomes how to convert the customers who come to your network for the promotion into brand loyal customers.
This is difficult in a market where Econet has built a moat (an impenetrable body of water around a castle that defends the castle from attack) around itself in the name of Ecocash. This mobile money product makes Econet a ready option at any given point besides the fact that Ecocash itself is a successful product that brings in good profitability as a standalone. Fact of the matter, a good number of NetOne and Telecel subscribers are Econet subscribers as well just because of Ecocash.
This emphasises the point that a strong value proposition is a more sustainable strategy than a promotion that bleeds you revenue. Econet has done well to stay away from the race to the bottom pricing tactics. The new competitive strength in the age of the internet is business models. You need to invest in defining your business model and you have to keep changing it.
However, bundlemania is a very decisive offensive against NetOne. Telecel is therefore picking one fight at a time. I hope they have a strategy to retain the subscribers who will show up then craft a strategy against the blue boys. Interesting times…
22 comments
How is this a direct competition to Onefusion Tinashe Nyahasha? your article fails to explain that. A direct competition would be another package offering the same or better offerings of onefusion this one is just an incentive for new and existing to purchase the already existing bundles nothing has changed there its NOT groundbreaking it doesn’t give you more data than onefusion, you dont get more minutes its not enticing
Megaboost is competition to OneFusion pound for pound. Let me look for an article we announced megaboost. It’s really a red OneFusiin
Sure l can’t see any threat here
Here it is: https://www.techzim.co.zw/2017/03/press-release-telecel-launches-new-voice-data-bundle-megaboost/
You might have been mistaken to think I said bundlemania is the competition to onefusion. No, bundlemania is just to promote the trial and uptake of megaboost
Here’s anotherr one to check out: https://www.techzim.co.zw/2018/02/are-you-considering-leaving-onefusion-here-are-alternatives-from-telecel-and-econet/
Ok i get you its a promotion trying to promote another promotion but still the heading of this article pits bundlemania throught megaboost against Onefusion meaning by all intents and purposes this bundlemania is expected to energise megaboost and ultimately topple down onefusion, i can’t really separate the vision of bundlemania from megaboost -its to topple Onefusion, whatever those board directors or whoever came up with this idea has is only 1 vision -to topple Onefusion, they are waiting and hoping for bundlemania to shake the market and bring the money home taken from onefusion, whatever addons and pimpings done on megaboost wether cosmetic, economical or technical have only 1 vision -to topple Onefusion so we can’t really treat bundlemania like a fragile and innocent baby it has entered the arena now its subject to all scrutinization….Ok my 2 cents and analysis on this: let me put this into perspective, we have Onefusion from Netone VS megaboost from telecel, apparently netone’s onefusion has been taking the market cake from Telecel’s megaboost so Telecel seeks to counter and counquer this and also to take advantage of netone’s current disappearing data woes so telecel introduces a points incentive promotion for purchasing their megaboost in return for what? cattle, laptops and cash
if we want to go with the intention of this promotion, its purpoted to compete with onefusion but if we want to go with the reality of the matter people want to continously communicate, people want more data, people want more minutes and people want 4G not periodic herds of cattle and laptops. The promise for this is not going to transfer herds of people from netone to telecel even over a year. No one is going to purchase a bundle in hopes of winning a cow 3 weeks later or a month later..Thats how Zimbabweans or pretty much anybody in the world expects from a network, People want instant results, instant connection and instant communication
What people need is a package that works as advertised ..The only way to download people from netone’s onefusion is to offer a revamped and enticing megaboost bundle or clearly explain why it is the better bundle right now because if megaboost was super why didn’t the masses fall for it in the first time? what has changed that’s really worth the switchover? cows? I’m speaking as one of the affected Onefusion subscribers and this doesn’t entice me and i believe thousands of other Onefusionists resonate with my sentiments..We will not live the now edited Onefusion for promises of periodic cows, laptops and cash!
Lets agree that this promotion of a promotion is going to increase numbers for megaboost revenue and or numbers but its not going to deliver a blow, win or unsit onefusion with regards to subscriber numbers and revenue not even anywhere near closer..to start it off megaboost doesn’t even have FB or Twitter, Onefusion has gotten worse but its still the better deal out there, it will receive a blowing but expected shock revenue losses this and next month but it will still be up there
Some very good analysis there. My biggest challenge is that OneFusion is being revised because (I assume) Netone is under pressure to be profitable. As we analysed here https://www.techzim.co.zw/2018/01/onefusion-failure-netone/ when you look at the numbers you realsie that Onefusion didn’t bring much change to Netone, it could have been negative actually as it drained their margin without resulting in a significant increase in subscribers compared to Econet whose subscribers at some point were growing faster than Netone,s.
My question becomes, why is Telecel following this play that didn’t work for Netone. Telecel have been down this road before of promotion after promotion only resulting in cut margins whilst they don’t significantly gain market share
At this moment Telecel is what you call the definition of blood sucking leech or the definition of scavenger like those vultures feeding of the meat of leftover carcases. Why do i say so? (1) its because Telecel is not innovating, its not bringing game changer initiatives in to the market. They know this road is not going to be profitable and they must surely have some sense of realism that there is no hope of generating significant revenues from capturing disgruntled Onefusion subscribers. They know they are not going to benefit much from it but still they will grab and hold on to every subscriber out there they can get their hands on, it wont hurt them much and it comes at minimal costs. They don’t really lose much in capturing the few. That’s what you call a case when someone is lazy and out of brilliant ideas.
And lastly (2) the recent directive by govt for mobile networks to provide interoperability of the mobile money payments platforms has been welcomed by Telecel as reported in one of your articles and as much as i expected because Telecel stands to benefit here from more transactions by being cushioned from the previous works of the giants..This also goes on to show that Telecel is basking in others glory
Whatever Telecel can do to gain more revenue, subscribers, popularity etc they will do even if it means capitalizing or benefiting from someone whether its a govt directive or case of a competitors woes. They must surely be obsessed with growing subscriber numbers
@1 ZW clearly you are not aware that one fusion was copied from telecel’s MegaChat bundles now know as MegaBoost. The implementing exec for One fusion was a telecel employee who crossed floors and simply rebranded MegaChat bundles
I don’t buy your story but whose idea hasn’t been copied in the telecoms field? ideas get recycled and pimped all the time, i don’t really term this copying, one way or the other we were going to have some forms of unified communication packages across all networks..
This is the typical cry baby mentality and narration that Telecel will sustain and preach whenever its innovative capabilities are questioned..Ok so you got copied of bundles so what what’s next? bundle packages have become so common and rudimentary that they can’t be cause for a case or defense
No one should be crying about stolen bundle ideas in 2018 in this century, if you are crying about stolen bundle ideas you need to get out of business fast and pave way for brilliant minds
i can give you a couple of innovative and usefull ideas from the other networks,
Econet: had Ecocash mastercard, vehicle tracking, a couple of insurance products
Netone: has OneFi, has a debit card,
Across the world: networks are implemting 4G and 5G, simless service switch,
What does Telecel have or what is it implementing? Bundles bundles and bundles and cow promotions
i repeat: if you are crying about stolen bundle ideas you need to get out of business fast and pave way for brilliant minds
The last product i recall from them were night bundles and now they have bundlemania, you see? they keep revolving around bundles and the same products..Bundle mania is not even such a new or innovative idea its just a promotion revolving around an already existing bundle or product, the network is still the same, the data amount is still the same, the ..what is Telecel innovating now?
Econet started with the idea of whatsapp bundles in Zimbabwe but we now have them across all networks..Econet started with the mobile money payment platform Ecocash which is basic across the entire globe and we now have it across all networks in Zimbabwe..These are basic implementations which are not groundbreaking.To say someone crossed floors to another competitor and implemented a similar idea is copying is crazy, what were the reasons for crossing over to another floor? are you going to hold on to your brilliant ideas just because you once worked for a competitor? i think not -you are now an employee wherever you work now and you ought to excel there..If someone really crossed floors and left the previous company in shambles not being able to implement anything new or to rise up clearly shows that company is lacking in strategy and brilliant ideas..You cant sing about a someone who crossed paths to another company, Onefusion was introduced ages and ages ago..Even with Google, Apple and Facebook engineers cross floors all the time, ideas start emerging in the competitor but production has to keep moving…Telecel innovation is grinding to a halt, there hasn’t been any exciting product or idea in a while
Tinashe Nyahasha this promotion has nothing to do with Onefusion, as a telecel subscriber i know 480# has all the telecel bundles from whatsapp, facebook to WiFi and not just megaboost. From my point of view this promo is more of a rewarding for loyalty and stimulating purchase of Telecel data products given we all going towards data. Your mind seems to be fixated by the notion that everything is to compete with onefusion which obviously was a failure in my point of view. One Fusion actually adjusted there product downwards to match mega boost benefits which clearly shows that Telecel got the product costing right in the beginning and Netone realized it later that they were making losses and copied Telecel current structure but i believe they are still losing. And one more thing, it is 480# not “8480#” hahahahaha
Thank you Thando, i believe these techzim guys are paid to write their articles in a certain manner, they all know that Mega boost ddnt change its package but netone instead to match Mega boost and their articles goes on to diss telecel
Ziga to suggest that we are paid to have an opinion is not fair. When something is sponsored we clearly labelled.
This has also called me to respond because your comment is coming from the same IP as Kb, Thando, Liz, Rati, John and Brenda. This happens often but I have to call it now because we do not take lightly accusations on our integrity.
Products have to be analysed because they are products and it’s nothing personal. If we have to say what brands like then we cease to be Techzim and that will be the end of us and even you yourselves will stop respecting us. Allow us to do our job please
mmm allow criticism to land in your office too, you might say we don’t get paid to write certain articles unless explicitly stated but that’s just one end of the stick which is not verified. You are doing your job because of us. In case you haven’t noticed we really don’t care whether you are getting paid or not to write an article but we care about balanced, sincere and quality articles.
When readers start throwing such accusations it must clearly indicate to you that something has gone wrong with the way you write articles hence the accusations you have been paid to favorably write, puppet writer etc
This was one poorly staged piece
Techzim does take criticism and I also do so as well. When one reader posts different comments under different names then it ceases to be sincere and I objected to that.
I am sorry you feel that this is a low quality article. I will improve, Techzim will improve
Thank you
but just so you know 1000 different people can all comment from the same IP
Yes I know. I should thank you actually
Sorry for the typo on short code. Correcting it…
Good point about Onefusion adjusting to the level of megaboost
I have all three lines and recenly stated using Telecel after netone data kept disappearing and the recent change in whatsapp and data benefits. i use data more and used to purchase the $10 one fusion but they reduced the data to 700mb and 400mb and still does not work or just disappears. Well the megaboost gives me 1gig of data and 500mb on the same 10 bucks and it works well but there is only one issue they do not have LTE so speeds are limited and coverage sometime out of harare ma1. but eitherway this Promotion is just rewarding for purchase of anything on the 480 and not only on mega boost.
Techzim style, running into conclusion, tsvee kungotiudza nezvepromotion yauya zvakanaka wakungowawata nezveonefusion ndokwaunosenza here “apa hauna cash”. bwahahahaha
Tinashe can you please elaborate more on the promotion i got lost in your #oneconfusion story, what are the prizes and is it available on postpaid as well and how long is it running for. Is it 8480 or 480#
I believe promotions are not just pulled out of a hat and there’s some considerable time that was put in developing the bundlemania promotion. I think it’s just a coincidence that it’s been released at a time OneFusion is having it’s issues.
Thank you Rati, dd they even consider the time taken to develop such a promotion and when the Netone issues started? these Techzim guys are just something else