The strategy that was used by MTN Group to expand to different parts Essay

The strategy that was used by MTN Group to expand to different parts of the African and Middle Eastern markets - Essay Example In 1994, the government authority granted a license to Vodacom and Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN) to operate mobile phone networks in South Africa (Oxford Business Group, 2008). The MTN Group had the vision â€Å"to be the leading provider of telecommunications in emerging markets† (Erasmus and Shenk, 2008 p61). This has been the watchword of MTN and the group is now operational in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East (Banhegyi, 2007). In all these countries, MTN has access to over 488 million people and has over 28 million subscribers (Banhegyi, 2007). It is now listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. In Africa, MTN has operations in Botswana, Cameroon, Cote D'Ivoire, Nigeria, Congo, Rwanda, Swaziland, Uganda and Zambia amongst other nations. MTN Group has its headquarters in South Africa where it all started. This paper examines the strategy that was used by MTN Group to expand to different parts of the African and Middle Eastern markets. It will examine the strategies from the context of dominant theories and ideas relating to international business. The second part of the research will examine the strategies for further expansion of MTN into other markets around the world. MTN Group Expansion Strategy In order to examine the expansion of MTN to different countries around the world, important elements and aspects of International Business will be examined. This include: Entry Mode Entry Timing Firm Size Institutional Matters Entry Mode Entry mode describes the methods and systems used by a business to expand into a foreign country (Andexer, 2008). It describes the various approaches that a business uses to create a presence in a foreign land. Popular methods include franchising, licensing and joint ventures (Ireland et al, 2011). According to Singh (2008), MTN expanded to other countries through a mixture of Greenfield Investments and Mergers/Acquisition. A Greenfield Investment is the â€Å"establishment of completely new operations in a foreign land† (Paul, 2009 p357). In some countries, MTN created new telecommunication companies that were meant to provide services. This was particularly popular in smaller and war thorne African countries that had limited infrastructure. This involved investing and creating new infrastructure from the scratch. Through this, MTN exported their resources to these new venues. They applied principles from South Africa and learnt about the local environments. Through this, they built brands and new systems in the foreign nations that they operated within. In other countries, MTN expanded through mergers and acquisitions. Mergers and acquisitions involve forming strong partnerships or acquiring other businesses in order to being operations in a new country (Johnson and Turner, 2009: MacDonald et al, 2011). MTN Group purchased other companies like Areeba and Spacefon technologies in several parts of the continent (Bridge, 2009). These two companies were sprawling brands in th e Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa (Pan, 2011). MTN just purchased these companies and took over their assets and began to operate in their capacity as an independent company in these foreign countries (Venter et al, 2009). Through this mixture of mergers and acquisitions and greenfield investments, MTN was able to set up different operations around the world. The shareholders of the South African company expanded their scope of control and took over these foreign and new markets. The mergers were mainly

Comparison Between The Number of Web Sites of The Gulf Cooperation Research Paper

Comparison Between The Number of Web Sites of The Gulf Cooperation Council and its Services and E-Government Website - Research Paper Example However, in order to distribute information on the internet, an interface is used, which is known as a Web site. A Web site contains a lot of hyperlinks and contents conveying the message of that particular Web site (Norton, 2001; Shelly et al., 2005). For instance, a web site of a university contains information about that university. In the same way, the Hukoomi is a Web Portal, which offers the people access to information regarding the State of Qatar. It links us with government programs, services, initiatives and events (Government of Qatar, 2012). In addition, through cooperation with government organizations and public service suppliers, the Hukoomi has appeared to build online information more readily accessible at our fingertips. Additionally, the online national web portal hosts a number of significant e-services, and government service application, documents, forms and general information (Government of Qatar, 2012). This report presents a detailed comparison between a num ber of Web sites of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and their services and other e-government websites to know the country and the needs of the Country Website development and optimization and preference. This report will present a detailed analysis of a wide variety of aspects of the Hukoomi in comparison with rest of the Gulf States in terms of electronic services and e-government support. The basic purpose of this comparison is to determine the needs and requirements that are necessary to know for building an effective and informative web site. This analysis will determine what should be included in the web site to make it perfect, with the intention that it could better serve its community. A detailed Comparison This section presents a detailed comparison between different web sites. For this purpose, I have divided this comparison into different parts (depending on the features of a web site). In this scenario, I will compare different features and services which are availab le or should be available at Hukoomi but it is not there and what services are available on other portals. 1- National Overview The first feature or support that we will analyze in this comparison is about presentation of national overview. In this scenario, the Hukoomi offers a good national overview; however, at this web site comprehensive national overview is missing. The national overview of Hukoomi can include information regarding national resources, population, geography and tourism. On the other hand, the Main Page of existing website does not contain such details. As this web site is aimed at presenting a detailed overview of the country so it needs to offer a brief but comprehensive overview of the State of Qatar. In this scenario, we need to add some links in a small portion of the Main Page of the website so that people could know about