MTC Company’s Analysis and Pan-Regional Strategy Essay

Key Strengths and Weaknesses of the Company

The major strengths of MTC are:

• relying on a strong base of investment capital that can ensure growth;
• enjoying several decades of successful experience in the business of cellular technologies;
• occupying the place among the major leaders in the Sub-Saharan market;
• having subsidiaries in a number of developing states;
• being the first mobile telecommunication company that appeared in the Middle East;
• having a highly professional team;
• building business on an exceptionally competitive strategy unsurpassed by market rivals;
• being able to stay afloat in the pre-paid market;
• inspiring loyalty in all the subscribers;
• offering borderless networks between the African countries where the population can use Celtel.

Weaknesses of MTC:

• being unable to counteract oversaturation of the home market;
• having limited opportunities for further growth in the national mobile sector;
• being forced to face high competitiveness of the industry;
• possessing limited knowledge of the team concerning the African market, its processes, leaders, strategies, and dominant forces;
• having to deal with foreign competition in the African sector;
• being incapable of changing the organizational culture, which is highly unstable across subsidiaries and brings inefficiencies to the company’s operations.

Similarities and Differences

Examining the markets in which the company operates, the following similarities and differences can be singled out:

• While African countries use the Celtel brand (MTC’s subsidiary), Middle East countries use MTC, which makes the position of the company rather similar in the two markets and allows it to implement the same strategies.
• Middle East countries are more difficult to approach since their markets are oversaturated (many other industry leaders have already brought their products to the Middle East, hoping to expand operations). On the contrary, African countries present a great potential for growth.

There are two types of groupings that would make sense for MTC:

• Middle East countries and Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, etc.);
• Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

Such groupings will help the company think of its strategy in the following ways:

• The grouping based on the geographical principle will allow MTC to allocate resources properly, according to the needs of the region.
• If the company wants to expand its operations, it must develop its one-market strategy for all African countries.
• The target needs of the Muslim brotherhood must be taken into consideration in service provision.
• Dividing Muslim and non-Muslim markets will make it easier to adapt corporate cultures to the market requirements.

Specific Ways to Create Value through a Pan-Regional Strategy

The ways to create value using a pan-regional strategy are:

• saving costs on farther-reaching methods of expansion;
• avoiding complications connected with winning new, non-similar markets;
• stressing cultural similarities of different African countries;
• developing a one-market strategy to attract new clients.

These strategic approaches are sustainable and value-creating due to the fact that the region is so poor that other companies do not attempt to invest there, which makes MTC the sole player.

Advice

The specific pieces of advice on Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are:

• For Nigeria: Since it is the most populous country in the region, the company could develop individual service plans for it. Moreover, there is a lot of unemployed youth, whom they could recruit to save on labor.
• For Saudi Arabia: Since the country is developing rapidly, MTC will win potential customers if it manages to leverage the product portfolio, implementing next-generation infrastructure of networks and advanced services.