Uninor and the ultimate challenge

Abstract

To enter emerging markets depends on many factors. Luck might just be as big as any. For the sake of the field of management and strategy, we try with this paper to show how a Norwegian telecom company ventured into the Indian Telecom market in 2009 and how strategic planning and previous experience made them able to succeed. We wanted to see if there their story fit what theory would predict and if Telenors particular case could highlight important factors which later entrants going into India could learn from. To be able to do this, we did a PESTEL analysis which gives a broad picture of India in terms of risks and opportunities. We also provide a general presentation of Telenor as company and how they prepared themselves before making the investment in India. To present the main challenges, we focus on how strategies changed in the first year of operations and what India as market would bring as challenges. What we found was very consistent with what the PESTEL analysis pictured. The organizational challenges turned out to be much bigger than first anticipated and the complex structure of the Indian legal system caused problems. The corruption in the country did also hit Telenor harder than most, when they were connected to the G2 scam which is one of the biggest corruption scandals in Indian history. They were able to deal with the various problems through a light and flexible structure based on outsourcing which made them able to make fast corrections to their initial strategy and a strong focus on stakeholder management. How this can be generalized to later entrants are at best limited, but the lessons learned from an organizational view and the amount of experience needed to enter such market stands out as important for everyone trying to take on the Indian market.