Celtel Nigeria: Towards serving the rural poor (B) Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

This two part case study, which deals with an innovative approach to serving Celtel Nigeria's rural poor. The housing contains an overview of the mobile market in Nigeria as of mid-2007, as well as detailed demographic and socio-economic information. At the time of the case, Celtel Nigeria is the second largest mobile phone company in the Nigerian market. The company has experienced significant success in the service of Nigerian cities and large towns, but only recently changed its focus on serving the poor consumers in rural areas - a massive, but still under tapped market. But this shift from urban to rural was not easy, and while about 50% of the Nigerian population in the rural areas the problem of achieving them sometimes seem overwhelming. The lack of reliable national power grid means that the rural telecom tower company have to work on diesel generators, resulting in high maintenance costs of diesel fuel. Theft and vandalism of expensive communications equipment and generators has become one of the main problems, which leads to the need to use a full-time security guards at almost every site base stations outside the urban areas. At the end of the case, Celtel Nigeria COO Lars Stork bites on issues involving benefits of mobile communications in Nigeria's rural poor, setting the stage for the analysis of potential students in the sentence-to-market approach for the company. Case B shows how Celtel managed to implement innovative marketing strategies to serve low-income rural consumers. At the heart of this marketing approach is what is called the Rural Initiative Acquisition (RAI), a micro-franchising model involving partnerships with local businesses. "Hide
by Jamie Anderson, Martin Kupp Source: ESMT - European School of Management and Technology 12 pages. Publication Date: March 27, 2009. Prod. #: ES0971-PDF-ENG