What’s the right game? Time-to-market vs “coopetition” in the Myanmar mobile market

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate, from a Myanmar mobile operator’s point of view, the trade-off between trying to trying to get to untapped towns and villages faster than competition (“time-to-market” strategy) and cooperating with competition through network sharing to reduce costs (“coopetition” strategy).

Design/methodology/approach

The system dynamics (SD) model shows the business results of a Myanmar mobile operator under two different scenarios, one in which the focus is on time-to-market, and the other in which the focus is on coopetition.

Findings

An operator motivated by time-to-market advantage expects better margins by capturing market share ahead of competition. However, when every operator follows this individual agenda, its time-to-market benefit depends on whether it is actually faster than competition. In contrast, coopetition eliminates costs by design and provides assured margin improvements.

Practical implications

The paper establishes that coopetition has a clear economic rationale. Adopting coopetition improves the business case of the mobile operator and helps it to contribute to the socio-economic development of Myanmar.

Originality/value

The paper applies SD modelling, which is under-represented in marketing, to a study on coopetition in the mobile industry, in the context of Myanmar, a market which is rarely studied in marketing research.

Citation

Kumar, A., Shankar, R. and Momaya, K.S. (2015), "What’s the right game? Time-to-market vs “coopetition” in the Myanmar mobile market", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 349-363. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-11-2014-0169