Entry Modes and the Impact of Mobile Microfinance at the Base of the Pyramid

The expansion of mobile telecoms in the Egyptian market has contributed to different development paradigms. The entry mode and the way telecoms follow to access the Base of the Pyramid market in Egypt identifies which paradigm will take place in the future. Using the case of “My Village Phone,” the authors develop a scenario analysis to explore the linkages between the entry modes and development paradigms. They find that “Pro-poor,” “Para-poor,” “Per-poor,” “Per-poor exports,” and “Networked” are expected to take place if telecoms followed the Base of the Pyramid entry mode. However, they may fail to achieve one or more of these paradigms if they followed different entry modes such as “Capitalists mode,” “Skimming mode,” “Social responsibility mode,” or “Sustainability mode.” This chapter contributes toward a typology of entry modes and development scenarios for mobile telecoms market in general and for mobile microfinance specifically. At the policy level, the authors provide a testable business model for the candidate mobile telecom that looks for holding the fourth mobile license in Egypt. At the theoretical level, they offer a new conceptual framework, the balance of power (Albin, 1997; Jasperson et al., 2002), that is drawn from three social science domains: systems thinking, systemic foresight, and theories of power.