MTN Uganda: Partnerships With Young Entrepreneurs and International Companies

Charles Mbire, Chairman of MTN Uganda, discusses partnerships with young entrepreneurs and reputable international companies.

“As the Chairman of the company, my mandate is to maintain and improve shareholder value. If anyone comes to us with a way to give us value add that will increase value for our shareholders, we are very open to it. We have created APIs for product development where you can come and connect to our system. The same kind of business model which is used by Apple for their products we have now introduced to Uganda. We are encouraging young entrepreneurs and international partners. They can apply to us through the open API where we connect you to our system, you can do a prototype on our system, and then test it. We then discuss revenue share and legalities and then we have a product together for the market. We have a ready market for 12 million customers in Uganda. If it works well in Uganda, we have a ready market for over 200 million customers through the Group. We have quite a few products that have been try tested including mobile games, agricultural products, and foreign remittance products. We have an open policy on that and we empower people”, says Charles Mbire.

“We have to realize that we have limited capacity so you must partner with people who have resources, management skill, and most importantly, continuity beyond yourself. That is what I realized when I interacted with international companies. Also, they bring on skills, international expertise, and give training to manage finances, people, etc. They have experience that we never had. With all my business that I do, I always partner with reputable international companies. Their above-board policy and transparency in recruiting, management, and appraising is something I learned in business school in London. You go away from local patronage and local politics and that gives you an edge. It helps you fight. You lose battles, but you win wars with the attitude that they bring to the table”, he adds.

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