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

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.