Managing market entry in Oman: The case of Nawras

Abstract

This article focuses on the challenges faced by the mobile operator Nawras when entering the Omani telecom market in 2005. The source material consists of auto-ethnographic accounts of two European managers who worked at Nawras during the launch period. The result is a rich and highly personal account of market-entry challenges and managerial efforts to overcome such challenges in a newly deregulated Gulf country. The Nawras story suggests that entrants into a Gulf market such as Oman need a great deal of flexibility and improvisation capabilities in order to become successful. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.