Staff Reporter
Windhoek-As part of MTC’s existing strategic outline to support both micro and macro entrepreneurship, the country’s premier mobile telecommunications service provider, through its Point of Presence (POP) dealers program, intends to expand its retail presence in underserviced areas through a network of small and medium enterprises entities as part of the program.
Essentially, a POP dealer is a MTC accredited service provider, operating in an area where there are little or no retail outlets providing MTC services. Such a POP can also exist in an underserviced area within an urban setting, such as an informal settlement and proclaimed areas which are situated far from the nearest MTC retail outlet.
Enthused Tim Ekandjo, chief human capital and corporate affairs officer: “We acknowledge SMEs as the next economic growth of the future. Their business designs are digital in nature, blurring the line between the digital and physical worlds. We promise to usher these businesses in an unprecedented convergence of people, business and things that disrupt and challenge the status quo of business models.”
“In order to boost this sustainable growth, through our integrated business development program, we have one mission – to help your business grow through expert guidance and beneficial partnerships.”
Added Ekandjo: “With the country’s current economic challenges, creating opportunities that will encourage self-employment for the people is a consideration which we urge both public and private sector companies to embrace.”
The business trade support, which forms part of a commercial partnership presented to the dealers, will allow them to serve as traders of MTC’s diverse products and services. This strategic business support initiative will inevitably empower and propel many aspiring dealers to grow and operate as fully-fledged operating business men and women.
“We regard our business relationship with the dealership as killing two birds with one stone, as this does not merely extend our distribution network and provision of MTC services and products to areas where we do not have mobile homes, but most importantly, also creates employment for dealers,” enthused Helmut Shipale, MTC’s distribution manager.
“MTC dealers are basically categorised into two. We have Point of Purchase (POP) dealers who are specifically post-paid services carriers, as well as Tango dealers who handle the provision of pre-paid services to consumers,” concluded Shipale.
Currently MTC supports 25 main dealerships with over 550 retail outlets and close to 1,000 small informal retailers across the country, with the intention to support more.