An external industry analysis of the telecommunications market in South Africa.

Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, 2003.This dissertation assesses the external environment of the Telecommunications market in South Africa. It accomplishes this goal by explaining the political economy, market structure, key driving forces and conducting an Industry analysis. The study considers the literature on regulation and liberalisation, convergence and the various techniques of industry and competitive analysis. A case study on the historic and current Telecommunications environment is presented. The analytical framework developed for this study adopted from Naidoo (2002), consists of five components: the external environment, remote environment, industry environment, operating environment, key driving forces and an industry and competitive analysis. It also includes a background overview and recommendations. Data for the study was largely collected using publications and journals, which have been published in electronic format on various Internet hosted databases including: verbatim submissions to the White Paper on telecoms policy (Government Gazette no. 16995 Notice No 291 of 13 March 1996), submissions on the licensing of the Second Network Operator, participant-observation, government documents, statistical databases, published literature and unpublished papers. The perspective of the study is to learn and apply the knowledge elsewhere. The main purpose of this study is to describe the industry for the various Telecommunications operators (fixed, cellular and VANS) in the South African market and to conduct a strategic analysis. Another objective is to provide the researcher with further knowledge of this particular industry and to ascertain from a business environment viewpoint whether to invest in the telecommunication sector in South Africa