DREAM DEFFERED:
THE STORY OF A HIGH-TECH ENTREPRENEUR IN A LOW-TECH WORLD

INTERNATIONALIZATION OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES
MIDTERM 2011
PREPARED BY: LAURA PLANTJE

PREPARED FOR: ERNESTO TAPIAS-MOORE
MARCH 9, 2011

INTRO:

Monique Maddy is a Harvard Business School graduate turned visionary entrepreneur who founded Adesemi Communications International. Adesemi was supposed to revolutionize the information technology sector in her home continent of Africa, by enabling thousands of lower and middle-income families access to affordable wireless communications services. Unfortunately for her, and Adesemi, their demise came six years into the venture, when they were forced to liquidate. This paper discusses several crucial
Some of these risks can be alleviated when partnering with a local enterprise that has market information, and connections established. Maddy states, “local alliances will be central to the [foreign company’s] success”. Unfortunately for Adesemi, their first partner went back on their agreement, and initiated business with another company. Furthermore, their second partnership misinformed Maddy about his local connections, and basically offering nothing of use to the partnership. Lastly, their third partnership was formed with a highly respected statesmen from Tanzania. He offered protection from rumours, which was needed after the slandering of Adesemi from their second partnership. Consequently Adesemi was forced to give a small stake of the company to the third partnership.

Even if Maddy made mistakes regarding partnerships, she still believes any new business entering an emerging-market needs local partnerships, and mainly in the beginning of the internationalization process. This is to establish contacts, customers, services, new employees etc. “Relationships can be used in climbing over the country market barriers and entering the country market” (Johansson & Vahlne, 2003). This excerpt can describe Adesemi’s partnerships in that with out the connections in the first two partnerships, they were faced with struggles. Whereas with the third partnership alleviated some of the damage from the second