The Art of Second Place

Mascom’s slip to second place in Botswana’s telecom market may look like a setback. In reality, it could be the strategic opportunity that forces the brand to abandon the outdated pursuit of market share and focus instead on deeper customer value. But this shift may not signal decline.

It may be the catalyst the company needs to rethink how telecom brands compete in a saturated market. The Pareto Principle suggests that around 80 percent of profit often comes from just 20 percent of customers. When a company aggressively pursues total market share, it often ends up investing heavily in lower value users while neglecting its most profitable segments.

In that environment, scale alone stops being a competitive advantage. The smarter strategy is to treat customers not as a mass audience but as a portfolio.