STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION PLAN OF EXPANDING IN MIDDLE EAST:

As described above, moving business and expanding operations to new markets requires several
points to be considered, however, upon discovering some of this points in the above part of
formulating a strategy, below is a suggested implementation plan for the expansion strategy in
middle east.
STRUCTURING THE ORGANIZATION:
BlaBlaCar operates in Europe via multiple geographical teams. However, those teams do the
reporting mostly through one chain of communication and reporting which goes upwards to the
person sits on a chair in Paris HQ. Suggestion while moving operations to Middle East, particularly
Dubai Office is to follow the Divisional Structure Organization, which will have a greater customer
focus and the ease to coordinate with the HQ level of communication.
Divisional structure-type will allow BlaBlaCar local MENA team to better understand the local
background and consumer behavior, which mostly related to cultural background and certain
characteristics, needless to say, adjusting and creating some services that is organically suits the
market. Needless to say, creating those services will be an outcome of smooth and quick
coordination with HQ or other reporting office (e.g.: India office). Upon formatting below structure
model, a proper selection of international assignment candidates is required for the set-up process
of the actual company.

LEVERAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Moving forward to a characteristic market requires attention to the culture needed on subculture
level. Middle East is a famous market of its unique culture, however, understanding overall culture
will give us better understanding of the subculture required to leverage within the new MEA office.
The culture of BlaBlaCar in HQ or Europe office wont necessarily work out in MEA office. Middle
east is well-know as a mix subcultures region, as stated [1] Subcultures: Complex societies such

as the United States are made up of a large number of groups with which people identify and
from which are derived distinctive values and norms and rules for behavior. These groups have
been labeled subcultures. A subculture resembles a culture in that it usually encompasses a
relatively large number of people and represents the accumulation of generations of human
striving. However, subcultures have some important differences. They exist within dominant
cultures and are often based on economic or social class, ethnicity, or geographic region.

To better understand what culture is needed, it also requires a recruiting plan based on business
needs in every country of middle east, hiring employees from Levant, GCC, and North Africa would
requires a carful understanding of each regions background. Subcultures can work greatly as it
shares main value of the overall context, e.g.: honesty, similar spiritual believe, similar social
habits, etc.
The new culture should be evolving about respecting spiritual believes of the new employees, e.g.:
prayer times. Also, suggestion to offer life-work balance especially
as the Arab employees is so family-centric and rather enjoys time
with family on over-time tasks. For that, carful delegation of work,
business planning, and resource allocation should take place in
order to maintain healthy and proactive subculture in the new
business unite of Middle East Office. Arabs are exceptionally
proud of their language, which is a strong, uniting bond right
across the Arab world, expect to work-out the office /or see/ a bit of oriental and middle eastern
type of office.
GOALS, MATRICES & KPI
Defining key objectives is a core factor of organizational success, specifying strategies and
activities that the company needs to achieve is central to get to this objectives, also, specifying
the measures to this activities is essential to understand how was the performance towards
achieving those objectives, in another word, to better understand the future performance and
monitor the progress of establishing and expanding in a new market, certain KPIs and Matrices
needs to take place in order to assure that all process goes towards the goals that based on the
global strategy, suggestions of below items to take place further;
FINANCIAL GOALS & MATRICES
As mentioned above, the company is aiming to generate sales of 6.5 million USD$ via partnering
with Dubai Government-affiliated taxi company, that target was designed on the best
understanding of the required net-profit requested by the HQ for the business to be worthily
profitable. Also, since considering the risk of being overly-estimated of the requested numbers,
80% achievement of the Net Profit assumption would be accepted by maintaining healthy
operating cost, in a chance to avoid any implication on the company performance P&L
FINANCIAL
OBJECTIVE
ACHIEVE
SIMULATED
TARGET
ACHIEVE NET
PROFIT
BOTTOM LINE

MEASURE
GUIDELINE

TARGETS

INITIATIVES

100%

6,501 MILLION USD$ IN SALES

PARTNERING WITH
RAT

80%

1 MILLION USD$

MAINTAINING
HEALTHY OPERATING
COST

CUSTOMER RELATED GOALS AND MEASUREMENTS;

Since BlaBlaCar is a direct service provider to end-user, ensuring companys relationship goals with
customers is essential,

market share achievement is a great indicator for the companys

performance in the new market against the competition, for that, since our business is onlinebased with considerable start-ups and strong competition, Customer Retention Ration should be
one of the most important goals, for that, below measures and goal need to be part of the
organization direction;
CUSTOMER
OBJECTIVE

MEASURE
GUIDELINE

TARGETS

INITIATIVES

ACHIEVE
MARKET SHARE
ASSUMPTION

25%

25% OF MARKET SIZE

ASSUMPTION

MARKETING
CAMPAIGNS

SUSTAIN
CUSTOMER
RETENTION

90%

ALLOWING 1 CUSTOMER TO SKIP

THE SERVICE MONTHLY

OFFERING MONTHLY
PROMOTION TO KEEP
CUSTOMERS

INTERNAL BUSINESS PROCESS GOALS & MEASURES:

Since our business process has a direct effect on consumer decision of using our services, we
need to extremely make sure that our services can reach as much our customer can go, for that,
measuring our geographical coverage where our service is in reach of customers;

Internal Business Process

Objective
Service
Coverage

Measure
Guideline
70% of
assigned
country

Targets

Initiatives

To be able to offer our service

Widen Drivers
in most of the geographical
Network
area of each country

ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING GOALS AND MEASURES:

New market entry is a new experience for our corporate business, our expectation that we need to
adapt with the new market dynamic and situation, for that, continues investigation and learning of
this market is highly required, our goal is to introduce 3 new services in the first entry year that
comes from our R&D initiative efforts. To accommodate with what previously mentioned,
localization of our service might be highly advised to ease communication with local end-user and
market, our aim is to localize our services of 100% when it comes to bring our communication to
the local language via translation and design and create localized contents.

Learning
Objective

Measure
Guideline

Market
Adaptation

3 New Products
Yearly

Localization

100%
Localization of
MARCOM

Targets
Adapted with Market
Character by customized
offers
Ease of communication
between customers and
us

Initiatives
R&D Initiatives and
markets surveys
Translation and
designing of local
content

CONCLUSION:
Market Entry and business expansion plan should be studied and planned carefully, our aim to tap
on new market like middle east will help us to go international, support our customers whenever
they are and create financial growth for BlaBlaCar. Formulating a strategy that is based on
understanding of Public Policy, Culture, Cost of Internationalization, and Competition status will
help us better implement our master strategy, to do that, implementing should consider reworking of our organizational structure by adding a geographically new business unite, leveraging
the culture based on that specific region and expectation of subcultures dimensions, and fixing our
goals and measures will allow us to implement our strategy successfully in alignment with the
global direction of BlaBlaCar.
[1]Defining Culture and Identities: http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upmbinaries/45974_Chapter_1.pdf