Newborn Town's 3-tier Pyramid Team Structure Makes Roads into A Wider Global Market

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

It might seem unlikely that Chinese companies would excel at playing matchmaker for young people in the Middle East looking for dates and friendship. While countries in MENA (which refers to Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa) have rules and customs that are difficult for outsiders to fully understand, that’s exactly what Chinese app companies, such as Newborn Town, have done, growing to dominate the region’s social media and dating app market.

At present, the three major markets for Chinese companies in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey. According to the mobile data analysis platform App Annie, 59, 54, and 45 apps in the top 100 Google Play apps in the three countries, respectively, are from China.

Newborn Town, whose social networking app YoHo is now one of the top 2 audio social networking platforms in the Middle East, and MICO has entered both App Store and Google Play the Top 3 highest-grossing social apps in all GCC countries, attributes much of their success in MENA to an effective management strategy for overseas operation centers.

Unlike regular teams, going abroad requires significant intercultural communication and skills that allow the company to localize. While the differences in business and in culture between China and the Middle East may be huge, effective team management serves as a bridge between the two.

Newborn Town uses a unique 3-tier pyramid model that leverages local staff, Chinese staff with extensive experience in the local market, and operational experts from back home who can translate insights from the first two groups into products that can meet users’ demands. 

Opening its first MENA operation center in 2016 in Egypt, the company has since expanded its physical presence to Turkey and Morocco. In other words, Newborn Town has implemented this model at scale in multiple Middle East markets.

The foundation of the pyramid model is local operation staff. They understand the people, regulations and culture in ways that app developers and strategists cannot. Thanks to the native Middle East team members, Newborn Town is able to anticipate the social networking needs of the region and respond quickly to mobile users.

However, one of China’s largest advantages in app development is an extremely high level of technology and AI talent domestically. To act as a bridge between these Chinese management and technology experts and local staff, Newborn Town employs Chinese people who grew up in or lived in the local market.

Eddy Huang, the Director of MENA region, is one such go-between, having lived in the Middle East for the past 14 years.

“Due to the conservative culture of the Middle East, the internet provides a unique opportunity for people to get to know each other, especially the opposite sex. But to fill this demand we have to be mindful of local habits, customs and preferences when bringing products to the market, and our local staff is indispensable here,” Eddy said.

“But we also need to work together with our world-class engineers in China to deliver amazing experiences to customers.”

Staff members like Eddy Huang give timely feedback to country managers and lead the local colleagues. When needed, they can quickly provide insights to Chinese technical experts in Beijing. This last group includes the rare industry experts who can provide high-level strategic direction, supported by the other two tiers to be able to quickly dock with the domestic technical team and coordinate the overall situation.

After replicating this triangular model throughout the Middle East, Newborn Town is poised to expand into North America, Europe and Japan as well.

A Beijing-based company that started out making utility apps might look like an unlikely candidate to grow into the biggest social networking and dating app company in the Middle East. But while the region is a hard market to crack, with a unique business and social culture, a management strategy that effectively uses local knowledge to inform the decision-making of industry and technology experts has allowed the company to become a household name and generate over 250 million downloads worldwide from social apps in just several years. 

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.