SME Builder Knowledgebase Accounting - Wael Tarabay, Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
How does one value a company that offers services?
The same business valuation process applies on all organizations regardless of the nature of the business. Mainly, there are three different approaches used in business valuation: 1) The Income approach: It determines the value by the net present value of the future benefits or cash streams generated by the business. In other words, it discounts the future streams by an appropriate discount rate. 2) The asset-based approach: It determines the value by the adding the sum of the parts of the business (net asset value). The value should be adjusted periodically to the fair market value. 3) The market approach: It determines the value by comparing the subject company to other companies in the market of the same industry and size. In reality, the income approach is most preferable in obtaining the fair market value. The main challenge is to forecast the future stream of cash inflows and choosing the right discount rate.
Moreover, The Dividend Discount Model (DDM) can lead us to the value of the stock and then we multiply the value by the number of shares and we get the total value (Market Capitalization).
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
What are the key issues that are faced with accounting in a new business? And how do we avoid them?
Start-up businesses may face some problems at the beginning of operations if a solid bookkeeping is not accompanying the launch. Capital expenditures must be traced and recorded, as well as pre-operating expenses and cash flow analysis. In reality, most of the start-ups focus on marketing, advertising and management at the beginning because they consider it to be more crucial than accounting to the extent that some start-up owners can not quantify their profit/loss at the early years of operations. In addition, most of the accounting issues faced concerns the best practices, compliance with the accounting standards, financial reporting and the audit process. Having the right start with proper recording and bookkeeping with the help of accounting professionals can be a great performance indicator and a definite advantage.
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
Where is it best source on generating capital to invest into a new initiative? And where shall we not get capital from?
Private equity is the best source for investing in a new initiative if available. Financing through a bank can be very complicated with huge requirements and conditions prior to the approval of financing. In case the initiative requires a huge capital and IPOs (Initial Public Offering), Debt is required to constitute a certain percentage of the capital structure (Especially in countries where taxes apply). For more information about the optimal capital structure for listed companies, please refer to Modigliani & Miller (MM) propositions.
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
How does one study the feasibility of the UAE market?
It depends on the feasibility area to be studied. In general, the regulatory bodies, government agencies, central bank and the Financial Markets are encouraging transparency. There are numerous sources that furnish economical and financial indicators to all entrepreneurs and investors.
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
How does one choose the right Accounting Package for a company?
There are lots of accounting packages in the market, the key aspect for choosing the right accounting package will be the cost/benefit ratio. The main use of the accounting packages is to facilitate the generation of the various financial statements, maintaining accurate records of all suppliers and customers etc….The key aspect is to choose the accounting package in the most feasible way. In other words, a small retail shop with a small turnover probably needs an Excel sheet instead of Sage or Peachtree. Moreover, we have to choose the software that best matches our requirements keeping in mind the possibility of a cheap upgrade if the business grows at later stages.
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
Do you recommend that we stay as employees or establish a small business? Please advice on all critical factors that needs to be taken in accounting.
It depends on each individual and his ambition and determination and of course whether he/she is a risk taker or risk averse. In reality, establishing a small business is considered a risky project where lots of time, effort and capital is spent to make it successful. The decision to be an employee or an entrepreneur depends on each individual’s skill, ambition, determination and financial capabilities.
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
What is the minimum capital required to establish a business?
I do not think that less than Dhs 50,000 will be adequate to establish a business in the UAE (Free Zone). It depends on the nature of the business activity, some licenses cost is around Dhs 20,000 and they can reach much higher fees. Of course, exclusive of the rent of the property and the fixed assets purchase etc…
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
How does one solve the liquidity Gap in a business?
- Establishing credibility in the market which reflects on loosening the credit terms of his/her suppliers.
- Periodic revision of the credit terms for their customers.
- Maintaining high working capital.
- Maintaining high Quick Ratio.
- Accurate cash flow analysis and forecasting
- The use of the right inventory systems (for example: Just-in-Time) that avoids spending large amounts of cash on slow moving items or items that can not be readily converted to cash.
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
How can Startup companies avoid having problems?
Regarding the financial side of the problems that start-up companies may face; the key answer will be strategic planning. In fact, the more structured and researched a business plan is, the less problems the start-up companies may encounter. A thorough analysis of the environment, competitors, as well as marketing strategies and pricing strategies, legal aspects, economic signals and cash flow analysis may help in minimizing the risk exposure of having problems at later stages.
Wael Tarabay,Falcon Express Cargo Airlines
Accounting - Surinder Sareen, KC International fz LLC
Can any UAE national sponsor anyone?
Any U.A.E. national can sponsor any business provided there are no minimum educations requirements in a particular business.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What is the 51% part of during local sponsorship, is it financial perspective or business idea?
A local sponsor is 51% owner of the business. The business idea is entirely yours.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
In accounting, what is the most prevalent software used in UAE?
QuickBooks, Peach Tree, Tally and similar are used for small to medium organizations. ERP Solutions are used for medium to large businesses.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
How do you get project financing? Is there a difference between Islamic financing and Project financing?
Banks study your Business Plan and make their assessments for granting finance on the basis of it, your previous & present ability and the security offered.
In Islamic finance, the banks if convinced, buy the project and then sell it back to you at a profit. They do not charge interest but earn profits through finance deals.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Any amount of capital needed to get a business?
It’s different for different businesses. It could be fifty thousand dirhams up to five million AED.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What is the process of starting something small, how to register yourself?
There are 3 steps. First, get your name and business activity approval from license authorities. You need a business plan to give to authorities for this.
Second step is legalization. Authorities will see your passport, security-checks etc., for getting a visa here.
Third step is of allocation. Authorities will ensure that an office in this country is allocated to you.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
When moving from small to medium business, how should a business with surplus money diversify their investments?
First, expand business to other locations. Next you should have your own home and office. You could also consider own properties for your staff to stay. Then consider other investments for short term or long term depending on the health of your Cash Flows Statement and Working Capital requirements.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Do banks have any rules for accounting?
Banks require International Accounting Standards to be followed in UAE. Banks want your business to be audited by a licensed auditor in the UAE. When you approach them for loans.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
How do you share revenues when you go into partnership with HR companies, or require help from other companies to improve your business?
Squeeze in maximum revenue from the client. Second, if you bring in the client, you should get the referral fees about 10-15%. If you are spending more money of marketing and such, fees can go up to 30%. If the other company is interacting with the client, then they get 70%. But start off with 50-50% and then negotiate. If transaction is big, you can get it audited by a third party.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
How do I go a broader financial skills, I already have an MBA in finance?
There are other good financial courses in Dubai Knowledge Village, which could enhance further your finance skills. Your partner relation co-coordinator could help in selecting one such course.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What advice can you give in two sentences about what to concentrate on when making property deals in regards to finance?
One should see the inheritance legal provision for a long-term investment and also find the ease with which you can exit should you be willing to sell it. Of course, make sure that the ownership is legally transferred in your name and registered with appropriate authority.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
A man who has never been into finance, how can he recognize financial aspects of an organization?
You can attend our course or a similar one on finance for non-finance people. You will get sufficient training on finance management of your business. Alternatively recruit a whole time finance employee or be with a financial-consultant’s as a retainer.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Why should I go for quality certifications, like ISO?
It’s to show continuous improvement and to continuously get evaluated by a third party. It is to provide quality products and services to customers and to address their complaints appropriately. It is to maintain a quality management system within the organization.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What to watch out for when growing too fast?
Don’t borrow too much and keep reserves. Rent and salaries are the two major costs here. Manage your cash flows well. Keep diversifying as you grow to split risks.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What is the benefit of LLC?
LLC does not affect you personal assets, only the business is at risk. One’s liability is limited to the extent of their capital investments should the company have to wind up and the debts are more than what the business possesses.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What kind of company can one have?
One can have here a LLC, partnership, sole proprietorship or a branch of your parent company in your country.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What is the advantage of a local partner?
They can help you with getting financing if they agree to sign the bank’s legal documents. There is more freedom of opportunities and in operations in a mainland business than in a free-zone area business. In latter one is confined to do business within a free zone. Local sponsor could handhold you to reach your vision faster and guide you how to move around in a new city.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
If you want to do business here, and you want to come for only a couple of days, how can you legally come here and do business?
Request you to address this question to legal section. This is Accounts related section.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
After opening a company here, can we approach a bank to fund us?
Banks generally prefer clients with two to three years of successful financial results’ with audit-reports. Immediately after opening a new business it is difficult to get finance from bank.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
How do you get a local partner?
Consultants can set you up with a local partner. Investment section of classified advertisements in newspapers is full of such services.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
The UAE government does not help small businesses. So how do you get help?
Try to find a good local sponsor who can perhaps help you. Look for joint-venture opportunities in the initial years of your business. Do not withdraw all your profits but reinvest within business. Built up good business results track records to convince lenders (e.g. banks) of your ability to return the borrowed money. Do this for two to three years and then approach banks for loans.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
When should I close down?
When you are unable to raise permissible limits of borrowings from market on the basis of your financial results. When your services and products are not in demand. When your borrowings are continuously rising year after year and you are unable to pay-off your debts. When you are no longer enjoying doing business and are under continuous stress due to your business.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
For new businesses, what’s the best way to manage your finances?
Have a good accounting system. Remember you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Get regular financial reports and do regular monitoring and measurement of your business operations and processes. Take timely decisions for corrective actions. Monitor your Cash-Flow Statement well. Borrowing shouldn’t be on continuous basis. Have sufficient working capital so as never to be short of funds to let a profitable opportunity pass by. Know your Break Even Point sales and achieve it at least.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What are the general practices for payment terms? How are LC’s treated here?
A contract or Purchase Order is generally preceded to execution of the transaction. Advance money, progressive payments, post-dated cheques, Letter of credits are often used. Credit evaluation of the customer is also common before extending credit to him.
LC is popular mostly in international business.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What proportion of revenue should be allocated to accounting?
It is not possible to quantify as a percentage of revenue. The accounting system in the company should be able to provide timely, accurate and relevant accounting information to enable decision-making. Costs necessary to ensure these should be allocated to accounting.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
How do you do a risk analysis?
Look at ratios; they are an indicator, like debt/asset ratio. They tell you where you are headed. Ex. How much is your debt, it debt continuously going up. If it is, that is not good. Are you borrowing money from friends, local partner, and private investors? If they are not comfortable, you need to make some changes because they do not trust the outcome of your business.
We do ISO certification, quality, systems and procedures.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What does your company do exactly?
It’s all mentioned in detail on our website, www.kcbusinessconsultants.com.
Precisely we do:
- Training workshops on FINANCE FOR NON-FINANCE PERSONS’
- Management Consultancy
- ISO 9001 and DUBAI QUALITY AWARD consultancy
- Management-Auditing
- Feasibility Reports and Business Plans
- New Business Set-ups and OFF-SHORE companies worldwide
- Executive Trainings and Workshops
- Financial Controller Management-Services
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What is the benefit of getting an ISO certification?
ISO 9001 assures compliance of quality standards by the concerned company. To run successfully, a business requires the help of customers, suppliers, employees, owners, government and society. ISO 9001 certification helps in maintaining a Quality Management System, which is beneficial to all the above stakeholders.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
We are using Tally, Indian software? Is that okay?
Get your accounts regularly audited or examined by an expert at least once, they will advise you weakness of your system and also give you suggestions.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
According to Rental Company, renting portable toilets, what are the accounting aspects, costs? Do we depreciate regularly?
If the rental company owns these, all costs that are incurred till the said asset is put to use, should be capitalized (accumulated as asset).
All assets are required to be depreciated over it’s useful life-period
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Is the VAT coming soon?
It was earlier scheduled to be operational with effect from Feb. 2009. Recently we read in newspapers that it might be postponed till 2010.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What are audit requirements in KV?
Page 12 , clause 86 to 90 of the ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION provided by the Dubai Knowledge Village mention requirements regarding audit. The beginning sententce reads ‘The Company shall have one or more auditors to be appointed by the shareholders.’
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
If a business has 10 employees, do you need an accountant, part time or full time?
It depends on the volume and number of transactions your business has and not on number of employees. Part-time accountant is less costly. Full time accountant may cost more but is readily available by your side to provide accounting and financial reports & information to help you take timely decisions.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
I haven’t done an audit yet in a 1.5 years of business? When should I do it?
The first time initial audit can be for a period of 18 months. That is since the company was formed, you can have your accounting year for a period of 18 months and get accounts audited for this period.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
When factoring, invoicing clients, do banks give money?
Banks do give money up to 85% of invoice-sale amount. If you have confirmed order, banks will give money provided customers and products are acceptable to the bank. Past audited accounts would help to convince the banks.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
If I want to start a car rental business, how do I get loans?
Both banks and private lenders could provide funds for this business. They have their criteria for the quantum of loan they can give as compared to your own investment in the business. Obtain a checklist of documents to be submitted from them. If satisfied with these, they will approve it, ask you to sign few legal documents and release the loan direct to the vendor of cars.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Can I get financing?
Banks will not give loan unless your business is 2 to 3 years old, or unless you have a local EMIRATI partner as a guarantor. Further, at least 6 months bank statement is checked to find if you have continuous income and there are no bounced cheques. They check audited accounts for the past 3 years. Banks also ask for collateral security in business loans and very rarely give an unsecured loan beyond AED 200,000 to 300,000 at present.
To give loans, banks are looking for sufficient past experience in business supported by audited accounts & security apart from legal compliances.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
I have a supermarket in Abu Dhabi? I have a POS, but don’t have proper inventory system. How do I get a proper cost of sales?
You need to check with an accounting-software vendor that meets your budget. Then you need to develop system for knowing direct costs and indirect costs – (overhead costs) to be considered to arrive at total-cost.
Ready-made software packages are available in the market for it. You would need a trained person to operate and interpret the system-reports.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Is it better to go to an expert?
Depends whether you can submit the requirements of the Bankers/Lenders yourself or would feel comfortable through an expert in similar field.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
I have a business idea, how do I get financing?
The prospective lender would need to be convinced about the viability of your business idea. For this you need a detailed BUSINESS-PLAN/ FEASIBILITY-REPORT. This should cover feasibilities for management, technical, marketing, economics, financial and solutions to risks-involved & competition. You need to convince the Lender (could be a BANK) about the safe return of his principle and sufficient returns on his principle.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
What are the critical reports to monitor as an owner?
Further, you also showed interest in knowing the REPORTS required monitoring your business. Some of the major ones are as under: - Cash Flow Statement
- Bank Position Statement
- Receipts and payments for the day and for the next 30 days
- Market Receivables with ageing
- Market Payables with ageing
- Master Budget for the company with constituent Budgets
- Budget Variance Analysis every month
- Sales Report and Employees Targets (Products-wise, employee-wise and location-wise)
- Marketing Budget for the month & year with actual expenditure
- Profit & Loss for the month, cumulative till that month and for previous whole year
- Product wise profitability, Supplier-wise profitability, Location-wise profitability
- Fixed Expenses for the month and sales required to recover that (Break-Even Point)
- Major Ratios for comparison over a period of time to evaluate LIQUIDITY, PROFITABILITY and SOLVENCY of the company
- Orders in Hand and capability to execute them
- Owner's Equity movements
- quarterly/Half-Yearly/Yearly Employees appraisal to take corrective action in time
- Inventory with ageing , damaged goods' list, expiry-dates list (for Trading organizations)
- Management Review Meetings every month (where all department heads present their past-performance, difficulties and future plans)
The REPORTS should facilitate HORIZONTAL (previous years) and VERTICAL (same year with a base figure used for percentage) comparisons. Also regularly you should conduct benchmarking with INDUSTRY-FIGURES and COMPETITORS' figures wherever easily available
you may not use all REPORTS as mentioned above but could chose that suits MOST.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Are the awards for the company?
Yes the AWARD is for the company as a whole and not for the product.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Are there categories for these awards?
There are three levels of awards. One has to follow the sequence. These are
Level 1: Appreciation Award
Level 2: Dubai Quality Award
Level 3: Dubai Gold Award
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
How does company qualify for Dubai Quality Award?
One has to first apply for the Dubai Appreciation program with Quality Department in Dubai Department of Economic Affairs, Deira. A visit to their office is recommended. They also conduct awareness seminars for new-entrants regularly. These could be useful for companies planning to go for this award. Generally, company should have three years of growth results with evidence of quality-promotion efforts in the last one or two years before applying for the AWARD.
Surinder Sareen,KC International fz LLC
Finance - Nabil Abdul Khaliq, Strategez Group FZ LLC
How are the policies going to be amended in the current US crisis?
More regulations for the Investment Banking Sector and lending practices of the commercial & retail banks will be revisited.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Describe the similarities and differences between the economy of Dubai and Abu Dhabi?
Both economies are focusing on developing the service sector. Non oil sector is growing faster in Dubai compared to Abu Dhabi.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Describe the difficulty for the government to get the right statistics? And effectively implement it?
To gather any data is difficult task. Planning & execution by using the right techniques by hiring the right survey companies….
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
What are capital services?
Services related to the Capital Market sector or acquisition & distribution of capital as required.
Raising funds, managing funds etc
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
What are the benefits of outsourcing and trying to benchmark against competitors?
Outsourcing allows you to focus on your core business while outsourcing the non core functions.
Benchmarking helps you to be efficient & effective.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
What is relationship between capital markets and property?
Both are integrated and drive the significant part of the economy.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Which costs need to be minimized?
All costs need to be looked at!
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Why is it important to understand the value of communication and knowledge?
Getting the right message & making the right decision requires both.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Inflation in Dubai is pretty high, what is the future outlook?
Must control to make it convenient for those who help to achieve the real goal & vision of Dubai 2015 and that are the middle class professionals.
Real high prices in real estate have no justification since speculators does not have the concern about the 2015 vision, they only look at the short term even if that hurts the economy.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
What is the role of Obama, and how does technology play a role in convincing the youth?
Smart Cookie!!! Technology can convince all not only youth!! 1st thing a client looks at is your website before giving business to a company.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Who are the major benefiters from the financial crisis, and who have been harmed?
Those who were holding liquidity in their hands at the time crash happened. Those with assets in their possession are harmed since value is deteriorating on the daily basis. Musical Chair Story! Who get to sit on the seat last is the winner and that is “Cash is the King”
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
What is the impact on Abu Dhabi as well?
Abu Dhabi is loaded with huge amount of liquid assets but they need to look at the projects to prioritize in line with their vision of balanced growth 2030 vision.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Real Estate Market got hit hard due to lack of funding support.
Dubai has 11 billion dollars due in Jan 2009, how will they pay it?
Definitely they need to arrange such amount on the maturity date of the bonds & certificates. Since Dubai is under 107% debt ratio to GDP, it may be expensive to borrow or go to neighbouring friends for borrowing needs.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
What was its effect in Dubai, the major harms to the city?
Liquidity crunch due to the global financial system from where Dubai developers had borrowed significantly.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Who are the responsible parties?
US Investment Banks (Top executives from these banks who are usually graduates from top business schools in the US). Also the Banking & the Insurance Sector and most importantly the blame goes to the lawmakers who decided not to regulate the area well when had the opportunity to do so in the near past.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
What has caused the financial crisis?
From the Global perspective, it started with the US Financial system. The investment banking area started leveraging too much on their base deposits. Banking sector started lending to consumers risky loan to value ratios. Plus the Insurance sector got hit real bad due to CDS’s (Credit Default Swaps) basically issuing too much insurance coverage for the risky credit portfolios.
Nabil Abdul Khaliq,Strategez Group FZ LLC
Finance - Nabeel Khwaja,
How do you pay your bills, if your clients don’t clear their bills?
You should have an investment in other sectors like infrastructures which give you monthly funding.
Nabeel Khwaja,
In past 36 years UAE was nothing and this country Is a fast moving economy. We are telling this country to compete with other countries that are booming for the last 2/3 centuries.
Just because the UAE found oil 40 yrs ago, this helped them in booming the economy of the country.
Nabeel Khwaja,
What have dubai done in the last 5 years in health education?
What they could have was a lot more than what we see now. And for the next 10-15 years we wont see this improving. The plans they set could have been much better. People will still travel to India, US, Ireland for surgeries rather than having an operations in Healthcare city.
Nabeel Khwaja,
What are the strategic plans for dubai in 2015?
To Achieve
1. Social Development Goals
2. Economic Development Goals
3. Environmental Development Goals
4. Community Development Goals
5. Infrastructure Development Goals
Dubai mainly focused on the Infrastructure Development Goals and this was the main reason of the current situation. If they had focused on the other plans as well, then itthe situation would have been better. They actually put 100% in one area but they should have put equal focus on the other areas.
Nabeel Khwaja,
Why did president Obama plan to regulate the salaries in US?
There should always be rules and regulations that you should follow. If you don’t, it will back fire you.
Finance is not about spending. It should be guidelines for the company.
Nabeel Khwaja,
What is an average percentage that you should spend on marketing?
10% Of the revenue.
Nabeel Khwaja,
What is budgeting?
Budgeting is basically setting up rules that how you have to spendour money. We should stop spending large amount on marketing, logo, etc. Spending on marketing is sensible if you do it in a sensible way and by end of the day we shouldn’t think that it was just a waste of money. Marketing should have a specific percentage and it shound’t be a high one.
Nabeel Khwaja,
Dubai is mostly outsourcing to achieve the best practices. Is it advisable? What are the guidelines for outsourcing that will help us?
The biggest challenge we are currently facing that we don’t understand our strengths. We should first understand what we are capable of and then try to work in other areas.
Nabeel Khwaja,
What is Framework?
Framework is a process of setting up of rules, regulations and procedures. If there is no framework then the company can be in a real disaster.
Nabeel Khwaja,
How will Dubai be in 2050?
It depends on how seriously the government is going to take this situation. The government should have plans and stick to the plans. They should know their capabilities and not over estimate themselves.
Nabeel Khwaja,
HR - Rasha Sheih, Bridge Human Capital
Is it important to delegate tasks?
Yes to ensure engagement of your employees, better learning experience and emphasizing on trust level between managers and subordinates.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
How do you go about motivating candidates?
Motivation subject is very wide and have many techniques, I’ll share couple.
Integrating between the employees’ personal objectives and company’s objective will
have a strong affect in motivation. Another way can through ensuring the right career
planning and salary scheme that cover the basic needs of the employee happiness.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Is it important to delegate tasks?
Yes to ensure engagement of your employees, better learning experience and emphasizing on trust level between managers and subordinates.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Do I need to have a basis of each and every business line if I’m an HR officer in the fields of engineering and finance?
Not necessary, HR is very simple and unique at the same time. The number one in order
to be an HR person is to care about people interest and well being, and any techniques
that you learn through HR different functions, 80% to 90% can be implemented in any
industry or line of business and the rest will be customized accordingly.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Is there a link between HR and Psychology?
Yes there is a link, as HR is mainly dealing with people’s feeling, behavior, mood,
status…etc that mean we need to understand the psychology of human beings and how
it affect our daily life.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Is HR costly?
HR is always consider to be an investment for the organization as it’s the foundation
that it build on, however, if you are looking at what are the value money for “example”
to establish an HR department, then you should calculate the most effective investment
plan of which methodology is going to be used whether your current employees or
outsource it for HR consultant.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
How is an HR Department build in an SME?
In SME, the number of employees is few and building an HR department is important to
be simple to overlook the SME main HR requirements such as the employees’ info,
selection process, performance & evaluation, training plan if necessary. Keeping in
mind, a continuous revision of the HR functions during the SME growth.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Since psychometrics is an online based test, are the right candidates the ones answering the questions correctly?
Ideally is to control the environment in which the psychometric is conducted, i.e. some
of our clients administer the psychometric at their premises despite its online.. or they
send the candidate to our office. However, if the candidate were out of the country
either we ask them to go to our recruitment agent that we deal with in that particular
country or simply to trust that they are the one who took the assessment. You can
make out the truth through verifying the scores during the interview phase.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Where is your HR expertise going to help us in regards SME’s?
- Hiring the right candidate
- Evaluation of employees competence level
- Training and development
- Design, develop and review HR structures with its all functions
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Do you prefer outsourcing companies?
It depends in which industry. outsource facilitate an effective
techniques/methodologies to achieve organization goals through utilizing specialized
individual or subject matter expert at the agreed deadline without affecting the
employer’s existing plans with its employees duties and responsibilities.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Do you think psychometrics is helpful?
Yes. It is a guiding tool that help employer to gain an objective point of view on the
candidate’s ability and behavior rather than the subjective perspective. Based on a
scientific research that was done by Business Harvard Review, psychometric increase
the probability to hire right candidate up to 60%.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
What are the techniques in the selection process?
- Behavioral Interviewing questions
- Psychometrics
- Assessment Centers
- Reverencing check “background check”
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
How does an HR organization help in creating or building skills in candidates?
Conducting psychometric s, behavioral interviews and assessment centers depending on the job role and level to identify the candidate’s current skills and gaps and deliver the required training and development plans would be highly recommended
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Is it better for SME ‘s to hire experienced candidates or non experienced?
It depends on the candidate’s potential, however, as SME profits is more challenging
than large organizations, experienced individual will be a plus and added value to help
and facilitate a quicker growth/profits especially at the start up phase to SMEs.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Have you done psychometrics on students as well?
Yes, and it was helpful in career counseling and self awareness.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Do recruitment agencies reveal personal information while choosing candidates or clients?
It vary, some of them do and some of respect the candidate and client confidentiality
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
Do you think the recruitment agencies always recommend the right candidate?
They are a guiding agencies to achieve better results in selecting right candidate,
however, we as employer need to provide the proper guideline to the recruitment
agencies and monitor their work, thus we can conduct other techniques to ensure hiring
the right ones.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
How do you know he is the right candidate?
After the hiring and in his/her probation period, you will be able to identify whether the candidate was fit for the job or not and specifically by monitoring his/her performance in monthly bases for the 1st three months and gathering feedback from employees working with him/her.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
How do you hire the right people and who do you approach?
Hiring right candidates required an objective approach in order to ensure right people at the right place; therefore, completing the full circle of selection process is always ideal for better success. The process that we suggest is : - Initially, conduct behavioral and technical interview
- Psychometric assessment “optional”
- Conduct background check
- Final interview
For who we approach to hire the right candidate, many headhunters/executive search are more than helpful to select the specific required profile. Also the candidate that are referred by one of your colleague or clients as referral is helpful as well or follow the normal way of advertising in the news papers or recruitment agencies.
Rasha Sheih,Bridge Human Capital
HR - Steve Halligan, The Core Group
What are the duties under the HR dept?
- Look in changes in the company direction and goals
- How do u embed new employees into the company
- Structure effectively and find the strength of each person according to his ability.
- Very clear measures to what will constitute on success.
- Have an external advisor
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
How can these qualities be identified at the moment of recruitment??
Test them. Don’t just rely on their qualifications column in the CV. Put them under pressure. Put them through some scenarios and watch them out carefully. Skill based issues... Character based issues. No one highlights their drawbacks. Ask their logic behind every answer the give. Give them a list of competencies
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
People want to get in more people whom their comfortable with who may not fit the job especially in family businesses. What should be done in this case?
- The productivity approach should be adopted.
- Objectives should be made clear and it should be made sure that people are employed on the basis of merit and not influence.
- Continuous assessments of the employees.
- Identify qualities each job position demands of.
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
What is the best way to tell this to the leaders?
We’re still struggling; we should try to speak to them. It’s not entirely a task for the HR. There needs to be much more rigorous assessment criterias to evaluate employee performance. Employers are not up to mark regarding HR satisfaction analysis.
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
Why is there a salary disparity between people working even on the same job profile.
- In this region it depends on the nationalities which are an extreme source of frustration.
- Employers are attendance focussed rather than productivity oriented.
- They should pay more attention on the critical success measuring strategies.
- More job recognition should be encouraged.
- Employers are more sales oriented.
- One should understand that HR is the most important asset.
- But sometimes employers do understand that but they don’t really k now how to go about it… its more than pay rise and mentioning things in the Vision-Mission statement.
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
Can you suggest any HR Development programmes in this region in this current situation asked by the employees of Epson.
- Fewer companies have competitive frame work, defined job descriptions can be one measure.
- Having personal descriptions alongside.
- Performance review is very important.
- Career plans of the employees should be evaluated.
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
Do you hope the new economic situation changes soon?
- I have no say because of the economic conditions in the UAE 75% of the population are expatriates and 70% of the 75% are Asians Things looked good until last summers.People have left this region due to the growing cost of living and the cost of attracting new people is too high.But still Dubai is less affected by this credit crunch..
- Employers always have a dark side. 80-90% of the things written up in the values, mission statement and views of the company on the websites or their brochures is not true. People don’t pay much attention to the Human Resources and they need to be more corporately responsible.
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
What according to you are the issues the companies should focus on?
- Less attendance based and more activity based employee behaviour of the employees.
- Ample number of staff members to ensure none of the staff members are over worked or under worked.
- Measure the strategy effectiveness applied on the employees
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
What is the job procedure in this region?
Once you get hired, you work for 3 months or for a fixed period on probation., once your sponsors decides to shift you to the pay roll. A contract is been signed between the employee and the company which is usually annual in nature or for a fixed time period. After this under any circumstances the employee decides to leave the job or the employer fires him he gets a ban on his passport and the employee cannot enter the country for 6 months.
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
A lot of companies are just too over whelmed with HR strategies. What do you think about it?
- A lot of small companies and big companies are present here, they have personal administration dept. The HR concept has just aroused about 10 years back. So the companies renamed their personal administration dept as an HR department which still functioned under the same framework. But the changing business environment has forced these companies to ensure employee benefits and standards. They’re given special training just to make sure they’re right on the path.
- Increased employee standards so the companies are forced to raise their level of treating the employees.. it is a revolving profession …. Even multi nationals don’t really comply with the international standards. They consider Hr as a cost to save the company from a bigger cost of loosing the employee.
Steve Halligan,The Core Group
IT - Akram Assaf, Bayt.com
Elaborate on Google analytics and Google double click
Google analytics (an acquired company by Google) is a tool that offer
the website a mechanism to track their website access in terms of the
visit model. It is free for a specific number of pages, and count on
javascript code that you plug into the pages you want to track, you can
also consider some open source software for this, or buy ready packages
or services. The biggest challenge if you run your own software is to
make sure that it does not become a drag if you don't have the right
capacity. Double Click is a company that was acquired by Google lately
( pending some legal procedures in Europe as I guess) and it is mostly
to allow a website to use it as an Ad Serving facility. Usually this
give the site higher credibility about his numbers, and effective
management of his inventory.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Who takes care of the security of the domain?
Security has many layers:
- Security of your domain name, and this about your registration record. (Where do you keep it, how do you protect its owner credentials such as email address, ..etc)
- Security of your infrastructure and this include measure to protect your network, OS, database, and standard applications from attacks that would try to make use of some vulnerabilities.
- Security that would protect you from DOS attacks, or service availability degradation.
- Security that protect your application/database based on best practices with regards to access authority, passwords of default installations, ..etc.
- Security that should take care of issues such as cross site scripting, SQL injection.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Why do we use international domains?
This will help immensely in terms of SEO optimization and in certain
Occasions it would mean more credibility for certain types of businesses.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Where do you register your domain and where is your host?
We are using name.com, 1and1.com. Frankly speaking there are many places to register a domain and almost all are the same in terms of services.
Though some might charge a above the average market price (for no real good reason). Two facts in that regard, this is not important unless in the early stages, and you need to make sure you keep your records up to date. Your domain will have complete different value when you success as a business.
For hosting, there are many options. If you want to run an online business, you have to make sure that your host is up to the task in
terms of: Redundancy (across everything almost), Bandwidth ,
Security, etc. Currently you can also make use of the virtualized
machines in hosting like what Amazon offer.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
How is it to work as an online business?
It is interesting, exciting and very challenging. You would have to be up to date in terms of your feature and technology. Competition can come from anywhere and at any time. And before all you need to listen to your users, and act quickly.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
For small companies suggest database other than excel?
Excel is a spreadsheet application that many similar applications can
Replace such as Open Office or even online services like zoho and google spreadsheets. For low end/ low cost databases Companies can use access database, firebird, sqlite, Berkeley DB or even fully fledged databases such as mysql, or postgresql, .etc
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What do you think of B2B online interaction sites such as alibaba.com and tejari.com?
B2B initiatives are a very interesting concept, and could yield great results (Specifically if it develops enough serious audience). Though historically there have been two opinions about the value of those consolidators and if the long tail that they can serve would make it worth the effort of subscribing and updating companies’ product dictionary on those services.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What are your suggestions on online marketing?
For on line marketing, a company can make use of organic on-line marketing, or paid services. For organic on-line presence, the company could choose to develop interesting content that has a viral effect or makes a good candidate for social book marking (such as new worthy stories, research, or even interesting video, in addition to fun on-line games developed around its advertised concept). The company can also expand on that by developing proper search engine optimization strategy to direct users to its products based on their search queries.
For paid services, companies can consider search engine marketing, on-line banners, or targeted mailers.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What is the process that the research engine takes in order for it to be able to list all the results?
So the things you do right about your website (content/inbound-outbound linking, domain name, locality considerations …etc) helps in better ranking (in the listing of search results).
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What do you look for in terms of security in SaaS systems?
Hereby are some areas to look at:
1) Infrastructure security:
Is the hosting facility protected through proper physical measures, such as biometric access, video monitoring.
Is hardware maintained in closed/isolated areas for the various customers?
Is the SaaS service protected through proper firewall system, providing detection and prevention for intrusion attempted or denial of service attacks?
2) Application security:
The application should provide a proper authentication mechanism that is based on certificates or proper passwords (passwords that cannot be guesses easily, and that would need to be changed every specific time period).
The application should provide a structured role-based access that control authorization to resources.
The application should provide a mechanism to audit accounts and identify stale accounts, by tracking access to the service, by account, time, IP.
The application should provide for preventive measures against cross site scripting (XSS).
The application should use a protected Database behind a firewall (Cannot be accesses directly).
OS/DB used had latest security patches applied.
OS/DB has all default accounts disabled or change their passwords.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What should be used to build websites?
The purpose of the website is to dictate the approach, tool, and cost. It can be simple website builder that takes minutes to build, and no more than 5 $/month or it can be a major project that can cost many man years with a huge setup and operational budget.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Is it important to capture the number of visitors?
For sure, but there are way many other parameters at various levels of details to look at such as:
Visitor frequency, time of visits, content visited, time spent, ..etc.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Is it necessary to have more than a 10 page website for a small business?
It depends, it can be 10 it can be 10,000. It depends if you are using it as an on-line brochure or as an education area for your products/solution or if you are conducting your business thought it.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
We heard that we should not use a brand name as selection criteria, is that true?
Brand name means good marketing and not in particular good product, although possible to have great products. So I would rephrase it to say don't make decisions based on brand names only.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What is salesforce.com’ good at? And is it web based software?
It is mostly a CRM service, with many new modules being added to it to support other business requirements.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
We have already subscribed to Saas however we do not use it, what is your advice?
- Do you want it? The whole idea about SaaS is the concept that it
is a service. So if you don't want it, then you should not
subscribe to it. (If so then easily just terminate it)
- If you want it, then make sure to adopt an iterative model.
Start with a full functional but limited business cycle, then
grow in width and depth of the implementation with every
subsequent iteration.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What is the process in appearing on the search engine results page?
There are almost 200 parameters to consider, but for a quick listing:
- Age of the domain name.
- Is the locality of the concept reflected in the domain (.ae to
UAE offerings)
- Location of the IP address (hosting in an IP block)
- Content of the pages, and their meta tags (Where the concept is
clearly represented in the most prominent areas: title, headers,
bold, ..etc)
- In-bound/Out-Bound linking and its correlation to the concept,
to build a healthy page rank.
- Relevant inter-connection between the site's pages.
- URL friendly
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
How much money should a new business invest in IT?
It depends on the type of business, but in average you should keep a healthy 5%-15% from total operational cost. (Some though might go up to 35% fora business heavy on R&D related to IT)
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Which Saas software is best for finance and accounting? Are they available to be purchased online?
I can think of: Oracle eBusiness suite, Netsuite, and yes they are available for on-line purchase.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What kind of software should a growing company of 200 employees need to use?
It can be anything from collaboration, to office automation, ERP, CRM, Etc. But mostly it depends on the nature of the business.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What about the security issues in Spam?
I guess the spam itself is a noise and cost on business in terms of time spent to wade through useless emails, bandwidth and storage.
Security issues can happen if the spam invites the user to disclose any information about him or his business to scam based on-line sites or scam e-mails addresses.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Which anti spam software is best and why?
I can think of Postini as the best solution that I know about. Many other solutions (some of them are open source) can also do the job to various degrees of satisfaction.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Should we change from conventional licensed software to SAAS in our company?
It depends on your requirements, internal human resources capacity, and current existing investments in software and the processes around it (trained users). But make sure to transfer any software you have in-house to the concept of a service, then after accurate calculation for the actual total cost of its ownership compare to other similar SaaS.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
Where are the places that sell accounting software?
If you mean SaaS accounting then Netshuite is currently the market leader in this.2
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
How does one make the choice between ERP and Saas?
SaaS is a model of deployment; ERP is a class of business products.
Netsuite is an example of an ERP offered as a SaaS.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What are the best methods in selecting a product (Saas, Open source) in a short time?
Simply, look in the following steps:
- Is this software a primary part of your unique market offering? Is it your competitive advantage? Then either develop internally or capitalize on an open source technology (Usually for on-line businesses)
- Do you have enough support staff in house? Or guaranteed class A support contracts? Is the product integrated with many other software products that you already have? Then consider licensing best practice product
- Do you have little support staff? Is the product designed around collaboration or networked usage? Then opt to a professional SaaS service
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
How does one spread an idea correctly that it is approved by customers?
I believe that a good idea will need very little effort to spread. The fact that an idea is addressing a pain point for a large community is by far the best marketing strategy. Furthermore, the foot print of word of mouth has been maximized with the advent of on-line mediums such as blogs, social book marking, SEO or paid on-line marketing.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What is the effectiveness of online marketing?
On-line marketing is a major subject to answer with a single question.
But On-line marketing is proving to be very effective especially if you consider the possibility to target customers based on their profiles and behavior, in addition to the superior marketing by intention which can be resembled in user's searches through general purpose search engines or special purpose search databases.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
How does one budget Saas in your business? What is the percentage necessary to be spent on saas software?
The SaaS model is designed to allow for gradual growth. So you can consume based on what you need. In total a full functional business might be able to allocate between 350$-750$ per knowledge employee per month for a full fledged set of services based on the SaaS model.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What is the software offered from Saas in HR?
There are many functional components for HR systems offered as SaaS,specifically in the area of self service, payroll calculators and recruiting.
What I can think of now as an example is Zoho HR offering.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What are the uses of software as a service?
Almost all types of software can be used in the form of software as a service. For example, collaboration software such as e-mail, chat, forums, work-flow, blogs, and knowledge bases can be the first to think of.
Others like office automation such as word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software are being used following this model, especially that the capability to share and manage version control is sort of a byproduct of this deployment model. Furthermore, other services such as ERP/CRM/HR/Project management are gradually becoming available for wider segments of customers.
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
What is software as a service?
“From Wikipedia” Software as a service is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, SaaS alleviates the customer's burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support. Using SaaS also can reduce the up-front expense of software purchases, through less costly, on-demand pricing”
Akram Assaf,Bayt.com
IT - Atif Ali, Bayt.com
What do I need to get all the computers connected together in an HR Company?
You need email, communication, and collaboration software. You have the option of getting a commercial software for example Zoho have HR modules . You also need anti-spam, backup etc. Most of them already available for free on the Internet.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What benefits does it have against local vendors? But Data fort provides the same
Take Amazon web service infrastructure for example , you pay only for the time you use your servers , the bandwidth and availability of the computing resource is relatively cheaper than dedicated server providers. The biggest advantage is that you can customize and store your Virtual server and then bring up for example 10 of them , with just one command within a few minutes , can you do that with normal hosting facility ?
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Does Amazon web services support client-server and can you partition computers ?
Amazon web services provide you a virtual infrastructure which could be dynamically scaled up or down . You can run your any normal service and whatever model you want for example client server model. it is essentially an infrastructure of servers connected through a virtual network , and you can configure them the way you would configure your locally hosted physical servers.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Is the speed good for apps served by SaaS provider?
All services are accessible online , it depends how good your connection is.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What is the best for an SME?
I am not advocating Google but Google Apps would be a good option because its standard package is free and it has many application required for fundamental technology setup for any startup. They also have premier version , which has a very nominal fee if you require special API access and longer backup services and disabling Ads , etc.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Is there something better in Oracle that you do not get in Cloud computing and vice versa?
Cloud computing is an infrastructure , you can run your commercial and non commercial apps or services on them . You can even run Oracle databases serving your business requirements .
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Is there something open sourced as well for database management ?
Mysql and Postgresql just two examples. Both are immensely popular and being used in large scale enterprises serving as back end databases and both happen to be Open source and free .
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
This is focusing on a limited budget yes?
Even if it is not, it is still beneficial because it can grow as the company grows without too many issues and less investment and operation costs. It is scaled dynamically.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Is there for example, an event management software?
There are many open source software and services available like ConfTool and LogLogic . Just look at all the alternatives available to you.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
But all ERPs solution provider offer same services?
Yes, but we are talking about it , in terms of , the different options that are available for the technology requirements of an SME closed product vs. SAAS.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
I’m sorry but I am not aware of the basics. What is ERP?
From wikipedia " Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the planning of how business resources (materials, employees, customers etc.) are acquired and moved from one state to another "
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Ok how do we choose what we want in sales force?
Sales Force is for CRM solution provider . But there are many other companies providing SaaS like zoho.com , google , NetSuite
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What about confidentiality?
The SAAS community is growing and has matured during the process. With a a large number of big players started offering their services online to ME and SME their focus on security has resulted in a worry free infrastructure for all of their customers. But at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself , can you could provide better security and hosting infrastructure than these major players or not ?
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Have you personally rated which is better? Commercial or SAAS?
I will again emphasize on the point , that you need to identify your business requirements , and before you go towards a shiny enterprise level solution evaluate other alternatives.
Let me give you an example , we had been maintaining our own company wide mail server . Managing the mail server is a continuous war against spammers and malicious attackers against your infrastructure . We were paying too much for continuously updating our antispam and antivirus engines. However could not keep up with the frequency of spam coming into the infrastructure.
We decided to use Email hosting with google apps , and now we enjoy all the antispam , antivirus protection and search capabilities of Google yet maintain our brand across the provided application stack.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Can we share SAPs?
SAP itself has already started offering SaaS based CRM services .
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Is the Internet required? Or can it be downloaded?
Yes all contents can be downloaded , in fact some services have already started off line serving of their contents .
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What kind of ground management would you need to manage this? Who will take care of the development of the website for example?
It is very important how you design and develop your website but this requires professional people. You need people who are aware of the technologies available who can make your brand / web site available to a large community using SEO and other technologies . But at the end it depends on your marketing strategy. If you do not already have IT staff, then you need to look for web designers etc.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What kind of services does it have for a web portal?
Well if you just want to convey a message to the public it will allow you to do it for free, using google sites .
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What if I already have a company website?
You can either keep going with that or take advantage of Google’s other services.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
How does Google make money?
They use advertising on the websites. Mostly text ads , not banner ads since that’s very annoying and they understand that. You can opt out of these ads by choosing their premiere version with a nominal yearly fee / user.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Is the Google , email provided companywide?
Yes you can customize Google apps according to your business brand and host your own domain to serve your email needs . You get in return all strength of google for its AntiSpam , Antivirus and search capabilities.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
So what is cloud vs. SAAS?
Cloud computing is like a super computers technology infrastructure available online , which is used by services providers to host their services and serve their customer . Some big players in cloud computing are , Google (Google Apps Services ) , Amazon ( Amazon Web services ) , Microsoft ( Live Mesh ),
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Is it secure?
Usually these services are communicated over a secure HTTPS connection You also don’t have to worry about maintenance , recovery backups because it is maintained by the service provider.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What if I am a remote user?
This is one of the advantage of SaaS model , as all your services are securely available online , which could be accessed from any part of the world serving your distributed business presence around the world.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Are there any accounting packages?
NetSuite.com , Bscaler are some well knows ERP and Accounting Software as a service provider.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What about the law?
The software such as CRM/ERP adheres to the business requirements but not necessary on law. Technology can assist in making information available but it cannot suggest assumptions on law.
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
What kind of technological assistance does one need to open their own business and develop it?
Technology requirements have now become a major components essential in smooth operation of a business. Beside some fundamental requirements like Communication , collaboration , and knowledge sharing technologies there could be some business specific requirements like CRM , ERP and Accounts application.
There are many commercial programs , open source and SaaS alternates available to meet certain business requirements . I am going to recommend Software as a Service (SAAS) model as a strong alternate to expensive commercially available closed products . When you start a business you might require CRM, ERP etc and they are usually expensive because the providers have strong brand names, and they have gained trust in their clients’ etc but even though it is not easy for startups to afford this.
This is a startups main challenge as they need technology for the business to run but investing in enterprise level services is not easy.
SAAS model benefits from cloud / utility computing. SME’s do not start with huge revenues to obtain large IT infrastructure that is tailor made to your company. What SaaS can do is to provide startups a " pay as you go " model fulfilling your business needs and grows to extent of your business without putting a huge initial investment. It works on a consumption basis in a less expensive level.
The many perks of cloud computing is the fact that there is no limit of the infrastructure scale. It is very adaptable and can be scaled up or down as per the company requirements.
Identify the technology needs and look for SAAS instead of going for huge IT brands which are expensive and which may confine you from alternates in future .
Atif Ali,Bayt.com
Law - Victor Leginsky, Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Which country’s law should be considered for framing a MOU during tie up’s between companies of different countries?
That depends on several factors: - residence of parties to the contract
- where the customers are
- the industry or type of business (some countries’ laws have little experience with certain industries; UAE, Norway, England all have experience with oil and gas for example)
- type of legal system the parties are comfortable with
- how good the enforcement of court or arbitral decisions are in that country
- language of the court or arbitration
- cost to prosecute a case in that country
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What is the legal setup to franchise a firm in UAE? Can only locals franchise in UAE?
Some court cases in the UAE have defined franchises as falling within the definition of the business of the "Commercial Agent". Therefore, they have to be set up using the Commercial Agent agreement format. The reason that it is said that franchises must be wholly owned by UAE nationals is that a commercial agent must be a UAE national or a company wholly owned by AE nationals. So, while there is a difference of opinion on the matter, it seems the safest course of action, and that typically followed, is to have a UAE national or commercial agent be the official franchisee and then enter into a joint venture with the commercial agent.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Can we hire employees with a term contract and can they leave on a one month notice?
Yes, you can hire an employee on a term basis so long as it is in writing. The maximum term is four years, but it can be renewed for an equal or a shorter term. Then labour law does not directly allow the one-month notice for term contracts (only for indefinite terms contracts). If an employee leaves before the end of the definite term, he owes the employer compensation that “shall not exceed half a month wage for three months or for the remaining period of the contract, whichever is shorter, unless otherwise stipulated in the contract”. So if you agree in the written contract that the employee can pay you compensation of a month’s pay to get out, that is permissible.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
One of our employees who was residing in one of our properties has left the company, on a one month notice. So can the employee still stay in the property or he/she would have to vacate it?
Yes, so long as proper dues have been paid to the worker. Labour law says that a worker who is provided with accommodation by his employer shall vacate it within thirty days from the date of termination of his service. If there is a dispute over the dues and the worker overstays because of that, the Labour Department will urgently determine the dues within a week from notification, and will promptly inform the worker accordingly. Once paid, the worker has to move out.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
How can I get a residence visa for my parents?
You can only sponsor your parents for a one year period. You have to post a returnable bond of AED 5000 and have a minimum salary qualification (currently AED 6000 per month with accommodation; 7000 without). You have to sponsor both parents, on proof that you are their sole support and that they have no one else to look after them in the home country. If they are divorced or one deceased, you can apply with properly authenticated documentation of that status. They have to have health insurance coverage and go through the medical and HIV tests. Alternatively, your parents can purchase property in certain emirates (getting tougher in Dubai) and, on the strength of that purchase, get a residence visa. Please be certain to check carefully if the prospective property really comes with a right to reside as sometimes salespersons provide incorrect information. Typically, if you are the one with the property-based residency you can’t sponsor parents on that basis alone, but check the emirate and the property.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Is it legal in Dubai to have an online business?
Yes. The question is where you need to be registered. If you do no work in the UAE, that is, all of your customers are abroad and your billing office is also abroad, you may not be “working” in the UAE. However, if you make sales in the UAE and bill from here, you would likely have to register a business here.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
If I am working under a company then can I obtain a trade license?
No, the company will obtain the trade license. You have to set up your own company to obtain a trade license. Note that in many cases you have to have the correct qualification to get a trade license. For example, if you set up as a “management consultant” you have to have a degree that qualifies you to obtain that license.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
If I am on a working visa and am a freelancer, can my employer claim it’s his company’s product?
It depends if you have your own sponsorship or if the “employer” is truly your employer. If you are truly a freelancer, that is, your own business, then your work should belong to you. If you are an employee on the company’s sponsorship, then, without an agreement to the contrary, production should belong to the employer. However, it is always best to examine your agreement with the company regarding ownership of rights in the work produced.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Can my employee come from India on a visit visa to implement my product to a client?
No, a person is not supposed to work on a visit visa. There are mission visas and other temporary work authorizations which should be used. Depending on which free zone you are in, or if you are a LLC, there are several temporary work options to be examined.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Are there any restrictions regarding money transactions if a free zone business outsources its services to LLC company?
No, a free zone entity is allowed to make contracts and render invoices to a LLC for proper business performed, and expect payment.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What do you suggest while opening a business, a LLC or a Free Zone? What are the legal implications for setting up a business in a free zone area, preferably in TECOM? If I setup a trading company in UAE can I just trade in UAE or all over the Gulf or Wor
Whether you set up as a LLC or in a free zone depends on the type of industry you are in and where you will do your work. If you sell physical goods into Dubai you will need an LLC or to appoint an agent, because to trade or physically work in Dubai proper, you need an LLC or an agent. If you can perform your work from an office, shop or warehouse in a free zone, then you can locate there. A free zone business is supposed to do business in that free zone or internationally. So both free zone companies and LLC can trade throughout the world. As a free zone business you are allowed to attend business meetings in Dubai and bank in Dubai. As a TECOM business, you are afforded all of the benefits of a free zone, 100% ownership, limitation of liability, tax free status and repatriation of profits to name a few.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What are the laws to setup an IT services consultancy in Dubai and what are the risks associated after I launch my business?
An IT consultancy can be located in a free zone or in Dubai proper depending where you intend to do your work. If you can do your work from an office in the free zone, then you can set up there. If you need to do more that business meeting visits to locations in Dubai (that is, actually work in Dubai) then you may need an LLC or appoint a Dubai-registered agent. There is a risk if you set up in a free zone and then physically do work in Dubai itself.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Does my business partner need a work permit?
Yes, anyone who works in the UAE needs some form of permit allowing working. Some people who set up businesses obtain “investor” permits. This then allows them to also obtain the right to work. Others are employees only and get the right to work that way.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
How do you protect your investments outside the free zone areas where you use a local partner?
Local partners are principally used in the formation of the UAE LLC. There are several types of agreement which are utilized to protect ones assets where a local partner is used. The effect of these agreements is to pay out profits from the LLC to another entity in which the foreigner has a larger stake. The idea is that if the LLC retains no profits, then the incentive for the local partner to exercise his or her power disappears.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Do the copyright laws protect me from exploitation in each and every country or only in GCC countries?
As mentioned, you have copyright in works you have authored whether you register or not. And many countries are signatories of international treaties and conventions (such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property treaty and the Berne Convention) so those countries are supposed to allow for the enforcement of copyright in their nations. All GCC countries are members of the Berne Convention. But, of course, enforcement will be easier and cheaper if you register a copyright in each of those nations in which you do business.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What are the copyright laws in the UAE? Does the UAE have an office in relation to copyright?
Copyright is different from most other IP (“intellectual property”) laws in that an author of a work has copyright to that work even if he or she does not register that copyright with a government agency. But of course it is harder to prove authorship and enforce that right if you don’t register it! The government has put into place UAE Federal Law No. 7 of 2002 regarding Copyright and Related Rights which allows you to register copyrights. The Ministry of Information and Culture is responsible for the registration of copyright works and they should be contacted for forms and information.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What is the legal status of clubs in the UAE?
In some countries, people who share an interest can form a club or association and create a society or non-profit company to protect themselves legally. In the UAE, Federal Law No. 6 of 1974, as amended by Federal Law No. 20 of 1981, grants persons in different sectors or groups the right to establish their own associations in order to defend their interests – i.e. professionals, artisans, cultural groups, charitable organizations, women’s organizations, the arts and cultural groups. Within the scope of the law, associations of teachers, sociologists, lawyers, engineers, doctors, economists, journalists and financial consultants were established. However, the focus of this law is charitable groups or occupational groups where there is demonstrable public benefit, not private clubs for the enjoyment of a few friends. Note that a public benefit association has a minimum number of founders of 20 (which can be reduced on application to 5) and all founders have to be Emirati nationals. The application has to be approved by the Ministry of Social Affairs. So this model does not suit that establishment of a small club for private purposes.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What are the new rules while hiring people in relation to the visa regulations?
The new visa requirements, which came into effect July 29, 2008 under Council of Ministers’ Decision No. 16 for the year 2008 and the Ministerial Decision No. 322 for the year 2008 (“law of entry and residence of foreigners”), mainly affected visitors and tourists. Probably the most important change regarding work is that, in most cases, visit visas won’t be convertible to working permits. The visitor would have to go back to his/ her home country to make the visa change.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
When it comes to a contract with another party, what is the difference in a small company contract and a large company contract?
You don’t want to use a shotgun to kill a fly, as the saying goes. Also you don’t want to spend too much if the value of the contract is not that high. So you may want a more trimmed-down contract if the parties are small and the values are not that high. However, as far as being binding, the same principles apply whether it is a big company or a small one – clarity of intention, price, what is to be performed, sold or provided, and means of enforcement. Larger companies may have learned from previous problems what to protect them against, and may ask for additional clauses. Always feel comfortable to negotiate a contract, with the commercial reality that if you need the contract more than the other party, you may have less room to maneuver!
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Divorce is known to be a difficult process in the UAE, why is that? What are the options? And what is the process?
Divorce is very complex here because many people are nationals of another country, and they may have to seek a divorce or deal with child custody or matrimonial property under the laws of that country. Locally, Shari’a law aspects may come into play for Muslims. Legal advice must be sought regarding divorces as they are so complex. Start with a Dubai-based lawyer of your nationality who can refer you to the appropriate advice for you.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Does what type of business you do affect whether you set up in a free zone or use a LLC?
Yes, it can. If you want to develop or sell in real estate, or operate in Dubai itself, you likely need a LLC. If you want to be a consultant free zones are good because you can do that sort of work from your office in the free zone. Dubai has trade licenses for most activities. However, you have to choose the free zone by the industry that you are in.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Is it legitimate for a Free Zone Company to do business in Dubai? If so, what are the limitations and rules?
A free zone company is to do business in the free zone or internationally. For example, if you sell products into Dubai or provide tangible services (construction, office fit-up, electrical work) in Dubai, you need an onshore company and trade license. If you consult you can typically do that from your free zone office.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What is the cost of renting out space to setup a business in the Free Zone?
Different free zones have different costs. It is typically around AED 175 to AED 300 per square foot.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What kind of a contract is LOGIC?
LOGIC is similar to FIDIC in concept, but stands for “Leading Oil and Gas Industry Competitiveness”. These are standard forms of contract used in the oil and gas industry, particularly in the UK.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What kind of a contract is FIDIC?
FIDIC stand for the French version of International Federation of Consulting Engineers and has created a set of standard contracts that are used in international construction. They are used here because it is easier to adopt a standard form of contract than to draft a new hundred-page document each time. As the standard form of contract was created by engineers in consultation with lawyers, it is practical for the construction industry.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
If a party to a contract doesn’t pay all that is owed, what is the best method to claim it back?
Unfortunately, Dubai doesn’t have a small claims court or fast procedure for simple debt collection. Look at the contract you have with the other party. It may specify that arbitration be used. If so, you may not be able to go to court. Also, the contract may specify where a sit can be brought and what law if to be used. That may mean you have to sue in Australia or England, if the contract says so. If the contract doesn’t mention these things, you have to hire a local advocate to commence a court case for you. The advocate’s firm will base their fee on the value of your claim and will likely ask for half the fee up front. There is very little provision for “costs” to be paid to the successful party through the court.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
If an employee is mistreated what can they do?
It depends on the type, size and sophistication of the employer. If it is a large, reputable employer, it likely has a means of complaining internally, either to a neutral supervisor, a committee or human resources department. If the employer is known to take revenge on employees that complain or if there is only one boss and that person is part of the problem, there are many resources that employees can use to get advice. The Internet is full of sites offering employment advice. If the employee has a complaint under the labour law, it depends whether the employment is on a free zone or Dubai proper. Most free zones have their own employment complaints process, which must be used before an employee can go to court. If the employment is in Dubai proper, the employee has to go to the Ministry of Labour office in person to file a complaint. If the employee does not write Arabic, s/he has to first go to a typing centre to have the complaint typed in Arabic. The staffs at the typing centre typically know how to frame the complaint.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
If someone cheats you and takes your key for software how can you reclaim it?
Its likely not, because once a person registers a product key or serial number, that is proof of ownership with the company. Legal remedies (court, arbitration) are too expensive to remedy such a matter and would be greater than the cost of the software. Protect your registration data, and register it yourself as soon as you can.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
How can you protect intellectual property?
Intellectual property (“IP”) is of various types so the protections vary, too. The most useful distinctions are:
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Copyright- This is the primary type of intellectual property in that it covers that which is authored, whether it be a book, article, song, computer software program or artwork. The best means of protecting this IP is to register it with the government authorities. Because enforcement of copyright is not that universal yet, one should register in each GCC country in which one operates. Also registering in Europe, the UK or the USA may offer more protection. However, copyright is different from patent or design in that there is no legal need to register. An author’s copyright exists from the time a work is published. However, obviously proof of your right is easier if you have registered it.
- Trademark- a distinctive and unique logo, name, symbol, design, word, phrase, image, or a combination of these, by which someone identifies its products or services to consumers. A trademark can be registered in the UAE.
- Patent/ Design- a patent protects a concept created by an inventor which offers a practically useful new solution to a specific problem related to a technology. This can be protected under UAE law. An industrial design, a drawing which gives a special appearance and serves as a plan, can (and should) also be protected. If the design is 3-dimensional, it can be protected as an industrial model.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
What can you do to avoid using unlicensed software?
- Deal only with reputable resellers and stores
- Ask the seller to show you the holographic mark, the certificate of authenticity or other indicators on the product which proves that it is legitimate and original
- Take a look at the package and see that it looks like the original packaging, and that it is licensed for sale in this region (and doesn’t say “Not for Resale” on it)
- Ask the seller to guarantee that it is original, legal software
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
How can you use someone else’s product without getting into any legal issues?
A person or company can have various rights in a product. It can have an ownership interest, a leasehold interest or a right to use it only for certain purposes. When you want to use the product of another, you must be sure that that person or company has the right in that product it claims to have. That is doing your “due diligence”. Then, depending on the right that person has, you can buy, rent or license a right from that person. The key thing is that no one can sell, lease or license a right that they don’t have. For example, if a company has a lease over land for 10 years, they can’t lease it to you for 20 years. They don’t have such a right. That is why you need to know the rights possessed by the person or company from whom you are acquiring a right.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Is it a criminal offense if a check bounces?
It can be a criminal offence in the UAE to have a cheque dishonoured (“bounced”). While there is an intentional element to be proven, it can be assumed that any instance of a bounced cheque could be investigated by the police and treated as a criminal offence. Therefore, one has to be very careful with their cheques here!
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Can you fight a ban in the UAE?
Most bans in the UAE are now work bans, instead of immigration bans. The UAE labour law contains legal provision for such bans and bans must comply with the law. Therefore, one can contest work bans through a Ministry of Labour complaint and, ultimately, through the courts.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Please compare the Canadian and American legal system with the UAE legal system. Where do the UAE Laws originate from?
There are two main differences between the legal systems of most of Canada and the USA and the UAE. I note that these differences are also common to the legal systems of the UK and Australia. They are: (1) parallel use of Shari’a law in the UAE and (2) the civil law background (UAE) versus the common law system (Canada- US- UK- Australia).
The UAE system derives from the French civil law system with Egyptian influence. The civil law system is exemplified by the “Napoleonic Code” which puts legal rules into a “rulebook” or “codifies” them. This contrasts with the “common law” system of countries with a British influence, such as most of Canada, US, Australia and the UK itself. In the common law system, the courts are supreme and judges make legal rules which are followed by succeeding judges as “precedents”. While legislatures in those countries make statute laws which go along with those precedents, judges have the duty to interpret those laws, giving rise to more precedents. So in the UK-based system, one has to be aware of judges’ interpretations of law, whereas in the French-Egyptian based system, one refers mainly to the law or “rulebook” itself. In the UAE, Shari’a law is also woven into the legal system in that the codes are supposed to be Shari’a compliant. Reference to Shari’a law itself is now mainly in the personal legal areas of Muslim life – inheritance, marriage and the like.
Being a Canadian, I must also note the province of Quebec in Canada maintains a local civil law system in regard to many areas, as it derives from France. Also, some states of the US which had French influence (Louisiana, for example) have some elements of a civil law system.
Victor Leginsky,Horizons & Co. Law Firm
Law - Gopal Praveen,
What’s the difference between issuing license of free zones and outside the free zone?
There are quite a few differences between them. The govt checks the company thoroughly and then decided about the license issuing.
Gopal Praveen,
When I was a teenager I composed a song which involved a mix of hip-hop and Arabic beats. Ironically after 5 years a new song came up which became a major hit among teens which was also named as milkshake. Any way to take legal action against the artist?
Yes if you have any documents about the transaction to the US copyrights office. But if you don’t have any legal documents, you can check you’re of computer hard drive and check if you have the same song and the same production date. You can legally take action.
Gopal Praveen,
I have been running a business for about 4 years and currently have a LLC license. I want to set up a company in Pakistan and the UK. What kind of a company tree do i have to set up?
The LLC license should mention if its a branch of a particular company in the some other country. Management is also very important in this case. All of the companies should be registered with that countries policy.
Gopal Praveen,
What are the general costs involved in appointing a lawyer?
That would depend on the case and its importance.
Gopal Praveen,
The termination letter is not signed by me and i am living in my companies flat. How can i file a case against my employer for terminating me with out a prior notice?
First you would have to go to the ministry of labour and eventually the Dubai courts. Till that time period you can stay in the company flat. However it is imp to get a lawyer with you while in court.
Gopal Praveen,
The Govt of Dubai issued a law that all the UAE nationals cannot be terminated without a genuine complaint, why doesn’t this apply to expatriates too?
This rule also applies for all the people working in UAE, without a proper complaint an employer can be sued.
Gopal Praveen,
What if the employee is a married lady, does the company need to give her health insurance?
No, not necessary as it depends on your companies terms and conditions.
Gopal Praveen,
are there any min requirements that should be given to the employees over the salary?
- Health insurance (came into order in Jan 2009)
- Flight ticket back home- this is necessary only if the employee is flying back home.
- Ticket to their family members- this should be clearly mentioned in the terms and conditions of the employer.
Gopal Praveen,
What if the consumers pay the full amount, but they don’t show up? Is it okay to reschedule their training?
If they have paid the full amount, then it is legal to reschedule their meeting.
Gopal Praveen,
People book online for a training program and then turn up for the training session. Is there any legal action you can take against this?
- You can make a contract, terms and conditions. But in the UAE there are a very few legal contracts. EG- you have 7 days to cancel in on a training session.
- To take legal action against them you need to have evidence ie emails are considered as evidence but SMS are difficult to be termed as evidences as they cant be printed out.
Gopal Praveen,
Law - Mark Hill, therightslawyers
For example say there is company A, company B and company C. A has to get money from B, B has to pay to C and C company has to take it from A. Then what happens to company B (if it is a L.L.C company) then who suffers the company or the partner.
We have had previous problems like these, the only solution is don’t give a cheque until you don’t have the cash.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
What is the difference between this recession and the previous recessions?
The difference is that the previous recessions were localised, but this time it is a world-wide recession.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
If we come to an international place such as Dubai, how do we hire lawyers?
Over 16. 99% of the law firms are business oriented. You can’t help it this is the way it is.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
Unlike earlier claiming our original idea, has become more easier with the internet and all?
Maybe, many laws are there in this part of the world to save your copyrights. In U.S it the law to submit your copyright.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
Trade license gives security to your name and company?
No, not at all, for that you have to register your company.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
Can anybody put a Trade Mark on their company?
Yes.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
When we design a model or something, we generally learn it from somewhere, if the person who originally designed it wants to have a copyright of it, then?
The person can have it, and especially so in the technologically advanced world, we can easily claim our idea back.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
Does every company in Dubai need to be registered?
If it is a club, you do not need to register it. Otherwise put forward your business plan.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
In case of copyright of Barak Obama’s photo, even though the photographer did not make money, what happens to the photographer’s license?
The license of the photographer should be cancelled.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
How do you secure rights being offshore?
There are contracts in place.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
In Bahrain, you have to be a local to own film production business, what’s your input of business then?
One can do it being an offshore company.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
If you want to setup a business in Free zone areas like KV, Dubai Media City etc, they ask for the business plan, so, is it safe to put forward your business plan?
Yes, it is completely safe.
Mark Hill,therightslawyers
Law - Samer Qudah, Al Tamimi & Company
A working man can sponsor his family if he has a minimum salary of AED 4,000 can a married working woman who earns the same do that too?
Yes, provided that the visitor obtains approval from the Central Intelligence Department.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
What are the consequences if a company is planning on opening up in Dubai and has already used labor before registering and then decides to back out?
In such case both the employer and the employees will be subject to penalties and the employee will also be subject to deportation.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
What is the proper legal way of opening a company and then registering it?
The existing law permits various corporate vehicles through which commercial activities can be conducted, and more likely than not, the choice of an appropriate corporate vehicle would depend on the kind of activity proposed and the shareholding structure envisaged. Free zones in UAE allow hundred percent ownership by foreign nationals, hence in cases where the promoters are non UAE nationals who would prefer to have hundred percent ownership of the proposed company, establishing an entity in a free zone is preferred over incorporating under the Commercial Companies Law which requires that a UAE national must not have less than 51 per cent shares of the company capital.
All free zones in UAE have their own set of requirements for establishing corporate entities within their jurisdiction. The information/documents required and steps involved are generally similar but some differences in procedure may exist. As the regulatory authorities retain discretionary powers under sub delegated legislation slight changes in procedure and requests for additional information/documents, due to regulatory changes during the course of establishment of companies, is probable.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
If there is an agreement between a local and a non local, how should they preserve their rights in case one of them violates the terms?
The UAE law rules are objective and do not differentiate between locals and non locals. According to UAE Civil Code, parties are free to agree any terms and if a party falls in breach of its obligation under the respective contract, the other party has the right to request for specific performance or claim compensation for damages.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
I have an online marketing advisory company and I’m earning profit from it, but it’s unregistered what are the legal implications?
According to the commercial companies laws all business have to be licensed by the competent regulative authority in the respective emirate. Strictly speaking, any company including a web-based company that does not comply with the preceding provision shall be considered void and the individuals who conclude contracts on their behalf shall be personally and jointly liable for the obligations arising from this. More so, the competent regulative authority may impose a fine against the individual partners for practicing unlicensed business in the emirate.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
If you are building a sister company in Dubai which is originally based in another country, how should you transfer funds legally?
By regulation, the Dubai Company is entitled to open a separate bank account in an operating in the UAE. There are no rigid rules for transferring the funds between accounts except that all banks are required to look through structures, this will always be the case for any reputable bank but this does not render ineffective the use of corporate structures, rather it ensures they remain legally compliant. Therefore, it is advisable that the company communicate in prior any plans relating to funds transfer with the bank prior to opening the account.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
What are the laws on freelancing in Dubai?
Regulative challenges towards freelancing have recently Led UAE and free zones to look through and to adopt significant reshaping of the way freelance work, TECOM being the most concerned zone issued Decision No. 3/ 2005 for licensing categories allowed freelancers to be issued permits under the Dubai Media City segment or through Dubai Knowledge Village (both zones are housed by TECOM) to individuals on a sole proprietorship basis. Also in a recent approach the social welfare and pension authority began registration of UAE nationals that are working as free lancers in the country as a move to extending the insurance protection scheme to this category.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
If I want to change my status and leave my company, how should I go about it so that I don’t get a ban?
Save for certain exempted categories of employees, generally speaking, in the case of resignation or termination of the work, the Ministry of Labour will automatically impose a six month ban and the appointment letter with the new employer will not be considered before the Ministry of Labour, unless the questioner obtains a No Objection Certificate from the present sponsor for transfer of the sponsorship, as well as after paying the said ministry fees. No ban however applies for transfer of employees within the same free zone.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
What factors should be considered when choosing between a free zone or main land office set-up?
Free Zones can be an efficient way to develop an export industry, and overall to minimize the costs of doing business and simplify administrative procedures in parts of UAE. It also provides a permissive regulatory environment, offering inducements to investors, such as subsidized infrastructure, 100% foreign ownership and unrestricted access to the zones. Access to land through long-term renewable leases, complete exemption from taxes, customs and commercial levies. However one should keep in mind that Free zone structures are not to be treated as local companies outside the zones. An interesting recent development is the proliferation of Free zones – essentially intended as centers of innovation. One example is TECOM (The Dubai Technology, and Media Free Zone) which caters to the IT and media sectors. On the other hand, Business targeting the UAE local market through direct investment shall observe some restrictions adopted by the Commercial Companies Law and other respective regulations, such as:
- General restrictions on entry. At least 51% of companies, other than branches of foreign enterprises, must be held by nationals of the Emirates or GCC nationals
- Sectoral restrictions on entry. Foreigners are effectively excluded from certain sectors such as the distribution, recruitment and real estate sector.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
How do you provide a legal frame for a new business?
The key element is to understand the company’s business as well as its objectives. Once this is firmly established, the legal frame work would be appropriately assessed.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
How to design a strategy for a successful law firm?
Strategy is an under-explored area in professional service firms in general. However, three levers can be cited to building strategic thinking into a law firm. The first is defining a process for allocating resources which could result in more effective collaboration across practice and geographic areas. A second lever is clearly articulating the firm's competitive advantage and value proposition. The third is developing an honest assessment of talent within the firm and making the most of that talent.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
Which laws should be changed in Dubai in terms of business?
Dubai has a very vibrant regulatory environment, though Dubai is encouraged to consider regulations eliminating or phasing-out, with grandfathering, tax holidays, which are most prone to tax-planning abuse and revenue loss. For these existing incentives, a transparent approval and monitoring process should be put in place to detect potential abuse. Existing holidays must also be coupled with strong and transparent anti-abuse rules. Specific base protection rules include robust transfer pricing rules, thin capitalisation and controlled foreign corporation rules. Adequate policies should be designed to encourage linkages between enterprises located in free zones and the rest of the host society. All investment incentives should have “sunset clauses” and the ultimate goal should be to widen the economic achievements of the zones to the whole economy. Performance requirements, while sometimes justified by the presence of incentives and other subsidies, need to be carefully assessed. Performance requirements are often second-best to rethinking the generosity of other schemes.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
Why does the court of law take a backseat during recession?
This is not necessarily the case. However, in some instances, parties may opt for a quicker and more cost effective way of settling their disputes and hence the shift towards alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, such as Arbitration.
Samer Qudah,Al Tamimi & Company
Marketing - Joseph Farid Chartouni, INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
How do you strategically communicate with your customers? How often do you communicate with them?
Communicating with customers requires first and foremost investing the needed effort to understand them and their needs. As importantly, each business is also required to look at his strength and added value services in this regards (i.e. where businesses find itself strongest to answering customer specific needs). Communication plans should then be designed to define upfront and in most simplistic and meaningful manner the customer need/or a problem, and then how a specific product or services works to address, with the objective of rendering a benefit.
In summary:
- Work to define your customers (segment them into clusters). List customer insights.
- Understand your business key strength (if no key strength available, invest to create it). List product insights.
- Develop a business added value benefit
- Communicate it in most relevant and clear and consistent manner (do seek help from advertising agencies, this is their job to translate science into communicate art that connects).
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
How’s the market in the UAE in your experience?
Plenty of opportunities exist specially that it is a consuming market. Mind you customers are becoming more experienced and informed with plenty of choices to choose from. Hence defining marketing strategies becomes critical to differentiating one business offer vs. another, and in this process to get noticed.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Which is the cheapest platform to advertise in the UAE?
One needs to think of most efficient vs. most cheap. While most expensive is personal selling, while least depends on the product and service. For instance, TV advertising can be most expensive, but become cheapest if target is the mass, where you advertising dollar is spread over the millions. Again, your target market, and reach and media buy efficiencies would determine what is most effective in accordance to your budget. Do seek marketing and /or a media consultant in this regards (this is if one need not want to experiment).
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Do you think everyone needs marketing knowledge?
With today competitive state marketing is becoming imperative to the business statehood. Everyone needs to understand marketing, and work to become a good advocate for your business day in and day out.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
How can my company be different?
Please visit answer listed in question one. Additionally, it is as important to live the brand and product/service promises, so that you secure repeated visits and purchases. This will secure a sustainable business model.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Is there a database of top businessmen and HR managers out there which we can buy?
I am sure there is. It is best to consult experts in this area. Mind you, a company good take own initiative to build such a data base versus buying it. Here, one could consult again with relationship marketing experts for support in this regards.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Once you buy a database, how can you ensure it is genuine and not out of date?
Data base management is an art and not just a science. Aim to research it before the purchase take place. Analytical assessment is critical after the purchase, and hence suggests you buy and assess the sample before investing in a larger size database.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
How do you differentiate between marketing and sales?
Marketing is the customer voice, and works to bring about relevancy to what is listed to be strongest about the product and connect it with customer needs and communicate it with an interesting and compelling way.
While marketing works to bring the horse to water, the sales force makes the customer drink. Hence, one each department has to work closely with another and feed off each other learning’s.
Good marketers need to understand sales and be highly supportive to their initiatives, and vice versa. Most effective sales departments are those clubbed together with marketing department, to minimize conflict. Sales need to feed off marketing strategic direction, and work to be consistent with it as they are put in the forefront to live the brand day in and day out.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
What would be your strategy to market a service such as consultancy?
Business portals, target marketing (supported by well segment data base, Interview in major relevant business magazine (opinion leader), and last but not least, personal business visits (supported by well crafted company credentials. Here, I suggest you research the targeted business before executing the visit, so that you present yourself as well informed, and one ready to bring about needed industry understanding and business solution. All this is insurance for the client. So that if he/she hires you would minimize the risk in reference to the investment being put forward to bring the consultant on board.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Compared to the online UK Market, UAE is more focused towards below the line advertising, so how do you get an effective platform for online marketing?
Again, start with understanding your customer. Define a day in his life and where he spends it most and why. Then define your product and its relation to the platform being featured in. Be careful to request for the platform audit data that should list the type of visitors, frequency, and synopsis about visitors’ profile.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Which is the most effective platform to market in the UAE?
All are important. All depends on the product and target market you are after. With an ever increasing clutter advertising space, a business may need to define the most effective portals, then distribute the investment accordingly. I would also suggest to leave a 5 % of the total media budget to experiment with.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Do you think that every individual has the capability to understand the message which you are trying to market?
All depends how it is crafted. No one advertising or message is supposed to speak to everyone. So one need to segment its customers, learn about their insights and address the added value you bring to add value into their business and / or everyday lives. The art of communication need be carefully crafted. It is here advised that professional help should be thought for this purpose.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
How effective is the website now-a-day as a part of a marketing tool? And what type of information does it capture?
It is becoming critical each day. As internet penetration continues increasing, one can no longer afford starting a business without setting up a well structured and informative web site. It is becoming customers’ first visit to your organization. Hence, making sure your web site is as good as you want your business to look like when visited. Will leave a first impression about your business, and will pave the first opportunity to inform customers and your opportunity to be contacted. Net, it needs to be representative, welcoming and informative, clearly revealing a call for action with the objective of taking the relationship into the next stage.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
What kind of budget would you need to allocate to an SME and how do you distribute it?
One should allot a minimum of 5 % - 15 % of total budget to marketing. This is to be complemented with minimum 15 % of the business time to plan for and execute marketing. Its distribution depends on where your customer will be most receptive to the media being used and where your customer could be most receptive to your message regarding the product and service being advertised.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
How do you audit companies before marketing it?
Brand audits, requires that marketing personal interview key stakeholders, invest the appropriate time to understand the business model and product/service values. Then review sales performance and business performance and work to match those with what he she knows about its customers through customer research initiatives. Marketing involvement in business processes is as critical to secure delivering what brand communication is promising.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
What is Affinity marketing?
Affinity marketing is where a brand presents itself to connect well with people, by revealing how it understand their lifestyle, their needs, and works to added life benefit into their daily lives: Can be emotional and / or functional benefit. Certain brands need to stress one aspect versus another.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Are there databases available for relationship marketing?
Indeed there are. Caution, one need to be clear what data base is most relevant, how is it segmented. Crafting a compelling message is as important to secure the needed click troughs. There are several marketing tactics applied to secure enticing potential customers to click and connect to learn more going through a business web site. Hence as important one need to secure a well structured web site with easy to navigate and obtain the needed info in quickest way. Mechanism to collect customer data and interests need be built in for post visits evaluation.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
What’s the difference between online and print advertising? And which one is more effective?
It all depends on your target market stated behavior, and where they would be most receptive to your messages in relation to the product / services being sold. Naturally, computer virus products are best sold over the internet (where the product matters most), however, kids milk product are best if communicated through emotional media, where a product function performance can be better explained and brand emotional values are largely better expressed.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
What is the difference between marketing with a big business and an SME?
No major difference. Marketing theories are meant to travel from one business to another. From one industry vs. another. Marketing budgets do vary, and product development investments also vary. However, this should not come as an excuse for SMEs to avoid answering questions listed earlier. There are many creative ways to learn more about your customers without needing to place upfront large investments. Do seek consultants support to guide the way. Or appoint internal staff to invest some of their time putting together the needed answers. Later, take a step back and reflect on defining your business, and where you placed vs. competition answering those needs, with a drive to carve for yourself a niche positioning that brings about uniquely placing your business, so get the chance to be heard and eventually considered among the pool of other service providers.
Joseph Farid Chartouni,INTEGRITY Marketing Consultancy
Marketing - Dan Stuart, Bayt.com
Personally, how do you make a branding trademark for yourself?
Engage with your community of interest. Add value to that community. Network and be everywhere…with value. Build a personal brand by being valuable to people with similar interests. Give information and insights freely and without condition. Appreciate the insights of others. Listen and participate. Get online and use interaction tools like Twitter in a way that accepts and projects thought leadership.
Dan Stuart,Bayt.com
How can I as an SME help to keep my website content updated?
Easy answer: commit to updating content and make it a part of your business practices. If you outsource this, people will figure it out. Aggregating information from other sources is an option, but you need to accept that you are then a collection point and not a source. If you want to be the best collection point then fine, but have the difference clear and part of your strategy. Create a blog and write about your industry. Become a thought leader. Add incremental social features to your blog once there is interest. Don’t expect a social network. Create a niche group of interested people who value your insights. That is a victory for your SME.
Dan Stuart,Bayt.com
How do I get my presence online for marketing? To make corporations aware of my business, providing accommodation?
You need a business strategy first. What do you want people to be able to do on your site? What is the call to action? How does this support your business? Don’t expect people to share information or network just because you ask them to do so. Build a service and let the networking grow from there. If you aggregate accommodation listings then make it possible for users to roll their own experience and use your site as a tool. Even if your site is only an online brochure, then make a clear call to action to book, enquire, something.
Dan Stuart,Bayt.com
What other techniques would you use to bring up a page in the top Google pages?
Optimize your site. Search Engine Optimization is vital to any website. There are many resources online to do it yourself or contract a consultant. Focus on meaningful site structures and content including your page titles, headings and keywords. Build in-bound and out-bound links and create a series of unique pages.
Dan Stuart,Bayt.com
How can my business attract the people or community? How to make them aware of our quality product & service?
First of all, you need to be doing interesting and/or valuable things. If you are not, even if you can attract people, they won’t stay. Among other elements, people want value and facilitation: make it easier for me to do something and make that something interesting and compelling.
To attract people, engage with people. Engage with your niche target where they currently operate and spend their time online. Engage with value and interest. Once they find you interesting then they will look to you as a resource. Whether this process take 2 weeks or 2 years, starting and engaging with a niche community and helping them become evangelists for your community is the best way to create broader interest. If you start by straight-out advertising, then you are primarily a commercial play. If you can only get traffic by advertising your chances of an emotional connection are reduced. People see you as a commercial venture and your community builds only with those open to commercial messages.
Dan Stuart,Bayt.com
Do you need a different license if you want to start selling your products online?
Depends on how you are processing transactions. The licensing depends on where you are located and where you are processing transactions. Consult a legal professional in your area that specializes in internet law.
To get on Google, you should have interlinks within your site. Ex. All headings should be relevant to your website and your link names should be relevant.
Dan Stuart,Bayt.com
Marketing - Ahmad Eldharrat,
How do you convince the consumer about the quality of a product?
There is still not a sense of quality in the region, it’s a mass propaganda in the UAE.
The market still has a long way to go. It’s about learning from your past mistakes.
Ahmad Eldharrat,
How is the business going on?
It is a very dynamic environment in Dubai . There is enough space for everyone to grow
Ahmad Eldharrat,
How is the brand awareness in Dubai?
A brand name opens the conversation, it opens doors, it definitely has a big impact here.
Ahmad Eldharrat,
How is the market in Dubai different on a global scale?
Educating the masses, the environment, a company needs to restructure more efficiently instead of taking drastic steps .
Its not about the concepts but improving these concepts. Most of the companies that started in this region were not thinking of structure or efficiency cause business was growing. Quality feedback is important in any market .
Ahmad Eldharrat,
What can we do to create a larger of awareness?
People don’t have the awareness of quality, they just buy the brand.
Ahmad Eldharrat,
What is your impression of the market in Dubai?
Challenging
Ahmad Eldharrat,
How to cope with the ongoing crisis?
Restructure.
Ahmad Eldharrat,
Marketing - Saad Dawood, Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
How do we change people’s perspective about a specific product?
Consumer perceptions are a complicated mix of self-experience, second-hand experience, positioning, social norms and a variety of other factors. Changing perceptions about a specific product can be as simple as offering free trials and money-back guarantees (very popular and effective tactics in Western markets) or as challenging as re-positioning the entire brand. The exact approach can only be determined by conducting research and generating insights into why a product has accumulated undesirable perceptions. This insight is then used to develop remedial strategy in line with business objectives. As a general rule any attempt to change perceptions will usually involve increasing brand awareness while simultaneously understanding why certain members of the audience have formed negative perceptions. It is also worthwhile to consider that you may not need to communicate desirable perceptions to the entire audience spectrum; if you can identify opinion leaders and market to them directly they will automatically influence other audience members. This approach can substantially optimise your marketing budget but requires exceptional strategy to make it work.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
My company is launching a new product targeted at consumers in India; should we launch simultaneously across the country or should we launch in smaller steps territory-by-territory?
It depends on the type of product you are launching; some product types are not affected by cultural or behavioural differences while others are. India is a very diverse market with unique cultural influences running across the country. It is unlikely that your communication strategy will be the same in every territory which means you will be managing several different campaigns at the same time; this is risky especially if your company has not done it before. Similarly, any mistakes or learning curves will instantly affect your entire target audience and recovery will be quite expensive. Unless you are sure of your product’s universal appeal, you have tested your marcom collateral with each unique audience sub-segment and your marketing team is up to the challenge of a pan-India launch it would be much safer to go territory-by-territory, learning from your mistakes and optimising the communication for each subsequent territory. Having said that, there is a lot of PR benefit from a simultaneous nation-wide launch as well as reinforcing the brand’s strength and credentials but successful implementation can be a daunting task and you should weigh the pros and cons carefully. Also consider that a simultaneous pan-India launch will use up your marcom budget very quickly and additional funding might be difficult to allocate until the product starts performing.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
Our company is thinking of launching a new product which is already well-represented in the market by other companies; what kind of marketing initiative do we need?
Your company’s decision to launch such a product would have involved significant research into market trends and consumer preferences; the result of which would have convinced the management that your company can either add value which your competition has ignored or your company can sell this product at a more affordable price. Your marketing initiative should take its cues from these core aspects and seek to differentiate your product from the others. Since you are entering a well-established market you do not need to re-educate the target audience; you only need to demonstrate why your product is a better choice. If the product can be independently branded then that may be a good approach; on the other hand if your company brand already enjoys substantial consumer goodwill then it might be better to launch the product as a brand extension (as long as your core brand is not damaged by association). Your choice of communication channels will largely be dictated by market trends for this product type but your marketing initiative will have to work extra hard to overcome other brands. Depending on the product type you might also consider road-shows, live demonstrations and interactive kiosks to boost the initial awareness thrust. If you believe your product is superior to the others, investing in a brand ambassador (a celebrity who complements your brand values) or a testimonial-based campaign may also be very effective.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
A recurring problem with SMEs is that they can not (or do not want to) spend a lot on marketing; what is the solution?
There is a difference between an SME unwilling to allocate an effective marketing budget and an SME unable to fund substantial marketing activity. Assuming funds are available then marketing teams within such SMEs should focus on changing the perceptions of the shareholders or key decision-makers towards marcom spending. This initiative can include showcasing spending by the nearest competitors as well as market leaders in that specific segment and using anecdotal data to demonstrate the benefits of marketing activity. Another way is to link increased marcom budgets with tangible revenue or sales growth by way of KPIs and semi-annual targets. If funds are not available then marketing teams with such SMEs needs to thoroughly evaluate future growth and even survival and advise the company’s shareholders accordingly. If competitors are investing in marketing then your SME may continuously lose market share until business volume or margins are no longer sustainable. The first step is to decide how much marketing is required and what it will cost over a 2-3 year period. Next, link this investment with measurable growth targets and also highlight the dangers of insufficient marketing budgets. Marketing teams may thus be able to convince the SME to find alternate sources to fund the marcom budget. If a new start-up SME is unwilling or unable to effectively spend on marcom, then there is probably a serious flaw in its business plan or feasibility. No business should start without an accurate and realistic marcom budget as part of its regular overhead.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
For brands which need to restore client confidence and trust (in their own company and/or their specific industry sector) what are the ways forward?
With proper crisis management protocols in place the damage sustained to a brand’s credibility or appeal (as a result of the company’s own mistakes or its industry at large) can be substantially mitigated; and in some cases even turned to the brand’s advantage. But most companies regionally do not invest in these protocols which are arguably as important as ISO certifications and HSE standards. Recovery in the absence of these protocols is difficult. First, internally the brand’s leadership needs to communicate shared responsibility for the mistake and encourage team-building to restore internal momentum and confidence; this also controls unofficial (and unflattering) press leaks. Admitting the mistake or the presence of an industry-wide problem is usually a step in the right direction but brands must be careful about how responsibility for the mistake is accepted externally. Regardless of how much blame the brand decides to accept, the key part of recovery strategy is conveying the shift in approach (if applicable) and reinforcing the brand’s commitment to preventing a repeat performance. In some cases, direct one-to-one communication with affected/offended clients may be feasible. Other channels include sponsorship of events and partnership with groups which are directly related to the issue. The communication strategy must follow a regular and lengthy cycle; the duration dictated by the severity of the lapse.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
In the current economic climate most businesses are facing reduced consumer spending, poor cash flow and subsequently tighter marketing budgets; how should our marketing strategy be structured to cope with this?
Marketing and communication strategies need to be tailored to specific business scenarios and market dynamics (requiring research and analysis) so it is difficult to provide a generic answer to your question. It is possible that certain types of businesses (product or service) will find it impossible to survive reduced consumer spending without significantly altering their pricing/positioning. But for most other businesses life will go on albeit at a slower and more challenging pace. Marcom strategy needs to adapt accordingly. Certain types of businesses will need to focus first on restoring customer faith (the financial sector is one example) in their own brands as well as their industry as a whole; only then can they being meaningful (and profitable) dialogue with their audiences. Some businesses may benefit from a strategic re-positioning or a re-packaging of their brand. Others will need to look inwards and re-evaluate their USPs in light of altered consumer priorities. Some businesses may even be forced to consider brand extensions (which unfortunately can dilute brand positioning) in order to stay profitable. But on the whole, marcom spends must be carefully scrutinised for optimum return on investment, especially if budgets have been reduced. If your brand’s positioning allows it then unconventional marcom tactics can be quite effective. Also worth considering are more focused initiatives such as direct marketing and referral or loyalty programs.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
What role can online marketing play in the current economic scenario, and how effective is it?
This region was slow to realise the potential of online marketing but over the last few years the trend has picked up. Not only are more brands willing to dedicate good budgets for online campaigns but there has also been a healthy increase in the number of regional websites with substantial visitor traffic. As brands trim their marketing budgets and optimise spending during the economic downturn, online components will feature more prominently in most brands’ media planning. This is where we have to be careful. The online medium is already overcrowded with advertising. Not only do websites offer several advertising areas on every webpage, some also resort to irritating pop-ups, roll-overs and other interactive gimmicks. Thus the effectiveness of the online medium will decrease as it gets more and more crowded. The solution is to make sure your brand and every specific campaign is relevant to the websites visitor (avoid indiscriminate placement), is intelligently conceived and implemented, is attractively designed to be eye-catching and invites user interaction. Most importantly, avoid advertising unless your brand is really offering some new product/service and/or new benefit and value otherwise you will only be wasting people’s time and in the online world this is a serious mistake.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
Given the economic downturn what strategies can be used to ensure an attractive brand image and sustain business?
First of all you need to understand that the goal posts have moved; perhaps only temporarily but the point is that very few brands can afford to ignore the change in consumer priorities. Specific strategies will vary depending on the type of business, actual market share, consumer perception and level of competition, but generally speaking the best (and perhaps the most important) place to start is your existing client base. Client retention (or maintaining your market share) is your foremost objective since new business acquisition is not only difficult in these challenging economic times but will also eat heavily into your marketing budgets. Conduct satisfaction surveys, initiate (or re-launch) referral programs, consider co-branding opportunities with other brands, and revisit direct marketing as an effective alternative to conventional advertising. Your marketing strategy revolves around retaining your existing client base and as a bonus generating new business from within it. This means adding more value to your product/service mix and/or making sure the audience clearly understands existing value. If organisational/operational changes improve the consumer experience or end-value then it may be worthwhile to evolve your business accordingly. In some cases, actual changes to the product/service itself can re-position your brand very effectively to clients who may be thinking of signing up with your competition.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
For a company dedicated to guiding and encouraging young Emirati entrepreneurs what would you advise in terms of marketing and communication strategy?
Assuming you do not have to worry about competition (i.e. you are the only company offering this service) your communication strategy must first ensure your own brand is effective and attractive to the younger mindset. Perceptions of bureaucracy and red-tape must be effectively neutralised and reversed. Your next challenge is raising awareness about the services you offer. But perhaps most importantly you require a coordinated strategy to create and reinforce positive perceptions about entrepreneurism amongst your target audience; many of them may not even have thought of going into business for themselves. Thus an engaging and educational approach should be the first tier of communication. As part of your strategy you need to identify effective channels which reliably reach your target audience. Indiscriminate press advertising may not be the best approach (and will surely be one of the most expensive). Instead, consider regular and visible participation in career fairs and specific exhibitions where you can interact directly with your young audience. Your website will play a prime interaction role and must therefore be as engaging, attractive and useful as possible.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
What is the marketing industry like in the UAE? Is it very competitive?
Overall we have a fairly active marketing/advertising sector and occasionally one gets to see a brilliant campaign or great brand creation. The last 2-3 years witnessed phenomenal growth (largely driven by the region’s real estate boom) which attracted many new brand consultancies and advertising/marketing agencies from abroad. As the market equalised and competition intensified the sector witnessed some contraction which was further accelerated by the global economic downturn and the lowered volume of real-estate related marketing activity. The sector is seriously over-supplied at the moment which will force many consultancies/agencies (especially recent arrivals) to re-evaluate sustainable profitability in the UAE market.
Saad Dawood,Independant Branding & Marketing Consultant
PR - BR Marion Beekhuizen, PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How do PR experts communicate a new brand in the market?
A new brand is not solely communicated through using PR. PR would be one element of the overall brand launch program using its specific tools to communicate the brand message using the brand image, values and key messages. These tools have been mentioned above.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How does a firm recognize its identity?
A company has upfront designed its identity in order to define its position itself In a market. Brand positioning statements and brand values have been developed translated in a look & feel that can be used in various communications. People are hired that can represent the brand, have incorporated those values as well so they can function as the living example of the brand. All elements of the communication mix are influenced by those values. By re-iterating these values and key messages at every touch point with your customer, a brand is being build. Every other year, the company will conduct a survey to measure the brand awareness to track if they are heading in the right direction, and if not adjust their plans accordingly.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How does one conduct PR for regional brands?
The same way a global brand would but with a regional focus.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
Can PR rescue a company’s image?
PR can indeed rescue a company’s image if done in a professional manner. This is what we call crisis communications, a profession at itself.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
What are the tricks of PR?
First of all, tricks do not exist. Personal relationships with the various publics and the ability to develop news and build credibility using the brand values and key messages in a consistent way.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
Which is more important for a company PR or Marketing?
Both have a different roles to play in an organization. The Marketing plan will be translated in a communications plan. A communications plan will obtain a communication mix of which PR is a important part.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How vital is PR for small scaled companies?
This really depends on the nature of your business. PR for small companies is very effective as the costs are lower than direct mail or media advertising.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How important is brand name for PR agencies?
Depending on the exact meaning of this question, a brand name as such is not important for a PR company. Brand values and key messaging apart from objectives and goals are important for PR agencies. PR is part of the communication mix and its tools are derived from the strategic planning within a company communicating through its brand with different publics
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
Does PR give any benefits to a company?
Of course does PR give benefits to a company. It builds awareness, builds credibility, stimulate the sales force and dealers and holds back the promotion costs.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How can new companies be effective with their PR?
PR costs less than direct mail and media advertising. The smaller the company’s promotion budget, the stronger the case for using PR to gain share of mind. Looking at PR one should realize that personal relations with all publics are important to any company, large and small. Although one could decide to outsource parts of the pr process, building personal relations is what every company should start doing from day one.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
What factors does PR pinpoint?
Marketing PR can contribute strongly to the following objectives: Build awareness, build credibility, stimulate the sales force and dealers and hold back the promotion costs.
In doing so they will highlight the Company’s successes, brand values and key messages in a consistent way.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How can companies use co-workers to reduce work load?
It is important to work according to a plan that ties into the marketing objectives of a company. Heavy work load often are created by ad hoc working methods. By prioritizing the communication activities as a team, the workload can be controlled.
Another important understanding is that PR coordinators do not work in isolation but when needed team up with colleagues in other departments to provide content. As a PR professional they are able to translate the content supplied into a communication piece that contains all key messages and incorporates the company’s brand image and values. The content for example a press release on a new product is often provided by the product development team, based on that the pr coordinator will rewrite it according to the branding guidelines. This reduces the workload significantly.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
What PR strategies can a company use to communicate with clients?
Public Relations professionals have at least eight PR tools at their disposal, namely news, speeches, events, public service activities, written material, audio-visual material, corporate identity media and telephone information services.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How is PR used in press releases?
One of the PR services is news which is translated into a press release, containing key messages about your product or company and distributed to the right media being dailies, online portals and magazines, monthlies and bi-monthlies, website press center, Reuters and so on.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
Do people in the marketing need a set budget to maintain their department?
Apart from maintaining your department, setting a budget is needed in order to define the year plan that is based on the strategic objectives of the company and the budget available. It enables you and your seniors to make choices in what will be the most efficient way to spend a budget and still be able to meet the objectives set at the beginning of a year. Working according to such a plan will guide all employees within the department and prevents being sidetracked to do any activity that does not fit the strategic objectives. Working along these lines makes you credible as a department that is thinking strategically and acting tactically, delivering results.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How does PR operate in marketing departments?
A PR department most probably is typically located at corporate headquarters and its staff is busy dealing with various publics, stockholders, employees, legislators, community leaders. PR departments perform the following five activities, most which do not feed into direct product support:
- Press relations; place newsworthy information into the news media to attract attention to a person, product or service
- Product publicity; various efforts to publicize specific products
- Corporate communications; internal and external communications and promotes the understanding of the organization
- Lobbying; involves dealing with legislators and government officials to promote or defeat legislation and regulation
- Counseling, advising management about public issues and company positions and image
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How do PR people create awareness and attract clients?
One attracts clients by achieving (measurable) results. PR for a PR company works the same way as for a client. Successes needs to be shared with the public’s relevant to your business, one could develop press releases, sponsor events or even speaking at conferences where your specific knowledge adds value to the subject and its audience, which consists of potential clients.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How do you become an expert in a product field?
The word expert is derived from experience. Experience is based on knowledge and practice that one builds throughout the years.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
What are the questions asked by the PR from new clients?
Apart from understanding the objectives and refining them into specific goals, the PR professional will suggest to develop PR messages and define vehicles (sponsoring, events, editorial, interviews, speech participation, (charity) events). Apart from that a PR specialist will always ask for your budget in order to provide a workable PR Plan within the scope of your objectives and in order to choose the most effective vehicle.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
Are there opportunities available for people in animation and graphics in KV and DMC?
Opportunities are always available if you are looking for them in the right place. It is advised to assess and investigate your potential upfront, learning more about Dubai and its market dynamics, specifically in the area of animation and graphics.
Dubai Knowledge Village focuses on the knowledge part of animation and graphics where as DMC would be appropriate for the artist him or herself.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How do they build networks?
Networks are built over time which is why one joins an existing network and from that develops its own. One should be curious and entrepreneurial in your approach to other people and companies.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
How do people involved in animation and graphics seek PR services?
As a company in animation and graphics it could be more relevant to seek PR services then as an individual or freelancer. As a freelancer and being an artist, developing a professional network is more important in order to be hired by an advertising agency. PR agencies can be found in Dubai Media and Internet City. It is important to define your need and budget first, and based on that start desk research. Having defined your top three, one could invite all of them to present their credentials. The two finalists could be asked to approach a PR Plan for your company based on the objectives that you have provided. Remember that one of the reasons that you are choosing a particular PR agency is because they have well established relations with media in general and editors in particular.
BR Marion Beekhuizen,PURE COMMS Management Consultants FZ LLC
Sales - Stephan Melchoir, Wilson Learning
What are your challenges?
Awareness
Technology
Education (knowledge of worker)
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How to overcome the problem of customers comparing products?
It is not a problem! It is normal and everybody does it. There is a customer out there for every seller – you don’t need ALL customers of this world buy from you. Choose the ones that see your value, and that choose your product after comparison. Explain your product in a way the customer sees how it can help him solve his problems.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one create a target market?
This is nothing easy, but it usually comes with a change in product or a change in marketing strategy. If you want to enter a new market in addition, you need to do thorough studies and evaluations before you enter.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
Give me the two best selling tips.
- Customers do NOT all want to buy cheapest, sellers do NOT all want to make a quick sale
- Ask and Listen actively!
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one choose a training consultant to adhere to employees on launching a new brand?
Has this company worked in such a project before? How international is the training service? How well can the training program be linked with the product/new brand?
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one gain their credibility from the customers?
Talk about your competence, have the right appearance (dress, language), talk about the competence of your company, how you have helped other clients in similar situations, find something you have in common with the prospect – anything is helpful.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How are sales executed in a two man company?
The same as in other companies.It is only a limitation in time, the rest is the same.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one deal with customers whom are already aware of the product?
Don’t tell so much about the product anymore, tell about what it does for the prospect, how it can help in his specific situation.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one close a deal and convince a customer to buy?
There is no such thing as “convincing to buy”. Customers buy for their own reasons; only if we know them (ask!) we can find out if there is a need. We have to create a pull from the prospect, not a pull from the seller.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one solve the problems between a seller and a buyer?
There are many problems between seller and buyer. The most common one is based on a perception that has proven wrong in numerous Wilson Learning research: customers do not always want the cheapest price, and sellers don’t always want to make a quick sale. Many buyers and sellers treat each other based on this wrong perception, and it affects the relationship.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
What is the best procedure in contacting your customer?
Give him something of value before anything. Why would he spend time with you without seeing his personal benefit from it. Make sure he understands that, based on some research you have done, and he will be happy to hear what you have to say.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one find customers when selling a high end product with a minor target market?
That should be even easier. Since you operate in a niche market, you have a very clear understanding if your customer profile and where to find them. Maybe you need to join forces with a non-competitive product/service that targets the same customer demographic.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one train a large number of employees at one time?
It depends how effective the training should be and what the topic is. Leadership and Selling seminars with exercises and questioning are best for 10-15 people. Maybe product training can be done via eLearning, so you can train a vast number of people at the same time.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
What is more difficult to sell, a product or a service?
It is the same. Both add value to the customer. The only difference is that normally a product you can touch and see, a service you cannot – but in both cases you need to bring evidence and proof that it will do the job well for the price.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
What are the features of functional value and emotional/ personal value?
Functional value is based on “how can it help me in my business to achieve my/company goals?”, and the personal value is related to “how do I feel personally with this solution in place?”
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one define the skill levels of the employees?
Make a competency assessment, in a professional way. If your customer declines, chances are he might not be serious about it.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one analyze the needs of a customer?
Ask him. The simplest thing and the most effective one!
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one narrow down and disqualify your customers?
You constantly have to look for two things: “Are we good for them?” and “Are they good for us?”. Do the profiles of your both companies match? Is he in the right industry, does he have the money to buy (otherwise even huge discounts do not make the sale)? Is he at the right stage to buy? Does he feel the urgency to do something about his problem?
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
Where do you find and how do you contact your customer?
Marketing! Who are your customers, what do they do, when do they do business and how, when do they eat, sleep, and where? What’s the profile, and what do they like? Once you have this data, you can find them. Then you define how to contact them – emails, letters, phone calls, etc.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
Is the internet reliable for technical research?
Yes, anything you can find online might be helpful for your customer interaction.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one help a confused buyer?
Take it slowly, and help him make a thorough analysis of what he is looking for. What problems does he have, and how do they affect his organization? If you help him get there, he will see you as an asset and as a valuable partner.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
Is listening or talking important for becoming a good sales person?
People are good sales people not because they talk a lot – it’s because they are good listeners. The more your customer talks, the more information you get, and the better you can position your solution to him.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does pricing get set?
Usually, you have a price list. Everything that is documented that you can show your prospect (such as an official price list), gives you more legitimacy. Do not offer discounts, with that you de-value your product and make it worth less. You also open the door for more requests for discount. Stick to you pricing, and if you feel that you need to give a discount to continue, make sure you explain very well to your prospect why he’s getting a discount, and under which conditions.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one define “value” for customers?
The customer himself defines value. Value is subjective and very different for every customer. Your goal as sales people is to find out what this value is, and what it represents that your prospect values so much. Only then will you have a chance to see if you have an offering that helps this prospect achieve his goals, grow his business, hire people, simplify his processes, or whatever product/service you offer. Do not push – you might get a quick sale out of it, but no long-term ongoing business.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How can one provide assurance to customers?
Yes you can – the biggest assurance everybody should give is that customer satisfaction is of highest value, your intent to help customers rather than making a sale is your best assurance. In addition to that, anything that your product does or dos not do and you can proof it, you can assure the customer. Show reports, documents, calculations, examples, company papers, client list, other customer feedback as a proof.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How can one get brand recognition?
Look at what represents your brand? What adjectives would you use to describe your brand? – Then everything you do, needs to demonstrate exactly those adjectives. The way you dress, the knowledge you have, the appearance, the way you interact with clients, where you advertise, how you advertise, who your suppliers are – just everything. This helps build your brand.
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How can we find our competitors?
There are thousands of ways to understand who your competitor is. Fastest is the Internet (search engines), other options are country reports, IMF (International Monetary Fund) reports, business networking
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one help people make the right decisions?
First is to find out as much as you can about the situation of your client. With your product knowledge, you should be able to decide which product or service that you offer is the right one for your prospect
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
How does one start a new business?
Read, surf the web, read, surf the web, read, surf the web. And whey you’re done, read more, analyze, plan, read more, plan more and run it by your friends in high positions for feedback. There is no such thing as quick & easy money!
Stephan Melchoir,Wilson Learning
Sales - Andrew Roan, Gazing Performance Arabia
Does everything have to do with different nationality perceptions?
Not really, we all have “filters” that influence our view of the world but regardless of our nationality/background we all go through the same mental processes when making decisions, including buying goods & services.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
What is a Clear Talk?
Clear and effective communication; a structure/tool to help communicate & is particularly useful when you need to have potentially difficult conversations.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
Do you have handling techniques to manage scenarios?
Yes, e.g . what to do at each stage of the Decision Making Cycle to get effective movement from “unaware” to a decision including practising scenarios at each stage.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
What mistakes are made during the journey of sales or selling?
Many! The most common mistake is rushing to offer a detailed solution before understanding what people want & need. Remember to put yourself in the shoes of the person you are trying to influence & take time to go through the process. We know people go through defined stages when making decisions so try to check and understand where they are; e.g. do they accept that there may be a need for your product or service & how it will help them before presenting solutions/proposals?
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
How do you think sales can go on and trust could be built keeping in mind the present scenario?
Sales will go on albeit that activity levels have reduced, that’s why it’s a good idea to practice on sharpening your selling skills now. Trust & credibility are built through delivering on what you promise!
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
How do you make customers aware?
There are 2 methods. One route is advertising and PR to build awareness with your target groups. The second method is by delivering a high level concept or “big idea” that is likely to appeal to their business and personal drivers. This is usually about improving their business or solving problems they may have currently. This is not a detailed solution at this stage but effectively a “hook” to get agreement to consider you and engage in discussions. Remember that the potential client will be asking in their mind “what’s in this for me?”.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
What programmes have you sold lately?
We work with a wide variety of clients on programmes such as Sales, Customer Service, management & leadership. These clients include international companies, regional/local businesses & government/semi-government organisations.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
What do you do when you know that the product has weaknesses compared to other?
Most products/ or services will have certain strengths and some weaknesses when compared to other others; think about your views and considerations when buying a product such as a car. When making proposals you need to be clear why the customer should choose you and show evidence of where you have helped other customers.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
What do you do when a customer keeps you waiting and asks for a brochure?
Try to avoid giving out brochures/solutions before you have had quality discussions to ascertain their needs. Focus at the early stage on a broad, high-level concept that gets their attention and motivation to engage in conversations with you.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
How is Sales key to a company? How much pressure is too much or how much pressure is too little?
The Sales function is often the primary point of contact with your most important people, your customers/clients. It is key in both securing new business and deepening relationships with your existing clients. We all need pressure to perform better, unfortunately though it sometimes leads us into diversions, stress and unhelpful behaviours. More pressure can only be exerted on people when they have the resources to handle the situations they find themselves in; e.g. do they have the tools and skills to handle pressure in their job? Different people have different thresholds when dealing with pressure so there is no simple answer to this part of the question.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
How do we sell ourselves in this financial crisis?
Sadly there is no “magic wand”. We all need to work harder in ensuring that we sell in a disciplined way. This means spending even more time understanding your customers’ drivers & needs before rushing to proposing solutions. The more that you can differentiate at proposal stage and genuinely add value to your customers then the better the chances of success. In troubled times it is even more critical than ever to demonstrate real value in terms of the Return on Investment your product or service will deliver to your customers.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
Is a salesforce a cost or a benefit / investment?
A bit of both! The critical issue is whether or not this investment is being both efficient and effective. Too many organisations fail to properly invest in their sales teams in terms of proper structure and skillset. It is imperative to provide direction, prioritisation, disciplined scrutiny/measurement & ongoing coaching. When there is a group of salespeople in place then the role of the sales manager cannot be underestimated in providing much of the above.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
I find it hard to close deals, particularly with HR contacts. What can I do?
No easy answer but a couple of points. At “close” human beings have natural anxieties before taking a decision. These are fairly predictable (e.g. just before we take a major life decision such as moving country or job or getting married) and these become a potential blocker before we take action. The key is to predict them, acknowledge them and then reassure the customer that they are making a good decision. A powerful way to do this is to show evidence that your solution has worked in similar circumstances (e.g. invite your prospect to speak to other satisfied customers). For HR a common anxiety we face is “Will this programme actually work? How will I appear if it doesn’t?” Also try to engage the end users, not only the HR community, within your client’s businesses.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
How can I get more customers interested if I have a new service?
Think of the stages of decision making (see Question 3):
a) Build some awareness of your service through targeted media or PR
b) Be clear about your target customers/clients. What sectors do they work in, what are the likely pressures/challenges they are facing?
c) Decide on your engagement strategy/approach & prioritise – who to contact first, where will I put my efforts?
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
Should I make notes in meetings or maintain eye contact?
If you’re one on one then you will need to make notes to remember the discussion. If you have a colleague with you then they can make the notes if you are confident of the accuracy. It’s simple to simple say “I’m going to make a few notes if that’s O.K.”
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
Is the media important in creating awareness?
A question for Marketing really but obviously the media does create awareness but you need to be very targeted as it can be costly and ineffective. Again, consider your target market and possible touch points with specialist help to use the media effectively.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
If I’m new to the market how do I go about engagement?
A good place to start is to spend some time on segmenting the market/customers. This can be by target industry, size etc.. Map them out and then decide your engagement or coverage strategy. Avoid a “scatter gun” approach & don’t try to approach them all in person as it’s unlikely you’ll have the resources. Use personal networks/contacts to address your prime initial contacts and show evidence of how you might be able to help.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
What are the most common mistakes in selling?
Probably the most common mistake is to rush to offering a solution or proposal before finding out what the customer wants and needs. If you rush to the solution before finding out needs then you will have little opportunity in differentiating your solution from your competition. Remember that the moment you offer a solution then the customer will compare you with others & without compelling differentiation you may well end up haggling and giving away discounts & margin. Take your time to find out the needs. Consider the common needs customers will have from your product/service & ask structured questions to find out the most important one(s) from the customer. Make sure your proposal solves the needs and highlight the differences you bring versus industry standards and your competition.
Always remember that we have 2 ears and 1 mouth. It sounds trite & obvious but it’s best to use them in that proportion in meetings with customers!
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
So how do we approach an unaware customer (e.g. cold call)
Step 1: Have a professional introduction that you have practised. Simply: name, company and your role
Step 2: Introduce an engaging high level statement/concept that gives the potential customer a reason to spend some time with you and not justify why they don’t need to see you! This concept should be a non-threatening statement that focuses on the possible benefits that your product/service could offer & NOT detailed features/benefits or solutions. Once you get the appointment then use the meeting to ask questions about their business and drivers/motivation to build trust. Don’t rush to solutions!
Before approaching a potential client make sure you do your homework; what industry are they in, what is their business context, any opportunities or challenges they face, anything you can find out about your target contact. Use all available resources; Internet, reports etc. to find out as much information as possible.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
What are the secrets to selling?
There aren’t any! Selling is all about understanding how people buy. You need to put yourself in the position of the customer. You can’t really force a customer to buy, instead your job is to interact & influence them to make a good decision. As human beings we are fairly predictable; we go through a predictable set of steps or stages when we make decisions and this also applies to buying decisions. These stages are understood by forensic psychiatrists to get the most challenging people in society to change their habits, attitudes & behaviour. There are 4 broad stages from being unaware of a product or service through to taking action:
Stage 1: Having a motivation to change/move (customer is asking the emotional question: “What do I Want?”
Stage 2: Decision to Change/Move (customer is asking the more logical question: “What do I need?”)
Stage 3: Preference (customer is asking the question: “Which One?”)
Stage 4: Decision Point (customer is asking the question “Am I sure?”)
At each stage we have “blockers” or reasons why we don’t move to the next stage. For example at Stage 1 we tend to justify why we don’t need to change, at Stage 3 we are considering our options. Good salespeople don’t take a “blanket approach” to selling, instead they locate where the customer is and deploy the appropriate strategy to overcome the blocker and get movement.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
Is it better to hire an experienced person or mould a less experienced one?
Always a difficult question to answer and it can depend on circumstances. If you are comfortable with selling & have a strong network or client base then there is a lot for going for someone with less experience or fewer ingrained “bad habits”. On the other hand if you are in a “weaker” position then there is something to be said for opting for experience & the confidence of strong contacts that experience can bring.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
Are people born salespeople or can they learn to do it?
Our view is simple, selling is a skill and as a skill it can be developed! The key point is to put structure behind your sales approach and then practice! Most salespeople practice in front of their customers in live meetings which is a dangerous place to practice. Top performers in most domains spend a lot of time practising, particularly where the stakes are high, but in business we tend to take a less disciplined approach and poor performance is often tolerated in the way that it isn’t in other walks of life.
Andrew Roan,Gazing Performance Arabia
Sales - ,
What to tell and what not to tell while selling the product?
Find out what the customer is interested in and tell only the things that you think will help the customer achieve the goal he requires to achieve.
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How to improve trust?
Find out similarities between you and the partner, demonstrate the four elements of credibility
Ask a lot of questions.
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What is the difference between bargaining and negotiation?
Bargaining doesn’t lead to a win-win situation, it’s a WIN-LOSE
Negotiation is sharing, leading to an agreement where both the parties are getting a positive outcome
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How to disqualify the customers?
Through questioning – don’t run after business that is not promising enough or where you don’t see the required outcome
But still keep the relationship in hand so that u can keep the customer with u so that he comes back to you when he has the funds to spend on your product.
Four things of trust:
Proprietary
Competence
Commonality
Positive intent
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Is there a way of speeding up the sales process?
Go through a proven process, such as the CSP process of Wilson Learning. You gain control of the sales process and can adapt easily to the customer’s buying process
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How do u find out what the goals that a person has in his mind?
Ask a lot of questions
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How to learn to sell?
Listen and question
Build trust by using certain Relating-techniques
Ask many questions (find out what the customer has in his mind and what he wants)
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What is the difference between sales and negotiation?
Negotiation is a part of sale
There is negotiation in everything-price, time.
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How to start and enter the negotiation? & How do you improve your negotiation skills?
Information insight
The more I know about my partner the more confidently I can negotiate
the better negotiator u can become
Don’t use ur negotiation position against ur partner instead share it with ur partner.
“Lets work out something”
Create a relationship of trust
Use the info to benefit both the parties.
Define what u want from this negotiation and ask what the partner wants
If you have to give discount, just give one discount (never give multiple discounts, u lose credibility if u do)
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What is going on right now in the market?
So far, in Dubai most of the selling is “Ordertaking”
And most of the Negotiation is “Bargaining”
Thinking is very short term
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What is a win-win situation?
Be collaborative
Give the person u r negotiating with a little bit of win and see if he is responding well.
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Problems of negotiating and ways to solve them?
People believe their relationship with the negotiation partner is at risk
Its not a win-win situation if u get 50-50 deal. A win-win is if everybody gets 100% - how can we acieve that?
People don’t have trust on each other.
Have a bigger picture-have ur set of ideas
Corporate negotiation
And sales negotiation
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Was there any localization of the program?
Yes and No. We are offering a program that has been designed together with the Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, William Ury. It is an international program, that we tailor to the local market as we deliver it
The process Is the same everywhere.
Within the market develop a technique for a certain market.
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What are the challenges?
Negotiations never finish
Costs in relations to the purchases (Who is paying what)
It’s a continuous reiteration of the contract
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How to tackle it?
Show your capability
Know the customers demand and needs (what is it important to the customer)
Build up Level of trust and credibility
Process to be followed:
Discovery phase--Ask what the customers need
What errors and mistakes I m making
Think long term-Make consequential decisions
How can you relate the solution you are giving to them to what they are asking for
Educate the employees (build up their knowledge level).
Ask for feedback from customers
Analyze the feedback the customers are giving.
Challenges Kristine faces:
Getting the right client
People don’t have funds
How to find the right client?
Finding about the client, ask them questions
Disqualify unwanted customers
Have a structured approach to getting referrals
People are looking for trustworthy options- which can be found out through referrals
Create a network for getting referrals
Three critical areas that work well for Kristine:
Listening
Asking the right questions
Honesty-always be sincere
Advice from Mr Stephen:
Why is the customer asking for discount (because he can’t pay or he doesn’t want to?)
Make any discount conditional, do not freely give it away without asking anything in return
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Sales - Peter Heredia, Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
For a starting company, how important is to have a sales plan?
It is very essential, it is the guide to your daily activity. Always take time to review, as you will learn a lot once you begin and things are not always as they seem.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
Is it better for the sales person to have higher yields or better sales?
It depends on the company strategy. Are you after more market share or to improve profits? I would have thought that being profitable is normally the goal, however some companies have a longer term strategy where the realize gaining market share now and not making money will ensure more sustainable growth, and in turn will improve medium to longer term profits
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
How do you motivate your sales people?
All sales people have different drivers and you need to understand what motivates them individually. Generally an effective commission scheme is vital.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
How can you reduce the cost of sale?
Review all of your sales team’s activities and establish what is and isn’t driving revenue.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
I am planning to start my own company, I am stressing on enterprise i.e. developing applications and selling applications for phones. How do I attack the market, I am planning to sell to Corporate’ and what methodology should I use?
Create a one liner that creates interest when interacting with any potential customer to gain that first important meeting. Always remember that when trying to secure the initial meeting, your objective of this communication is to get in front of them, not to make the sale.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
Could you have used a mentor while you were starting?
Of course, but it needs to be the right person. They need to have credibility and have an understanding of your goals, and experience in areas you working in. Continuously seeking guidance and advice is very important, however it’s sometimes quite difficult to decide on what you should or shouldn’t act upon. Don’t make quick decisions unless absolutely necessary.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
What advice would you give to a company who is just starting to do a business?
Identify your target market and then establish ways to have meetings with the potential buyers. It sounds easy but it’s not, especially if you are starting out and don’t have a brand name behind you. You need to be creative in your approach and continually review what is working and what isn’t.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
In this part of the world the relationship is very important. How does one go about this and then later have enough time to find other business?
You need to ensure that the appropriate amount of time is spent in each area and mange this accordingly. You must establish how much time is required to dedicate toward your existing customers to ensure you keep them as customers, and then spend the rest of the time working on new business. A lot of sales people find it very easy to over service the customers they know well, and this is very unproductive as they could be brining on additional business instead. However, don’t forget it is must easier to keep business than it is to bring on new clients so you need to ensure you complete the exercise (identifying call ratio’s) accurately first.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
How do I implement a new sales idea?
If you have an idea, the first thing is to identify the target market, and then you need a strategy on how you are going to market your product and attract potential customers. Dependent on your industry and offerings, the next step would be for sales people to sell your product.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
What is the difference between marketing and sales?
Marketing drives the business if you are selling to an individual and sales drives the business when you deal with a direct audience. Sales mainly deal with interacting with the individuals and the marketing is responsible for driving the customers towards the organization.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
What is the difference between a client and a customer?
A client is a customer and vice versa. Form my understanding a client and a customer require and pay for services or products from a supplier.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
What would you do if you had good efficiency from some of the sales team and not from the others?
You need to address and improve their performance. Again as I mentioned before, to do this properly you need to have the right tools in pace that gives you visibility to ensure the improvements are taking place. Too many companies wait to see the performance in sales revenue but this is often too late, whereas monitoring their activity will ensure you gain an early insight to any potential issues
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
Is it better to be humble or not with the customers about the products?
First of all it is most important to be confident about the product or service. It is actually important not talk about your product until you have uncovered the customer’s needs. Once you have the required information from your first meeting, then you provide a solution where they will require your product or service. Uncovering information is by far the most important part of the sales process, as matching their needs with your offerings is easy if you have asked the right questions. Then, regardless of whether you are being humble or not, the solution you are fulfilling is factual
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
How do you see the sales environment in this market, and the quality of the sales people?
There are lots of sales people out there; the problem is that every person thinks he or she is a sales person, even if they are specialized in some other field. When Dubai was booming, there were many more ‘order takers’ than sales people. Now many companies are exposed and their sales teams simple aren’t ‘selling’. This market needs to mature in this area, and as sales was previously not a bottle neck for most companies before 2009, not a lot was done to fix this issue. Now companies are forced to look more in to the activities and skills of a sales person to ensure they gain market share, as this is where their growth now lies
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
Can the sales people manipulate the data in these 5 focus areas?
You need to monitor and manage them properly. They need to see that having focus areas will assist them in their role, so manipulating data is pointless. If they believe that improvements in these areas will give a direct result on the final goal, they will embrace reporting on them. Their buy in is the key, again it needs to be straight forward and there are many ways to spot any inaccurate updates
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
How do you stimulate the minds of the sales team so that they work efficiently for the company?
You need to keep them focused and motivated. If they believe in your product and you have a good commission scheme in place
1. You must drive the team
2. You must be in line with company profits
3. You must be easy to understand and manage
Then you are 90% of the way there.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
Is it too much to ask for the sales team to report on their performance?
Not at all, it will actually assist them in understanding where their focus lies while giving you assurance they are making progress. Again though, I must stress that any reporting needs to be straight forward and not time consuming
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
How can you keep sales reporting straight forward?
Ensure you only request what is needed to drive the business, and keep any office work activity that sales need to perform simple. Sales are not accountants or finance employees, they don’t like administration.
Peter Heredia,Max Sales Solutions FZ LLC
Sales & Negotiation - Dina Khalidi Abuljebain, Wilson Learning
How does one strengthen the relationship with a client?
- Maintain a strong relationship with the customer even after the sale was conducted successfully. Must keep up close and frequent contact with the customer.
- Always look for new opportunities with your existing customers
- Always analyze the competitors who are close to your existing customers or your target ones.
- Always develop your listening skills. Only by being a good listener – your customer will put more trust in your service/product.
- Always learn new sales techniques to attract your customer’s attention and gain his confidence. The customer will easily identify an intelligent Sales Person
- Always explore Long term opportunities for your product with your existing and target customers.
Dina Khalidi Abuljebain,Wilson Learning
How to negotiate with customers without letting them know we need them?
Successful negotiations are between two parties interested in each other. The most important thing is to reach mutual agreement which will benefit both parties, and will lead each one of them to reach their ultimum interest. You need my product – I need your serious interest to buy my product. So Negotiation is not about hiding from the customer that we need them. Negotiation is about getting close to wrapping a deal between two parties interested in each other. The buyer (who has the product) must continue to identify the values of the product – how/why it will benefit the customer. On the other hand, the customer must be serious /honest with his interest to buy the product. The customer must be fair whenever he is insisting for a reduction/discount. The customer must give good reasoning why the product should be discounted. - Do not burn up energy until you are sure that the customer is interested or not
- Do homework about competitors, pricing, discounts, research smartly, establish trust relationships
- Believe in the product that you are selling
- Follow up with the customer
- Pacify the customer
- Do not finalize until the customer is satisfied
Dina Khalidi Abuljebain,Wilson Learning
What is the difference between marketing and sales?
Marketing: Marketing will study the market to determine how the product is different from others in the same market. Also to determine what is the product rank among competition selling same product to the same market. Only after studying/research – the Marketing Dept can establish the pricing range, and the placement strategies of the product.
Sales: Sales force is the army of the Marketing Dept. The Sales force will – physically- go to the market to explore, discover, research, study, identify potential customers who will be interested in the product – identify their competitors – what they are offering and what is their pricing range, compare the product with competitors’ product – create a list of customers
who will be the target for the product.
- sales – try to get information from the customer – his needs, competitors, expectations
- marketing – focus on pricing, creating and designing the product
Dina Khalidi Abuljebain,Wilson Learning
What are the main techniques for negotiating?
First match the customer’s need with your product.
Submit a proposal (Pricing).
Request your customer’s response to your proposal.
Study your customer’s counter offer. Determine if you can match. Send another counter offer ( if your pricing range permits).
If the customer insists on further reduction that you can’t take. Now be firm. You must point out why you can’t offer another reduction. Talk about competition – why some can offer reduction and some are in your pricing range. Talk about your Product/or service- the value, the quality, how different your product/service is compared to others in the market –without putting your competitors’ services down – just talk about what you offer (the specific value of your product). How your product will save your customer’s company in case you were selected – you pay more now – but the result is more rewarding at the end. Through the negotiation, a good Sales person must be an advocate for the customer (understanding their needs, difficulties, challenges). On the other hand, the Sales Person must continue to stress how his product will minimize the customer’s concerns. - Introduce to importers and exporters
- Establish a good relationship
- Get to the pricing issues after getting the customer comfortable
- Be aware of market negotiations
- Gain confidence of the customer
- Negotiations should be a win-win situation
- Be a little aggressive in negotiating
- Give something but get something in return
- Know the niche market
- Think out of the box
- Act as the advocate between the employer and the customer
- Your goal is to catch the customer and not let him go
- You should be able to understand weather the customer is interested in the deal or not
- Don’t reveal or expose everything to the customer
- Trigger ambiguity of the customer
Dina Khalidi Abuljebain,Wilson Learning
How can you teach a customer with changing laws and regulation to enhance sales?
A good company will be successful if their feasibility study since establishment was based on the good knowledge of the laws and regulations of the country it was established in. A sales person must educate his customer to do enough studies and research to make sure the customer complies with all laws and regulations.
A salesperson should be willing to learn.
- He should have complete training about the customer.
- He should adapt to different countries rules.
- Should keep in mind changing laws and regulations daily.
Dina Khalidi Abuljebain,Wilson Learning
How would u know if customer is interested to buy or not?
When the customer starts to release information about their needs, their plans, their goals, their expectations, where they are now and where they want to be, then the comfort zone of the customer is reached. A good Salesman will identify this opportunity to ask the right question, matching the customer need with his product. The first meeting is very important to focus on the potential of the opportunity, and how the –product- is good for the customer if applied in the right direction. A good Salesman will recognize-immediately- whether the customer has a match with his product. - You have to establish a comfort level with customer.
- Be straightforward / honest
- Salesperson should have complete knowledge about the customer.
- Talk to customers; try to get information by asking questions.
- 1st meeting Is very imp. ,salesperson should do research before 1st meeting.
- You should know from the first meeting itself you are not wasting your time.
Dina Khalidi Abuljebain,Wilson Learning
Strategy - Imy Kassam, Stepping Stone Consulting
My business is working fine, giving me ample profits. Do I need to keep changing my strategy regarding my business goals?
No is the short answer. However, it would be useful for you to ensure that you have contingency plans should the market conditions start negatively impacting your business and its growth.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What in your opinion should the strategy of the Government of Dubai should be to weather this storm?
The storm as you call it is effectively a credit crunch, meaning that the ready supply of cash has now disappeared.
Looking at it from the top, from a Macro Economic (larger scale) point of view, the banks are not lending as much, thus businesses donot have the liquidity to conduct and grow their businesses. Unfortunately, this is slowing down business activity and hence, employees are losing their jobs.
On the Micro Economic level, these former employees are NOT spending their money and instead, in some cases, they are leaving Dubai. The net result is that the total spending in Dubai drops, thus businesses donot grow and as a result, they donot hire new employees, etc.
As you can see, healthy economic growth is a complex affair that requires all these disparate elements to work in perfect harmony.
This harmony has been disrupted and in my personal opinion, the Government of Dubai is sensibly using the market forces to restore harmony; instead of issuing new legislation to achieve the same goal.
Constructive Initiatives undertaken by the Dubai government to date are:
- Lowering EIBOR rates
- Increased spending on infrastructural projects
- Imposition of rent controls
- Increasing incentives for setting up new companies
In closing, the Government of Dubai and indeed of the UAE have a very sound strategy to ensure the continual growth of the UAE.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do i individually form a strategy to improve non crude oil GDP of Dubai?
Dubai today has become a regional service economy hub not just in the Middle East, but also for South Asia, Africa and beyond. And most of these companies are NOT in the oil sector.
Therefore, seeking a service orientated business that is NOT oil related would be a good starting point.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
Do I need professional research skilled personnel for strategizing?
More than professional research skilled personnel, a business would be more in need for an experienced business consultant.
If your business is relatively straightforward and it is operating profitably, it would be useful to get a professional opinion on its strategy and implementation.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How can we approach making a long term Strategy?
A long term strategy needs to be founded on the original objectives of the business. It is entirely possible that the business climate changes completely and that a new strategy needs to be reviewed and implemented.
In that case, one needs to ensure that the transition strategy should be based on maintaining the profitability of the business. Business pragmatism dictates that profitability overrides any objectives and/or strategies. The cardinal rule of any business is to ensure that the venture is profitable first and foremost.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do you change or adapt to a new strategy when you’re currently applying a prior strategy?
Strategies should be relatively flexible to weather changes in business. The actual changes can occur at the tactical implementation of the strategy.
In the event that the original strategy gets overlapped with a new strategy, it is absolutely imperative to ensure that the profitability aspects of the original strategy donot get compromised with the new strategy. Profitability in any business is absolutely paramount.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What is the difference between strategy and policy and which comes first?
Strategy is clearly ahead of Policy. One needs to have a strategy even before starting a business. Policy is a consequence of Strategy.
Reverting back to our former analogy of strategy being a road map, policy then would be akin to driving at a particular speed limit or ensuring that the trip is done in a certain type of vehicle.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do you clearly define HR strategy when you have to handle both locals as well as expatriates?
The HR Strategy as stated earlier will be independent of whom you hire. However, the actual implementation or the tactical aspects are where the differences could be highlighted.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
To what extent should you accept the fact that there are 2 different HR strategies (1) for locals (2) for expatriates?
The overall HR strategy would be the same for all employees, however, at the tactical level, one would need to be mindful of the fact that not all employees can be dealt with in the same fashion. For example, Salespersons are managed differently from Technical persons.
Similarly, locals have different requirements from expatriates.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What is the fine line that separates strategy and tactics?
If strategy is the roadmap of the journey, then the tactics are the actual action of driving to the destination.
Thus, tactics are the actual steps taken to implement the strategy.
It would be prudent to state that Strategy tends to be a long term goal or objective, whilst tactics are more short term action points in pursuit of the overall objective.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What exactly is consulting?
Consulting at its simplest is assistance and guidance.
Typically, consulting is provided by someone who is familiar with the activity being pursued.
To cite a similar example, it would be analogous to driving to a new destination with someone who has already been to the destination before.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What exactly is strategy?
Strategy is the overall direction and aim of running a successful business. Effectively, it is a well thought out and researched purpose of any activity.
An example may illustrate this point better:
Strategy would be like having a road map to a new destination.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What strategy should we employ to start a food and beverage outlet?
First and foremost, absolutely ensure that there is a readily defined market and need for your product and/or service. Opening up a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown needs a lot of thought and funding. You need to have a very compelling business reason to embark on such a risky venture.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
Is it a good strategy to spend on Finance, marketing, HR etc even if the company is small?
Yes is the short answer. Once your idea has been turned into a business plan (mentally or otherwise), you will need someone to sell that item, you will also need to market that item. And clearly, you will also need someone to keep track of your accounts as well. It is entirely likely that initially, all three functions can be undertaken by one person, dependent on the business and its needs.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What is the most important thing in Business development?
Other than ‘developing business’, which entails sourcing, seeking and qualifying leads into sales prospects, BD also refers to various other commercial activities that are complementary to the sales efforts, such as partnering with other providers, looking for new and more creative ways of increasing revenues and eventually profitability.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What is the first step you will help a company with?
I am assuming that you are referring to my Company’s services. We advice and consult companies from the ‘idea stage’ right through to when the company is either ready for an IPO or a profitable selloff. Kindly get in touch with me to see how we can help you and your company further.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do we cope with the problems of funding a new division in a big company?
Typically, a larger company would have very good financial controls in place and therefore, allocating a budget to fund a new division should be based more on the merits and feasibility of the new product and/or service being offered anew. However, the key point here is to once again budget all the new branches and/or divisions well within the profits generated. A loss making situation caused by the heavy burden of financing a new venture should be avoided at all costs.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do we budget opening new branches / divisions in a company?
New branches and divisions should ideally be budgeted from the profits of the main company. And dependent on how many such branches need to be created, a suitable budgeting process should be followed. The key point here is to ensure that the total budget of all the new branches and/or divisions are well within the profits generated. Going into a loss situation to finance new operations is very dangerous, as any unforeseen setback can be catastrophic for the company.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do I transform from a technical guy in a company to an executive person?
First off, try to get more acquainted with the commercial aspects of your business. For example, depending on your technical position, try to go on client visits with your commercial person and see if you enjoy that. If that appeals to you, your next step should be to gradually move into a more commercial role. You could potentially start with a Pre-sales role and eventually move into Sales. Once you get into sales, it will give you a very good overview of the company and its daily running, as sales is the life blood of any company. From that vantage point, you should be able to find yourself a suitable executive role within the company.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do we plan and implement IT strategies?
IT by its very nature is a two prong advantage: firstly, it reduces repetitive and redundant tasks to a machine, thus taking boredom and tedium out of the employee’s workday. Secondly, if used correctly, it can greatly enhance business efficiencies, productively and more importantly, help the employees in doing their jobs much better and faster. Therefore, at its simplest, use IT to improve productivity and efficiency. And unless you are in the business of launching space ships or something highly technical, try to stick to standard applications that are used by many other organizations, thus reducing the need to become a test site for your IT solution. Your business is about selling your products and/or services and not about being a high profile test site for a new IT project.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What do we do if we feel that the company is not involving us in the decision making process?
Try to find out WHY the company is NOT involving its employees in their business. There could be myriad of reasons for this unfortunate situation. You should be able to ascertain the reason for their reluctance to involve employees. If the company is experiencing financial difficulties and hopefully, you and your colleagues are still motivated to continue working there, it might be useful for you and your immediate colleagues to put forth some ideas together to your management for their review. Donot hide under the guise of being uncaring, now is the time you can really shine in your company, as you might be able to unearth revenue generating ideas that your management might not have thought of. Rise to this challenge and make a positive difference.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do we strategize financing a new business?
Financing can be arrived at from a wide range of sources. Suffice to say, that the financing of any new venture should always come from profits generated in some other sister concern(s). For example, if you are selling lamps, it would likely make sense for you to diverse and also sell bulbs, as each lamp will need bulbs. Conversely, if you are selling cars, it might be useful for you to consider selling tires, car insurance, etc. In the examples cited above, the profits generated from the main business should be used to launch the new business. Therefore, the startup capital should be limited to the profits generated from the main business.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do I change an idea to a business?
First, try to establish that there is a quantifiable need for this product and/or service. Next, define mentally or on paper how you will target this need, the cost to address this market and then finally, go out and do it. If you managed to put this on paper, it would amount to a Business Plan. However, as you might have experienced, there are a lot of small thriving businesses that donot need nor require a formal business plan. A business plan is simply a road map to a destination and there are many ways and methods to get to the desired destination. The singular advantage of a business plan is that it compels you to think hard about all the possible outcomes each step of the way, thus making it a more solid and reliable measuring document. Because, as every management guru will tell you, whatever is not measured does not get fulfilled in business.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
The company shifted from family business to stake holders. How do the employees accept the change in leadership and hence the consequences?
Communication is absolute key in this situation. The stakeholders and/or the management should attempt to explain and answer questions arising from the now curious and potentially worried employees. Failure to communicate adequately and effectively could result in disgruntled employees who will leave the company. And that is a big risk, especially here, as there are many jobs going unfilled in this buoyant economy.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How do we stay focused on the right track? What Questions should we take care of?
The right path is the path to increasing revenues and more importantly, profitability. Money coming in minus money going out should ALWAYS be a Positive number. Ensure that the business has sufficient funding to survive any unforeseen hiccups.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What is the best strategy for a small growing company of 15 people?
Once again, being profitable is PARAMOUNT. At an absolute minimum, these 15 persons’ salaries and their collective costs should be met by the business income.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What is more important in UAE? Brand, Ingredients or Service?
All your stated aspects are important, including pricing, quality, availability, etc. These aspects are important in all markets, not just the UAE.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
Are the strategy same for all GCC countries?
No is the short answer. All countries, cities, villages, communities, groups, employees, individuals are different. Similarly, the GCC countries are different and more importantly, they all have diverse demographics and needs. However, dependent on the product and/or service being offered, they could have some similarities that can be useful to group together.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
Is there any special strategy needed for UAE markets?
Other than the futility of trying to sell sand to UAE residents, there are no particular strategies required for the UAE market. The most important strategy is to first find out if there is indeed a quantified need for the product and/or service that you are attempting to sell. If there is no foreseeable need, you will need to ‘educate’ the marketplace, which is a very expensive undertaking. The alternative might be to simply wait for the market need to surface in sufficient numbers to justify your business undertaking.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
How to strategize when there is a lot of competition in the market?
Competition is the normal state of any non-monopolistic free market system. Market forces will eventually compel competition into any and all arenas of businesses. The key to surviving and thriving in a competitive market is to constantly evolve with your clients needs and ensuring that your product and/or service offering is better for them than that being offered by the competition. CUSTOMER LOYALTY is what you are seeking. Loyalty can be assured by various factors, pricing is surely one, but that should NOT be the only one. Service, Quality, Support, Guarantee, Uniqueness, Availability are other relevant factors.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What is the strategy needed to take care of the existing customers?
Existing customers are the lifeline of any business. It is a commonly accept fact that it is 3 to 5 times as difficult to sell to a new customer than to an existing one. If you listen carefully to your existing customers, they will inevitably give you your next business idea. Take care of your clients and that will take care of your business. Of course, donot forget to collect your dues from them.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
What is the strategy needed to get into UAE markets?
The strategy needed in any business endeavor is and should always remain the same: TO MAKE MONEY. Having stated that upfront, getting into a new market with a product or service is always a risk. That risk factor needs to be mitigated by insightful knowledge and/or research that provides the risk taker the business comfort required to embark on such a business venture. The UAE is no different than any other market in the world, in fact, generally speaking, the positives of doing business in the UAE far outweighs doing business elsewhere. Some of the positive aspects of doing business in the UAE are Peaceful and stable Political and Economic structure, government is very pro-business, buoyant economy, high residual income earners, very good infrastructure, etc.
Imy Kassam,Stepping Stone Consulting
Strategy - Dr. Wael Yassin, Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
What if you’re not sure where you want to go?
You need to work for your future
- Peter Drucker said that if you’re not sure about the future than you must make it.
- Consider all your strategic alternatives and choose the best one
- As long as your strategy helps you achieve your vision, its worthwhile following
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
How should you determine your strengths and weaknesses?
Strengths and weaknesses
- Customers who perceive us can be valuable in carrying out SWOT Analysis.
- Customers can let you know about your strengths and weaknesses.
- Customer knowledge might perceive you as being different than how you position yourself
- Does your value proposition make a difference? Is it valuable to your consumers? Will it set you apart from the competition?
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
Do I need to have a strategy for a small company?
The way strategy is being marketed may make it seem tedious to administer
- However, strategy creation doesn’t need to be tedious and can be formulated easily
- Come up with a situational analysis tht is concetxtual to your own country.
- Try to quantify the impact the situational analysis is going to have on your business.
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
What happens when the strategy stops working?
Develop contingency plans when you’re creating your strategy
- Once your measure for success is decling, the strategy might need to be modified
- Not reaching your measures of success means that you’re going in the wrong direction and need to take the right steps to modify your strategy
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
What happens when the strategy stops working?
Develop contingency plans when you’re creating your strategy
- Once your measure for success is decling, the strategy might need to be modified
- Not reaching your measures of success means that you’re going in the wrong direction and need to take the right steps to modify your strategy
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
How ambitious should the strategy be?
A strategy should be ambitious, but should be reinforced with a foundation
- Implementation needs to follow strategy
- A strategy should be chosen and developed by the people who will implement it
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
How can you filter out good ideas to combine them in a strategy?
Good ideas are not enough to be labeled as strategy
- We need to understand that strategy is a way of reaching your business destination
- A good strategy is one that takes you to your destination in the least amount of time, with the least cost with the minimum risk.
- Those are the elements of a good strategy
- True strategy should be based on analysis
- In order to choose the right strategy, guide it with a foundation of analysis
- Strategies should be based on a situational analysis (PESTE, customer, competitor, SWOT analysis)
- PESTEL Analysis is very easy to gain information about.
- Strengths and Weaknesses are internal while opportunities and threats are external
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
In the SME space, do you see a need and an awareness for someone who can look outward at the market (externally) and internally?
Yes, the role does exist and the function does exist
- Not very inclined to make a separate strategy department and strategy implementation
- A strategic role is developed with department heads sitting together and agreeing with top executives of the general direction of the business
- Every department needs to participate in the strategy implementation
- There could be a couple of people in the organization to drive this process to align the external and the internal environment.
- There could be a committee in the organization to implement strategy
- SNOP – sales and operation process. Their role is to keep track of the implementation process. Their role is to keep track whether the strategic process is going in the right direction.
- A strategy should be followed by implementation
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
Do you need a goal?
Have a vision for your business
- You need to have a strategy to reach your vision
- Goals, operating plans and targets are more short term (a year or less)
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
Are there any particulat models that we use to create action plans?
There is no specific way to develop the action plan other than disintegrate the strategy into doable tasks
- the balanced scorecard is one of the tools that we use to measure our progress
- It is used to measure your checkpoints
- Alternatively, could also measure your sales figures, production levels, it will give you an indication of where you’re headed and whether you’re on track
- A strategy will not tell you how to get there
- You’ll require an implantation plan or a plan of action to tell you how to get there.
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
How can you define strategy?
The way you achieve your target or objectives
- In order to be able to develop strategies, there are pre-requisites
- You need to know which way to take,
- Where you want to go
- How to reach your decision is a strategy
- You need to follow a strategy that is aligned with your goals and takes you where you want to go
- Develop a step by step plan of action.
- Develop milestones and develop checkpoints to measure whether you’re in the right direction of your strategy
- Carry out a situational analysis
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
How important is it to have a strategy department in each company?
Strategy is not a department and it doesn’t have to be - Everyone should contribute to developing a strategy
- Strategists and planners are not required for strategy creation
- There is a need of developing strategies even without a department. The function is more important than the department
- Strategies are usually developed in the beginning of the year and usually not changed
- Strategy without implementation isn’t worth the effort. However, implementation should be everyone’s responsibility.
- Organizations should agree with the definition of the strategy
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
Once you’ve carried out the analysis, how to formulate the strategy
You can use the generic Porter Model
- Specific growth matrix of Ansoff Matrix
- Product life cycle strategies
- Come up with various strategic alternatives
- Need to apply the right model at the right time. You need to adapt it to different situations
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
Are there any special challenges and issues specific to these markets to carry out strategy consulting for SMEs? Is the process of coming into a small enterprise different in terms of implementing strategy?
We cannot develop strategies unless we know where we are going - One should always know where you are trying to go
- One should also know their current standing. Where are you now?
- You need to know your constraints
- Carrying out a situational analysis (internal and external)
- The external part is the more important part
- Look at the very outer environment – Macro environment – country related environment. Your macro environment can also be a regional environment
- PESTEL Analysis – Analysis model that we usually use.
- P – Political Environment
- E – Economic Environment
- S – Social Environment – will help you discover different social values that will help you operate in the country
- T – Technological
- E – Environmental or the Ecological Environment
- L – Legal Issues
- Consider all these aspects for strategy formulation
- The most difficult part is digesting the information
- Three important issues
- Take a country analysis and carry it out for the country you operate
- Find relevant information. You need to work on issues that are directly relevant
- If it is relevant, define the impact that it will have on your business
- Go into a Micro environment Analysis. This is analysis that is industry related.
- Can use Porter’s five forces. One of the best tools to use
- Helps you look at the industry structure where you’re operating
- You need to look at
- Competition – should be a broader definition of competition
- Look at substitute products
- New entrants
- Bargaining power of suppliers
- Bargaining power of customers
- These factors influence the intensity of your rivalry
- Look at direct and indirect competition
- The bargaining power can be affected by the PESTEL factor
- You need to answer another business which answers which business are you in. It’s a question which might be difficult to answer
- You need to be in the scope of the business that you have decided to be in
- You need to have a customer analysis
- A competitor’s analysis
- Need to carry out a SWOT analysis. Look at the internal and external factors of the business
- Decide where do you want to go. A strategy is a way to reach your destination.
- A vision is a dream with the strategy.
Dr. Wael Yassin,Marketing & Management Consultant, VisionPro Consulting
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