Businesses in the Middle East will benefit from dotcom crashes around the rest of the world, so the region can harness the e-revolution to affect its bottom-dollar benefits. This is the message from leading business academics and practitioners, who are scheduled to address more than 300 delegates in Dubai for The Marketing Forum's third annual conference.
The October 21–23 event, entitled Best Marketing Practice in Action, to be held at the Emirates Towers hotel in Dubai, acts as an arena for Gulf decision-makers to listen to experts and gain concrete ideas for improving the profit performance of their companies. Naturally, explains Brian Berry, the event's project manager, e-business will be one of the key focus points this year.
Berry explained: "Companies in the Middle East think that the e-world has collapsed in the West, so are asking why we need to move away from more traditional, bricks-and-mortar forms of doing business. If major blue chip companies have slashed their IT budgets—why should they go ahead and spend? Quite simply, because e-business is here to stay. Companies need to invest in solid e-business foundations to augment the existing business modules to increase efficiency and therefore achieve bottom-line benefits.”
After all, bottom-dollar benefits are the reason we are all in business, points out Mohammed Shurrab, founder and CEO of zgrocer.com in Saudi Arabia, who is one of four keynote speakers at the event. He explains: "What is needed is a more sustainable Information Technology (IT) spending that will aim at achieving moderate growth levels. And in the Middle East, we are in a better position to avoid the troughs and peaks as seen elsewhere. We can actually learn from the West and make more intelligent decisions based on case studies."
According to Shurrab, the only successful way to incorporate e-business principles is to combine old economy management principles with new economy strategy. “Traditional business practices must form the basis of how to manage a company effectively. Then add e-principles to these traditional foundations, and you will not fail.”
Real dollar success is also the aim for Marc Van der Ven, regional manager for ACCPAC MENA, who is hosting an e-business break-out seminar at the event. “Unlike the rush into expanding IT capabilities in the West that is backfiring today, this can be translated into more cautious IT spending. As a result, the region's businesses are capitalising from the West's experience, and concluding that careful, slow and successful uptake of e-business ensures healthy investments.”
What has become clear from the lessons learned from other countries, according to Simon Woodroffe, founder of YO! Sushi, and another key-note speaker at The Marketing Forum, is the need to combine old economy management principles with new economy strategy. "Traditional business practices must form the basis of how to manage a company effectively. Then add e-principles to the equation and you have the perfect solution. If you take away these traditional foundations, you will fail."
Woodroffe is in the process of rolling-out the YO! Sushi entertainment/restaurant concept through the Middle East from its British beginnings, and explains that start-up costs are reduced considerably with the implementation of a successful e-business strategy. He says: "It is critical that we use e-business strategies – where applicable - to streamline a company's operational procedures and costs. Having said that, nothing can replace traditional marketing tools, which should be operated in tandem."
He adds: "Intelligent executives are able to see that e-business is the way forward to cutting cost, improving efficiencies, and building lasting customer and supplier relationships. And these efficient business practices will see the middle man become less important with producers becoming more efficient. This will allow cost and time savings to be passed to the consumer directly, with increased profit to the producer.”
Woodroffe believes that becoming an e-business actually enables companies to move closer to the customer and maintains that the very notion of customer service has changed. He says: "There is a perception that customer service has to be face-to-face, but it doesn't. In today's world, it is about providing delivery, reliability, effectiveness, efficiency and speed. People have changed and their needs have changed accordingly."
After all, e-business is here to stay, claims Berry, and explains that traditional businesses that have employed these net tools to provide value to their customers will stay ahead of the competition. "Organizations have to realize that the Internet is not a business or a strategy. It is a set of the most powerful tools that can help companies build stakeholder value and wealth," he concludes. “It is an opportunity for those who can see it and a threat for those who prefer to ignore it." — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
