Abraaj Capital Limited: Celebration of Entrepreneurship (CoE)

© 2011, Company. Title: Abraaj Capital Limited: Celebration of Entrepreneurship (CoE). Subject area: Strategic stakeholder engagement, entrepreneurialism, ecosystem, corporate social responsibility, event management, branding, marketing strategy. Study level/applicability: Post‐graduate level, practitioners interested in MENSA Region, entrepreneurship policy makers and NGOs. Case overview: Abraaj Capital Ltd (Abraaj), a highly reputed private equity investment and management company, strongly believed in corporate social responsibility, strategic stakeholder engagement and entrepreneurship ecosystem development. In November, 2010, Abraaj held the “Celebration of Entrepreneurship” (CoE) a two‐day free entrepreneur event, in Dubai. CoE was attended by more than 2,400 participants. The purpose of CoE was to contribute to building an entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Middle East North Africa South Asia region (MENASA). Based on participant feedback, CoE Outcomes and stakeholder feedback, the event was very successful.This case is a good example of community engagement and showcases entrepreneurship ecosystem development. This case also highlights the challenges of putting together a signature event in a very short time frame. The future management dilemmas are also raised on various issues like whether to make this successful event a regular part of their organizational activities, and issues concerning the funding of such events. This case can be used to teach event management, branding, marketing strategy, CSR and entrepreneurship (from the ecosystem point of view). It will appeal to both educationalists and practitioners interested in the MENASA region, policy makers who facilitate entrepreneurship, CSR managers, event management companies and marketing specialist. It can be used to teach both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Expected learning outcomes: Strategy students can focus on marketing and branding strategies; like stakeholder engagement, internal marketing, social media, positioning and brand architecture. Student of event management can learn about prioritizing, adaptability, funding and the complexity of layering a program. Supplementary materials: Teaching notes, videos

Pepsico Amea: The Role Of Packaging In Brand Activation

Hossam Dabbous, Senior Marketing Director of Carbonated Soft Drinks, Middle East & Africa (MEA) region and Asmaa Quorrich, MEA Senior Marketing Manager, Cola & Malt were discussing the role that packaging played in the brand activation strategy for the Pepsi brand. Packaging for PepsiCo is a focus area for sustainability, but more importantly it could also help drive volumes, reinforce brand image and act as an entry point in markets. While packaging and designs take approximately two months from planning to production, labels for PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles took longer and the challenges were to determine the objective of packaging, make sure to keep it relevant to local markets and produce the right quantities so that the special packages were consumed in the promotion period. The lead time for these activities was normally six months. The meeting between Hossam and Asmaa was called to understand which stock keeping unit (SKU) PepsiCo thought they could leverage to increase profitability and reinforce brand equity using innovative packaging designs and concepts

Etihad: contributing to the UAE vision through Emiratisation

© 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Subject area: Strategy, Emiratisation (national policy); human resources (recruitment, training and development, organizational culture and values) and marketing (branding, communication), tourism (destination image). Study level/applicability: Undergraduate and Postgraduate Business and Management. Case overview: This case highlights the strategy and initiatives taken by Etihad to attract Emirati employees (local nationals) to join the organization. Etihad Airways is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), based in Abu Dhabi, the national capital. Since its inception in 2003, the airline has grown faster than any other in commercial aviation history; it currently flies to more than 60 destinations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. In the UAE, nationals or Emiratis comprise only 20 per cent of the overall population. According to the UAE 2021 Vision, the government\u27s focus is on building the human capabilities on knowledge and innovation for Emiratis. This vision is reinforced in the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, which aims to boost national participation, encourage women (national women are on average more highly educated than the men) and decrease the education – market demand gap through training. Expected learning outcomes: This case can be used to teach strategy from the point of view of government, human resources and marketing. From the government point of view parallels can be drawn to other nations whose government have focused on policies to create opportunities for and to encourage local employability. An example of a similar programme that was very successful is the “Bumiputra” programme created for indigenous Malaysians in 1971. In the area of human resource strategy, recruitment, training, inculcation of corporate values are some areas that can be reinforced. Form the point of view of marketing; the case can be used to discuss branding from the point of view of people, loyalty building (internal) and communication (internal and external). Destination branding and the role airlines play can also be a discussion point from the strategic point of view with some opportunity for macro-environmental analysis using the PESTLE model. Supplementary materials: A teaching note available upon request

Gea Group Aktiengesellschaft: Doing Business In The Middle East

GEA Westfalia Separator Group, a subsidiary of international GEA Group, has come a long way in its 119 year history. In May 1893, Franz Ramesohl and Franz Schmidt applied under No. 14625 for a design patent for a drive arrangement for milk centrifuges to the Imperial Patent Office. Since those days the company strove to produce better products and offer better services than the competition. The aim of the organization from the word \u27go\u27 was to produce superior work under the \u27Made in Germany\u27 label. Steffen Bersch, Vice President Service International, reinforced this status as he confirmed \u27basically what is key for us, is that our companies in the group have a very detailed knowledge of our customers, products and processes and hence 90 per cent of our products today are market leading\u27. The company had become an international brand, and well on its way to becoming a global operating company, it had built new manufacturing facilities in Wuqing, China and Bengaluru, India in addition to the already existing European sites. With such megatrends like \u27steady growth in global population\u27, \u27urbanization and the growth of the middle-class\u27, and \u27rising energy cost and environmental regulations\u27, the company had seen these as growth drivers for its food and energy sector of business, which made up more than 70 per cent of its sales in the world. Sunil Kumar, General Manager GEA Middle East FZE, pondered as to how the company could seize such opportunities in the high-growth Middle East markets? GEA had always been steadfast in its objectives of product innovation and fast and reliable customer service. Service lead times continued to be between 4 and 48 hours. This customer focus leads to a 90 per cent rate of reputational (word-of-mouth) business in the Middle East region. The company has faced challenges like lower cost competitors from Italy, India and China whose products were priced between 20 per cent and 50 per cent lower than GEA. The other challenge faced by GEA pertained to their Middle East markets with countries such as Syria and Iran that almost shut down for business. In the 1970s and 1980s, Iran used to be the company\u27s leading market in this region. How can GEA executives cope with these macro-environmental opportunities and challenges

The environmental impact of high- and low-mass stars: from formation to main sequence

Throughout the entire lifetime of a star, it continuously alters the environment. Diverse processes are involved which complicates studies of stellar interaction. This thesis focuses on two different physical phenomena associated with stars: (1) the interplay of magnetic fields and collapsing clouds, and (2) the effects of radiation from massive stars. We first compare polarization measurements of 52 Galactic star-forming regions with their locations in the Galaxy. In particular, we find that there is no correlation between the average magnetic field direction of star-forming molecular clouds and the Galaxy, indicating that star formation may eventually become its own process independent of the Galaxy. Secondly, we observe the coupling of the magnetic field with the low-mass protostar L1157-mm by creating polarimetric maps at resolutions from ~300 to 2500 AU. The inferred magnetic field lines show a well-defined hourglass morphology centered about the core -- only the second of such morphology discovered around a low-mass protostar. Next, we focus on radiation from massive stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We first present a survey of HII regions around massive young stellar objects (YSOs) and explore numerous relationship between parameters measured through observations of free-free and infrared emission. In particular, we find that YSO mass is a crucial consideration when exploring almost any relationship. Finally, we analyze how massive stars process dust in two classical HII regions and two superbubbles. We find that PAH emission is highest in the presence of molecular clouds with a low radiation field and that emission from very small grains are particularly high at locations where the radiation field is very strong