Customer relationship orientation - evolutionary link between market orientation and customer relationship management

Market Orientation continues to evolve and this paper re-visits the concept. Using 20 cases across two countries and many industries, this paper finds that market orientation (MO) is actually a measure of the organizations ability to maintain, develop and build a relationship with its customer base. A surprising finding is that MO actually depends on the emphasis an organization gives to its past, present and future customer bases. Organizations that fail to reap the benefits of MO do so because they have not embraced MO at the right level. This paper encourages practitioners to identify those factors that contribute to the development of a customer relationship orientation to fully experience the benefits of adopting a market orientation. The paper presents several simplified frameworks that contribute to the overall theoretical body of knowledge and practice

Approaches to enter emerging markets: A UAE case study

UAE as a country brand ranks one for resorts & lodging. It is 31st among 134 countries in terms of national competitiveness according to the World Economic Forum. It ranks one in terms of invested sovereign wealth funds according to IMF, is the fifth largest oil producing nation. During this time of recession, it is still expected to have a growth of 2.7% according to Standard Chartered. This paper briefly highlights some important ways for global corporation and international entrepreneurs to succeed in building new businesses within UAE learning from the past experiences. The methodology used in this paper is primarily based on an extensive literature review and some interviews. Further triangulation was achieved looking at grey literatures (non-peer reviewed) and web articles. This paper is exploratory in nature. The study presents a conceptual model at the end that will provide guidelines for new entrants into the UAE market

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

The determinants of foreign direct investment in the Middle East North Africa region

– The purpose of this paper is to test the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) into countries of the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. – The research is based on an econometric model that includes factors that potentially drive FDI flows into countries in the MENA region. – Energy endowments have a negative impact on FDI flows into a country. GDP per capita, openness to trade and oil prices have a positive impact on FDI inflows, while aggregate measures of environmental risk are not a differentiating factor among countries in the region. – This paper demonstrates that the “Dutch disease” concept applies to FDI in resource rich countries in the MENA region. Countries with large amounts of oil and gas have are more likely to have policies and institutions that inhibit FDI. Countries that value the spillover effects from FDI need to reconsider legislative and institutional hurdles that remain. © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limite

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

A study of unconscious emotional and cognitive responses to tourism images using a neuroscience method

© 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: This applied neuroscience study aims to understand how direct and unconscious emotional and cognitive responses underlie travel destination preferences. State-of-the-art neuroscience tools and methods were used, including stationary eye tracking and brain scanning electroencephalography (EEG) to assess emotional and cognitive responses to destination images and assets. To the researchers’ knowledge, this study is the first applied neuroscience study in tourism research and thus opens a new path of research and enquiry to this area. This paper is an attempt to understand specific mental processes in human tourism behaviours, and it is suggest that unconscious emotional and cognitive responses are natural processes that need to be studied and understood, not as special cases, but embedded as natural parts of tourism research. Design/methodology/approach: To better understand consumers’ unconscious responses to possible travel destinations, a 3 × 5 factorial design was run with the factors being stimulus type (images, printed names and videos) and travel destination (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, New York and London). Eye-tracking calibration was done with a nine-point fixation test and the EEG calibration was done using functional localizer tests based on the ABM B-ALERT calibration process. This calibration procedure allows reliable tracking of emotional and cognitive responses over time. Thirty Emirati (nationals of the UAE) participants, consisting of equal numbers of males and females (15) were recruited from the UAE and signed informed consent. Each participant was positioned in front of an eye tracker and computer screen, and brain-scanning equipment was mounted; then, each participant underwent eye-tracking and neuroimaging calibration procedures. A Tobii T60XL eye tracker and an ABM X-10 EEG brain scanner, both running iMotions v5.1 in a Windows 7 environment, were used. Findings: General emotional and cognitive differences were identified between the channels through which travel destinations are presented. Words about and names of travel destinations cause higher cognitive loads, which may not be surprising, given the greater associative load that words have than images. Of particular interest is the hypothesis that images evoke stronger affective responses than verbal representations. However, as previously noted (Holmes and Mathews, 2005), empirical evidence for this assumption seems surprisingly sparse. The present study and the context provided here suggest that decisions on travel destination have an unconscious component and a direct component that may drive or affect overt preference and actual choice. Research limitations/implications: The limitations of this paper is that first, neuromarketing is not dependent on sample sizes; however, future studies could build on this paper to understand why there is a preference for cities. It is suggested that unconscious emotional and cognitive responses are natural processes that need to be studied and understood, not as special cases, but embedded as natural parts of tourism research. Originality/value: Thus, tourism research may indeed be a suitable field for understanding the brain bases of complex preference formation and choice. Various researchers have found that a destination image is typically measured using cognitive, affective and behavioural components, and further stated that the cognitive image component of a destination was found to have a significant positive effect on the affective image component and overall destination image (Stylidis et al., 2017). Therefore, this research which has introduced brain scanning can be used to better understand the underlying unconscious emotional and cognitive processes that affect consumer thought and action. An understanding of what goes on in the human unconscious mind is very important for destination marketers, this can help in the integrated marketing communication process to create a destination image and brand

Assessing student satisfaction in transnational higher education

Purpose: Given that there exists in the literature relatively little research into student experiences in transnational higher education, the purpose of this paper is to identify the determinants of student satisfaction at international branch campuses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach: This quantitative study involved 247 undergraduate and postgraduate students at branch campuses in the UAE who completed a questionnaire using either hard copies or an online version. Findings: It was found that levels of student satisfaction at UAE branch campuses were generally high. The factors that were most influential in determining whether or not a student at a UAE branch campus was satisfied overall with their institution were quality of lecturers, quality and availability of resources, and effective use of technology. Research limitations/implications: Given that cultures, customs, traditions and social contexts vary considerably in different locations, the findings of this study are not generalisable across all international branch campuses globally. Practical implications: The findings indicate that there remains scope for UAE branch campuses to further increase levels of student satisfaction. Managers might use the findings to review their own institution\u27s performance, so that areas for improvement can be identified. Originality/value: Given that the logit model developed had an 87.4 per cent success rate in predicting whether or not a student at a UAE branch campus was satisfied overall with their institution, this research has demonstrated the potential usefulness of logistic regression as a predictive and explanatory tool in education management. Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Place branding: Aligning multiple stakeholder perception of visual and auditory communication elements

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd Place branding is complex due to its interdisciplinary nature, the highly competitive market, diverse stakeholder needs, and its ability to influence national priorities. This paper looks at the role of visual and auditory branding signatures in forming place attachment within three groups of stakeholders (nationals, expatriates, tourists). While research has focused on place consumers from either tourism or government perspectives, there is a need to take an interdisciplinary lens to look at new methodologies to see how place brands can manage multiple stakeholders. This paper presents new methodology for place brand studies called causal layered analysis. From a scholarly point of view, the paper presents a unique methodology in destination branding studies that aligns multiple stakeholder views yet still roots visual and auditory signatures of stakeholder perception of the nation\u27s brand through its heritage. The paper justifies the importance of story-telling and collecting multiple brand interpretations to create place attachment. The findings highlight the importance of resolving multiple stakeholder perspectives and the importance of the stories that can link various narratives that are important for nation branding and building, since common visuals have layered interpretations. While this study is qualitative in nature, the findings show that there is a need for more theory building in this field. From a practitioner\u27s point of view, organizations can use the methodology for perception mapping to create a distinct place communication platform. This, in turn, can reinforce a place\u27s identity based on both heritage and modernity