business – StartUpArabia

Silatech And Cisco To Build Invitational Technology Platform

June 14, 2009June 14, 2009 MMM

Silatech recently announced that it will be working with Cisco, which is one of its founding members and its global strategic technology provider, on the development of an ‘Invitational Technology Platform’, which will deliver Silatech services and solutions to the youth across the Middle East and North Africa.

Silatech is an initiative, that was launched by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned of Qatar, engaging the private, public and civil society sectors to promote large-scale job creation, entrepreneurship, and access to capital for young people.

Both Silatech and Cisco will contribute to the development of the Invitational Technology Platform, and Silatech will also be inviting a selection of local, regional and international technology organizations to participate according to their expertise. Local and regional universities and young developers from the Middle East and North Africa will also be involved in this regional effort.

Silatech’s Invitational Technology Platform will offer young people, entrepreneurs and enterprises throughout the MENA region access to:

Business development services and skills training for entrepreneurs leading existing small and medium size enterprises (SMEs);
Financial services to entrepreneurs and SMEs;
Skills development services to young people in various industries;
Access to markets and supply chains for SMEs;
Job placement and services across the MENA region.

Cisco’s newly opened office at the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) will be used as a base for the development effort.

Other efforts by Silatech and Cisco to create jobs and enhance youth skills in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector through industry programs include the Cisco Networking Academy.

Salam Business Club Takes Important Step Into Islamic Finance and Banking

April 23, 2009April 23, 2009 MMM 11 Comments

Salam Business Club (SalamBC), the social business network built especially for the Arab, Asian and Muslim business world, and that recently launched versions in Arabic, Urdu and other languages (and soon in Persian), will be officially announcing an interesting new business development for their service in the upcoming days.

Through a partnership with the Institute for Islamic Finance and Banking (IFIBAF), they aim to be the first online destination to offer Islamic Finance and Banking products to its members.

The deal comes at a time when demand for Islamic financial products is really high and growing, both from Muslims as well as non-Muslims all around the world, yet this demand remains far from covered and satisfied by whatever offers currently exist in the market. And the current economic crisis is pushing even more people to consider Islamic finance and banking as a safer option, with a number of banks working on building up Islamic finance units.

The Islamic finance industry, which is still a nascent one, is currently estimated at $700 billion to $1 trillion in asset size, with a 15-20 percent annual growth rate.

The move by SalamBC to launch such products also comes upon the requests and feedback that they kept constantly getting through listening to their members.

With this deal, SalamBC brings its whole database of members from over 180 countries worldwide to the table, while the IFIBAF brings its long years of experience with Islamic finance and banking, as well as its extensive global network within the Islamic Banking Community, to offer together a central entry point to Shariah-compliant financial products for everyone interested.

Their initial focus for their offerings will be on the European market, as the demand there is largely unsatisfied, but they will be extending to the rest of the world soon after that, as they continue to finalize more partnerships and agreements around the world.

# Salam Business Club

What Is The Best Business Advice You’ve Ever Received?

April 21, 2009April 21, 2009 MMM 7 Comments

I thought it was about time to do another crowd-sourced post experiment where I throw a question out there on social networks, try to gather different people’s feedback and bits and pieces of their shared wisdom, and then share it with everyone here.

The question I asked this time was: What is the best business advice you’ve ever received?

And the replies I got were very interesting ones, both on Twitter and Facebook.

From Twitter (in reply to this):

Do what you want to do, complete your goals and don’t compare yourself to the others. (Saud Al-Hawawi)
Never get into the gold rush business, get into the business of servicing the gold rush business. (Bin Mugahid)
Don’t shit where you eat. (Kay)
Partnership due diligence. Be very selective with who you partner with. (Mohamed)
If you are selling something people don’t need, you are invisible – Seth Godin (Osama A. Dwairi)
Always be prepared to leave. (Tareq Abedrabbo)
Give more than half your business to somebody else. (Bin Mugahid)
Nobody really cares about your grades in school. This is ain’t school boy. (Bin Mugahid)
Business is connections; the more you have the more your business will be successful. (Rami Khader)
If u have your full time job, look for branding, marketshare & influence of your project & don’t look for money (Tarek Kassar)
Do one thing at a time. Focus, Focus, Focus (Tariq Al Asiri)
In life, you should never wait to receive blows to deal some. (Mehdi Lamloum)
Learn to delegate. (Houeida Anouar)
Be an innovator and a leader. (Mehdi Ladjemi)
A freelancer should know that the brand is the product, the product is the company and the company is him. (Aniss Bouraba)
If you have no work to show, find a charity that needs your service, or do free work for friends or family. (Aniss Bouraba)
Listen. (Khalil)

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

April 19, 2009April 19, 2009 MMM

For years, marketers have talked and continue to talk about the “five Ps” (in fact, there are more than five, but everyone picks their favorite ones): product, pricing, promotion, positioning, publicity, packaging, pass along, permission…etc.

With time these became the components of a basic marketing checklist, a formula that people followed time and again to make sure they’ve done their job, and hopefully create success.

Seth Godin argues that it’s time to add an exceptionally important new P to the list: Purple Cow.

In his book “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable“, he makes the point that cows, after you’ve seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though…now that would be something, that would definitely stand out and grab your attention.

Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff-a lot of brown cows-but you can bet they won’t forget a Purple Cow. And he argues that it’s not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service; Purple Cow is inherent, It’s built right into the product from the beginning, or it’s not there.

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges everyone to put a Purple Cow into everything they build, and everything they do, to create something truly noticeable, that basically markets itself and makes people want to talk about it and spread it.

Purple Cow is a fun and really interesting book to read for anyone involved in building new products and launching them, offering an exciting way of looking at things and approaching product definition, development and marketing.

[Amazon: Purple Cow (Seth Godin)]

Tunisian Business Portal Web Manager Center Launches Arabic Version

April 14, 2009April 14, 2009 MMM 7 Comments

Web Manager Center, the leading online portal for economic and business news in Tunisia just announced the launch of their Arabic version today.

Over the past years, the French version of the site has become a well known resource for business people and reporters alike.

This move comes to cater to readers from Tunisia who prefer reading their news in Arabic, as well as to reach out to readers from around the Arab world who are interested in economic and business news out of Tunisia.

Web Manager Center provides daily detailed news updates covering the latest developments and events in the areas of economy, business and technology.

The portal works on providing the latest news on the Tunisian economy and its various sectors from industry, to agriculture, to finance, services and healthcare. It also sheds light on the world of business in Tunisia, the deals taking place, investments and partnership opportunities. It also covers the information and communications technology sector in the country, detailing all the latest products and services in the market.

The site also provides a ticker of the latest stock prices on the Tunisian stock exchange, as well as exchange rates for the Arab currencies.

In short, just like the French version before it, the Arabic version of Web Manager Center aims to be a central resource on everything related to the Tunisian economy, business in the country, as well as technology, through the news and analysis it provides.

Salam Business Club Launches Arabic Version Of Their Business Social Networking Service

April 4, 2009April 4, 2009 MMM 8 Comments

Salam Business Club, the social business network built especially for the Arab, Asian and Muslim business world, has just launched an Arabic version of their service.

SalamBC was previously called MuslimBC, before undergoing a rebranding aimed at showing that the service isn’t just strictly for Muslims, and that anyone interested in joining, networking and getting into business with Muslims and Muslim countries from all over the world can join.

As with other business social networks, people can sign up and create their professional profile, then search for people they know on the service or invite them, building up their business network. Groups can also be created around different subjects where discussions can be launched with other members.

An internal messaging system makes it easier for users to get in touch and interact with each other.
Users also get their own personal blog on the service where they can write and share their articles and thoughts, and other members can leave their comments on. RSS feeds will be made available for these blogs in the future too.

The interface is pretty simple and geared towards making it as friendly a place as possible for business professionals to connect and interact with each other, share interesting information and resources, and access the latest business news from various sources.

Among the other languages available on SalamBC are English, German, French, Urdu and Turkish; making the service available and accessible to a wide base of business people from different countries and backgrounds.

SalamBC was founded by Rias A. Sherzad and Farid Zazai in 2007. The company is based in Hamburg, Germany and is self and angel funded so far. I met with co-founder Farid Zazai in Dubai on a recent trip of his, and understood that they are also keeping an eye open for possible VC investments.

They’re also working on a really interesting service within SalamBC that no one else has ventured into yet, but I’ll get into that in more detail later, once I get the green light from them to talk about it.

# Salam Business Club

Businessbuyandsell.me, Middle East’s First Business & Franchise Marketplace

December 21, 2008December 21, 2008 MMM 8 Comments

Dubai-based RichWeb, a member of Tharaa Holding, has just launched the beta version of BusinessBuyAndSell.me, the region’s first portal dedicated to buying and selling businesses and franchises, in a move that aims to cater to and boost company acquisitions and expansion activities by business establishments in the Middle East and North Africa (including Turkey and Iran).

BusinessBuyAndSell.me offers a number of services, such as listing businesses for buying and selling with the option to search by category and region; listing and finding global franchise opportunities available for the Middle East; receiving auto-updates on new listings based on saved search criteria; advertising opportunities; with a number of other value-added services that will be launched with the non-beta version within the next 6 Months.

The directory of listings on BusinessBuyAndSell.me is a free service for buyers, which will enable them to search opportunities by location, category and size of businesses. Potential buyers can also have their search criteria saved and regularly receive listing updates, based on their specific requirements. Owners who plan to sell their businesses or franchises can register online and list their offerings on the website and find potential buyers in a much faster, easier and convenient way, as opposed to traditional methods of newspaper advertising.

As an introductory offer, all listings are free of cost during the trial period and huge reductions in advertising rates are available.

Commenting on the portal’s launch, Mr. Shabeer Mohamed, RichWeb’s Managing Partner, said: “Buying and selling businesses and franchises is a key area of economic activity all over the world. However, until now, there has been no proper domain in the region for potential buyers and sellers to come in contact with each in a fast and easy manner, I am sure our service will come as a saviour to many establishments seeking to restructure their operations.”

Other related services that BusinessBuyAndSell.me plans to offer include providing details of available business loans, business-related services and other useful resources.

# Source: Maktoob Business

What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial?

December 8, 2008December 8, 2008 MMM

About a year ago, I came across a really interesting study by Saras D. Sarasvathy from University of Washington’s School of Business on “What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial?“. Today, I remebered it, thought I’d dig it up and share it here.

In her study, Sarasvathy examined the reasoning of 30 founders of companies, ranging in size from $200 Million to $6.5 Billion. What she found was that these founders shared a distinct form of rationality that we have all long recognized intuitively as “Entrepreneurial”. She termed this type of rationality “Effectual Reasoning”.

Here is a bit from her study that basically explains this “Effectual Reasoning”:

“Effectual reasoning […] does not begin with a specific goal. Instead, it begins with a given set of means and allows goals to emerge contingently over time from the varied imagination and diverse aspirations of the founders and the people they interact with. While causal thinkers are like great generals seeking to conquer fertile lands (Genghis Khan conquering two thirds of the known world), effectual thinkers are like explorers setting out on voyages into uncharted waters (Columbus discovering the new world).”

And on the process entrepreneurs follow:

“All entrepreneurs begin with three categories of means: (1) Who they are – their traits, tastes and abilities; (2) What they know – their education, training, expertise, and experience; and, (3) Whom they know – their social and professional networks. Using these means, the entrepreneurs begin to imagine and implement possible effects that can be created with them.”

It’s a very interesting study that I really recommend reading:
What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial? (Saras D. Sarasvathy)

Biz Report Middle East, First Corporate Internet TV Channel In The Middle East

November 11, 2008November 11, 2008 MMM 3 Comments

Biz Report Middle East (BRME) was recently launched as the Middle East’s first dedicated corporate web television channel. This Middle East channel will be the first of a series of similar channels to be launched around the world over the next 6 – 12 months. Future channels will include Biz Report North America, Biz Report Europe, Biz Report Sub Continent, and Biz Report Far East & Pacific.

The channel concept is simple. Clients (or their PR agency or corporate video production company) upload their recorded press conference or corporate video to the web channel through a control panel for a nominal fee.

Once the material is uploaded to the channel relevant journalists around the Middle East are notified that a press conference or other release is available to view taken from an up-to-date 20,000 strong Middle East media database. In addition, business executives and any other international journalists who have registered on the channel as ‘Power Users’ receive a notification that there is a new release available to view. Further to this, the client also has the option to attach a press kit, event photographs or digital marketing materials to the release when it is uploaded so that journalists can download this information too and it can all be available to view or download within an hour of the event taking place.

Whilst the channel can be viewed by anyone, it is targeted primarily to journalists and business executives.

The channel concept was developed by Marketing Strategist and Corporate Media Producer, John Robins. “The the idea for Biz Report TV came about as a result of the years I have been working on international corporate communication projects” explained Robins. “Over the years, I have been responsible for the recording and editing of countless press conferences, corporate events and corporate videos and it has always staggered me how many of these have ended up being burnt to DVD and then left on a shelf somewhere in someone’s office. It seemed such a waste given the amount spent on the material in the first place. From this thought I developed the idea of having a TV channel that would enable companies to broadcast their productions and significantly increase viewership, generate far more media coverage and get a significantly increased ROI on large chunks of marketing budget.”

Robins first developed the idea 4 years ago, and teamed up with freelance web designer and software engineer David Lear to develop it, and work on the sophisticated technology that will power their new channel network. Robins and Lear believe that there are few web TV channels, if any that offer the full range of features that BRME does.

# Biz Report Middle East (BRME)