Blessed be the firework makers

Some easy New Year’s predictions: Dubai’s fireworks suppliers will enjoy a bumper start to the year, those looking for a second-hand, barely-used Lexus will find a bargain, and February Fridays at Mall of the Emirates will be a living hell. Welcome to 2008. Welcome to Dubai Shopping Festival.
A DSF press release, helpfully reprinted by Gulf News, informs us weekend firework displays will last 20 minutes (2007’s were a paltry three minutes), more than 90 Lexus and Nissan cars will be raffled (only to appear next day at 4x4 Motors), and visitors numbers will be up from 3.5million to nearly 4m.
The number of participating retailers will increase from 2,800 last year to over 3,500. Revenues are expected to top $3bn. There will be lots of gold to be won.
The official figures tell us DSF is a continued success, attracting more visitors to Dubai and generating greater revenue. The formula must work otherwise why would Jeddah and Doha, among others, want to copy it?
But what if, for one year, there was no DSF? Would Dubai fail to attract visitors during the best winter-sun period of the year? Would the golf, horse racing and tennis fail to add visitors? Would the world class malls be empty?
This is not to knock DSF, but some clearer evidence of the DSF effect would be welcome. How many visitors are persuaded to choose Dubai because of DSF? How many extra purchases are made because there is a raffle?
At the moment it appears DSF is an industry that needs to keep feeding itself.

The personal touch

As Dubai involves itself in ever larger, and more diverse international deals, it is nice to be reminded that not every deal is based on hard cash and bottom lines. We’re told Sri Lanka’s decision to revoke the work permit of its national carrier’s CEO – a guy out in place by Emirates – will have an “extremely negative” impact on talks with Emirates over the renewal the contract to run the airline.
Never underestimate the power of the personal relationship, particularly, according to the Financial Times, when as many as 70 percent of businesses, either private or listed, are family controlled. Forty per cent of the Fortune 500 companies still under family control.
According to reports, the Sri Lanka government took the hump with Peter Hill after he reportedly refused to bump passengers off a flight from London to Colombo to make way for the island’s president and his entourage. It withdrew his work permit on December 19. The move is not likely to help relations as the two sides discuss an extension to their current deal. Hill had previous said the talks were dragging.
The upside of a personal relationship, or attachment to a business, is often long term thinking, or at least a willingness to stick to the path during tough times. The flipside is personal disputes are often harder to resolve. Disagreements between the members of the Bancroft family are widely seen as having created an opening for Rupert Murdoch to make his $5bn bid for Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal.
It may turn out that Peter Hill’s actions (and words) are part of Emirates’ bargaining strategy.

Du the math

In a meeting with Coca Cola senior management a couple of years ago, the company’s regional md revealed how his life is governed by a continuous check of Coke’s retail presence. Every day, in shops, on planes, in bars, at vending machines, was spent checking whether Coke was beating Pepsi?

In this morning’s Emirates Business 24/7, Osman Sultan, CEO of Du, admits to a similar compulsive disorder: he says he feels a “quiet sense of achievement” every time he answers a call from an 055 prefix.

He must be short on thrills. Despite Du claiming to have passed the one million-customers barrier, a straw poll of friends and colleagues suggests very few people are using a Du number. Etisalat numbers continue to dominate – people still assume mobile numbers start with an 050 prefix. For the most part, the only people using a Du number are new arrivals; many Etisalat customers have booked a Du number, but don’t use it.

This is hardly Du’s fault. With no room to wriggle on price, the UAE’s second mobile operator has limited means to differentiate itself from the incumbent (not helped by both preferring lower case); there is not much of a compelling argument for consumers to shift operators. ‘I have a Du number but Etisalat matches the package, so why should I change,’ says one colleague.

Du has stated it wants 30 per cent of the UAE market by 2009. What it doesn’t say is whether this by market value, traffic or prefix.

Silent Salik

To the surprise of no one Dubai’s Salik road toll system is to be expanded to all major roads and bridges in the city. Electronic gates will be installed on Emirates Road, Al Khail Road and Al Ittihad Road by 2009. Salik will also be introduced at Shindagha Tunnel, Business Bay Crossing and Maktoum bridge.

Since Salik was introduced in the summer, the RTA has inched towards some degree of public interaction. There has been a sharp increase in the number of RTA ads appearing in press and billboards. It is now advertising its complaints line: 800 9090, http://ecomplain.dubai.ae, or fax to 04 206 5532. It might have been nice to flag up some concept of dialogue before the next phase of expansion: a suggestion that public feedback might be taken into consideration.

The RTA says the roll-out is part of “a major push to get people to use public transport”, reports Emirates Business 24|7 - though neither the RTA nor the paper bother to provide details of how. No details on tolls either.

There is nothing wrong in admitting this is a tax on drivers. Sailk is expected to raise Dh600m this year; details of how this money is being spent on tackling the traffic problem would be welcome. A public face for the RTA would be ideal.

Tough business

The UAE is a regional business center, UAE companies make the international news, the country needs a daily business paper. This appears to be the logic behind Arab Media Group’s relaunch of its Emirates Today title to Emirates Business 24/7. The new paper debuted on Sunday 9 December with the publisher confident it will become “an integral part of the life of top executives and decision-makers in the private and public sectors as well as a reference for investors”.

Good luck to them. Given the difficulties in securing a license to print new newspapers (and ITP’s inability to launch a daily business title), Business 24/7 could be a spoiler from AMG – ‘if we can’t crack the market with a general newspaper, we’ll pioneer the business daily sector’.

The first edition certainly boasts a clean, contemporary design (though the 24/7 tag is a little naff – and international business people might wonder why the phones aren’t answered on Fridays), but it will live and die on its content.

Issue one has some decent stuff – strong views from the local business community on the dollar peg, Al Qudra IPO details, water transport plans – but too much of is generic filler. How many times can it rehash a dollar peg/sovereign fund/forthcoming IPO feature? These are fine for weekend supplements, or monthly titles, but not so good for news-led daily papers. There is nothing to shock share prices or embarrass CEOs. Business people don’t make decisions based on happy-clappy feel-good pieces.

In its favor Business 24/7 at least now has a clear positioning (Emirates Today was defined by what it wasn’t, rather than what it was), and AMG’s government ties should ensure access to heavyweight players. Most people are in the UAE to work; business matters. Business 24/7 must avoid becoming an irrelevance.