This article first appeared in the Media Buzz column, GULF NEWS, 23 December 2015.
Across the UAE, one in three people uses their smartphone to buy products and services. That’s more than in many other countries.
As readers of this business section, what are we doing with this information? Actually, we’re doing well, we’re bringing our products and services online, onto the mobile web and producing great apps from which we can purchase said products and services.
We know that our audiences research online and are starting to buy more and more regularly online.
The UAE business community is providing its online consumers with banking, grocery shopping, the latest fashions, perfumes and consumer electronics. And if these consumers look hard enough they can find plenty of local garden furniture, barbeques and gazebos too.
Local offerings, when really sought after, can be found online.
But before we pat ourselves on the back too enthusiastically, we need to take a step back and realise that we’re building these beautiful, functional castles in the desert without taking as much care and attention to building the roads and signposts needed to find these castles.
Build it and they will come?
The ‘build it and they will come’ approach doesn’t work Continue reading “The global reach of the small idea”
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