Dubai ranks as 29th best city for start-ups

PHOTO

Dubai was ranked as the ‘29th best city for start-ups’, according to the Start-up Cities Index in 2017 which ranks 85 of the world’s most dynamic start-up cities.

The index, a composite of five variables, measures a location’s viability for professionals to setup and run start-ups by evaluating the start-up ecosystem, salary, social security and benefits, cost of living, and quality of life.

Dubai’s ranking in 2017, comes as no surprise, as government policy both local and national, has paved the way for more SME and start-up development in the Emirate and across the country.

At present, Dubai offers entrepreneurs and small business owners a good support network including incubators, increasing financial and legal aid, and overall exposure for the company. There is however, one downside to all the development in the SME and start-up sector, and that is the saturation of many businesses across various industries, which causes a massive competitiveness in the race to attract clients and ensure business growth and sustainability. This is where building, maintaining, and marketing the company’s brand becomes a value-added asset.

Developing a brand is not an easy task, nor can it be done in a short period of time. It requires professional expertise from conceptualising to developing messages and content for the public.

At Eleven Percent, a company formed to support marketing requirements through a unique digital service for companies large and small, and irrespective of budgets, experienced professionals provide cutting-edge quality work with quick turnaround.

Rashad Fatairy, managing director and creative director, Eleven Percent, said: “The process for a business to become a brand is tedious and all consuming. It requires daily creative involvement.”

“There has to be constant tweaking, improving, and strengthening of the image the company wants to portray to the public,” he said.

“It is our job to ensure each of our clients are given a true and genuine identity in relation to its company’s purpose and offerings,” he added.

Eleven Percent developed a very unique company and an exclusive costing model to ensure marketing costs are reduced drastically for their clients, estimated at an average of Dh84,000 ($22,869) annually.

Fatairy continued: “We live in a world where expertise can be outsourced for a fraction of the cost instead of having the classic in-house team.”

“We make it our business to hire professionals, some of whom have over ten years’ experience in branding and the creative field because our clients deserve the best, and branding is a difficult job,” he said.

A brand is not just about the copy and the text, the visuals too play an important role in memory retention, identification, generating new clients, supports advertising and therefore contribute to the success of a company’s short and long-term marketing plans.

Further, building and maintaining a brand identity requires message uniformity across multiple platforms whether digital or otherwise. Marketing a constructed brand image can be done through multiple platforms such as online and offline advertisements, promotions and other marketing strategies, but care must be taken to integrate these platforms.

Importantly, Fatairy said he believes that his most important task is constant communication with his clients to understand their requirements, assuage their concerns, and keep them update.

He continued: “It is necessary that our clients understand that branding is a process and that it takes time. A brand is like a person; it has a certain look, character, voice, and essence, and only through devoting time and effort into developing these elements could they mould into a clear identifiable brand.”

“When a brand reaches this epitome, the marketing for the company and its products and services becomes easier, as the brand is known amongst the public. That is my goal,” Fatairy concluded. – TradeArabia News Service