What Western Executives Can Learn from the Arab Gulf Culture

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proximity to the state in the Gulf States.

Publicity and Religion

It is very popular in western culture to find a product being presented into the market with a religious association to it when it seeks to target people of a certain religious orientation. The people may feel considered and included during the development of this product, an aspect that would prompt them to purchase the product. This is, however, never the case when it comes to presenting products to an Islamic market. On the contrary, the product launch may fail even before the item being marketed hits the stores. Islam condemns using the religion in vain to further individual causes that seek to satisfy profit making ventures so it would be unexpected of them to respond positively to such a marketing stunt (The Economist, 2014). A product will therefore always be accepted, but only as long as it is presented within the confines of acceptable Islamic practices.

Conclusion

Globalization is taking root in various markets at a very high rate, especially owing to the recent technological breakthroughs within the communication, trade and e-commerce industries (Bhoyrul, 2016). Products are now being circulated around the world at a higher rate which then means more economies get the opportunities to work together as they foster relations across myriad specialty platforms. This means interaction between the west and the east is inevitable, a factor that enhances the need for these two regions to understand how they both conduct their businesses. Regional economies prosper with intracontinental trade, but owing to the size of the market, global trade flourishes further and grows economies faster. Conflict situations prop up from time to time, but these are usually resolved promptly as significant losses are usually registered in terms of potential sales and profits whenever global trade partners are in conflict. The Gulf States are a fast-growing economy with recent diversifications from their oil-based ventures, a factor that enhances the need to understand their economics and business culture, and further conform to them to reap the potential economic gains.

References

Bhoyrul, A. (2016) Why is Jeff Bezos meeting Mohamed Alabbar? Arabian Business Publishing

Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.arabianbusiness.com/why-is-jeff-bezos-meeting-mohamed-alabbar--652485.html

Mahajan, V. (2013) Understanding the Arab Consumer. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved

from https://hbr.org/2013/05/understanding-the-arab-consumer

The Economist (2014) The Tragedy of the Arabs. Retrieved from

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21606284-civilisation-used-lead-world-ruinsand-only-locals-can-rebuild-it