Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781469732527 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 01/26/2012 |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.30(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Brand Revolution
Ousting Old Mideast Trading MindsetsBy Said Aghil Baaghil
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Said Aghil BaaghilAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-3252-7
Chapter One
A Time for Revolution
With the astounding current transformations in the worlds of politics, economy and culture, a wave of change has swept most countries around the world, from Tahrir square to the protests on Wall Street in New York. The young people spreading their new ideas using modern technologies, especially social media, have served as the main beacon of change, especially in regions such as the Middle East, where many young people had been living all their lives under corrupt dictators. Today most young people in the region are driven by hope, ambition and admiration for this unprecedented change that has brought their souls to the brink of a new frontier, crafted by their own hands, unlike previous generations whose thoughts were encoded and dictated by an education system that was conceived by those same corrupt leaders. These leaders were corrupted by their own power as well as by their greed, and they were corrupted by the dishonesty they were willing to perpetrate to cling to that power. It was in their interest that the populations of these nations would think uniformly.
And when we say they were dishonest, we mean they were putting forward occasional intentional falsehoods, certainly. But more importantly, they were in the grips of a more pernicious kind of dishonesty—self-dishonesty—in which one refuses to acknowledge the truth because one cannot acknowledge the truth, or one will have to change. And more than anything, these leaders, who after all had all they need, and had it pretty good, did not want change. In answer, the young people who have helped bring these leaders down have set transparency and honesty as central values.
Meanwhile, it must be acknowledged that the political revolution was a social revolution, and that the social revolution also entailed revolutions in such economic details as the way people consume media and products, and the way they share information about those media and products. It goes without saying that Facebook and Twitter first rose to prominence in the world, not as a vehicles for revolution, but as money-making enterprises. Yet something about this form of money-making was more amenable to all kinds of progress: political, social, and commercial. In today's world the three are intimately bound together, as they always have been. Yet perhaps today we are in a better position to admit to ourselves how these areas of endeavor are related, and must be related. Social responsibility now extends to consumption, and our means of consumption are now acknowledged to impact social responsibility. In one sense, the deposed leaders represented not only outmoded and morally suspect means of governance, but they also represented outmoded and morally suspect means of consumption.
Herein, when we position brand revolution in the context of this broader change, this is not to say that we consider the two areas of endeavor to be of equal importance. However, it is to say that one cannot exist without the other. The political revolution was predicated on shifting commercial paradigms. Thus, brand revolution is perhaps not the most important aspect of all this change, but it has nonetheless been vital. The claims on the part of protesters that we must find new ways of allocating resources were no less potent than their claims that we must find new ways of allocating rights and enfranchisement.
This book is about how marketing fits into revolution, especially in the developing world, and especially the Middle East. Without alleging that brand revolution is to be thought of on the same level as overthrowing a dictator, we can confidently acknowledge that changes in the way we market goods and services are part and parcel of the broader revolution, and moreover that the broader revolution could never have existed without a corresponding shift in the commercial world. It is about that shift in the commercial world that we now concern ourselves. What is brand revolution? It is the process of making room for a brand to have its own right to exist and to live in the way that best suits it.
The quest of this book is to seek change in the business environment, specifically of the Middle East region, and to acquire a new mindset and pave the way for a new generation of leaders who can lead the regional brands to a more global platform. Such change is inescapable as industries are growing and the world is becoming ever more competitive. The necessity to change how we conduct our business in order for our brands to thrive and achieve, as many companies from many other nations have continued to do, is undeniable. The question is whether any of the current menagerie of CEOs will lead that change, or whether it will instead be the new CEOs who replace the old ones upon their failure, or indeed the firms who replace their failed firms after a company-wide collapse.
As opposed to many of the companies in our region, companies in much of the world, including in much of the developing world, have branded their nations as well as their companies, and have in many cases created what appears to be everlasting love and esteem, and helped their countries to be a destination for many reasons. Today the world is conditioned by and built upon the fast pace of technology, yet almost everything has been simplified to handheld devices as we go about our business and arrange our daily lives. So where does the Arab world stand in the midst of these speed-driven changes? Where do our small size and our midsize companies stand in the midst of all this? Who's there to support them?
What follows are blunt words, but I believe they are all the more needful for the offense they might offer, because there is a way of doing things in our world which cannot continue, and which it will be offensive to many of us to end: Most of the business leaders in the region, CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, and COOs, have reached the positions they occupy, it must be acknowledged, merely based on favoritism.
In the midst of such a situation, there is a level of dishonesty that is so pervasive that it might be easily missed. Perhaps we pretend that these people are competent to do the jobs they're supposed to be doing because we like these people and don't like to think about the opposite. Perhaps we think the distance between our desires and the reality doesn't matter in this case. Perhaps friendships and kin bonds are more important to us than the technical or professional requirements for employment. In any of these cases, there is a distance between what we say is happening, and what is really happening. Inevitably, as we defend such decisions, there emerges a defensiveness about our choices, such that we perhaps almost come to believe we acted as we should have acted. In any case, in the information age, the age of transparency, honesty, and accountability, and in the age of intensified scrutiny of nearly every position of power, such institutionalized dishonesty cannot continue. And it is this gap between pretense and truth that we must overcome as a precondition of new ways of branding.
The corruption in the appointment of company officers is merely one example of how privilege and custom, rather than merit and necessity, now set the climate of the business world in the Arab world. How can businesses thrive and grow when the conduct of commerce is fraught through with exploitation and cronyism? How can a thriving organization seize opportunities when most people are misinformed concerning the initial steps of how they should be engaging with the business world?
Such dilemmas repeat themselves to a sickening degree in this part of the world, and the failure of most of our governments to place a higher priority on overseeing applicable laws and to penalize those who are corrupt is widespread, and indeed has been another important aspect of the corruption in the business world, which of course has been intimately intertwined with the political world. This failure of oversight and justice opens still more doors for embezzlement, whether de facto or overt, on the part of the current generation and future generations. Brand Revolution, therefore, is first about acknowledging this sorry state of affairs, as a first step to changing it. In the following chapter, I discuss two primary conditions the revolution must work against if the Arab business world is to survive and thrive.
Chapter Two
The Sham CEO and the Trader's Mindset
The Sham CEOS
The current protest of brands is first and foremost against all those CEOs who destroy every brand that has great potential for leading a healthy existence, but based on their lack of understanding of brand marketing, and of the new, more transparent and level world in which marketing takes place, their poor decisions have far-reaching and unfortunately dire consequences. The CEOs are merely representatives of a deeper problem: a tradition of cronyism and nepotism, and of pretending rather than being. The problem is that these CEOs were never really CEOs at all. Consequently, the country's businesses are simply not being managed in any professional, or even sane, sense of the word.
The problem of poor CEOs is compounded by the unbelievable number of CEOs in our region. It sometimes seems anyone and everyone is a CEO. My thesis in this regard is simple: Entrepreneurs should not be mistaken as to whether they should be the CEO of their own projects if they lack management skills. They should seek to run their operations through the first few years and then hand them over to a person skilled in management to run the new firm's day-to-day operations.
Given that practically everyone in the region seems to be a CEO, CBDO, COO and so on, even people starting with new businesses having fewer than five employees seem to be applying substantial efforts to give themselves the title of CEO and accord themselves other such honors and letters in front of their names.
Here, too the specter of implicit deception looms large. Calling yourself a CEO doesn't make you a CEO. Following up that sham by arranging your lifestyle and circumstances so that the pretense of authority you're putting on seems plausible is not building a business, dear wannabe CEO; it is a pathetic sham and a colossal waste of time that you could be pouring into actually building a business, and perhaps even adding value to the world instead of merely seeking to add value to your persona. Many CEOs are embarrassingly excited by the design of their business cards, and they strive to legitimize the title on the card, and make sure the placard of their childish production has been given out to numerous people as part of building their deception. Again we see that a creeping dishonesty for the sake of suspect motives is the beginning of the fall of the empire of lies and deceptions.
I have encountered numerous CEOs, both elected and self- claimed, and while I am sure there are a great many good CEOs in the region, I am also convinced that the majority are ruining the broth for the rest. I have encountered elected CEOs who are ego-driven and ill-informed about their position in the company, and I know that they would die to be part of the clan. I have had to sit and listen to CEOs, both elected and claimed, lie through their teeth about their achievements, and yet they are the classic example of failure, all the more so because of their pitiable efforts to continue the pretense.
Nepotism underlies much of this failure and pretense. I have known some large, viably operating plants that were doing a remarkable job regarding production, salaries and benefits. The owner of the operation, however, decided to fire the CEO and have his son operate it. After the CEO took this ill-advised action, the declining margins of the plants became clearly evident. As more firms operate under this philosophy, sooner or later the existing owner will have to find a new geographical location and identify a new target audience. Often, owners who also act as the CEO hire their own children to such posts as vice president or even to as sensitive a position as vice president of marketing. These children may or may not have the qualifications to help the company thrive and survive. All too frequently, of course, they do not, given that their qualifications were not the primary consideration in their hiring, if they were any part of the consideration at all.
Perhaps it will be useful to give some more specific example of sham CEOs. The first example is a good illustration of the problem of deception and self-deception among business leadership. There's a man in my acquaintance who owns a locally based fitness center. I listened to him lie about his supposed successes—and this was when I knew about his failure, and he knew of it, and he knew I knew of it!—and yet he still nominated himself to be the CEO of the gym and served in that role until the investors finally had to push him out when he predictably failed.
In a classic example of the harmful effects of self-deception in the Arab business world, and of the often amazing extent to which it seems to thrive, this same individual continually blames his failures on others and desperately tries to hang his problems on other people's shoulders. Once the investors pushed him out, unbelievably, he spread a rumor that his organization had merged with a leading firm in the industry. There are so many things wrong with this scenario that it is difficult to know how to begin to address it. First and foremost: Really? In the age of instant knowledge and increased transparency, there is still someone who believes he can succeed in business based on a résumé line that it would take three seconds, if that, for a prospective investor, employer or customer to check on Google? And in the age when a humiliating account of such a bald deception could spread to several thousand people within a few seconds via Facebook? Second, as to the credibility of the claim, the mergers and acquisitions market is still too primitive in the region for it to be credible. Third, this fraud of a CEO would do well to understand that his lies can only take him so far. If he wishes to succeed, when is he going to get around to actually working at his business?
Another self-claimed CEO who runs an eyewear company can serve as an example of the influence of cronyism and nepotism in business leadership. He wishes to consult young entrepreneurs concerning how to start their own businesses. The catch is, he has completely failed even to run his own operation he has operated for the past thirty years. How could he take part in such a deception, when so many lies are so deeply embedded in the process?
Another stunning example is a man who used to try to run a small financial advisory firm when a friend knocked on his door and offered him the opportunity to start an investment firm. This friend is well-connected in the right circles of the region's who's who, and the man could scarcely turn away an opportunity literally knocking at his door. He put investors together and started this organization—and yes, he managed to raise around two hundred million dollars. In the first few years the company failed even to run into a few million riyal profit, and in its fourth year the company showed only a little over 10 million riyal in earnings.
As CEO, this man cut 50 percent of the initial jobs in the firm and closed two locations that were complete flops. Yet he remains CEO until the moment of this writing. The shareholders of this organization have continually failed to realize the truth: that this company's problem is the CEO. Yet the CEO is heading into almost his fifth year, and seems to be the single person in the organization who has benefited the most in terms of his salary, perks, and whatever else, all charged to the company, including paying for his wife to fly with him. Yes, his wife works with him in the business development department, and no matter how poorly she performs, she stays on the job, and is sure to continue doing so as long as her husband remains CEO. Meanwhile, half the company that he started his term with is looking for work.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Brand Revolution by Said Aghil Baaghil Copyright © 2012 by Said Aghil Baaghil. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Chapter 1: A Time for Revolution....................1Chapter 2: The Sham CEO and the Trader's Mindset....................7
The Sham CEOS....................7
The Trader's Mindset....................13
Chapter 3: Our Market Reality....................15
Chapter 4: Mistakes and Solutions....................19
Mistake #1: Our CEOs Operate "My Way or No Way"....................20
Solution #1: Clearly Define Responsibilities....................21
Mistake #2: Operating by Assumption....................24
Solution #2: Operate with Intent, Hire the Right People....................25
Mistake #3: We Don't Listen and Adapt....................26
Solution #3: Listen to Those Who Know and Begin to Change....................27
Mistake #4: We use our money muscle the wrong way....................29
Solution #4: Use Your Money Wisely....................31
Mistake #5: Failure to Innovate....................33
Solution #5: Keep our innovators home!....................35
Chapter 5: Marketing 101—A Middle East Marketing How-To....................39
The Four Ps....................39
The Emerging markets....................43
Chapter 6: Corporate Strategy....................45
Chapter 7: Marketing vs. Advertising....................49
Marketing Moves On: We Stand Still....................49
Advertising: The Middle Eastern Businessman's Dead-End Path....................51
Chapter 8: Putting The Right Brains On The Right Trains....................53
Keep CFOs out of Marketing....................53
Right-brainers for CEO!....................56
Branding our Way Forward....................58
Chapter 9: The Shape We're In....................61
The Ego without the Experience....................61
Theories and Other Big Words....................65
P&G, Unilever: Great Success, Bad Examples....................69
Me-too brands....................72
The Advertising Money Pit....................74
Chapter 10: The CEO Problem Revisited....................79
The Rattled Chair CEOs....................80
The Rise of the Ego: The Fall of the Brand....................82
The CEO That Fell Asleep....................83
Do CEOs snore over marketing presentations?....................84
Chapter 11: Toward Solutions....................87
Acknowledgment and Acceptance....................87
The CEO Solution: Replace Yourself....................88
The Face of Change....................89
Our Young CEOs....................89
The Need for Official Oversight and Support....................90
A Marketing Call to Action....................92
Change Means the Youth Lead....................96
Collective Responsibility....................97
Other Suggestions....................98
Chapter 12: Messages....................101
To shareholders....................101
To Business owners....................102
To CEOs....................104
To Governments....................106
To Citizens....................107
To Entrepreneurs....................107
What is your objection?....................109
Chapter 13: Conclusion....................111