Thursday, January 8, 2009

Learning Experience Dubai 1 - 3

This is the third and final installment of the learning experience in Dubai. The focus is on making money in Dubai and UAE.

4.Relationship
There is one word to making money in the middle east and that is Relationship. It is not how much you know but in many instances it is who you know. In the many years I have running around in the middle east, I have met with people who would come and propose project to either raise fund or find the know how and every time they will highlight that this project is linked to this princes and that princes. There must be a lot of princes in middle east and it is true there are many princes in Middle East :)
Question is which is the right prince to network with?

I have a mathematical correlation for relationship. Relationship is a function of time and event.

Relationship = fn {event, time}

What it means is that for you to succeed in this market, you need to invest time in building your connection and also create events like calling them or visiting them etc to improve on the relationship. In this market you will eventually see the results

5.Repatriation
Making money is one thing but the more important thing is the repatriation of money home. This is common sense and yet over the years of traveling, I realized that even big companies have not consider this aspect. For Dubai and Abu Dhabi this is not an issue but countries like China and India, it can be a very painful experience. There are many ways in repatriation of funds, unfortunately it cannot be shared in this learning experience. It is not illegal, it is just ........

Think about how you want to take your money out of the market before developing the market.

I hope you have enjoyed the sharing experience.

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