The UAE IT Market Project

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Introduction and Background: Mission, Vision, and Goals
Product, Services and the e-Business Model Design
Marketing Plan: Making the Brand Memorable
Target Group: Population and Its Characteristics
Promotional Plan
Operational Step: Determining the Crucial Stages
Financial Plan: Sustainability and Cost-Efficacy
References

Executive Summary

Becoming a part of the UAE IT market is a challenging task even once an innovative idea is produced. However, the application aimed at helping employees and employers find each other and communicate successfully is bound to be popular among the target audiences. The project will be launched in the realm of the UAE IT market.

The goal of the project is to locate new opportunities in the UAE economic environment and take a specific niche in the identified market by providing tradesmen and employers with an opportunity to communicate in a fast and uninhibited manner. By creating an environment where the identified members of the UAE economic realm will be able to converse in an uninhibited manner, one is bound to achieve significant progress within a relatively short amount of time.

It is assumed that the project will require a sustainable approach toward the management of resources, as well as an elaborate risk management framework with an adequate exit strategy. Thus, the firm members will secure themselves from suffering drastic financial consequences in case of a failure. It is expected that the promotion of adequate waste management and the appropriate allocation of the available resources will serve as the means of avoiding possible negative outcomes and handling a crisis successfully.

Introduction and Background: Mission, Vision, and Goals

Even though the global economic environment offers a plethora of options for communication between contractors and employers, misunderstandings still may occur. Therefore, both parties need the middleman that could help them find the exact options for which they search. The current project is aimed at creating the environment in which contractors and employers will be able to locate the available opportunities and communicate successfully. Therefore, the mission of the project is to bridge the gap between employers and independent contractors. The vision of the company includes becoming the symbol of the connection between the members of the global economic environment, particularly, contractors and employers. Modern technologies, particularly, the IT-related ones, will be viewed as the primary tools for achieving the said objectives and establishing a strong presence in the target market. The organization focuses on innovations as the essential driver behind its future success.

Product, Services and the e-Business Model Design

Product

The application that will help connect an employer with a contractor and vice versa is the product that our company will be proud to present to the members of the global economic community. Customers will download the app from Google Play and Chrome Web Store for the standard set of platforms (Windows 7, 8, 10, Vista, iOS, and Android). Both 32- and 64-bit versions will be offered.

In other words, the application will be easily downloadable and extraordinarily efficient as the means of helping employees and employers establish a connection. The product will become the middleman between employers and contractors, at the same time allowing them to reduce the level of risk when hiring the person that they have chosen for a particular project.

Services

Apart from the opportunities of establishing a connection between an employer and a contractor, the developers of the application will also provide the services of the Support Team in case of any technical difficulties. The application will offer the customer to customize the search by:

identifying the areas (i.e., ticking the boxes with the required services: “Construction,” “Maintenance,” “Repair,” etc.);
selecting the date (a calendar will pop up after the cursor enters the fields “from” and “to”);
specifying the location (the address can be filled in manually; furthermore, a Google map will open after the user clicks the corresponding field);
tagging the search (the customer will enter the appropriate tags in the required field);
setting the price boundaries (the user will be suggested to enter the data in the “from” and “to” fields);
providing a short description of the problem (automatic tags will also be suggested after the field is filled).

It will not be necessary to fill in all the parts of the form, though. As soon as the available choices appear, the user will be able to learn more about each contractor or employer by clicking on their profile. Last but not least, the user will be able to start a conversation with the selected contractor or employer by choosing the “chat” option. The chat will open in a separate window.

e-Business Model

To launch the application, the company will have to use two primary models, which are Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C). The B2B framework will be used when negotiating with Google since the Chrome Store will become the means of selling the product. The B2C framework will serve as the tool for selling the app to the end customer (i.e., employers and contractors).

Marketing Plan: Making the Brand Memorable

Competition Analysis: Considering Similar Services

The idea of connecting an employee and a contractor is not new (Woollaston, 2014). Therefore, it is expected that competition levels are going to be very high. To understand how to develop a strong competitive advantage and take a specific niche in the UAE market, one will have to understand what makes the current competitors popular among the target audience members.

SWOT analysis

Determining the SWOT elements of each organization, including the company in question, is an important step toward designing a unique product. Furthermore, it will help explore the market potential. Finally, the opportunities for cooperation between the competitors can be explored.

	Apple	Naukrigulf	“Aamen” (UAE Ministry of Labor)
Strengths	application of innovative technologies; very strong presence in the global market	a large number of customers; easy-to-use interface; opportunities for updating the profile	state support and financing; a significant amount of experience in the target market
Weaknesses	lack of understanding of the cultural specifics of the state; lack of knowledge about the local employment-related issues	no opportunities for direct communication between an employee and employer; poor technical support	the shift of the focus toward security issues reporting; lack of emphasis on the employment issue
Opportunities	gaining popularity as a symbol of luxury; ousting competitors	taking the first spot in the list of the UAE mobile apps	exploring the employment-associated concerns
Threats	failure to represent the target population properly; inability to redeem itself after a recent scandal (Apple iPhone’s touch disease’ repair to cost UAE customers Dh549, 2016).	being ousted from the market by Apple and similar companies; failure to analyze the current demands in the UAE employment markets (QCN yearbook, 2016).	lack of support in case of financial or other types of risks; inability to develop an insight into the needs of the UAE employees and employers (Lambrichs, 2015).

As shown in the analysis above, the current project needs to be thought out in a very elaborate manner since it has a lot of powerful competitors, Apple, Inc. being the key one. With the publicity that it has enjoyed over the past few decades, Apple has cemented its position in the UAE mobile application market.

However, as the analysis results show, none of the applications offers the opportunities that the current project has. For instance, the possibility of contacting the employer or the candidate directly so that further details could be discussed in a chat is not among the options offered by Apple, Naukrigulf, and the rest of the organizations. In other words, the current product can be deemed as unique due to the opportunity for a direct conversation.

Nevertheless, the levels of competition are admittedly high in the target environment, despite being rather few, the current competitors are extremely powerful, one of them being a global corporation. Hence, expecting that the project will propel directly to the top of the UAE market after its launch would be quite naïve. Instead, the company will have to design an elaborate marketing approach with the active use of social media.

Target Group: Population and Its Characteristics

Seeing that the product will be used to connect employers and candidates for a specific job, it will be necessary to take both legal and physical agents into account. As far as the latter is concerned, the project is aimed at drawing the attention of technicians, plumbers, mechanics, and other experts in systems installment and maintenance. The application will target the residents of the UAE specifically. There will be no upper limits as to the age of the job applicants; however, all users of the app will have to be of legal age to register and start interacting with their potential employees or employers. Due to the current gender issues in the UAE, it is expected that most of the applicants will be male (Hodgson, Shehhi, & Al-Marzouqi, 2014).

The people applying for the job with the help of the app are expected to provide proof of their skills (e.g., a certificate), whereas legal persons using the application as the platform for expanding their staff will have to submit the license that verifies their status. Thus, the safety levels will be kept at the required level. It is important to reduce the possibility of fraud to the minimum.

Table 2. SWOT Analysis.

	Company X (Current Project)
Strengths	innovative solution for the target audience; a sustainable approach to resources management
Weaknesses	no presence in the target market yet; need for product testing so that its efficacy could be determined
Opportunities	creating a unique product; designing a memorable brand
Threats	failure to develop an appropriate resource management framework; inability to face the competition-related challenges

The SWOT analysis of the services carried out above shows quite clearly that the emphasis on innovation and the design of a unique brand must be the primary focus of the participants of the project at present. In other words, it is crucial to develop a competitive advantage that will help the product become instantly memorable and popular among UAE tradesmen. Consequently, investing in the R&D and the Marketing Department of the company is currently the logical thing to do.

Along with the promotion campaign, the necessity to develop an elaborate Supply Management Chain that will help manage the available resources efficiently should be mentioned. When designing the SCM framework, one must bear in mind that the speed of data transfer and the reduction in the number of mistakes and misunderstandings occurring in the process is vital to the overall improvement in the quality levels. Applying the identified concept to the process of selling apps, one will have to consider the necessity to reinforce the efficacy of the support team. Moreover, it will be necessary to make sure that the latest IT innovations should be incorporated into the management of the procurement process, as well as the associated stages of the SCM framework. Thus, the accuracy of the data transferred in the process will be high. Also, the issue of cybersecurity will have to be addressed accordingly. Unless the appropriate tools for enhancing the levels of cybersecurity are incorporated, the threats of taking significant losses will remain high. Particularly, apart from enhancing the security levels of the software, the company managers must consider teaching the staff members the basics of secure data management.

Promotional Plan

Social Media

Modern communication seems to have been transferred to the online environment for the most part. Even though offline interactions remain an integral part of people’s lives, a substantial amount of conversations, including the one between employees and prospective employers, occurs online. Therefore, it is only reasonable to consider social media as the tool for disseminating information about the application among as many people as possible without a relatively short amount of time.

Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Skype, Google+, Instagram, etc., will be used as the means of marketing the product. Apart from an original brand image, which will include the elements of the UAE culture and traditions, the relevant textual content will be created to engage the audience and compel them to lick and check out the application. It is suggested that, in the advertisement and the brand image, family-related values should be in equilibrium with modern values, such as the importance of multiculturalism as an integral part of any modern workplace.

Sponsorship

The company will also seek the support of sponsors for the events that will presumably attract the attention of prospective customers. Furthermore, the organization will engage in charitable events so that it could gain the recognition and popularity required to get into the spotlight of the public’s attention. For instance, the event aimed at collecting donations for the needs of ASD patients in the UAE can be viewed as the cause behind which the company may get to drive people’s attention to its brand. As soon as the organization receives the support of some of the local corporations, the premises for increasing sustainability levels in the company and focusing on building customer loyalty will become a possibility.

Operational Step: Determining the Crucial Stages

The first and most obvious, the budget must be determined for the project. For these purposes, the current approach toward the allocation of the financial resources and the management of the related risks need to be altered. Apart from promoting the concept of sustainability, i.e., the distribution of the available resources to the company’s departments based on the degree of urgency, the idea of cost efficiency must be introduced into the company’s framework so that the supply chain management process should be carried out as smoothly and successfully as possible, without any delays or misunderstandings appearing in the process.

The stage mentioned above is linked directly to the improvement in the company’s information management system. Before addressing the issues associated with the quality improvement, the leaders of the project will need to consider the means of improving the communication process, particularly, the data transfer, including the speed and accuracy thereof. The identified steps are crucial for preventing misunderstandings that may occur in the course of materials transportation and the related tasks.

Afterward, roles and responsibilities must be distributed among the staff members along with precise instructions regarding the objectives that need to be completed. It is strongly recommended that a reliable reporting system should be arranged. Thus, the possible issues can be detected at the earliest stages of development and addressed accordingly. The design of the appropriate risk control and management strategies should be viewed as a necessary stage of the plan. Unless the company has an elaborate framework for handling the emergent risks, as well as an efficient exit strategy, the chances of remaining afloat are going to be very low.

Finally, the product will be launched into the target market. The company will start building relationships with the customers. In the meantime, the analysis of the strategies and the identification of the essential positive and negative outcomes will be conducted.

Financial Plan: Sustainability and Cost-Efficacy

As stressed above, it is crucial to make sure that the rim should be able to manage the available resources reasonably. Thus, the principles of sustainable use of the firm’s financial resources must be incorporated into the set of the company’s financial strategies. As a result, the opportunities for minimizing financial risks and creating an exit strategy can be created.

Furthermore, it will be necessary to reduce the waste levels significantly so that the organization could have enough financial reserves. For this purpose, the use of the cost-efficacy model should be viewed as an option. The framework will help determine the tools for reducing waste levels and, therefore, bring down the number of expenses taken by the organization.

Balance Sheet

Assets: $ 500,000
Liabilities: $ 275,000
Equity: $ 225,000

Sales Forecast

It is expected that the services provided by the organization will attract a vast number of customers within a relatively short amount of time. Particularly, it is assumed that the organization will gain a 110% profit at the end of the fiscal year.

Business Ratios

It is expected that the company will be able to maintain the business ratios at a reasonable level. The following outcomes will supposedly be achieved by the end of the fiscal year:

Gross margin: 75%;
Return on sales: 80%
Return on assets: 85%
Return on investment: 70%

As far as the risk management strategy is concerned, one should consider diversification as the primary means of reducing financial threats. By dividing the total number of investments so that not only low-risk markets but also government bonds and derivatives should be an opportunity, one will be able to secure the financial resources extensively (Alaoui, Dewandarub, Roslyc, & Masihd, 2015).

References

Alaoui, A. O., Dewandarub, G., Roslyc, S. A., & Masihd, M. (2015). Linkages and co-movement between international stock market return: Case of Dow Jones Islamic Dubai Financial Market index. Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, 36(1), 53-70.

Apple iPhone ‘touch disease’ repair to cost UAE customers Dh549. (2016). The National. Web.

Hodgson, S., Shehhi, M. A., & Al-Marzouqi, E. (2014). The Effect of Job Rotation on employees in organizations in the UAE. Middle East Journal of Business, 4(1), 25-44.

Lambrichs, M. (2015). Top seven apps for career success.Training Journal. Web.

QCN yearbook. (2016). Web.

Woollaston, V. (2014). ‘Tinder for JOBS’: App quickly matches employers with job hunters at the click of a button.Mail Online. Web.

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