Page 113 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

Here to Stay: GCC Market Attractiveness and Risks 97

White customers may receive preferential treatment and be viewed
as more important, wealthy, or deserving. A former colleague once
reported astonishment at how local clients would look to a junior,
white member of his team for the answers to tough questions when
in fact a nonwhite manager was the team leader.
One area in which racism is often institutionalized is in pay
scales. For the same job, locals will often receive higher pay, followed
by Western expatriates, followed by Arab expatriates, with other
Asians and Africans occupying the lowest end. I once worked with a
client—himself an expatriate—who wanted us to assign different
salaries when budgeting for new roles in the organization depending
on the nationality of who was hired. For example, he wanted us to
say that the salary for job X would be A if filled by a local, B if filled
by a European, and so on. In line with our personal ethics and global
standards, we refused. The board of the company, in a positive sign
of changing times and a new mentality, later agreed with our stance.

KEY LESSONS

● The GCC states are a highly attractive place to do business,
but are not without their risks and drawbacks.
● The GCC’s market attractiveness is rooted in its
Opportunity Formula: sustained prosperity and growth,
attractive demographic shifts, and ongoing regulatory
reform.
● The GCC economies have been growing at a rate of 6.5
percent—almost three times the rate of the world’s most
developed economies, with a GDP per capita many times
higher than that of China and India.
● A population boom and an emerging middle class create new
pockets of opportunity in the GCC countries.
● All GCC countries are members of the WTO, but read the
fine print to see how open they really are.
● The Gulf’s linkages with the broader Middle East, Asia, and
Europe add to its market attractiveness.
● There are real risks and drawbacks to doing business in the
GCC countries, including economic, political, and social
factors.