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288 Dubai & Co.

managers have had little interaction with the region in their careers.
Business leaders being trained today, however, need a far more solid
grounding in the markets of the Gulf than their predecessors had.
Today’s young business minds need exposure to the GCC in order
to develop a truly comprehensive view on global business.
In this book’s earlier chapters, we discussed the background of
the Gulf markets and what makes them different from other parts
of the Middle East. We discussed the substantial opportunity the
GCC represents for multinational businesses, as well as the signifi-
cant risks and drawbacks that must be considered when evaluating
these markets. In Part 2, we turned our attention to how individual
firms should approach the Gulf. We reviewed market-entry strate-
gies, marketing, human resources, finance, operations, and organi-
zation. By now, you know that the GCC is a promising growth
market, and you have some ideas about how to approach it. Hope-
fully, you have more clarity about how your firm might expand
there, and you’re eager to make something happen.
Translating enthusiasm to action, however, requires more than
just a strategy. It requires support from the global organization and,
typically, a fair degree of consensus from colleagues at the head
office. Most likely, you can’t make the plan come alive by yourself,
and you don’t want to be the sole voice calling for change. That’s
precisely why you need this chapter.
In this, our final chapter, we explore the challenge of building
awareness of the GCC at the global head office. We discuss a range
of strategies, including one-time events like senior management
visits, regular events like a dedicated business planning cycle, and
structural changes in how the GCC businesses report to the head
office. Often the region is so deeply buried within a broader cluster
that it receives little or no senior management attention. In some
cases, a more direct reporting line is appropriate. Broad-based
awareness of the GCC, attainable through the measures we will dis-
cuss, is a final essential element in integrating the Gulf more deeply
into a firm’s global strategy.

LOW AWARENESS IS THE NORM
When we conducted our survey of Ivy League students, we expected
GCC awareness to be low. What we didn’t expect, however, was