Page 311 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

Bringing It Home: Fostering GCC Awareness in the Head Office 293

Educational programs on China and India for senior managers
have become more common in recent years. The Harvard Business
School, for example, runs a “Senior Executive Program for China”
in conjunction with two Chinese institutions. The University of
Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has at least four education
programs dealing with China or India designed exclusively for
executives, along with Web sites dedicated to probing analyses of
Chinese and Indian business topics. Programs on the Middle East,
though not as well established, are growing. In early 2007, the
London Business School announced it would begin offering
Executive MBA and Executive Education programs in conjunction
14
with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). Another
British business school plans an Executive MBA program with
DIFC as well. 15 At the same time, other programs have been
designed especially for executives who have spent their careers
working in the Gulf; the Wharton School offers two such programs
16
aimed at training Gulf professionals in law and business. All of
these programs boost Western managers’ awareness of the Gulf
(and Gulf managers’ understanding of the West) and give both
groups a well-rounded view of the market before they plunge into
the details of assessing their own firms’ businesses.
One-time events can boost GCC awareness rapidly and are
advisable for firms as they begin integrating the region more fully
into their global business. As companies become more serious
about the region, a progression from one-time to more regular
events and even to systemic changes in the organization’s design is
a natural evolution.

Regular Events
Regular events keep the GCC consistently on an organization’s
agenda and help foster a more permanent awareness of the region.
The kinds of events described as “one-time,” such as senior man-
agement visits to the GCC region and corporate training sessions,
can, of course, be repeated regularly. A firm may choose, for exam-
ple, to hold one of its quarterly senior management summits in the
Gulf every two years (one out of eight meetings), as a reflection of
the strategic importance of the region. The most effective regular
events, however, are those linked to the company’s corporate