Consumers around the world, and none more so than shoppers in the Gulf, are obsessed with brands. But what is a brand? First and foremost, a brand is a credible promise made by a company to its consumers. It promises that its products and services will satisfy their needs whether they are practical, emotional, or both. For consumers, a brand is an abstract, but vivid, thing
The next round of corporate results will soon be with us highlighting yet more progress by many, affecting stock market prices. However, not all investors have the time, the inclination or the expertise to study bulky corporate reports, leaving this to so-called experts to deduce how a company is performing. This is short-sighted, as the lifeblood of financial markets is
It is not just banks and new financial technology companies that strive for product innovation, non-traditional actors such as Amazon are determined to enter the fray but without assuming the same regulatory risks. Amazon’s inroads into banking is not new, albeit not going as smoothly as it might have hoped. The US tech giant was forced to deny reports that it would accept
The virtual world has been defined as people buying things that don’t exist, from people that don’t own them. This is as far-fetched as it sounds, if one considers that the value of money has always depended on what people think it is. Global brands are taking up this notion. When Facebook rebranded as Meta last October, it brought the issue of virtual world economies to the
The Riyadh Global Entrepreneurship Congress later this month will showcase the brightest Saudi entrepreneurs, willing to take risks. Economists who follow Schumpeter have always seen entrepreneurship as innovation, a novel way to combine existing resources for larger profits by those able to exploit new opportunities and take risks. Knowledge-based economies around the world,