DinarStandard Editors

OIC Economies in the 2008 Doing Business Rankings

The World Bank’s recently released 2008 Doing Business Rankings were no surprise when it came to who was in the top positions.  Just as in 2007 the economies where it’s easiest to do business included Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong, Denmark, New Zealand, and Canada among others.  Interestingly, there as been some movement among the top OIC economies.  The table below showcases the top 10 OIC economies on the Doing Business ranking in 2008 and their rankings in 2007.    

Among the top 10 OIC economies on the 2008 ranking we see three which have improved from 2007 (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and UAE) with an average improvement of 6 notches.  Five economies (Malaysia, Oman, Maldives, Pakistan, and Brunei) declined with an average fall of 5 notches.  Finally, two economies (Kuwait and Kazakhstan) remained unchanged. 

The World Bank’s Doing Business rankings are released annually and rank economies on the following criteria:

•     Starting a Business
•     Dealing with Licenses
•     Employing Workers
•     Registering Property
•     Getting Credit
•     Protecting Investors
•     Paying Taxes
•     Trading Across Borders
•     Enforcing Contracts
•     Closing a Business

Malaysia - 3rd Most Attractive Global Outsourcing Location: A.T. Kearney

BusinessWeek this week profiled the latest A.T. Kearney list of the top 50 global offshore outsourcing locations.  India leads the list as expected. 

Meanwhile, 10 out of the 50 are OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) based locations with Malaysia identified as the third most attractive market for Offshore outsourcing.  Other major OIC based markets on the list include Indonesia , Egypt , Jordan , UAE, Tunisia and Pakistan.

The ranking uses financial attractiveness, people capability, and environment attractiveness (infarstructure/ political stability etc) as its criteria.  However, it gives a 40% weight to the financial attractiveness of a country.  The article highlights that Pakistan , for instance, is even more financially attractive than India .

Another reference to OIC locations in the article:

"Some emerging countries may not appeal to U.S. companies as outsourcing destinations but may find markets in other parts of the world. For instance, the appeal of Pakistan 's IT workforce of 90,000 people has been overshadowed by post-September 11 security concerns. "It's fallen off the radar screen of U.S. buyers," says Frances Karamouzis, vice-president for research at Gartner. Other analysts say there is still a market for Pakistan 's services in the Middle East . And countries such as Senegal and Morocco are becoming attractive places for French-language call-center outsourcing for Francophone Europe."

What do you think about the A.T. Kearney Report? Do share your thoughts by submitting your comments.

    

Muslim Identity on the Rise

Last month the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which conducts worldwide public opinion surveys, released findings of a study on Muslims’ attitudes towards their Islamic and national identities.

The poll which was conducted in 13 countries showed that among the Muslim population in Europe, a majority of British (81%), German (66%), and Spanish (69%) Muslims surveyed considered themselves Muslims first.  The same was true in Muslim majority countries of Pakistan (87%), Jordan (67%), Egypt (59%), and Turkey (51%).  Accross all countries surveyed ,the majority suggested that Muslim identity among Muslims is getting stronger.  Also, most of the Muslim population considered this growth to be a good thing and were in support of minimizing extremism.

A key implication of the above trend is on the growth of the 'halal' market – or as Dinar Standard refers to it: the “Muslim Lifestyle Market (tm)”.  This market, which covers Islamic Finance, halal food, modest clothing, muslim media etc. is already showing promising growth signs globally.  The study certainly bolsters the future growth opportunities for key players within this market.

25 Most Innovative Companies of the World

The 2006 Most Innovative Company list just released by BusinessWeek/Boston Consulting Group has two key lessons on how the innovation sultans like Apple, Google, 3M, Toyota, and the rest of the 25 companies identified, approach the process of innovation.

First - innovation today is not just about new products; it is also about reinventing business processes and business models.  For example, Apple’s brilliantly designed Ipod coupled with business model innovation around its iTunes downloads has been its winning combination.   Procter & Gamble’s continued successes are now attributed to its new R&D process called ‘connect and develop’.  Through this program, P&G seeks 50% of its new products from outside the company.  The second lesson is - design is a key differentiator.  Apple again stays ahead of the pack with its focus on design.  The same is true for IKEA, Procter & Gamble and IDEO (the leading product design consulting firm).

The ranking also supports my favorite lesson for businesses in the Muslim world -- the need to think big and build entirely new markets that meet untapped global customer needs.  Google, eBay, and Amazon were all started by entrepreneurs from scratch just a few years ago and have changed the world in many ways.  They are now worth billions of dollars and are a blessing for their communities.  Google's big mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."  The question I pose to aspiring entrepreneurs from the Muslim world - Can you imagine to change the world in a similar way?

New Ranking Highlights the importance of Branding

The special report on Global Brands released by the FT on April 3, 2006 is a fascinating read.  The report coincides with the launching of the Brandz Top 100 most valuable global brands ranking which offers business leaders and entrepreneurs a much needed benchmark on the value of brands in an overall business plan.  For us at Dinar Standard the FT report highlights many of the issues companies in the Muslim World need to consider when developing their brands - the foremost being recognizing the actual value of branding for a business.

In fact, the ranking methodically derives a monetary value to the pure contribution a brand plays in driving current and future earnings to the company.   For example, the pure value of the brand as an asset for Microsoft (#1 in the ranking) is $62 billion!, and for relative newcomer Google (#7) it's $37 billion!  As the report correctly points out, “Brands are among a business’s most valuable assets.”  This is the reason the most successful corporations today have Brand managers, branding strategies, and a very strategic approach to managing their reputation and image.

Companies in the Muslim World have a vast array of opportunities to take advantage of the forces of globalization to introduce their products and services to open markets around the world.  What needs to happen is that the decision to approach broader markets outside home countries has to be part and parcel of the business plan – not an incidental choice.  Once this decision is made brands that have cross-border appeal can be crafted. 

Even by focusing on the Muslim World companies can leverage a number of cultural affinities across borders to enhance their brands’ appeal to differing markets. Companies like Orascom Telecom have already shown us this is possible.  The launch of Al Jazeera International (see the cover story in this month’s issue of Fast Company magazine) is another example that this can happen even in markets that might at first be seen as completely different or even hostile to a particular company. 

We are confident that more will do so in the near future.