Small Medium Sized Businesses in United Arab Emirates
The objective of this study is to trace the history, customer services, CRM and satisfaction issues and problems in small medium size businesses in the United Arab Emirates and to discuss the trends in SMEs.
Small and Medium-scale Enterprises plays an important role in economic development worldwide. Many developing countries in fact have placed Small and medium enterprise development and promotion on top of their economic agenda one of them is The UAE country. Today United Arab Emirates setup governmental fund such as khalifa fund and Dubai SME fund to expand the SME sector and open new opportunities for entrepreneurs to grow and improve. As, There are many small businesses grow by the funding of the Khalifa fund which is "in 2008 offered Dh 246 million in funds for 154 new industrial and services enterprises." Also, the governmental funding can provides many other important resources to help the Emirati entrepreneur to start up his business successfully such as, business counseling, how access to market opportunities, how to access to finance, offer tools for business and offer support services.
III. Definition of Small and Medium Size Businesses
Small business is defined as, "An enterprise is considered to be any entity engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of its legal form. This includes in particular, self-employed persons and family businesses engaged in craft or other activities, and partnerships or associations regularly engaged in an economic activity." ( )
IV. History of CRM in the UAE
It is reported in the work of Diana (nd) entitled "UAE CRM and Customer Experience Management Excels" that businesses in the UAE are using software technology "to enhance customer communications and services, investing extensively in customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions designed to "squeeze out unnecessary, inefficient or duplicate business processes and expenses,...
(Diana, nd) CRM software spending the UAE is expected to grow by approximately 30% with CRM investing in campaigns management, call centers, and sales force automation is reported as predicted. Emphasizing the importance of CRM in the UAE is the Customer Service Week Forum running from the 10th to the 14th of April, 2011 in the UAE. The report states specifically as follows:
"As the world economy gradually recovers and pundits predict everything from a total recovery to another dip in consumer and business spending, organizations in the GCC region have now realized that exceptional customer service is the key to retaining and acquiring more customers," said event organizer the Institute for International Research (IIR)." According to customer management trends, one of the most striking aspects is the shift towards individualization and customer experience management (CEM). Customers now demand a certain level of customization when it comes to products and services. As anyone in an organization can attest to, while it is easy to state that one has to be customer-centric, it is another thing to implement and have it reflected in every communication channel and customer touch point." (Diana, nd)
UAE organizations are investing heavily in IT, which includes CRM systems. The businesses in the UAE desire "real-time accurate, information on the performance of their operations and employees, allowing them to quickly respond to changes in workload or demand." (Diana, nd) CRM is such that is reported as being extremely useful in campaign management, sales force automation, and contact centre and call centre operations." (Diana, nd) Diana (nd) reports that small and midsize enterprises in the UAE…
