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The insanity of Black Friday is upon us

November 27 2016

Written by Faro Laz and from Overblog

 

The insanity of Black Friday is upon us

The insanity of Black Friday is upon us, but don’t succumb to the madness at the malls  tweeted many observers – and it’s only one day, I for one would not mind adding.  Newsweek Europe published this article about the introduction of the notion of Black Friday into the Middle East or rather into the countries of the Gulf part of the region.  The other regions are either undergoing traumatic upheavals of civil wars and / or internal political unrest and have no serious propensity or disposition of mind to indulge into acquiring at an exceptional bargain a desired product.  The varying levels of ICTs penetration into the countries of the Middle East play against all other countries other than those of the Gulf.  And within these latter countries, the diverse populations can also be differentiated through their response to the afore-said notion of Black Friday.     

WHITE FRIDAY: MIDDLE EAST’S JEFF BEZOS LOOKS TO CAPITALIZE ON BLACK FRIDAY TRADITION

 

Souq, the Amazon of the Middle East, aims to break its own records in third year of sales bonanza.

BY JACK MOORE ON 11/25/16 AT 10:12 AM

The dizzying array of discounts, department store frenzies and violent wrestling bouts over electronic goods that have come to define the American tradition of Black Friday have arrived in the Middle East—not in the shops, but online.

Souq, the largest e-commerce site in the Arab world launched a four-day online shopping bonanza known as ‘White Friday’ in 2014 and this year it began on Wednesday, seeing consumers from seven Arab countries vie for a bounty of luxury goods until Saturday. The site’s chief executive, Syrian entrepreneur Ronaldo Mouchawar, earned the company a billing as the ‘Amazon of the Middle East’ and prompted a host of other Middle Eastern retailers to follow suit.

White Friday takes an American tradition and turns it on its head. It seeks to resonate with the culture of the Middle East, where Thanksgiving is not celebrated, and Friday is a weekend day, reserved for the holy worship of millions of Muslims, both Sunni and Shia. While black can denote a sombre event (in the U.S., Black Friday actually refers to hoisting a business “back into the black”), the color white takes on a more positive meaning for Mouchawar and the team at Souq.

Mary Ghobrial, Chief Commercial Officer, SOUQ

Mary Ghobrial, Chief Commercial Officer, SOUQ

Mary Ghobrial, chief commercial officer of Souq.com and Ronaldo Mouchawar, chief executive and co-founder of Souq.com, two of the faces behind the Middle East’s White Friday sale.

SOUQ.COM

“We wanted to own an event that was not really tied to thanksgiving as much but more tied to our Friday, our White, which is kind of positive and happy,” says Mouchawar, speaking to Newsweek from his Dubai office by Skype. “We launched it in 2014 and it was a massive success. Last year, we did about 600,000 units, and hopefully this year we go over a million.”

The scenes of mayhem witnessed in the West upon the opening of Black Friday sales across thousands of stores will not be reflected in the Middle East, but the feverish hunt for bargains online will be, in what is predicted to be a record year for the sales event. The event has grown year on year, Souq’s co-founder says, and this year they have expanded to three new countries, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman, on top of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Read more on Newsweek .

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Opportunity in Government Productivity Analysis by Faro | Apr 21, 2017 | Democracy, Developed Countries, Diversification of the economy, Education & Culture, Governance, Government Policy/Regulation/Legislation | 0 comments Opportunity in Government Productivity Analysis All leaders in all countries of the MENA region would be well inspired in reading this write up of McKinsley Center for Government (MCG). It is a closer look at through a review of all sectors opportunity in government productivity analysis and in its report’s executive summary, it (MCG) as ‘a global hub for research, collaboration, and innovation in government productivity and performance’ holds that ‘its mission is to help governments and non-governmental institutions improve the lives of citizens worldwide and to help solve the world’s most pressing economic and social issues.’ In a few words, the report studied ways that productivity and opportunity for improvement in various developed countries government departments, etc. is measured. It also showed shortcomings and / or limited progress on measuring government productivity when comparing these countries’ differing performances as it were of certain obvious sectors of governement activities literally department by department. The opportunity in government productivity Governments face a pressing question: How to do more with less? Raising productivity could save $3.5 trillion a year—or boost outcomes at no extra cost. Higher costs and rising demand have driven rapid increases in spending on core public services such as education, healthcare, and transport—while countries must grapple with complex challenges such as population aging, economic inequality, and protracted security concerns. Government expenditure amounts to more than a third of global GDP, budgets are strained, and the world public-sector deficit is close to $4 trillion a year At the same time, governments are struggling to meet citizens’ rising expectations. Satisfaction with key state services, such as public transportation, schools, and healthcare facilities, is less than half that of nonstate providers, such as banks or utilities. Governments need a way to deliver better outcomes—and a better experience for citizens—at a sustainable cost. A new paper by the McKinsey Center for Government (MCG), Government productivity: Unlocking the $3.5 trillion opportunity, suggests that goal is within reach. It shows that several countries have achieved dramatic productivity improvements in recent years—for example, by improving health, public safety, and education outcomes while maintaining or even reducing spending per capita or per student in those sectors. If other countries were to match the improvements already demonstrated in these pockets of excellence, the world’s governments could potentially save as much as $3.5 trillion a year by 2021—equivalent to the entire global fiscal gap. Alternatively, countries could choose to keep spending constant while boosting the quality of key services. For example, if all the countries studied had improved the productivity of their healthcare systems at the rate of comparable best performers over the past 5 years, they would have added 1.4 years to the healthy life expectancy of their combined populations. That translates into 12 billion healthy life years gained, without additional per capita spending. It’s imperative that governments find a way to unlock that productivity opportunity. The challenge is that, until now, there’s been limited progress on measuring government productivity—even though productivity is a well-established and vital measure of the performance of national economies and private-sector businesses. As a result, it is difficult for governments to gauge the true return on spending, and debate is often focused on how to increase inputs and not the quality of outputs. Governments typically find it challenging to identify improvement opportunities by learning from other countries, or from other regions or sectors within the same country. To help close this gap, MCG built a comprehensive database and benchmarking methodology—the Government Productivity Scope—to start to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of government expenditure. MCG applied the tool across 42 countries that together make up 80 percent of global GDP, focusing on seven sectors: healthcare; primary, secondary, and tertiary education; public safety; road transport; and tax collection. The research was supplemented with insights from more than 50 interviews with government leaders and more than 200 case studies. This paper presents the first version of MCG’s analysis, which we will continue to extend and refine in dialogue with government leaders and academic experts. The initial findings point to dramatic differences in countries’ relative productivity. Even among comparable countries with very similar outcomes, the least-efficient government currently spends more than twice as much per unit of output as its most-efficient peer. And while most countries have struggled to contain spending growth, in every sector MCG found examples of governments that have reduced expenditure per unit while experiencing improved outcomes. These differences point to a tremendous opportunity for governments to boost productivity, save money, and achieve better outcomes for citizens. To realize that opportunity, though, governments need to deepen their functional capabilities in four key areas: finance, commercial, digital technology and data analytics, and talent management. As MCG shows, pioneering countries have reimagined and strengthened these functions so they play a more strategic leadership role in pursuing efficiency and improving outcomes. Across these areas, those governments have adopted an ambitious, structured approach to transform the effectiveness of the state.
Opportunity in Government Productivity Analysis by Faro | Apr 21, 2017 | Democracy, Developed Countries, Diversification of the economy, Education & Culture, Governance, Government Policy/Regulation/Legislation | 0 comments Opportunity in Government Productivity Analysis All leaders in all countries of the MENA region would be well inspired in reading this write up of McKinsley Center for Government (MCG). It is a closer look at through a review of all sectors opportunity in government productivity analysis and in its report’s executive summary, it (MCG) as ‘a global hub for research, collaboration, and innovation in government productivity and performance’ holds that ‘its mission is to help governments and non-governmental institutions improve the lives of citizens worldwide and to help solve the world’s most pressing economic and social issues.’ In a few words, the report studied ways that productivity and opportunity for improvement in various developed countries government departments, etc. is measured. It also showed shortcomings and / or limited progress on measuring government productivity when comparing these countries’ differing performances as it were of certain obvious sectors of governement activities literally department by department. The opportunity in government productivity Governments face a pressing question: How to do more with less? Raising productivity could save $3.5 trillion a year—or boost outcomes at no extra cost. Higher costs and rising demand have driven rapid increases in spending on core public services such as education, healthcare, and transport—while countries must grapple with complex challenges such as population aging, economic inequality, and protracted security concerns. Government expenditure amounts to more than a third of global GDP, budgets are strained, and the world public-sector deficit is close to $4 trillion a year At the same time, governments are struggling to meet citizens’ rising expectations. Satisfaction with key state services, such as public transportation, schools, and healthcare facilities, is less than half that of nonstate providers, such as banks or utilities. Governments need a way to deliver better outcomes—and a better experience for citizens—at a sustainable cost. A new paper by the McKinsey Center for Government (MCG), Government productivity: Unlocking the $3.5 trillion opportunity, suggests that goal is within reach. It shows that several countries have achieved dramatic productivity improvements in recent years—for example, by improving health, public safety, and education outcomes while maintaining or even reducing spending per capita or per student in those sectors. If other countries were to match the improvements already demonstrated in these pockets of excellence, the world’s governments could potentially save as much as $3.5 trillion a year by 2021—equivalent to the entire global fiscal gap. Alternatively, countries could choose to keep spending constant while boosting the quality of key services. For example, if all the countries studied had improved the productivity of their healthcare systems at the rate of comparable best performers over the past 5 years, they would have added 1.4 years to the healthy life expectancy of their combined populations. That translates into 12 billion healthy life years gained, without additional per capita spending. It’s imperative that governments find a way to unlock that productivity opportunity. The challenge is that, until now, there’s been limited progress on measuring government productivity—even though productivity is a well-established and vital measure of the performance of national economies and private-sector businesses. As a result, it is difficult for governments to gauge the true return on spending, and debate is often focused on how to increase inputs and not the quality of outputs. Governments typically find it challenging to identify improvement opportunities by learning from other countries, or from other regions or sectors within the same country. To help close this gap, MCG built a comprehensive database and benchmarking methodology—the Government Productivity Scope—to start to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of government expenditure. MCG applied the tool across 42 countries that together make up 80 percent of global GDP, focusing on seven sectors: healthcare; primary, secondary, and tertiary education; public safety; road transport; and tax collection. The research was supplemented with insights from more than 50 interviews with government leaders and more than 200 case studies. This paper presents the first version of MCG’s analysis, which we will continue to extend and refine in dialogue with government leaders and academic experts. The initial findings point to dramatic differences in countries’ relative productivity. Even among comparable countries with very similar outcomes, the least-efficient government currently spends more than twice as much per unit of output as its most-efficient peer. And while most countries have struggled to contain spending growth, in every sector MCG found examples of governments that have reduced expenditure per unit while experiencing improved outcomes. These differences point to a tremendous opportunity for governments to boost productivity, save money, and achieve better outcomes for citizens. To realize that opportunity, though, governments need to deepen their functional capabilities in four key areas: finance, commercial, digital technology and data analytics, and talent management. As MCG shows, pioneering countries have reimagined and strengthened these functions so they play a more strategic leadership role in pursuing efficiency and improving outcomes. Across these areas, those governments have adopted an ambitious, structured approach to transform the effectiveness of the state.
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