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63% UAE SMEs to spend on sales, marketing to drive more growth

Dubai - In a survey of over 150 SMEs in the UAE, spending on sales and marketing topped the priority list.

Good sales and marketing is the highest spending priority for small and medium companies (SMEs) in the UAE, according to a business survey carried out by business intelligence provider Meed.
In a survey of over 150 SMEs in the UAE, spending on sales and marketing topped the priority list for the respondents with 63 per cent saying they will invest in this area to drive further growth in the coming months. Staff training and development came second with 42 per cent.
Product development and innovation is also a key investment priority for 40 per cent of respondents, while other important investment considerations include strategic partnerships (39 per cent); as well as technology & IT security (30 per cent). "Focusing on sales and marketing improvements is definitely a good investment strategy for growth, but what is important to highlight is that a good number of SMEs are giving product development and innovation a big push by making it a key priority area of investment to enhance their competitiveness," said Richard Thompson, editorial director of Meed.
"Many business experts believe that innovation is critical to attracting market capitalisation, which makes for a compelling reason why start-ups and small businesses should innovate." Over 150 small business owners answered the Meed survey on investment plans, highlighting their priority investment areas for this year that also include improving customer service (25 per cent), recruitment (20 per cent), as well as enhancing workplace culture and environment (19 per cent).
The survey was done as part of the Gulf Capital SME Awards programme, which Meed launched four years ago to celebrate business success, innovation and growth in the SME sector in the UAE.
Innovation can be practiced or achieved in many ways, even with very little financial investment, as one of the finalists in this year's Business Innovation of the Year category of the awards has shown. Alchemist Healthcare resolved a major pain point for its customers, simply by making small changes in its processes.
"Ask any patient in Abu Dhabi, and you would know there is a long wait at pharmacies. Average waiting time is 47 minutes and could even last up to two hours during system outages. We could have improved customer service only if we doubled up staffing, but this was not financially viable," relates Alok Praveen, VP for finance, Alchemist Healthcare.
"We broke down the medicine dispensing process into five steps, and assigned each one to our existing staff. This way they did only one part of the dispensing process and became good at it. It also reduced the patients waiting to be served as the counter pharmacist got freed faster and served multiple customers at same time."
- business@khaleejtimes.com