Ducab Dragons promotion winners awarded six-day Thailand trip

Dubai, 29 Aug 2012: In an initiative designed to recognize the contribution of its distributors, resellers and sales teams to record sales, Ducab—one of the leading manufacturers of high-quality power cables and wires in the Middle East – feted them at its Ducab Dragons Sales Awards Gala 2012, held at the newly launched Jumeirah Creekside Hotel on August 28th 2012. The event was the first celebration to be held at the    up market Jumeirah property  next to the Emirates Aviation Academy.

The Awards evening followed a Hollywood gala theme spiced with Thai influences, and was the culmination of a four month nationwide promotion termed Ducab Dragons, conceived around the Thai style Dragon Boat Racing competition,  that sought to reward Ducab’s business partners and sales teams for meeting wires and cables targets. It saw the distribution of customized trophies and the announcement of the final winners for the grand prize – a six-day trip to Thailand. More details can be found at www.DucabDragons.com

Speaking at the occasion, Ashish Chaturvedy, Ducab Marketing Manager, said, “Ducab’s market successes are in large part due to the efforts of our business partners in the value chain. Our sense of ethics and fair play insists that we show them appreciation for loyalty, laud their efforts, and reward them whenever possible. Ducab proudly claims to be the only cable manufacturer in the UAE to run such appreciation campaigns, but such initiatives are an intrinsic part of our long term strategy of mutual benefit and sustainable growth.”

The Awards Gala, hosted by popular radio jockey Malavika Vardhan from City 101.6 FM, saw attendance by Ducab’s senior management as well as over 250 retailers and Ducab distributors from across the UAE, including representatives from heavyweight names such as Al Jalal Electrical Trading in Sharjah, Al Zubair Trading from Dubai and Marjan cables  from Abu Dhabi. Audience members were treated to Thai-themed performances, including a live Muay-Thai demonstration, while motifs in the shape of the iconic Ducab Dragon logo highlighted the backstage.

“It’s a truism that diligence and commitment can get you very far, and in this case it is taking our lucky winners all the way to Thailand. We are grateful for the opportunity to congratulate our business partners for their sales efforts on behalf of Ducab, and look forward to other such occasions,” Chaturvedy concluded.

More details can be found at www.DucabDragons.com

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – : New research from Brocade1 (Nasdaq: BRCD) across Europe and Middle East shows that just over 86 percent of consumers use their mobile device including smartphones or tablets to do their holiday shopping and nearly 70 percent of these respondents are only prepared to wait a maximum of 20 seconds for a web page to load before going to another retailer. 

This suggests a strong shift in consumer expectations regarding service quality and changing habits in online shopping – making way for a mobile commerce boom and the need for service providers to step up to the plate and offer services to match, while coping with fluctuating seasonal demands.

“Mobile commerce is nothing new, but with the advent of the tablet and continuing sales for smartphones, 2012 will bring a seismic shift in consumer demand to shop anytime, anywhere, with no decline in service quality and download speeds – placing huge pressure on service provider networks to deliver,” said Manu Bonnassie, Regional Director - Central Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMA) at Brocade.

The research found that 13 percent of consumers will only wait a maximum of five seconds for a retailer’s web page to load before giving up, showing an increasing consumer trend towards demand for speed and uninterrupted service when shopping online. With the majority of people spending more time shopping online over the festive period (19 percent spending twice as much time as usual) and the growing trend for shopping ”on the go”, retailers are facing increasing pressure to ensure that their networks stand up to heavily fluctuating seasonal demands.
 
Bonnassie continued: “While consumers are put off by slow connection speeds, our research indicates that growth of online shopping is very much dependent on the ability of retailers to provide quality services.  According to Gartner, there were 17 million tablet computers shipped in 2010, a figure set to hit 326 million in 20152. That alone should be sounding alarm bells for retailers.  With over a third of people claiming to already own a tablet computer, and a further 22 percent intending to bring one into the home or give one as a gift at Christmas, the trade-off between providing a consistent service throughout the year and being able to handle the extra capacity and bandwidth required during the biggest shopping months of the year, is a huge challenge for retailers.”

Other key findings included:

•·         Of respondents that will be purchasing a smartphone or tablet computer in time for Christmas, or as a gift for a member of the family or friend, 38 percent will be used for work purposes. A reflection of the increasing trend of using personal devices in the workplace – Bring Your Own Device or BYOD – employers could expect four in every 10 employees to bring a new device onto the corporate network in January 2012;
•·         Three quarters of people and almost 37 percent already own a smartphone or a tablet respectively;
•·         Almost 70 percent of people claim that their place of work will close for at least the bank holidays over the Christmas period. With 81 percent of people staying home over the festive time, that means a drastic increase in leisure time, with over half of us streaming TV and movies from the Internet and a shade under 58 percent using bandwidth-hungry communications tools such as Skype to talk to friends and family.
Bonnassie added: “With seasonal peaks and troughs in demand, it is a challenge for providers to ensure that they are satisfying high expectations from consumers, but also not wasting capacity in low periods. Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) style networks are set to be key to tackling this issue, as providers only use what they need, when they need it.”

Many [businesses] are leveraging Cloud-based business models, delivering high performance networking foundations to deliver consumer services, but are now beginning to look at new procurement strategies to create on-premise architectures.

Bonnassie commented: “Our ‘The Data Center Is Here’ corporate campaign highlights how modern networks need to extend across physical boundaries and enable a common user experience wherever data is accessed, and with the recently launched Brocade Network Subscription service we are now offering of an innovative, subscription-based acquisition option for network infrastructure that allows organizations to align network capacity with fluctuating business demands. Therefore it’s important that the retail industry and service providers ensure they don’t miss this opportunity to prosper.”

In this type of always-on business environment, the Brocade portfolio of high-performance, scalable, cloud-optimized networking solutions offer service providers and businesses the confidence to meet the demands of the modern consumer. These solutions deliver on the Brocade One™ strategy of helping organizations deliver information and applications anywhere at any time. In addition, this strategy is designed to help organizations reduce both complexity and costs while extending data center assets and services to mobile users around the world.

Conducts live demonstrations of the Extreme® Pro™ SDXC™ UHS-I Card, Sansa Clip Zip, MP3 Player and the all new Memory Vault

Dubai – October 19th, 2011: SanDisk, the global leader in flash memory storage solu-tions, recognized its retailer partners at a dedicated awards ceremony yesterday.. The evening witnessed the launch and live demonstrations of SanDisk’s new range of innova-tive products – the Extreme® Pro™ SDXC™ UHS-I Card, Sansa Clip Zip, MP3 Player and the all new SanDisk® Memory Vault.

SanDisk took part in its sixth GITEX Shopper this year, utilizing the ever-growing event to expand channel partnerships and brainstorm with existing partners on how best to add value in their respective markets. Following its continued success at the event, SanDisk honored its valued retailers with awards as follows:
1). ‘Outstanding Support at Gitex Shopper’ award went to E City, E4U and MK Trading
2). ‘Outstanding Promotional Support in Retail’ award went to Sharaf DG
3). ‘Outstanding Secondary Placement and Branding in Retail’ award went to Plug Ins
4). ‘Outstanding Product Range and Display at Gitex’ award went to COMPUME
5). ‘Outstanding Sales Growth in Retail’ award went to Lulu
6). ‘Outstanding Sales Growth in High Performance Products’ award went to Jacky’s Elec-tronics
7). ‘Outstanding Overall Sales and Category Management at Gitex Shopper’ award went to E Max
8). ‘SanDisk Strategic Regional Partner, MENA Region’ award went to Carrefour
9). ‘Outstanding Regional Duty Free Partner’ award went to DUBAI DUTY FREE

“We have always believed in rewarding the best. Our success and the success of our re-tailers at this year’s GITEX Shopper exemplify our commitment to investment in our channel,” said Tareq Husseini, SanDisk’s Middle East and Africa Sales Director.

Winners awarded for effort and achievements as sales rocketed by 65%

Dubai, May 28, 2011- In a special initiative designed to recognize the contribution of its distributors, resellers and sales teams, Ducab—one of the leading manufacturers of high-quality power cables in the Middle East–awarded high performing business partners with all expenses paid trips to the Indian Premier League cricket final in India. The aim of this promotion was to encourage the sales of wires and flexible cords in the UAE over a 3 month period

The 50 winners from all over UAE were announced and feted at a gala dinner and celebration at the Monarch Hotel, Dubai. Attendees at the gala event included distributors’ sales representatives, dealers, traders, retailers, sales men and counter sales representatives.

Speaking at the occasion, Ducab’s Marketing Manager, Ashish Chaturvedy said: “Ducab’s achievements and growth is a direct result of the efforts of our valued business partners. Our vision is to strengthen the long-term relationships with our value chain and work closely with them towards mutual growth. Our promotional initiative was designed to create some excitement at the retail leval at the same time reward them for their efforts, and to acknowledge the important role they play in Ducab’s success.”

The ‘Wire to Win DPL – Go see the IPL’ promotional scheme ran through the month of February, March and April, offering a host of prizes and rewards to high achieving distributors and retailers as per the pre-set sales targets. Apart from IPL trips, the night saw teams and individuals awarded with vouchers, white goods and other recognitions. 

“We are very proud of the efforts of our partners and sales teams in improving sales. Ducab is cognizant of the role its business partners play in its success. The IPL promotion was our way of incentivizing them, and thanking them for promoting Ducab’s success in local and regional markets,” added Chaturvedy.

The 3 days all-expenses paid IPL packages includes match tickets, flights, hotel accommodations with bed and breakfast, airport pickups and transfers, and transport to and from the cricket stadium.

“The promotion has proved to be very successful, and we are very pleased to acknowledge the outstanding results our distributors and retail sales teams have garnered. Cumulatively, we have sold over 1500 tonnes of LV wires during the promotion period within the UAE, resulting in a sales increase of about 65% over the same period last year,” Chaturvedy concluded. 

The World Cup is likely to boost festival’s revenues

With a slew of summer offers being launched to tempt customers into parting with their hard-earned cash over the annual Dubai Summer Surprises period, some retailers hope to see sales rise by as much as 15 per cent.

“We expect a 15 per cent growth over last year’s DSS even though this DSS is a fortnight shorter,” Niranjan Gidwani, Deputy CEO of the Eros Group told Emirates Business ahead of the DSS, which begins on Thursday and runs until August 7.

“With our aggressive promotions and prices we are quite positive on sales this year. Customers will be spoilt for choice with our offers, from best prices to raffle draws and much more,” he said. Eros is only one of several retailers looking to boost consumer spending in a tight market.

The Dubai Shopping Malls Group yesterday announced that 21 city malls have clubbed together this year to raffle off 14 BMW Series 3 luxury sedans to be won, making it the biggest DSS raffle promotion this summer. Separately, the three Majid Al Futtaim malls – Deira City Centre, Mirdif City Centre and Mall of the Emirates – have clubbed together to give away Dh200,000 each week until June 17.

DSS was launched in 1998 to revitalise the sluggish summer retail period and has traditionally seen high-profile giveaways such as apartments and private jets.

“Those days are gone,” Eisa Adam, a member of DSMG’s Board of Directors, said frankly. “We could be doing more if we had more funds at our disposal, but we’re doing enough to move people’s hearts,” he said.

Adam, who is also General Manager of BurJuman Centre, said malls relied on small events such as community-based contests and entertainment acts to bring customers in and keep them within their air-conditioned environs for a few hours. “Within that time, they’re definitely going to have a coffee or a meal, and maybe even spend some money in one of the shops,” he said.

Adam said he expected consumer spending would be better than last year, but did not offer any projections. “The biggest crisis we faced has been one of consumer confidence, but we’re seeing people start to spend now,” he said. Laila Suhail, CEO of the Dubai Events and Promotions Establishment, which organises the DSS, told this paper separately that the agency expected numbers to be consistent with last year. In 2009, DSS posted revenues of Dh3.3 billion on the back of 2.2 million visitors, the DEPE said.

“We’ve worked with retailers to increase the value proposition to customers this year, so we’re hoping to achieve the same numbers,” Suhail said. “Bear in mind that because of Ramadan, the DSS only runs for 52 days as compared to 65 days last year.”

The event is being organised at a cost of Dh60 million, down from last year with sponsors finding it hard to stump up cash. “But we’re working with sponsors to create additional packages by way of barter deals or targeted events, so although it’s been tough, it’s coming together well,” she said. This year’s event has 12 headline sponsors, one less than last year.

Both Suhail and the retailers felt the ongoing Fifa World Cup 2010 would positively impact revenues, despite fears that hotels and standalone events firms would pull away business over the next four weeks.

“The World Cup adds to the hype. Most malls have tents and football-related activities, and we are also screening all the matches at Modhesh World. All of that adds value,” Suhail said.

“The World Cup is a global event and we in the UAE are very much part of this global phenomenon. Sales have already increased by 30 to 35 per cent with sales of 3D TVs also taking off. This growth will be sustained as the event continues along with the DSS promotions,” Eros’ Gidwani said.

Retailers are not sure how much of the rise in diamond prices can be passed on to consumers without putting them off. (EB FILE)

There is good news and bad news for the diamond jewellery retail business during these times of global economic recovery.

On the one hand, demand has started growing again after the slump of 2009; on the other hand, the prices of rough diamonds are increasing, driving up product costs, and retailers are not sure how much of this burden can be passed on to consumers without putting them off.

The lion’s share of the increasing demand is from Asia, the market that has recovered the fastest, but the boom has passed, and nobody is certain how far buyers can be pushed on pricing. However, major retailers in Dubai predict that, on an average, diamond jewellery prices will increase by up to 12 per cent in the next couple of months and by up to 35 per cent when the full effect of rough diamond price rise hits the market.

The reason why consumers are not feeling the pinch badly yet is the time lag. “The rough diamond has to go for cutting, manufacturing and then it comes to the market”, a process that takes some time, said Sathish Chellen, Manager, Certified Diamonds at Damas Jewellery.

Rough diamonds that are being bought at higher prices today will appear on store shelves as jewellery with a higher price tag within a couple of months – and as raw stock prices continue to rise, so will that of the finished product. Two factors appear to be affecting rough diamond prices – the supply has slowed down, and the world’s biggest diamond producer, De Beers, has scaled back production.

Chellen is confident that consumers will not shy away from shelling out higher prices for jewellery.

“It is very obvious that the market is recovering and consumers are ready to pay – it is on this basis that prices are going up,” he said, adding that prices are not so much increasing as “bouncing back to the previous levels”.

The current demand, Chellen said, is “coming from emerging markets such as China and India”, but “the supply is not sufficient to meet such a high demand”.

This view is shared by Mehran Mahallati, Vice-President of Mahallati Jewellery, who said there is a 15 per cent increase in demand from 2009 levels, but not enough supply to meet it. On the cascading effect of rough diamond price rise, he said: “It takes manufacturers time to buy, polish and sort to resell to wholesalers, and wholesellers sell it to retailers. This is a lengthy process. Therefore, the price rise will have its full effect in seven to eight months.”

At that point diamond prices should be 30 to 35 per cent more than what they are today, he said.

“I think that the world market has picked up and consumers – though in doubt a lot of the time – are still willing to buy,” said Mahallati. “We believe in every consumer getting the fairest price. Not that I lose on a stone with one person and recover the loss from the next consumer. But the additional cost will definitely be passed on to consumers, there is no way round it.”

It is not that the De Beers move to cut production has dried up supply. According to Peter Meeus, Chairman of Dubai Diamond Exchange, that company’s share of the supply market has dropped to 40 per cent now from 80 per cent three decade ago.

“There are many independent suppliers, such as Alrosa, the Russian mining producer, Rio Tinto group, and BHP Billiton,” he said.

His explanation of the current shortfall is: “After Lehman went bankrupt, the market came to a standstill, because if there is a shock in consumer confidence, the first thing that will happen is that people will stop buying luxury items such as diamonds. This had an effect on the whole pipeline, thereby creating a ripple effect, which after three or four months affected the producers.

“And if the demand goes down by 20 per cent, on the supply side this will have an effect of almost a 50 per cent. Basically, what happened is that retailers have stopped buying, and tried to sell their stocks, and kept as little stocks as possible.

“And in the same mode, the wholesellers did the same, pushing down the stocks. So suddenly in 2009, no one wanted to buy from the miners. Last year, De Beers intelligently stopped producing or produced half of its 2008 production [48 million carats].”

Chellen said what is needed now to keep the wheels turning – as in any industry – is for people to get used to the new pricing, respecting the market situation as well as consumer expectations.

“But for sure, the industry is bullish about the demand, and with big volumes we can absorb some of the extra expenses,” he added.

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