Deepak Dhiman, the director of Banana e Forces, which has produced B2B Connect, an online business book. Sarah Dea / The National
Deepak Dhiman, the director of Banana e Forces, which has produced B2B Connect, an online business book. Sarah Dea / The National

Business

Fruitful venture that spreads the word

The Life: Deepak Dhiman, the director of Banana e Forces, speaks about why they created B2B Connect, an online business book, and what they hope to achieve with it.

Gillian Duncan
Gillian Duncan

October 26, 2012

Banana e Forces, a creative agency in Dubai, has just produced B2B Connect, an online business book. Deepak Dhiman, the company's director, speaks about why the company created it - and what it hopes to achieve with it.

Tell us about your e-book.

This e-book is all about sharing information with people who are entrepreneurs and businesspeople. What we have done is to connect with people who are on the internet most of the time. The idea came up [to see] how we could help people who are focusing on the UAE market and need cost-effective solutions.

What kind of advice does it give?

There is a lot of stuff on "how to" in social media, how to do your webcast.

People think doing a webcast is about getting a professional videographer, and shell out a huge amount of money.

We have suggested that all you need is a webcam … to speak for a few minutes and make a presentation of yourself, put it on YouTube or your website and keep changing it every week. Similarly, how to go about doing Twitter for example.

What other features does it have?

There is lots of information. The articles are much more than just about social media. There's a beautiful article on how to make fantastic newsletters, how to do an email marketing campaign, which software people should buy and download.

How much does it cost?

We are giving it for free.

Why?

We are giving it to spread the word. Secondly, to come up with something different. We get branding automatically. We are trying to create a niche as an innovative company. And we want to go global because we are promoting it through the internet. The idea is not to make money from day one.

So how do you intend to make money out of it?

Out of the advertisements. They won't be like Yellow Pages or a directory. It will be very elegant: only full-page ads with the links to their websites with keywords which are searchable, this kind of stuff.

How many times has it been downloaded so far?

At the moment we probably have close to 1,500 downloads but we are working very aggressively.

What is the point of it all?

What happens is if you go and search on the internet, you end up finding millions of links and you don't know which one to follow. What we have done is made the lives simpler of people who are always on the go.

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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Series information

Pakistan v Dubai

First Test, Dubai International Stadium

Sun Oct 6 to Thu Oct 11

Second Test, Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi

Tue Oct 16 to Sat Oct 20          

 Play starts at 10am each day

 

Teams

 Pakistan

1 Mohammed Hafeez, 2 Imam-ul-Haq, 3 Azhar Ali, 4 Asad Shafiq, 5 Haris Sohail, 6 Babar Azam, 7 Sarfraz Ahmed, 8 Bilal Asif, 9 Yasir Shah, 10, Mohammed Abbas, 11 Wahab Riaz or Mir Hamza

 Australia

1 Usman Khawaja, 2 Aaron Finch, 3 Shaun Marsh, 4 Mitchell Marsh, 5 Travis Head, 6 Marnus Labuschagne, 7 Tim Paine, 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Peter Siddle, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Jon Holland

Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
 
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
How to avoid crypto fraud
  • Use unique usernames and passwords while enabling multi-factor authentication.
  • Use an offline private key, a physical device that requires manual activation, whenever you access your wallet.
  • Avoid suspicious social media ads promoting fraudulent schemes.
  • Only invest in crypto projects that you fully understand.
  • Critically assess whether a project’s promises or returns seem too good to be true.
  • Only use reputable platforms that have a track record of strong regulatory compliance.
  • Store funds in hardware wallets as opposed to online exchanges.
Tips for taking the metro

- set out well ahead of time

- make sure you have at least Dh15 on you Nol card, as there could be big queues for top-up machines

- enter the right cabin. The train may be too busy to move between carriages once you're on

- don't carry too much luggage and tuck it under a seat to make room for fellow passengers

Game Changer

Director: Shankar 

Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram

Rating: 2/5

The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump and Other Pieces 1986-2016
Martin Amis,
Jonathan Cape

If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.

When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.

How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

In numbers: China in Dubai

The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000

Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000

Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent

THE BIO

Age: 30

Favourite book: The Power of Habit

Favourite quote: "The world is full of good people, if you cannot find one, be one"

Favourite exercise: The snatch

Favourite colour: Blue