5 Business Strategies to Overcome Business Competition in Dubai Without A Fat Capital

By Mohamad El Khatib, A Business Coach & Consultant

Dubai has become one of the leading cities and hubs for Millionaires with 72,500 Millionaires living on its land as of February 2024, and it is an attractive destination for entrepreneurs and international companies who want to tap into the Middle East and Gulf market. Dubai’s market has been growing over the last few years with so much capital and investment being brought to it because of many advantages and benefits, such as safety, no taxes, market, and investment opportunities, etc. With all this, the competition among businesses in Dubai started to become fierce, leaving only the companies with solid business skills, and strong financials, to survive in a fast-growing market.

How can you save your business from shutting down, and overcome the competition?

1. Find a Smaller Niche to Compete In

Unless you are one of the biggest businesses with fat investments and billions sitting in your bank account, it’ll be impossible to go head-to-head with the leading organizations in any field. And since all industries and sectors are crowded with products and service providers, it is unlikely that you are alone with minimum to no competition in your field. In that case, you should be the biggest fish in a small pond rather than being an average fish in the ocean, and that’s what’s called “The Red & Blue Ocean Strategy”. Narrow down your niche to avoid competition with the whales, and focus on being an expert in that field.

2. Be More Specific About Your Ideal Customers

Since you have a business, it, for sure, solves a problem for certain customers/clients. Dig deeper into your “Ideal Client Persona” and focus your marketing on targeting “that audience” only. Being successful in this will make you the “go to” destination to those clients/customers, and will position your company as the expert that can solve their problem to a level of fulfillment and satisfaction. This approach will make you able to set yourself aside from the competition as you are the solution for a very specific audience.

3. Find Your Strengths, & Determine Your Competitive Advantage

You don’t have to be the cheapest in the market to win a competition. This can bring more harm than it brings good. To gain a competitive edge over your competitors, analyze your company’s strengths, and figure out what is the one thing that you do better than them. If you don’t know where to start, here are some areas that you can start from: Speed of Service; Quality; Customer Support; Sales Service; customer overall Buying Experience; and Price. Once you determine your competitive advantage, make sure to strongly communicate it with your audience.

4. Position Yourself in Your Audience’s Mind

People are being sold a thousand times every day and everywhere, on streets, social media, TVs, etc. So, it’s important that you can position yourself from others by being distinct. The easier way to do that is to use words in your marketing such as “First, Last, Fastest, Biggest, Smallest. etc.” and communicate it more often. With repetition, this will stimulate curiosity in your audience and will lead them to try your product or service someday. The key point is to be true to your word and prove that you are honest about what you say.

5. Focus on Retaining, Not Acquiring

It is a well-known fact in business that retaining an existing customer is much cheaper than acquiring new ones. And most businesses fall into this trap of neglecting the existing customers and trying to advertise and market to bring new ones. The strongest marketing method is “The Word of Mouth”, and to play this card to your benefit, you must be professional in retaining and satisfying your existing customers. It is very critical to make them always want to come back to you. Since this is a subject that can take a whole article, I will narrow down areas to improve to be able to achieve that: Customer Service, Customer’s Journey in your business, Buying Experience, Sales Support, Handling Complaints. These are just a few areas you can improve when wanting to create returning customers.

Summary

In today’s fast-moving life and the ability given to people to try everything and read the reviews of anything they’re about to try, it is more difficult to stand out from the competition unless you have the capital to show yourself in front of your customers everywhere they go, or possess the business knowledge and skills that’ll enable you to survive in a jungle of business predators. And so, this article was written to equip you with the basic knowledge that can help you overcome the competition and business challenges of the market. Yet, it is always safer to seek assistance and guidance from business experts who can help you safeguard and grow your business.

By Mohamad El Khatib, A Business Coach & Consultant, support@mkbusinesscoaching.com