Red Circle Advertising LLC — SME Case Study (UAE)

Red Circle Advertising LLC is an independent small medium enterprise (SME) that supports creativity through providing marketing communications services.

It is based in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, and the company remains with one branch since the company was established in February 2015.

At Red Circle, the company provides advertising services to help businesses interact and communicate with its customers through the advertisements that the company provides to shape a marketing strategy for the company within the advertisement.

The media experts, graphic designers, and developers at Red Circle ensure customers with creative advertisements and marketing strategies for businesses to achieve Chris Jones Red Circle Advertising LLC quantitative and qualitative results for customers or business owners around the United Arab Emirates, which is the image and background of Red Circle Advertising in the minds of its customers, said Abdullah Fowze, the marketing manager of Red Circle Advertising. He also added the point of having the will to expand the family business within a few years, and expressed his ambitions towards elevating the company, to not only expand around the GCC, but also expand to reach the other side of the world.

Red Circle Advertising’s purpose and mission is “to provide innovation and creativity for the clients to help them grow their marketing goals, as well as provide integrated marketing branding solutions.” Vision Red Circle’s vision statement has always been to “deliver results for marketing programs that would improve client’s awareness, sales, and growth.” The vision statement of Red Circle Advertising provides an outline of details and proof that Red Circle is a customer-driven company and ensures customers by providing quality services.

Red Circle’s Organizational Structure CEO Mr. Fowze Abunaj General Manager Mr. Gaith Fowze Marketing Department Marketing Manager Marketing Assistant Graphic Designer (3) Graphic Designer Developers (5) Developers Sales Department (5) Salesman Accounts Department (1) Accountant Figure 1: Organizational Structure of Red Circle The above diagram shows the organizational structure of Red Circle Advertising, which implements a visual representation of a well-organized service SME. The CEO of the company is in charge of all deals and the relationships between Red Circle and other companies.

The general manager is in charge of all the operations departments (accounting, marketing, graphic designers, sales, and developers). The marketing manager is in charge of all the promotions and advertisement aspects and the positioning of the company, while having an assistant who interacts with the manager. The accounting department is in charge of accounting and preparing financial records and statements, and consists of one accountant. The graphic designers are in charge of creating the products that are listed by Red Circle.

Considering that it is an advertising company, graphic designers are the backbone of the company. Moreover, developers are also the employees that develop the structure of products listed inside the company, which also plays a huge role in the operation of the company.

Last but not least, the sales department is the department that ensures products listed are being sold to customers in a very professional way and are also in charge of customer outreach.

Leadership and Team of Red Circle ¡ Red Circle LLC was founded by Fowze Abunaj in The Red Circle team consists of five departments led by the general manager, Gaith Fowze.

o Marketing Manager: Abood Fowze, the marketing team consists of a market manager and a marketing assistant.

o The company has only one accountant named Raquel Molina.

o Graphic design team leader is Rico, who leads two other graphic designers.

o Development team leader: Hisham, who has an assistant.

o Sales Manager: Hassan, who leads four other salesmen.

Red Circle’s Restructure During the Pandemic When the Covid-19 pandemic struck the United Arab Emirates back in March 2020, it affected a lot of service businesses around the country and was pretty tough on everyone in the business world, since there was a national for almost five months, which required companies to cope with the pandemic and start working from home.

In terms of Red Circle LLC, it was a huge blow as Abood Fowze explains. He states that since all events were canceled for almost five months, there was a huge setback on the organization and the ability to achieve its goals. The CEO and the general manager of the company decided to lower the cost in order to break even.

In more depth, the managers decided to lower most of the salaries of employees in the company by about 25% and the organizational activities were no longer taking place at that period of the pandemic, so employees were working from home. Red Circle Advertising also lost some of its employees during the process, but made sure the company survived. However, considering the services that Red Circle provides, it had a huge advantage since the rise of online marketing was at an all-time high during the pandemic, which helped the process of restructuring the organization and built a positive image and an optimistic approach.

Fowze also added, “At Red Circle, we believe in positivity and we are aware of all the challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic was one of the toughest challenges we ever faced as an organization. It does not matter how hard a challenge might be, what matters is how we approach any situation and look forward to finding solutions to our problems.” Service Products Description Red Circle Advertising is a service company that specialize in graphic design, website services, application development for IOS and Android, multimedia services, digital printing, offset printing, events organizing, photo and video shoots and editing, exhibition builders, corporate gift, and souvenirs as well as TV and radio production.

¡ Media buying: Media buying is a form of advertisement where the advertisement is taken by the company and provided to the intended audience to make the advertisement effective.

¡ Signages: Red Circle provides commercials or public display signs based on the order of the customer.

¡ Stands: Red Circle provides custom stands that have an objective of advertisement based on the customer’s order.

¡ Event Organizing: Red Circle is a company that is well-known for organizing events where the client or the customer provides the details of the event they want to organize, and Red Circle provides full coverage of the event.

¡ Gift Items: Red Circle also specializes in gift items that are customized mainly for organizations such as mugs and pens that are made based on the order of the client.

¡ Printing: Printing is not the usual small sized printing that most stationery provide. In Red Circle, printing is mainly provided in bulk or for the main purpose of advertising such as huge banners and stands.

¡ Branding: Red Circle specializes in branding, which is the promotion of a product or a service or a company in the form of advertising.

Red Circle Company ensures to implement its major goals and initiatives as a strategy to compete in the service market.

A simple business strategy is crucial for SMEs such as Red Circle. It shows that the company is dedicated to achieving its goals through setting objectives as well as analyzing competitors in order to set the competitive advantage of the company. It includes analyzing the internal organization which is the structure of the company and what ways it might be improved, and ensuring that the management of each department applies the strategies into the organization.

This diagram below shows the major goals and business

strategy of Red Circle

Setting Objectives Analyzing the internal Organization Analyzing competitors Ensuring that the management will apply the strategies into the organization Business Strategies Figure 2: Business Strategies of Red Circle Operational Strategies of Red Circle The process of operations management of the Red Circle company relates to the bottom of the organizational structure mentioned in (Figure 1) where the developers are in charge of the strategy of developing current and new products and service, the accountant makes track of the inventory, and the graphic designers keep track of improvements as well as the sales department involved in customer reach out where they operate to reach the targeted market and customers.

Developing current/new products & services Managing inventory Customer driven strategies in order to reach your target market Tracking improvements Operational Strategies Figure 3: Operational Strategies of Red Circle Marketing Strategies of Red Circle The marketing department that consists of a marketing manager and an assistant are following the same strategies since the company opened. Marketing departments are often one of the major departments that play a huge role in any organizational success. In Red Circle, it is not different, the marketing department consistently applies strategies that help the company gain more customers and customer outreach through the four strategies discussed in (Figure 4).

Marketing Strategies Studying the competitive advantage Creating attracting promotion Providing Low cost and high quality services and products Building customer relationship Figure 4: Marketing Strategies of Red Circle The competitive advantage of the company is related to the price and the quality of services and products that Red Circle provides. Promotions are a major role of marketing which Red Circle specializes in and helps other businesses improve the advertising aspects of their businesses. However, Red Circle uses the same techniques to promote and market the company and ensure that the service has a great portfolio and sets an example to its customers.

Faced By Red Circle Fowze stated that there are multiple business challenges that the company faces everyday as any other business operating in the United Arab Emirates. The most recent challenge was the global pandemic of COVID-19, which shut down the whole economy and put major damages on Red Circle LLC. Fowze summaries some of the major

challenges that the organization faced

¡ Uncertainty about the future.

¡ Financial and economic issues that could occur at the company.

¡ Fair competition and innovation.

¡ Hiring the right fit for the organization ¡ Maintaining a good reputation in the UAE market.

¡ Meeting customer expectations and satisfaction.

How Does Red Circle Overcome These Challenges?

¡ To be fully prepared for whatever challenges that have the possibility of occurring, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

¡ To come up with new ideas and products that meet customer demands and to be open to change.

¡ Work on having a competitive advantage through quality and timely services.

¡ Improving and setting customer services that prioritize customer satisfaction.

The Best Successful Practices of Red Circle Red Circle is a company that strives for success in the marketing and advertising industry. The company has

served a lot of big companies and clients such as

¡ Rotana Events ¡ AquaVerde ¡ MEMC, for maintenance and cleaning ¡ TechnoFab Industries ¡ Ghannam Care Those are all companies that the company is proud to serve, and are listed on the company’s website under the Our Clients section.

Figure 5: Our Clients section of the Red Circle website Moreover, Red Circle’s successful practices are based on internal organizational observation and identifying problems and giving out solutions within the operations department and management. Focusing on the company’s improvement is also one of the main successful practices of the company, as well as having pride in representing the company, which shows the employee’s healthy organizational behavior and gives the company a lead over other advertising SMEs.

There is no success without failure, but Fowze calls it a lesson and never failure. The marketing manager of Red Circle refused to mention any names of clients who the company had faced trials with. He added that the company saw a lot of failure within its six years of operation that caused the company many troubles and challenges.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, it can relate to a huge factor of failed practices at Red Circle that every organization goes through, which is to always look forward and learn from the mistakes and always strive for improvement and dedication no matter how many challenges the company might face.

Red Circle LLC was established in 2015, which is considered a new company. However, Abood Fowze, the marketing manager of Red Circle, estimates that the company is three times bigger at the moment in terms of offices, labor, clients, capital, and network. He also mentioned the effect of COVID-19 on the labor and capital, and claims the year 2020 to be a huge setback for the company but the managers and the staff are positive about getting back on their feet during this year, since they got up from the setback and managed to make decisive choices and wise decisions in order to get back to where the company was.

As for the start of the company at the time it was established, the company was small in terms of working hands and capital. It was established based on the idea of Fowze Abunaj, the CEO of the company and a businessman that is based in the United Arab Emirates to interfere in the advertisement and marketing market. He gathered a small team of graphic designers, developers, and salesmen to start the small enterprise. The company is located at the same location it started in, which is in the heart of Dubai, Deira. The office was small, and the company’s departments were interrelated, which made the atmosphere of the company a healthy organization when it was established six years ago. However, Fowze is unsure about the number of employees back at the time, but he estimated it to be around four employees working full time jobs in 2015.

Moreover, the company now compared to when it was established saw a large growth for a small company in many aspects such as clients, the expansion of the offices, and employees involvement and in terms of capital. when taking into consideration the fact that the company had a huge setback recently due to COVID-19, and the recent organizational structure was certainly bigger.

Recommendations and Analysis To follow up with everything that has been stated so far, Red Circle is the perfect example for a growing SME in the United Arab Emirates that has a clear mission and vision. However, through my personal observation and taking into account all the aspects of the company, it has a good but not great organizational structure since it was hard for me to understand the fact that a company that is willing to expand has no human resources department, and I was really curious on who is in charge of hiring employees, as it was stated to me that the general manager is in charge of the hiring process. My recommendation for Red Circle Advertising Company is to invest in having a human resources department which will ease the process of hiring new employees that are suitable for the company, and play a huge role in changing or improving the culture of the organization, bettering the values of the business, which is a key part in any organization.

Another analysis from my observation was that the company has a variety of services and products that fits the main goal and the social responsibility of improving local businesses and helping clients to solve their problems. However, the product description is very broad and undetailed through the website, so I think a good strategy could be investing in a detailed description of the products and services that might catch the eye of customers and raise customer awareness of the company, since it is looking to expand.

Red Circle is a company that targets customer loyalty and has multiple businesses and clients that have a good relationship with it, which makes it easier to think that expansion of the company might be a bit complicated or hard to adapt by employees, which means that the more clients, the more employees and work that has to be done, and to hold onto a good reputation in the market, I think Red Circle is capable of expansion but it will be challenging and requires a lot of strategic planning and development since a lot of departments are not present in the organization.

Another analysis of the company could be that the management is doing a great job with employee satisfaction and workplace environment. The reward system that is mentioned by Fowze in the case questions I provided was really impressive and interesting. To know what motivates the employee is a very important aspect of having a healthy workplace, but I recommend the management of Red Circle provides moral rewards or intangible rewards more often, since waiting a whole year for a promotion through points is something motivating but takes away energy from the employees which might affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the process.

Another recommendation to the company is to improve marketing strategies by investing in social media marketing, which is getting a lot of attention from customers since the COVID-19 outbreak, which will be useful to implement in Red Circle and provide the service of social media marketing and adding it to the product list.

Overall, Red Circle is a company that is very interesting and a new concept for many businesses that are unaware of services that might be useful for any business owners around the UAE. The services provided by Red Circle are very effective from my personal observation and feedback that is listed on the company’s Facebook page. However, I would love to see the company interact on the new social media platforms such as Instagram.

¡ Red Circle is an SME that is willing to conquer the marketing and advertising market in the UAE.

¡ Red Circle has very outgoing and welcoming staff.

¡ Red Circle has a clear mission and vision.

¡ Red Circle’s organizational structure is a good example of a growing SME.

¡ Red Circle’s leaders have a sense of entrepreneurship that believes in change.

¡ Every company has its ups and downs but what matters is not giving up.

¡ As a leader, you must be prepared for whatever challenges or setbacks because that is what defines a good leader from bad.

¡ If you are willing to start a business, you should always think about changing the world and not profit.

¡ The market is changing everyday and business owners need to adapt quickly and be willing to adapt.

¡ Competition is such an important thing in the business world, without competition you cannot become an entrepreneur.

To sum everything that has been stated so far, Red Circle is an independent SME that provides services and products that help businesses to achieve their goals through creativity and well provided and timely service with such a small team that consists of 13 employees in total. It has had decent success over a few years of operating in the United Arab Emirates.

It has been my own observation that the company has a good reputation amongst large companies that require the services of the company with an outgoing list of organizational structure and a strong business, marketing, and operations strategy that sets the bar high for the company among competitors, as well as the customer driven organization putting the customers needs first and dealing with problems on a national level and the quality of work that is provided