Insights

Analysis on expansion, distribution and retail.

Written for brand owners and commercial teams making real decisions about market entry, not search-engine filler.

Finding candidates is the easy part. The work that determines whether the relationship succeeds happens before you have a shortlist.

UAE & GCC 11 min read

UAE entry has a natural order. Brands that follow it lose weeks; brands that improvise it lose quarters.

These three roles get used interchangeably, and the differences decide your margin, your control and how easily you can change course.

Buyers are not deciding whether your product is good. They are deciding whether replacing something with it is a low-risk way to grow the category.

Questions to answer before you commit to a market, not after you have signed with a distributor.

UAE & GCC 9 min read

The Gulf is routinely treated as a single market. Commercially and regulatorily it is six, and the gap is where brands lose money.

The honest answer is that it depends on your margin structure, but the criteria that decide it are consistent, and most brands do not apply them.

Guides and frameworks

Working documents you can have

Global Growth Brief

For growing consumer brands. Occasional, and worth opening.

Tell us where you are trying to grow. We will tell you what the pathway looks like, what it would take, and whether we think the timing is right.