Customer Rating:  
Summary: Solid background reading on the Gulf States
Comment: Overall, this is a very good book. It is well written and structured, with good chapter summaries. Business-like and accessible. I do have a couple of criticisms however.
I found that the descriptive information (history, culture, business practices) was much stronger than the proscriptive information (business strategies, organization structure, etc). The latter tended to be quite generic and could easliy apply to doing business in many international locations, not specific to the Gulf. The author is clearly not a marketing expert, these sections did not add a great deal of value for an experienced professional and seemed to be directed towards an audience who had never done business outside the U.S. before.
Also, from a business strategy perspective, there is a strong focus on consumer goods and financial services, very little about B2B or industrial selling situations, which I would like to have seen more of.
In sum, while not without its flaws, the book is still well written and certainly of value to someone wishing to do business for the first time in the Gulf States.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Authoritative almanac to doing business with the Gulf States
Comment: Little heard-of, but increasingly important, the six nations known as the Gulf States are using their oil wealth to become global players in world finance. In turn, multinational corporations are recognizing that these nations should become integral parts of their expansion plans. All this makes author Aamir A. Rehman's work important to any business investigating this marketplace. He provides a cultural, economic, historical, political, demographic and geographic overview of this area, while spelling out the pros and cons of doing business there. Through this book repeats some key sections, Rehman keeps advancing his presentation, so any intrepid reader will have a strong foundation for future business plans. Think of this as a business guidebook to the region. If you are investigating an expansion in the Gulf States, getAbstract would suggest that an investment in this book could generate large returns.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent insight into the GCC states
Comment: As an American born Muslim who has lived and worked in the Middle East as a strategy consultant, Aamir Rehman is able to bring a cross-cultural perspective to his subject. In 300 concise pages, he brings the GCC countries alive, and helps the reader understand how different they are to each other.
I took three key messages away from this book:
(1) The intense demographic and political challenges the smaller GCC countries face, with tiny domestic populations and large communities of non-citizen expatriates.
(2) The story is not just oil, with signficant diversification efforts being made across the GCC.
(3) The cultural differences between the states, with restrictive Saudi Arabia and ultra-liberal Dubai being at the two extremes.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in international business; as Aamir says, the GCC is too important to ignore.
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