“In 2018, the State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2018/19 reported that in 2017, the global Islamic economy reached $2.1 trillion and is expected to reach $3 trillion in 2023.”
Yet today many mainstream businesses still have no formal plan of entering the Muslim market.
In 2016, Tabish Hasan, Chief Executive of Muslim Ad Network, was featured in The Guardian as he compared the failure of established mainstream brands to tap into the Muslim market today to the same sentiment regarding the Hispanic market in the United States in the 1980s.
Source: Hispanic American Muslim Consumers – What You Need to Know
The General Cost of Indecision
If it is common sense for businesses to go after the next wave of untapped markets that are growing exponentially, why is the decision to enter those markets so slow?
Well, it turns out that indecision is a silent parasite in many businesses – big and small.
Decision-makers worry about making the wrong decisions which often leads to a lot of back and forth. In today’s world of business, decision-making is more complex than ever. Not only that, more people are involved in making decisions.
The Dollar-cost of Indecision
According to a McKinsey report, Decision Making in the Age of Urgency, more than 50% of the time businesses spend in making decisions is inefficient.
“…more than half of this time was thought to be spent ineffectively. For managers at an average Fortune 500 company, this could translate into more than 530,000 days of lost working time and roughly $250 million of wasted labor costs per year.”
Source: McKinsey
The Employee-cost of Indecision
Methodify breaks down the cost of indecision in working hours lost per employee:
Source: The Cost of Indecision – Methodify
An Example of How Businesses Miss Out on Muslim Markets
A company is planning to expand its market reach by targeting minority groups with impressive buying power and strong growth.
The marketing team has a substantial budget and has singled out the Muslim consumer market as a vital target for their campaign during the upcoming “Ramadan consumer season”. The marketing team brings in an external Muslim consumer market advertising expert to help with the campaigns.
Both the in-house marketing team and the external expert present to the senior management their plans and data that shows the opportunities in targeting Muslim customers.
Then it happens! None of the senior managers can agree on whether Muslim consumers will understand the marketing team’s approach. They also debate on how Muslims will be represented on collateral without causing them to feel patronized.
After hours of debating, the issue is unresolved and everyone leaves the meeting because of other commitments. This goes on a couple of times and before you know it, Ramadan has come and gone and the campaign is abandoned.
Does this sound familiar?
Don’t Miss Out Anymore
Time is the one asset that your business has that you can’t recover or compensate once you waste it. So let us look at how to solve the indecision dilemma.
Going back to the same meeting in our previous example. Let’s say that this time one of the marketing team members has insights into Ramadan Muslim consumer behavior, the most efficient way to prepare products for Ramadan, and more.
Let’s say the team conducted a Ramadan consumer market survey and understands how both Muslim customers and brands that target them during Ramadan behave.
The issue of Muslim consumers not understanding the marketing team’s approach and the concern about patronizing them is easily resolved.
Getting the right data from the right sources is the answer to inefficient decision-making.
Conclusion
Inefficient-decision making is costing many companies and organizations time and money. The best way to avoid this is through gathering relevant data from the right sources. The Muslim consumer market is one of the biggest and fastest-growing untapped markets in the world.
Ramadan is the pinnacle of Muslim consumer activity. According to Google, “Better with Ramadan” search queries in the week before the holy month grew 16% year-on-year. Content consumption and online shopping are also up.
Get in touch and let us help you penetrate one of the biggest untapped markets during its peak buying season. Also, Muslim consumers don’t magically disappear after Ramadan. Subscribe to the MAN newsletter and stay in the know about the Muslim market trends throughout the year.
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