Dan Khabie On Why Mirum Bets Big On MEA

Dan-Khabie-MIRUM

As businesses and companies rethink the way they function to serve the new age consumer, and traditional media does not offer enough to the digital consumer, it is time for brands to understand how to narrate their brand story, digitally. Apart from the core physical presence, a brand’s digital advertising should be strong enough to push for sales and leverage analytics. The world is going digital and brands should too, to understand the local significance of the markets. “If you are in digital, you are global and if you are global, you are incredibly local. What I have seen in different markets is that the businesses are very diverse and if you really want to connect with consumers digitally, you need to expand your presence globally. thats what we are doing,” said Dan Khabie, Global and North America CEO of Mirum.

Mirum agency is the merging of 11 digital agencies bringing together regional digital companies that have a deep understanding of local market needs. “The Middle East & Africa (MEA) region is much more into video production, content production and creativity. This is one of the biggest growth area that we see for our business in the region,” Mr Khabie informed.

It is often a task for companies to undergo business transformation to improve their digital presence but they have started undergoing the process. “The opportunity to bring marketers, versus business transformation consultants, to the region, like we saw in the States, is extremely exciting. We found that many companies are going through tremendous amount of shift and transformation, within their businesses. We are looking forward to bringing this consulting practice to other markets as the regions mature,” continued Mr Khabie.

Calling MEA entrepreneurial, Mr Khabie observed that the region has created and utilized existing technology to solve business problems. “The region is an epicentre of creativity and technology. I see tremendous amount of investment in the agency-meets-entrepreneurism. We are expecting many interesting things coming out of this region, as the consumer is extremely mobile and diverse, and fast evolving. Due to this, you need to have businesses that move at the consumer’s speed.”

The road ahead for Mirum is to continue partnering with marketers and software companies. “There are various high scale software companies which aren’t doing enough for the region. They are going broad but not doing enough within the specific region so I am hoping that we, at Mirum, have the ability to take some of these products and drive them into the MEA marketplace,” informed Mr Khabie.

Built on the three pillars of digital, marketing & innovation and ecommerce, Mirum will continue to invest in strong mobile technical expertise and innovate them in the creative environment.

“We would like to see more margin growth from the region, considering there are lot of investment than other ventures, it drives down the profit margin. We need to decide how we capitalise on the business and other investments we make. We should understand the culture context to it. You got to find the balance which connects culturally and brings back your revenues too,” commented Mr Khabie.

Add Comment