By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 17th January 2011.
The question of whether entrepreneurial skills can be taught in college has vexed many a brilliant academic. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 3rd January 2011.
Information technology often brings together innovative hobbyists seeking “to do some good”. Over a period of time their labours of love create new industry elements the rest of us consume. The technology migrates from accessible free channels created by entrepreneurs to tightly controlled ones managed by a few corporations for which the pursuit of profit is the driving force. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 27th December 2010.
It’s that time of year again, the end of the Gregorian calendar. It’s when executives calculate their expected bonuses. Companies tot up their end-of-year financials and congratulate themselves on how well they have done. And people at a personal level set new-year resolutions, such as buying a gym membership, which never gets used more than once or twice in that year. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 20th December 2010.
Anyone who has read of the adventures of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, can only have been left with a sense of wonderment as to the mysteries of the deep. The journey to an incredible underwater forest, a visit to the lost city of Atlantis and a ferocious fight with a giant squid are all memorable sequences in the novel. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 13th December 2010.
The road to senior management is littered with landmines concerning business ethics. Well, it is if you speak to academics teaching MBA courses at business schools. It is not if you ask most of the students, who really could not care less. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 22nd November 2010.
Sometimes customers are crying out for your products and services but the barriers to serving those customers are just too difficult to overcome, so companies don’t bother. My parents’ home town is one such place. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 15th November 2010.
One of the pleasures of dealing with a small entrepreneurial business is the energy and enthusiasm that one encounters, particularly from its founders. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 8th November 2010.
It is often said small organisations are more innovative. Yet to bring about significant change, large organisations must also innovate. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 1st November 2010.
If you are an aficionado of Apple computers, then is this a great time or what? Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 25th October 2010.
You see a middle-aged guy cruising on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle down Jumeirah Beach Road on a weekend and what’s your first impression? Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 18th October 2010.
The lore of Star Trek postulates the existence in space of an Alpha quadrant, home to the United Federation of Planets – called simply “the Federation”. There is also, among three others, a Delta quadrant dominated by villainous cybernetic humanoid drones, the Borg, whose raison d’etre is to acquire new species and assimilate them into the Borg collective. Prior to acquisition, the target species are candidly told “resistance is futile”.
These two fictional quadrants are an extremely accurate pop-culture metaphor for the telecommunications industry – the Alpha quadrant – and the IT industry – the Delta quadrant. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 11th October 2010.
It is estimated that about 30 per cent of all energy used in commercial buildings is wasted, partly as a result of the materials used in construction. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 6th October 2010.
Love, beauty, honour, truth, justice. Aren’t these some of the core values that we aspire to attain at times in our lives? They are universal beliefs that tie us together which we, as parents, wish to impart upon our children. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 4th October 2010.
Thousands of business incubators have been set up around the world, mainly by governments and universities, which is probably one reason that they do not succeed in creating viable entrepreneurial businesses. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 27th September 2010.
Last week, Vince Cable, the UK coalition government’s business secretary, made a scathing attack on the “murky” world of high finance in his speech at the Liberal Democrats conference in Liverpool. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 20th September 2010.
Stand in any public thoroughfare and you will notice at least half the business people present are surfing online. They are with you in body but not in mind. Plugged into their mobile phone and smart devices, they are uploading a post on a social networking site, chatting with friends in forums, responding to e-mails and, on the rare occasion, doing some work for their organisations. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 13th September 2010.
Last week some Pakistani banker friends of mine described their country as a basket case. Over the years, their country has become a lost cause, they said. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 6th September 2010.
Any entrepreneur will testify that two of the greatest barriers to success are regulation and access to resources. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 30th August 2010.
A friend of mine has recently structured a US$100 million (Dh367.2m) film fund to finance slasher/horror movies. The fund is forecasting solid returns for this genre, which is always in demand. I put it to him that there were many parallels between bad managers and the villains that stalk the slasher genre. Both are fundamentally concerned with cutting things up. Read more »
By Rehan Khan. Published in The National www.thenational.ae on 26th August 2010.
The modern game of football, especially in the Premier League, is riddled with change. But we football fans don’t particularly like change. Read more »