MEA Q3 2021

MEAMARKETS / Q3 2021 9 , 8 MEA MARKETS / Q3 2021 , Aug21057 Danube Home is a leading home improvement and furnishing retail brand with a strong, vibrant, ever-growing presence in theMiddle East, Gulf region, and the Indian sub-continent. It is known for its unwavering commitment to the highest standard of customer service, unmatched quality, strikingly beautiful designs, and innovative retail services. Home Furnishings Retailer of the Year 2021 – UAE Best Home Improvement Brand – UAE What started off as a single showroom in Ras Al-Khaimah in 2008, grew into the region’s favourite destination for home interior solutions, having successfully captured and blended the quintessential spirit of craftmanship and design into its bewildering range of products, which include ceramic wall and floor tiles, parquet flooring, elegant curtains, home décor, chandeliers, garden and outdoor furniture, and much more. Danube Home now offers more than 50,000 products across 16 product-specific categories, along with a free interior design service, and it has 18 showrooms and more than 5 million square feet of logistics and warehousing space. It is ranked among the top retailers in the Gulf region, which has been growing at an average of 25-45% since 2011, and is a recipient of many prestigious awards, remaining a motivating workplace for the best talent in the region. The beauty of Danube Home’s one-stop retail solution for home improvement and furnishing needs stands exquisitely manifested in its demonstrated ability to take care of all the facets of home improvement requirements. Its concept of affordable luxury has been redefining boundaries in the home improvement and furnishing industry as it is intensely focused on achieving quality tailored to the taste of consumers, at a price that most can afford. Its showrooms are purposebuilt buildings with delightful architectural features, welcoming its vibrant clientele with a sophisticated fusion of modern sensibilities to create a happy space. Each product section in Danube Home showrooms has a story to tell which is expressed in a lucid, colourful lexicon and creates a unique and immersive shopping experience for customers. Danube Home showrooms are strategically present on major thoroughfares and in shopping centres across the Gulf region. The company has expanded its presence beyond the sandy dunes of the Gulf by establishing its first showroom right in the heart of India. In the UAE, Danube Home has showrooms in Al Barsha, Diera, Sheikh Zayed, Sharjah, Ras Al-Khaimah, Fujairah, Al Ain, and Abu Dhabi. It also has seven showrooms in Oman and one in Bahrain. Danube Home added another feather to its cap with the launch of its website and app, which are fast and easy to navigate and fully loaded with features that help provide a seamless online shopping experience to customers. The company also offers the ‘Ahlan’ loyalty programme which allows customers to gain points when shopping with Danube Home to be redeemed on future purchases. Customers can download the Ahlan app to be the first to know about exclusive discounts and promotions. Ultimately, Danube Home wants to be the leading name and most preferred choice of customers when it comes to home furnishing and improvement requirements in the Middle East and beyond. Keeping in line with the challenges of our time, the company is focusing on building a robust online presence with its full-fledged Danube Home app, website, and separate app for loyal customers. There are a number of unconventional approaches that Danube home has tapped into in order to target previously untouched segments of the market. This forwardlooking approach allows it to maintain a competitive edge over its competitors. Company: Danube Home Contact: Umar Hussain Email: umar.hussain@ danubehome.com Web: www.uae.danubehome.com Jun21624 Mygrow is a technology-based tool that takes users on a journey to develop, measure and track their emotional intelligence (EQ). Think of it as a gymmembership for EQ development, helping users to build a better life, one droplet (daily session) at a time. Its clients range frommultinational companies to local governments, SMEs to internationally recognisable brands, including Apple, Massmart, Shoprite, Old Mutual, Standard Bank, and Coca-Cola. Best HR Tech Start-Up 2021 – South Africa Mygrow’s core goal is to equip everyone to flourish – to live healthy, functional and empowering lives, to become more authentically human, and improve relationships in the world. The Mygrow subscription service for individuals and businesses delivers growth through videobased microlearning, neuroscience techniques, personalised coaching and rich data including live dashboards, user support and a reporting system that helps track team progress. Developing emotional intelligence makes people better. And Mygrow helps people across multiple industries, sizes and sectors to develop emotional intelligence. It has the ability to develop EQ aligned to the neuroscience of what is required to facilitate meaningful and lasting change, practising the correct exercises and techniques over long periods of time – doing things this way leads to impact and return. Furthermore, Mygrow is able to develop, measure and track EQ in one platform, disrupting the incumbent industry norms of affordability, accessibility, scalability, and effectiveness. Traditional approaches require a significant sacrifice in productive time, through hours of out-ofoffice, and one-off soft skills training workshops. Research indicates that these types of interventions carry a maximum of 20% knowledge retention and typically a regression to pre-workshop behaviour levels is observed. Whereas now, in just 10 minutes per day, on your mobile phone or laptop, Mygrow offers sustainable EQ growth that can be measured and tracked. Speaking about how the product comes about, Alain Joffe (Chief Growth Officer) at Mygrow said, “At Mygrow, we believe flourishing starts at home. Who we are must be aligned with this vision for flourishing and it must be the DNA of how we operate internally. And it all starts with culture. “Our team’s philosophy hinges on the view that we believe we are not professionals, we are humans who aim to flourish at work and in our personal lives. At Mygrow, we are not primarily our functional roles in the business; we see ourselves as people first. We are all on a journey to live whole, healthy and integrated lives – juggling personal and work commitments in appropriate and healthy ways that result in comprehensive lives of flourishing – for ourselves, our families, our colleagues, friends, clients, and broader beneficiaries of the Mygrow vision.” He continued, “We do this by taking a “human” approach to work. We share lunch together daily, we want to know about each other’s lives and support each other in and out of working hours.” On a practical level, Mygrow was able to survive 2020 financially by offering its staff the ability to voluntarily invest a portion of the salary into the company. It did this rather than mandating salary cuts or resorting to retrenchments. The response to this was overwhelming, with some staff members forgoing their salary for many months as the company rallied and worked tirelessly to pull through. The team has now nearly doubled in staff and this is a testament to the sacrifices made by individual team members in 2020. Also during the last year, Mygrow did all that it could to support employees and clients with their mental health. Organisational problems with regards to employee mental health and wellbeing were already evident before COVID-19. Employee engagement levels were between 9% and 15%. In fact, over the last seven years, diagnosable mental health issues relating to anxiety and depression were high, and stress levels were radically impacting people. Now, as the global pandemic continues, research shows things like social isolation, solitary confinement, and the winter-over syndrome have a negative effect on people’s mental health. This has raised awareness of the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace and has resulted in very fruitful conversations with prospective clients. During South Africa’s first hard lockdown, Mygrow created a Reignition Support Package to help leaders and employees navigate the clash between the needs of employers to get fast productivity and the needs of employees to really be able to recoup and cope with the challenges of the pandemic. Overall, COVID has accelerated and crystalised the need for organisations to equip and support their employees to cope with the various challenges of a persistently changing and uncertain world. Mygrow has now made significant investments into product development, with enhanced reporting capabilities, improved accessibility via iOS and Android applications, and an overall improved user experience. Going forward, it will make further improvements to its reporting capability, building integrations with systems like MS Teams, SAP and Oracle, and further developing its change management support. Company: Mygrow Contact: Alain Joffe Email: [email protected] Website: www.mygrow.me

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