Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum's private office collaborates with DBWC to host workshop on Customer Discovery

The workshop focused on business idea testing to better understand customers’ needs and how to satisfy them – an exclusive session presented by Hisham Al Gurg.

Dubai, UAE, 08 December 2015 - The Dubai Business Women Council (DBWC), the official representative organization for business women, both professionals and entrepreneurs, in the Emirate of Dubai, hosted its December Network Majlis titled, “Customer Discovery”. The workshop, facilitated by Mr. Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of the Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum and SEED Group, focused on customer development and how to test a business idea to better understand your customers’ needs and how to satisfy them.

The in-depth three-hour workshop, which is designed for entrepreneurs who are looking to build a business or a startup that is profitable and scalable, gave the DBWC members the chance to learn the Lean Startup mind-set and the first step of Customer Development: Customer Discovery. Attending members also learned how to state hypothesis about a business model and how to test assumptions, build and run interviews with potential customers in order to gain insight about the problem they are trying to solve and acquire early adopters. At the end of the workshop members had the necessary knowledge to “go out of the building” and “test the problem” successfully.

“Customer understanding and development is what defines a business and determines its longevity,” said HE Dr. Raja Easa Saleh Al Gurg, President of DBWC. “One of the very first tasks a new business must undertake is to understand its target audience and their demographics in order to understand how to best serve them, and their needs, and how to develop its offerings so that they are attractive to the masses. Through customer discovery this is possible and we thank Mr Al Gurg for facilitating this session today as every business owner should continuously be reminded of the importance of their customers and the ongoing processes of understanding them.”

Mr. Hisham Al Gurg has more than 18 years’ experience in setting up and running new ventures in the MENA region. He is also the Executive Counselor of Al Fajer Investments & Development, an investment division of Al Fajer Enterprises. Currently, his main day-to-day activities are focused on managing SEED Group. He is also the UAE partner of the Chinese petroleum giant "Sinopec Petroleum".