Localization That Lasts: The Ground Rules For Expanding Global Brands In The Middle East

Many global brands have done well in the Middle East. The ones that last usually get two things right. They localize well, and they choose their partners carefully. Those two are often connected.

Each Gulf market has its own rhythm. Oman is a good example. The population is modest and spread across a large geography. Reaching customers here is not difficult because of demand—it is difficult because the cost of setting up and sustaining a distribution network is high. The numbers don’t work unless you’ve already built for it. And building for it takes time.

What we’ve seen over the years is that global teams usually underestimate how connected distribution is to trust. Retailers and regulators pay attention to who is on the ground, how long they have been here, and how they operate. Those relationships aren’t a soft metric. They determine how fast a product gets listed, how issues get resolved, and how long a brand stays visible.

What Distribution Teaches You About Credibility

In countries like Oman, distribution and brand reputation are closely linked. You cannot separate reach from reliability. When your products are visible in secondary cities, serviced consistently, and supported when something goes wrong, people take notice. And when that consistency holds over years, not months, it becomes part of how the brand is perceived.

Retailers want clarity. Regulators want accountability. And consumers want to know that the product they trusted last year will still be here next year. For global brands, that kind of credibility isn’t always easy to build from the outside. But when the regional partner already carries that trust, it transfers faster.

Regional Partners Are Not Just A Route To Market

There was a time when local partners were expected to handle warehousing, shipping, and little more.

Today, they are involved from the start. They help decide how brands show up, how they are priced, how they are experienced in-store and online. This is because of a grasp on context.

To do that well, a partner needs to understand how people shop, how retailers think, and how product decisions are made in everyday conditions. It also requires operational clarity. Many of the global brands we work with now involve us early in retail rollout and format design. In some cases, we are asked to lead those conversations entirely.

This has come from building trust over time. We have worked with some of our principals for decades. The longevity of those relationships is not a function of loyalty. It is a function of shared learning.

When Global Guidelines Need Local Correction

Product changes that stick tend to start from small observations. Over time, those observations become market requirements.

Consider, for instance, the work that my company, Khimji Ramdas, does with global brands that we have ties with. For consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, we supported its reformulation of detergents to perform better with desalinated water. This was a functional necessity, raised through feedback loops from consumers. With Swiss luxury watchmaker Rolex, we helped guide the introduction of custom dials that reflected the tastes of high-net-worth clients in Oman. Similarly, global retailer SPAR adjusted store layouts, signage, and community programming to reflect how families interact with supermarkets in our markets.

These examples may seem unrelated, but they all followed the same pattern. A need was identified, the brand was open to adaptation, and the local partner had the depth to carry it through.

Localization in this region is not just a checklist. It happens across product, retail, supply chain, and culture. And it usually works best when there is enough trust for someone on the ground to say, “This needs to change.”

Conglomerates Don’t Scale First—They Scale Last

Some global brands aim to enter five or six regional markets in one push. Others look at the headline gross domestic product or population size and draw a straight line from there. What we’ve seen is that the most resilient growth usually follows a different path. Brands start in one place, build well, and expand once there’s clarity on how and where their strengths translate.

Our own expansion across the Gulf has followed that pattern. We’ve moved gradually, often choosing markets based on geographic proximity, cultural familiarity, and the availability of the right people to lead the effort, like in the case of taking global luggage brand Samsonite to KSA. We’ve also held back when the conditions weren’t ready. That kind of pacing can seem slow. But it reduces risk, and it increases the likelihood that what’s built will last.

Presence Is The Real Competitive Advantage

In this region, people remember how a brand entered the market. They remember who brought it in, how it was introduced, and how it was handled when things went wrong. That memory shapes how they interact with it years later.

This applies not just to consumers, but to retailers, regulators, and the wider ecosystem. Brands that show up inconsistently, or with rotating local teams, tend to fade quickly. Brands that are present, reliable, and engaged tend to become part of the fabric. That presence can’t be faked. It has to be built.

Many global companies view this as a communications issue. But most of it is operational. It’s how pricing is managed during inflation. It’s how returns are processed. It’s who answers the phone when there’s a delay. These are simple things, but they’re the ones people remember.

Staying Relevant Means Evolving Both Ways

Technology is moving faster, expectations are rising, and younger consumers have a different relationship with brand identity than their parents did. But many fundamentals still hold. Trust matters. Relationships matter. Execution still decides how far a brand goes.

Conglomerates have stayed relevant because they’ve adapted where it counts. They’ve modernized, digitized, and invested in younger leadership. But they’ve also held onto the parts that make scale possible: governance, reliability, and proximity to decision-making.

About The Author

Nailesh Khimji is a Director at Khimji Ramdas Group. For over 150 years, Khimji Ramdas has been a beacon of excellence in the business world, spanning diverse sectors such as lifestyle, consumer products, projects and logistics, and infrastructure. With a global presence in the UAE, Oman, Saudi and strategic partnerships in India with industry giants like Procter & Gamble, Rolex, Kellogg's, and Britannia, Khimji Ramdas is synonymous with trust, quality, and innovation. In the UAE, it has operated a commodities distribution business for the last 40 years, and has now expanded into shipping and relocation services as well.