Dubai business.... stick or twist!

[isleofthorns]

So.. have a small business in Dubai, selling B2B. I'm located here but have staff / warehousing in Dubai.

We manufacture product and import from India.

As you may imagine, events have somewhat disrupted things! Nothing is shipping to Dubai ports, so we've only got a few weeks inventory and no idea when this will ease.

Overheads are relatively high and have got a number of regulatory payments due over the next month or so...

if I pull the plug now, I can probably walk away with a small loss. If I persist to the year end and this hasn't turned around, the loss will be much higher.

Dubai has had it's ups and downs and it's been hard work keeping everything going over the past few years -- seems it's always Jam tomorrow... am reluctant to pull the plug,... but seems there's always a mountain to climb!

[StevieBee]

isleofthorns said:

-- seems it's always Jam tomorrow... am reluctant to pull the plug,... but seems there's always a mountain to climb!

Are you familiar with the concept of the 'Sunk Cost Fallacy'? Sounds to me like that's your conundrum regardless of the current wider situation.

Can you mothball it?

[JonPH]

If you pull the plug today, presumably no more financial loss. But does it impact your reputation etc. if you were to go again?

If you invest further, how much and what could the return be?

I encourage clients to look at matters through the risk versus return lenses.

[isleofthorns]

StevieBee said:

Are you familiar with the concept of the 'Sunk Cost Fallacy'? Sounds to me like that's your conundrum regardless of the current wider situation.

Can you mothball it?


there probably is an element of that... not sure it's feasible to mothball - staff / knowledge of the business would be hard to replace. rents are till the end of the year etc.

have little choice but to ride until end of summer at least, when I can give notice etc

[isleofthorns]

JonPH said:

If you pull the plug today, presumably no more financial loss. But does it impact your reputation etc. if you were to go again?

If you invest further, how much and what could the return be?

I encourage clients to look at matters through the risk versus return lenses.

am committed to at least end summer... not too much saving to be had from job losses, so most of the losses are baked in so to speak.

if the straight of hormuz opens to container traffic in the next month or so, all may not be lost. if it goes into June / July, then the year will be a write-off.

to keep going, I'd be lucky to recoup this year's loss if next year goes reasonably well