Grass Roots launch Middle East operations

Opening offices in Dubai rounds-off a year of successful acquisitions and growth for Grass Roots, enabling the group to expand from its leading position in Europe to be a global player with reach across America, Latin America, Asia Pacific and now the Middle East.

"This has been a landmark year for the group, with acquisitions adding weight and width to our global ambitions. Our arrival in the Middle East, a region experiencing an explosion in the service industry, is a natural progression for Grass Roots and a decision driven by our international client list." explains David Evans, Chairman and Founder of The Grass Roots Group PLC.

"Our original core premise was that we could create a partnership with clients to assist them in influencing the attitudes and behaviours of the people at the grass roots of their organisations. Today this audience has been extended to customers, suppliers and distributors, as well as employees. The Middle East region and the GCC in particular is witnessing major economic growth. Service - whether it is hospitality, banking or retail is under the spotlight and getting more competitive on a daily basis. Our job is to assist organisations by improving and maintaining the highest levels of service - by motivating staff and focusing on the consumer experience, via sales incentives and reward and recognition programmes." he added.

Grass Roots Middle East & North Africa is headed by Mark Spicer, who has a 14 year background in motivational programme management and has been with Grass Roots for 3 years, previously as manager of the UK Awards Services division. Mark and his colleagues in the region aim to target the retail, banking and hospitality sectors initially and work is already well underway with formulating the region's most comprehensive mystery shopping panel. The panel is set to provide customers in Middle East markets the chance to assess their current services and that of competitors in order to determine how and where they can benefit from performance improvement and measure the effectiveness of any programmes undertaken.