Perspectives

What are the latest Finance Transformation Trends in the Middle East

With today’s fast changing environment in the Middle East, Organizations’ Finance Departments are continuously facing growing challenges in the areas of:

  • Privatization;
  • Accounting;
  • Costing and Profitability Management; and, 
  • Budgeting. 

As the role of finance evolves, entities expect the finance function to play a more proactive role in driving business insights and shaping strategic decisions. In view of the challenges listed above, there are a number of themes that the firms are facing and we have come up with the below four themes:

 

Corporatization:

Governments’ objectives are becoming increasingly focused on allowing partnerships with the private sector, allowing the government to focus on playing the regulator role. There has been a recent trend in the Middle East to corporatize government owned entities. In such programs and in order to maximize the efficiency and impact, it is imperative to coordinate with the CFO and create a suitable environment to transform the role of the finance department to become a strategic advisor aligned with the objectives of the business.

Deloitte has the right capabilities and experience having helped clients in
achieving the benefits of Corporatization and dealing with the Corporatization to help Business Adaptability, Operational Efficiency and Financial Performance Improvement.

 

Cash to Accrual Transformation:

Although the majority of  companies  worldwide have their records under the Accrual Basis of Accounting, cash to accrual transformation is now at the top of governments finance agenda in the middle east.

Moving to an accrual based accounting standards will provide organizations with with accurate accounting records to effectively manage financial performance and take informed financial decisions.

Deloitte has the right capabilities and experience having helped clients with the conversion from modified cash to accrual accounting and ensured the success of its implementation in accordance with the selected accounting standards.

 

Costing and Profitability Management:

Over the last decade, regulations and economic pressures in the Middle East have been increasing, making costing a topic of priority not only on the CFO agenda, but also from an organizational strategic point of view. The business and regulatory imperatives to raise cost accountability, achieve accurate pricing and efficient budget allocation have been the main triggers for cost transformation.

Deloitte has the right capabilities and experience having helped several private and public sector entities in the design of costing models, development of costing frameworks and management of profitability. 

 

Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting:

Given today’s fast changing environment, the predictability of the future is becoming crucial for Organizations’ growth and performance. In fact, Organizations tend to struggle with the effective translation of their Strategy into long-term plans, mid-term budgets and short-term forecasts in order to make sure that strategic objectives are met, financial targets are reached in a proper and sustainable manner.

Deloitte has the right capabilities and experience having helped clients in determining business strategy and growth plans, allocating resources to enable strategic objectives to be met and measuring expected financial performance against growth plans and budgets. 


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