ME PoV Fall 2022 issue

It is that time of year again when we get to reflect on the past and plan for the future. And yet, it feels as if we have been stuck in Groundhog Day, turning in circles around ourselves. “New month, new Covid strain” seems to have become the mantra for our recent times as we grapple with the idea that the virus is here to stay and that the sooner we assimilate it the sooner we can move on. As the saying goes, to know where you’re going, you have to know where you are. So as we turn the cusp of 2021 and reach into 2022, where do we stand?

Sustainability remains a primary concern and the Middle East region needs to catch up. Damian Regan, in his article A sign of things to come, notes that “across the Middle East, there has been sporadic adoption of GRI reporting by companies […] but not to the scale of the UAE […] It is in the interest of Middle Eastern companies to not only observe what is happening in other more mature financial markets, as a glimpse of the near future, but to accept that change is coming, rapidly, and start preparing.”

Preparation is perhaps most notable when it comes to the management of risk. Collin Keeney, Probodh Newar and Guarav Malhotra are closely watching the evolution of fraud risk management and note that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. In their article, Effective fraud risk management, they write: “Perhaps in the future, the Middle East Fraud Survey 2031 will even see a plurality of organizations include the area of fraud risk management as a strategic KPI for their management and other stakeholders. Further advancements will be critical as governments in the region seek to establish it as a safe ethically sound ecosystem for conducting business.”

In terms of business performance, Elias Ma'ayeh and Sharif Barakat note in their article The evolving role of Internal Audit, how automated internal audit systems have “positively contributed to the general performance of organizations across the Middle East. They have also attracted various competent resources in a multinational context, allowing organizations to operate in different nations while utilizing a unified decision-making methodology.”

But numbers are not necessarily everything and may hide surreptitious data, say Collin Keeney and Razia Mir. In their article What dangers lurk beneath the numbers?, they make the case for business conduct due diligence. As companies report a surge in merger and acquisition (M&A) activities, “the risk of not identifying corrupt practices is greater than the risk of identifying them up-front because they can be addressed head-on,” they write.

This year also witnessed (finally!) the opening of Expo 2020 Dubai against all odds. As the world fair showcases the best of human creation, we turn to some of our experts to weigh in on the impact of the Expo. And they all agree that this project is more important than ever, highlighting the multiple innovations across the globe. 

Dubai, the UAE and the GCC in general are no strangers to these mega projects. Dina Fakih and Davinder Singh Bains write that “countries in the Middle East […] have been increasingly investing in mega projects over the past 25 years, to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas,” necessitating the implementation of governance. But the authors question the value of effective governance from special-purpose organizations and wonder, as the title of their article notes, Mega project governance: is it effective or just bureaucracy?

It’s time says Dr. Ahmed Hezzah, to take the customer experience to the next level. “In order to stay relevant in the digital age,” he says, “companies must react to behavior that has been digitally disrupted by offering personalized experiences and be able to create memorable moments for their customers. It is time for CPG companies and retailers to start putting the human perspective into the center of their digital transformation journey in order to take their customer experience to the next level.”

It is also time to move on. It is time to forge ahead, to keep moving, to keep innovating. It is time to face another difficult year with courage and agility. It is a new year, a new us.

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