Consulting in the GCC

By Julie Ahadi

Let’s start with a predefined notion of “normal” from a western perspective:

1. A western male teenager: Dresses in a hoody, wears expensive trainers, and spends time either graffitiing or climbing walls.
2. A young Arab man: Walks aimlessly around malls for hours, dressed in a sparkly white, freshly laundered thawb and headdress (with sandals).

Perhaps that’s the reason, therefore, that a video, showing an Arab man in traditional attire as described above, scaling multiple buildings in sandy (undisclosed) locations, went viral earlier this year. His speed and dexterity has earned him the nickname “Spiderman of the Gulf”. But, aside from the fact he was wearing the most inappropriate footwear–yes, sandals–is it that much of a big deal? A young, fit man with time on his hands and energy to burn choosing to climb a building or ten? It seems pretty standard for any–and all–silly antics to be filmed by your mates and uploaded onto YouTube these days. And that’s exactly what happened here. So it’s not the act so much as the circumstances–i.e., someone doing something which is completely at odds with our cultural stereotypes–that amuses us so.

By Julie Ahadi.

There is an Arabic proverb (Lebanese, in fact) that goes: “He who wants to eat honey should endure the stings”. We suspect that a fair proportion of consultants in the GCC may benefit from reminding themselves of this mantra in the days and months ahead as the impact of low oil prices play themselves out.

By Edward Haigh.

Crazy people, clients.  If there’s one thing we’ve learned about their perceptions of consulting firms in the course of conducting our surveys it’s that their views are changeable and often counter-intuitive. One minute (or at least one year) they think Firm A is brilliant at something, the next they’re not so sure. One minute they tell you they’re not sure Firm B delivers much in the way of value, the next they tell you they’ve recommended the firm to other people.

I’ve recently returned from Singapore, where, braving the poisonous smog, I was fortunate enough to interview a wide range of  consulting firms about the South East Asian consulting market. Our report on the South-East Asian market will be out soon but in advance of publication I thought it was worth shining a light on what seemed to me, to be some striking parallels between the South East Asian and GCC markets, and the opportunities and challenges that consulting firms operating in them are facing.

By Jodi Davies

Late last year we published a report which examined clients’ views about the role of women in consulting teams.  Our hypothesis was that clients value the breadth of thought that diverse teams bring.  And we were right: two thirds of clients, choosing between consulting teams which were equal in all other respects, would prefer to work with the team that has more women on it.  Why?  Because, they told us, they’ll get a better quality of deliverable.

We tend to take consulting firms' claims that they're dropping low-value clients in favour of a small number of big, high-profile, accounts with a pinch of salt. It's not that we don't believe them, it's just that we suspect it's never quite as binary as they make it sound, and is often being used as a way of telling us that their business is doing very well, without resorting to the usual weapons-grade metaphors. Like "booming", or "exploding".

By Edward Haigh

Most consulting firms give fairly short shift to marketing at the best of times. Seen by many as a function whose remit extends as far as producing shiny brochures and organising events, the average marketing department is under-funded, under-staffed and - by my reckoning - misunderstood.

By Jodi Davies

Organisations in the Gulf, we know, have massive agendas for investment but are chronically short of well-educated and experienced people to help realise them.  It’s this coincidence of workload and scarcity that underpins the terrific growth in consulting in the region, increasing by around a fifth in each of the last two years.

The GCC consulting market grew by 20% between 2011 and 2012 and is now worth about $1.9bn*.  That makes it larger than the consulting markets of both Spain ($1.5bn) and Italy ($1.4bn).  In fact, on its current trajectory, it will be bigger than the (far healthier) Nordic consulting market by the end of 2015.

But could it be even bigger?