Page 219 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

Building Your Team: Human Capital Strategies for the GCC 201

Figure 7.5 The hiring balancing act

in other markets. As the GCC market is rapidly evolving and adopt-
ing norms from other regions, an understanding of outside markets
is becoming absolutely critical to strong performance. Global
expertise is especially critical in the more technical aspects of work
such as financial analysis, technology, and marketing execution.
Expatriates, who are part of the same global firm and are brought to
the region through transfers from other markets, bring with them
the company’s worldwide corporate culture. By “culture” I mean
both concrete best practices such as credit assessment and
document formatting and more intangible elements such as
expertise in client focus and cross-functional collaboration. While
the concrete aspects are easier to impose from outside, the more
intangible ones generally require a core group of staff who have
experienced the culture of other offices and bring those cultural
values with them.
Expatriate hires will, however, typically have very limited
knowledge of the GCC market. Arabic language skills, except of
course among Arab expatriates, will generally be limited. A firm’s
expatriate talent pool will generally need quite intensive training
and orientation in the market dynamics of the Gulf in order to be
fully effective in the region. Over time, expatriates will likely
develop a deeper understanding of the market through their own
experience. Savvy firms will take measures to ensure that they