Page 291 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

Enabled Organization: Setting Up for Success 273

regional teams to serve Gulf clients from closer to home. This
change is partly due to the sheer volume of GCC-based work and
the logical implication that having an in-market presence would be
easier for clients and for staff. Competitive pressures among firms
have also contributed to the phenomenon of local offices. Eager to
differentiate themselves based on both local and global credentials,
firms are playing up their regional presence and using proximity to
the client as a key selling point. Client preferences have also
evolved, such that in-market experience—in addition to worldwide
expertise—is increasingly a factor in choosing an advisor. It’s no
surprise, then, that investment banks and consulting firms are
snatching up office space in free zones around the Gulf. For a pro-
fessional services firm to be fully competitive there, a regional pres-
ence has become crucial.

Appropriate Decision-Making Rights

Once present, the GCC team needs to be empowered to make the
core decisions required to run its business. The “appropriate” level
of decision-making rights will, of course, vary from company to
company. Often, however, GCC organizations need some control
over local pricing, marketing and PR, and staffing. These decisions
need to be made within guidelines set by global headquarters (e.g.,
an absolute minimum gross margin on products or minimum edu-
cational requirements for jobs of a certain level) but are often best
made in-market. Typically the staff on the ground is best suited to
understand how to position products appropriately, how to deal
with the local media, and whom to hire for the local office. While
none of these actions should contradict global practices and mes-
sages, local ownership of these day-to-day decisions is often crucial.
A major multinational that maintained its Middle East head-
quarters in Egypt, mentioned earlier in this chapter, suffered in the
GCC markets because it could not make pricing decisions fast
enough. Approval for bids on major institutional business was
needed from Cairo and sometimes from the global head office. The
delays involved in securing approvals led not only to lost business,
but also to a lowering of morale. The Gulf team felt—probably
rightly—that it did not have the authority it needed to run its
business optimally.