Consulting in the GCC

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.