Scarce resources in the Gulf: the problem is the opportunity

By Fiona Czerniawska

Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention.

Last year we identified the GCC as the world’s most attractive consulting market.  A long shopping list of things to do, money to spend on them and a shortage of local people with the right experience has led to double-digit growth in each of the last three years.  The challenge for a consulting firm is not how to grow, but how to find enough people to allow it to grow: flying in expensive experts from other parts of the world is exactly what some clients want, but others are looking for support which is cheaper and closer to home.  The result has been a scramble for the right resources and some clients complain they’ve been left with a distinctly B team.

All of which makes Tri International Consulting Group both interesting and clever.  It’s interesting because TICG is a joint venture between the Kuwait Investment Authority, the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development – and Oliver Wyman.  The idea is that TICG will be able to draw on the first two institutions' knowledge of the region, strategic relationships and funds, and Oliver Wyman’s expertise and intellectual capital.  Rather than leaving Kuwaiti companies struggling to find the consulting support they need (and which their counterparts in the UAE and Saudi Arabia have access to), TICG has essentially bought up Oliver Wyman’s capacity in the country and can then decide how to deploy that.

It’s the equivalent of General Motors buying up all of McKinsey’s consultants in Detroit, or Société Générale buying all of A.T.Kearney’s capacity in Paris.  And frankly it’s the kind of opportunity which would have consultants the world over happily anticipating an unending stream of work – in an industry notorious for its short-term order book.  But it’s unlikely to happen outside the GCC because clients elsewhere don’t see a problem: consultants, even good consultants, are assumed to be an abundant resource.

For the GCC consulting industry, the critical question is how long the current situation will continue.  Administrative hurdles to setting up shop, a shortage of Arabic speakers and a whole host of other factors are genuine barriers to entry and have stemmed what might otherwise have been an overwhelming surge in the number of consultants coming to the region.  But the key to keeping power on the supply-side will be for consulting firms to resist the temptation to over-recruit.  The answer to the shortage isn’t necessarily to find more people, but to do deals with clients that give them privileged access to the existing resources.  All of which makes TICG look like a very clever move.