The Business Development Landscape in the Middle East
A version of this article was first published in the 2015 summer edition of the Professional Services Marketing Group (PSMG) Magazine www.psmg.co.uk
When I moved to the Middle East in 2010 Dubai was beginning to see the signs of a recovery with professional services firms looking at recruitment plans to rebuild and grow teams. On joining a firm as a business development manager in my first role in the region, my biggest surprise was how unsophisticated the bidding landscape was. With the exception of government tenders, a request for a proposal (RfP) from a client was incredibly basic. Internally there were no tools in place to support bidding best practice. Feedback and reporting on bids was almost non-existent and the quality and consistency of the proposals being produced varied from team to team and across jurisdictions. There was also no real sense of the value a business development specialist could have outside the typing of a proposal.
The shift in the bidding landscape since then has been huge. Client expectations are a lot higher with more complex RfPs now the norm together with involvement from procurement teams. Clients are continually evaluating the value for money and efficiency they are getting from their external consultants and are quick to review them if they become dissatisfied. Internally many professional services firms have put in place practices that allow business development to focus on adding real value to bidding and client development.
From interviewing clients across the region for feedback the common mistakes professional services firms make are similar to other countries. Fee overruns and charges without proper communication continues to come up time and time again. Clients want firms to demonstrate an ongoing understanding of their goals and objectives and commercial ability when it comes to pricing. Often there is a lack of understanding to what is driving the decision making process for the client when it comes to selecting consultants.
The transient nature of the Middle East does make for a challenging environment in managing client relationships. People may return to their home country, move jurisdictions or take up a position within another firm on a regular basis. Managing for these possibilities is important in account planning.
In building relationships you are dealing with a diverse mix of cultures, both internally and externally. Fee earners can be resistant to business development initiatives and often this resistance is underpinned by fear. In such a competitive market the fear might be that they need to be seen to be bidding for an opportunity, regardless of the obvious lack of the chance of success, or that in interviewing one of their clients they might receive negative feedback. In coaching individuals and teams identifying the cause of the resistance and working with them to find their own solutions rather than telling them what do has been most effective.
With some exceptions, marketing and business development teams in the Middle East are a lot smaller than the UK. This means the work you end up doing is often a lot broader and less specialized. Whilst this can be challenging it gives you the opportunity to have a lot more exposure to the operations of the business and to work a lot more closely with other support functions.
As research from leading organizations such as Gallup [1] has shown, one of the main challenges for businesses worldwide is employee engagement. The Middle East is no exception with some of the lowest levels of employee engagement in the world, set against a backdrop of unemployment issues for the local population.
To achieve success businesses need to look to find ways to focus on:
Selecting the right managers at all levels of the organization based on their talents to manage others, and not how long they have been in a role or their technical ability [2];
Helping employees identify and use their strengths [3];
Enabling the right individual contributors to help grow the business [4];
Creating a culture of employee engagement [4]
By taking this approach firms will be able to realize lower levels of retention and higher levels of engagement leading to increased productivity, profitability and enhanced client relationships.
Vicki Haverson has 17 years experience of working in complex commercial environments including almost 5 years spent in the Middle East. She is a Certified Coach and studier of strengths with the world's leading strengths application organization Strengths Strategy http://www.strengthsstrategy.com
[1] http://www.gallup.com/services/178517/state-global-workplace.aspx
[2] http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/167975/why-great-managers-rare.aspx
[3] http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/167462/employees-strengths-company-stronger.aspx
[4]http://dupress.com/articles/employee-engagement-culture-human-capital-trends-2015/
