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Are your numbers adding up?
Wednesday 05 March 2008, by : Alex Malouf
I love releases on financials from local operations of multinationals. Either they don't quote figures, only "double digit" growth percentages, or they put out ridiculously high figures. As recession looms large over the US market won't a dose of truth do the Middle East channel some good or are we doomed to remain ignorant as to the true potential of the Middle East technology industry?
While I may be a cynical hack, I've long had an affection for numbers and how they can be twisted to reflect positively on any company. Financial transparency isn't a byword of companies in the region, but my love of numbers was peaked last month by a comment from the regional GM of a major consultancy firm who asked how Cisco could announce that it was investing four times more money into the UAE than it was Saudi.
Looking at the numbers of that case and with the projected spending in the Kingdom, I did wonder how the UAE, a country of a few million people as opposed to Saudi's 25 million, would surpass its neighbour in terms of sales opportunities. Maybe Cisco is betting that the UAE will be the first networked country globally after all, I asked the GM.
However, this wasn't the only statistic that surprised me. Global research house IDC put out figures suggesting that Oracle's Saudi market share was less than 20 percent. With Oracle's dominant market share, I was left wondering if SAP's direct entry into the market has left had such a dramatic impact in such a short period of time.
As one veteran expat put it this week, on the surface every firm here makes a profit on the books and with today's boom it's nearly impossible not to hit your targets. But do the numbers really reflect the true potential of the market? Is corp really guessing right? I've heard of some ridiculously low, and high, targets being assigned to local sales managers, meaning staff either go to sleep or run on adrenaline for the whole quarter.
Will companies stop playing the PR game and play it straight? Let's hope so, or will the Middle East channel be destined to remain more fantasy than fiction in the minds of executives in corp as well as the local operations?
Wednesday 05 March 2008, by : Alex Malouf
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 Can firms add up in the Middle East? |
While I may be a cynical hack, I've long had an affection for numbers and how they can be twisted to reflect positively on any company. Financial transparency isn't a byword of companies in the region, but my love of numbers was peaked last month by a comment from the regional GM of a major consultancy firm who asked how Cisco could announce that it was investing four times more money into the UAE than it was Saudi.
Looking at the numbers of that case and with the projected spending in the Kingdom, I did wonder how the UAE, a country of a few million people as opposed to Saudi's 25 million, would surpass its neighbour in terms of sales opportunities. Maybe Cisco is betting that the UAE will be the first networked country globally after all, I asked the GM.
However, this wasn't the only statistic that surprised me. Global research house IDC put out figures suggesting that Oracle's Saudi market share was less than 20 percent. With Oracle's dominant market share, I was left wondering if SAP's direct entry into the market has left had such a dramatic impact in such a short period of time.
As one veteran expat put it this week, on the surface every firm here makes a profit on the books and with today's boom it's nearly impossible not to hit your targets. But do the numbers really reflect the true potential of the market? Is corp really guessing right? I've heard of some ridiculously low, and high, targets being assigned to local sales managers, meaning staff either go to sleep or run on adrenaline for the whole quarter.
Will companies stop playing the PR game and play it straight? Let's hope so, or will the Middle East channel be destined to remain more fantasy than fiction in the minds of executives in corp as well as the local operations?
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