WORLD ECONOMY - Stanton Chase

OCTOBER 2010
Executive News
for Corporate Leaders
Regional Newsletter
for Middle East
5
Contents
Editorial
World Economy still improving
but at a slower pace
p1
Regional News
p2-3
Connect, Align, Score
Step, Strech, Leap
p4
Family business also score
in times of crisis
p5
CFO role Middle East
p6
To build or not to build
p7
The information revolution
in the Middle East and
North Africa
p8
Mea Culpa!
p9
Contact us:
Stanton Chase international
Office 206, Bldg. 17
Knowledge Village
P.O. Box: 500195
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
T: +9714 36 93 529
F: +9714 36 04 480
E: dubai@stantonchase.com
Visit our site
www.stantonchase.com
Newswire
Executive
Dear Partners,
Entering the last quarter of 2010, the markets in the GCC and the broader Middle East region seem quite active
and vivid, with many initiatives being implemented and many projects under way. Taking a closer look in the
UAE, Abu Dhabi is finally moving on at higher speed with the plans that lead to the achievement of the 2030
vision,while Dubai,having restructured part of its dept,seems ready to make new,bolder moves on its pending
projects. Saudi Arabia continues to be a strong market with significant potential, while Qatar is also leaving a strong
footprint with its ongoing new projects and international investments.
Of course, both the international as well as the regional markets are still unstable, thus companies and executives are
cautious about the next steps. The last crisis caused indeed a shift in the priorities, in the strategic planning
and the processes used, with an enhanced focus on careful cost and liquidity management, but also,
with new attention on the importance of qualified human talent. As a result, major executive consultancy
firms like Stanton Chase International, with their enhanced services and deeper understanding
of the local and regional challenges, become more attractive and valuable partners, in order
to match the needs of the companies with the aspirations of the professionals.
We welcome your comments and feedback, while we would be glad to host your ideas in our next
newsletters.
Warm regards
Panos Manolopoulos
Vice Chairman Regions - Stanton Chase International
The world economy continued its rebound from the
worst recession in decades, according to the quarterly
ICC/Ifo World Economic Survey released in August 2010.
However, some regions, notably North America and Asia,
saw slowing growth and there was a marked difference in
growth prospects among regions.
Worldwide, the economic climate indicator fell slightly,
from 104.1 in the second quarter of 2010 to 103.2 in the
third quarter.
This was largely the result of a decline in the indicator numbers
in two important regions, North America and Asia. But
the overall figures still show a substantial gain from the
third quarter of 2009, when the world economy indicator
stood at 79.6. Western Europe, which appeared to be
slowing in the previous survey, showed surprising
strength in the latest one. Germany, spurred by surging
exports, was the engine of Euro zone growth. The country,
whose economy grew by 2.2%, experienced its
strongest quarter since German unification in 1990.
However, the future outlook for Europe is tempered by
a deepening recession in Greece and continuing
restructuring programmes in Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
In North America, by contrast, the last quarter saw growth
losing momentum. Stubbornly high unemployment in the
US, coupled with weak private consumption and capital
expenditures, led to an outlook rated less than satisfactory
by the experts polled. The US Federal Reserve, having al-
WORLD ECONOMY
still improving but at a slower pace
ready lowered interest rates to near zero, recently indicated
it may now reinvest the proceeds from maturing securities
in long-term government bonds, a reversal of its previous
policy. The Canadian economy, while currently rated
satisfactory, is expected to slow later in the year.
The news from Asia is dominated by indications of a slowing
in the Chinese economy. While China’s growth rate
remains impressive, a recent slackening in retail sales and
a weakening of imports, along with the government’s
withdrawal of an expansionary monetary policy, point to a
cooling economy in the months to come. Elsewhere in
Asia, a favourable economic climate prevails in Thailand,
Malaysia and Sri Lanka, with capital expenditures, private
consumption and exports in these countries projected to
pick up further.
The African economy shows sharp contrasts between a
positive outlook for South Africa, Kenya and other countries
and a weakening scenario for Tanzania, Gabon and
Madagascar. South Africa received a boost from hosting
the World Cup, and its private consumption and exports
are expected to show further improvement, though capital
expenditures, which were largely linked to World Cup
construction, are projected to level out.
(*) Results of the Survey were compiled from questions submitted to 1,103
experts in 116 countries. The questionnaire focused on assessments of
a country’s general economic situation and expectations regarding
important economic indicators.
p1

OCTOBER 2010
p2
>> Upcoming EVENTS
>Stanton Chase International will hold
its 41st Global Partners’ Meeting in
Düsseldorf / Essen-Germany on 11-14
November, 2010. Under the motto
“Connected to the World for 20 successful
years”, about 100 partners and senior consultants
from all over the world will gather
in the metropolis Ruhr in order to explore
the paths for long-term growth.
Events / Initiatives of the past quarter
S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
R E G I O N A L N E W S
1 2
Executive
Newswire
>Stanton Chase International - Middle
EastispartnerintheLuxuryForumConference
to be held in Dubai, November
1-3, 2010. The Forum’s mission is to create
a market-focused platform for all players of
the regional luxury space to meet, discuss
strategiesandshareviewsandopinions. Panos
Manolopoulos, Vice Chairman Regions of
Stanton Chase International and Managing
Partner, Middle East, will act as speaker,
focusing on the alignment of the human
capital with the brand image.
| 1. Stanton Chase International- Middle East participated as partner in the Luxury Forum Business Breakfast, held in Dubai on the 28th of
September, 2010. | 2. Stanton Chase International- Middle East participated in the 2010 Commencement Ceremony of Hult International
Business School, offering the Action Learning Project Award to one of the graduating students. | 3. Stanton Chase International- Middle East
offered a workshop on Personal Branding to the Emiratization Committee in Dubai. The Emiratization Committee is an initiative
developed by vigorous and ambitious Emiratis that focuses on the development of opportunities for UAE Nationals, in order for them to
become even more competitive within the international business arena.
News from the Dubai office
>Stanton Chase International - Middle
EastincollaborationwithDukeUniversity,
is organizing on the 19th of October
2010 an exclusive Business Breakfast,
hosting as key note speaker Dr. Gregory
Jones, Vice Provost for Duke University.
The topic of the discussion will be the economic
development in the 21st century and
the capacities/skills
that people are going
to need to be both locally
competent and
globally engaged.
Aziza Dada
has joined Stanton
Chase as Research
Associate in
August 2010.
Meliza Colaco
has moved to an
enhanced role, including
the administration
of the database and
the development
of the CRM system.
3
Charisse
Monserat
is the new
administrator
assistant.

OCTOBER 2010
p3
S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
O t h e r N e w s
Collaborationwith“Connections”
Executive
Newswire
Stanton Chase International - Middle East has initiated a collaboration with Connections for Businessmen Services, in order to enhance
its presence in the Abu Dhabi market, as well as in the whole GCC region. Based on the expertise and experience of its two partners, Mr
Mubarak Al Amry (Founder & Managing Director) and Mr Omar Al Busaidy (Co-Founder and CEO), the company’s mission is to create successful
partnerships between buyers and suppliers in the UAE and broader GCC market, maintaining a strong reputation that supports long
term collaborations and loyalty building among the collaborating parties
Omar Mohammed Al Busaidy is the one of the founders and
Managing Partner of “Connections for Businessmen Services”.
A young Emirati with over 6 years of experience in corporate
UAE, Omar has expanded his skills’ set and has grown in the
sectors of banking, tourism, trade and investment. From
being an advisor to business development, to diplomat relations
to marketing strategies, Omar has worked in both the
public and private sector in prestigious organizations such as
the National Bank of Dubai, the Dubai Shopping Festival to
the British Embassy. Having a strong entrepreneurial and
business acumen, Omar has been involved with several
start-up businesses in the UAE and neighboring country Oman. Omar’s passion
to delivering back to the community and focus on the service industry has
been instrumental in his growth and learning capacities. Omar graduated in
2009 with a B.Sc. in Marketing from the American University in Dubai.
Abu Dhabi
ataGlance
General Facts
Language Arabic (official)
English (widely used)
Religion Islam
Geographic coordinates 24 28 N, 54 22 E
Area 67,340 sq km
Climate Tropical, semi-dry climate,
with hot summers, warm winters
and scanty rainfall
Currency UAE Dirham
Rulers HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan
is the President of the UAE and the Ruler
of Abu Dhabi.
HH General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed
Al Nahyan is Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi
and Deputy Supreme Commander
of the Armed Forces of the UAE.
Demographic Indicators
Population (mid 2008 estimations) 1,572,906
Population Growth Rate (2001-2005) 4.38%
Life expectancy at birth (2008) Male: 74.4
Female: 74.8
Crude Birth Rate /1000 population (2008) 18.1
Crude Death Rate / 1000 population (2008) 1.9
Mubarak Al Amry is the co-Founder of Connections ME. He
also acts as the Business Development Manager of the Al
Amry Group of Companies, and he is involved in several entrepreneurial
initiatives as well. Mubarak has extensive business
experience in the UAE, both as an executive as well as
an entrepreneur. He started his career as real estate sales
and investment consultant for Better Homes, which led to
starting up his own real estate agency. Additionally, he has
acted as the Managing Director of Parking Specialist FZE, a
parking company focusing on servicing the UAE officials. Educated
in Canada during his high school years, Mubarak is a
graduate of the American University in Dubai, and he has
also obtained a post-graduate Real Estate Diploma.
Economic Indicators
Ports Mina’ Zayed
Gross domestic product (2008) 519,921 Million
Contribution of the oil sector (2008) 63%
Contribution of the non-oil sector (2008) 37%
Gross domestic product by economic activities in 2008
(Million Dirham)
Mining and quarrying 330888
Manufacturing 49761
Less: imputed Bank services 47651
Construction 26793
Real estate and business services 18801
Wholesale and retail trade and repairing services 17548
Transportation storage and communication 13194
Electricity, gas and water 7209
Agriculture, livestock and fishing 4350
Restaurants and hotels 3726
Agriculture and Natural Resources Indicators
Cultivated area 560,294 Donum (2008)
37% fruit trees | 33% field corps| 2% vegetables
Natural resources (2008)
Proven oil reserves 92 billion barrels
Proven gas reserves 212 trillion cubic feet
Water and Electricity
Electrical Energy Generated 34,452,127 MWH
Electrical Energy Distributed 26,786,967 MWH
Desalinated Water Produced 172,565.33 M. Gallons
Desalinated Water Consumed 172,099 M. Gallons
Agriculture
Dates, vegetables, poultry, dairy products, fish
Live stock (2008)
Sheep and goats: 1,998,280 | Cattle: 42,596 | Camels: 336,901

OCTOBER 2010
p4
Connect, Align, Score,
Step, Strech...Leap!
So you have been promoted to a new leadership position,
or you just accepted a leadership role at a totally new organization.
Your most worrying thought is about how you are going to
go about succeeding in this new role. Of course that comes with
a number of other questions like, how long do I have to prove myself
in the role, what does success look like and how do you start
pouring value back into the organization through this new role. In
essence, one of the most important issues that you need to consider
and aim for, as an objective in your new role is to get to what
I call the “Personal Value Point” or PVP, the moment in time
when you start pouring value back into the organization, after that
period of time that the organization invests in you to get you up
to speed.
It is very difficult to get leaders to join an organization and “hit the ground running”
so to speak despite all the technical knowledge and previous experience
that this new leader has had in the field and in other, probably directly competitive,
organizations. This is mainly due to the difference in organization cultures
between the previous and new employer, the new people that you need
to get to know and align with in order to achieve your successes such as your
boss(es), your peers, and your team. You also need to take into consideration
the differences in the organization’s strategic goals and the tools and resources
available for use in order to steer the organization from one point to another
and in the right direction.
I like to simplify things, though at depth these three simple steps have a number
of underlying sub-issues that you need to navigate through in order to
achieve this 3-leveled trilogy for success, I believe having a big picture in mind
and room for creative execution is key to having a paramount strategy that can
work for you in different environments. The three steps that you need to keep
in mind are 1) connect, 2) align, and 3) score.
Connect with Informationand People. Your first order of the day, on
day one, or in some specific cases, before you even join the organization, is to
connect with information and people. You need to gather as
much intelligence as possible about the organization, the
product, the market, the numbers, the competition, the people
that are running the organization, the talent that is competing
with your people in other organizations. Additionally,
you need to identify the people within the organization that
are in your 360 Feedback scope, as per your role’s description.
While your official evaluation is actually 90 days down the
S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
The views, comments and opinion highlighted in this article are solely the personal views of Mr Wassim Karkabi.
Executive
Newswire
By Wassim Karkabi
Managing Partner of Stanton Chase Qatar and UAE & EMEA Regional Practice
Leader, Industrial at Stanton Chase International
road, your real evaluation will start on day one, and you can even kick-start it a
few days before day one, if you have the opportunity to do so, and create a
great pre-impression.
Some information you will need to connect with before you connect with the
people, and other types of information can wait until afterwards. Connecting
with people can also be in itself a source of information if you know how to ask
the right questions that will help you understand some raw data, or incidents,
or past failures or even successes of the organization at different points in time.
Learning about the organization’s past performances and the reasons for its
successes and failure will later help you learn what subjects and strategies your
new employer is touchy on.
Getting aligned with the people and the organization.
A simple connection is not enough, and getting
aligned with the organization, and aligning the key people
with your vision of how you say the way forward for the company
or even just the division or department, is a critical step that requires a lot
of careful discussions with key individuals, who will either support your cause
and follow your lead, or will be the virtual sticks in the wheels of your strategic
vehicle. Depending on the role that you will be taking on, as a leader, you will
have different kinds of people to align yourself with, but inevitably this will be
a number of people who will vary between peers, team members, and bosses.
Expressing your vision, and aligning it with the strategic direction of the organization
will be key. Getting people to buy into your way forward is detrimental
to your new role’s success.
People are not the only element that you need to get aligned with. Every organization
has a set of unwritten rules, codes of conduct, and procedures of
getting things done effectively without breaking it. The new leader needs to
align with those unwritten rules. Because the organization will take so much
time to bend to the will of the individual, the individual needs to learn “the way”
of the organization in order to navigate his “strategic vehicle” into the right direction.
One of the most important elements that the new leader needs to
align with, is the organization’s elasticity to change. Elasticity to change is the
breaking point to which you can apply change on an organization before it either
breaks, or rather, snap back at you. You can learn about this Elasticity to
Change by learning about previous change initiatives and what worked, how
long did it take to achieve, and who was involved in negotiating these changes.
Align yourself with those people; they will be a source of invaluable coaching
and mentoring throughout your tenure. Under the title of change, I want you
to consider any minor or major initiative that you want to organization to sustain,
as small as buying a new office desk and as large as firing or hiring one
person or a whole team of people, that will be detrimental to your and the organization’s
success and failure.
Score. Once you have learned and aligned yourself, now you
need to start scoring. Early on, you need to take on small successes
even in your first 90 days with the organization. You
need to score, with people, and with the organization as a
whole. Remember that no one is expecting radical change in 90 days, but they
need to be reassured that you as a leader are capable of making sound decisions
on the organization’s behalf and that your decision will affect the organization
positively, in the beginning, on small, operational matters, eventually
on tactical issues and finally on strategic directional change initiatives. Remember,
operational, tactical and then strategic. These are your three cups of
tea, through which you will slowly earn trust and become part of the family.
Keep in mind this 3-level trilogy strategy of success in a new role when you join
your next employer: Connect, Align, Score; operational, tactical, strategic; (in
subject matter) step, stretch, leap (in pace).

OCTOBER 2010
p5
F R O M S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
Family businesses also
score in times of crisis
By Gert Herold
Executive
Newswire
Whilst some analysts and consultants do not necessarily attribute long-sighted operations, professional
management and use of modern tools to owner-managed companies, in particular family businesses,
they rather mention weaknesses in qualification and succession, recent figures show otherwise. In the
past years owner-managed or family businesses not listed on the stock exchange and regardless of size,
created seven times more jobs in Germany and worldwide, than companies listed on the stock exchange.
On average the largest family businesses also grew in terms of turnover during the crisis
of the past year, whilst the largest listed players almost stagnated.
Personal
Reasons for this are obvious. Whilst listed corporations have to comply
with short-term result expectations, owner-managed companies
can follow long-term strategies – personal short-term profit
expectations take a “back seat” in favour of long-term company
protection interests. Key personnel will also not be laid off as quickly
in crisis situations, due to a personal sense of responsibility. Hereby
a know-how loss can be got around and with the next upturn, reaction
to market demands is faster and, besides having positive effects
on company climate, high restructuring costs can also be avoided.
Frustrated managers in listed companies often throw in the towel
because their conscience does not allow them to share responsibility
for reduction scenarios in favour of short-term result optimization
– in the interest of profit expectations of anonymous owners
any longer- and thereby are lost by the company. In contrast coworkers
and managers in owner-managed business are more
likely to show understanding for difficult decisions in crisis situations
and remain loyal to their employer. Here local bonds and
long-term, personal contact of owners to their employees inure to
their benefit.
Owners are trustworthy. In addition, companies where ownership
and management coincide, often grow organically less through
takeovers. Mergers and takeovers lead verifiably to staff reductions,
often intensified by managers leaving due to demotivation and uncertainty.
The views, comments and opinion highlighted in this article are solely the personal views of Mr Gert Herold.
Managing Partner Stanton Chase
Vienna Office, VP EMEA 2006-2009
Invest
Whilst the “red pencil” also affects investments for developments
and plants in the listed market segment, medium-sized business in
Germany have invested heavily in the past year and have significantly
increased their investment volume compared to the previous
year. The opposite applied to colleagues listed at the stock exchange.
This also relates to acyclic investments in know-how and
therefore their employees and managers.
For this reason owner-managed companies are an important stabilizer
of the economic cycle and an economic driver. This is part
of the reason why family businesses prefer to invest in the future of
their business rather than to distribute profits to shareholders.
Another success factor: Decisions can be taken faster when owners,
decision makers and board of director functions are one.

OCTOBER 2010
p6
CFOrole Middle East
Globalization has caused a paradigm
shift in the thinking of business owners
in the Gulf which in turn has put new
pressures on the C-Suite of the Gulf’s biggest organizations.
The hinge pin to these changes can
be found in the finance division of these companies,
as they are now commonly interacting
with International Fortune 100 companies and
dealing with increasingly complicated projects.
This requires a more sophisticated approach
and in particular a seasoned and experience
Chief Financial Officer.
Times are changing, previously multi-million
dollar companies could operate with a finance
team led by a strong Controller or Finance Manager;
today many organizations recognize the
strategic advantage in having a seasoned Chief
Financial Officer in the board room. As businesses
grow and become more complex they
now require their finance teams to manage
M&A’s, divestments, global expansions, complex
tax strategies, Sukuks, IPOs, and the internal complexities
of highly diversified family businesses.
While this growing need is great news for the
hand full of seasoned CFO’s in the region, it is increasingly
creating a talent gap which could potentially
knee cap the regions ability to compete
globally. Historically the GCC has not developed
a talent pool of strategic CFO’s as most family offices
and owners prefer to handle the financial
strategic decision making themselves; thus stripping
the CFO of his autonomy on critical business
decisions. With a lack of exposure to some
of the most difficult decisions in the business the
Controller, Finance Manager or CFO is never developed
to international standards. For example,
as it relates to acquisitions the tip of the spear is
generally the head of the family or one of the
family members supported by the CEO and a
team of Consultants. These efforts may be underpinned
by the diligent work of the finance
team in house but rarely will the in house CFO
get the opportunity to lead the vanguard.
To further dilute the CFO’s influence in the gulf is
the role of the expatriate in the region. To a large
extent the CFO is bound by an employment
agreement which gives the employer a tremendous
amount of power. Specifically the right to
S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
ban the employee from the right to work for six
months should the employee and employer
leave on bad terms. Under western employment
conditions the CFO is often in a position in
which he would be comfortable aggressively
challenging the board and other C-Suite executives,
however in the MENA region this type of
behavior can prove fatal. With out the safety net
of being able to walk across the street and find a
seat at a competitor the CFO can be held
hostage. This often reduces the amount of candor
the leadership of a company can bring to its
owners and makes employees think twice before
raising a red flag. The only solution under
this premise lies in the development of strong
local talent which is not bound by the limiting
employment visa of the expat. As more local
CFO’s emerge the CFO will have a more aggressive
voice within the organization.
The development of strong local talent requires
an effective knowledge transfer, which is happening,
however at a snails pace. There are
many reasons for the slow pace of change in the
CFO role in the Gulf. To start with the region is already
starved for CFO’s, making it difficult for an
emerging star to identify a suitable mentor. The
issue of CFO succession planning is compounded
by global trends which find the jump
from Controller or Finance Manager to CFO very
difficult even in mature markets. In fact at Stanton
Chase International our research shows that
less than 40% of the CFO’s promoted from within
come from the Controller position. This is be-
Executive
Newswire
By Shane Phillips
While local businesses were once content maintaining front rank in the domestic markets which they
operated, their thirst for success is no longer satiated by national leadership; they are now driven to
emerge on the global stage and take a seat on the podium.
The views, comments and opinion highlighted in this article are solely the personal views of Mr Shane Phillips.
Consultant with Stanton Chase UAE for Financial Services
& Member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian
Business Council, Dubai & Northern Emirates
cause there is a significant gap in the skills required
by a Controller versus a CFO, and few
companies have a training and development or
mentorship program in place to bridge it. Given
this gap and the immediate pressures the
emerging markets place on an organization,
most clients prefer to hire a CFO from outside
who can hit the ground running rather than take
the time to grow their Controller or Finance Manager
into the role.
That said there are new local CFO’s emerging
across the region who represent the seeds of
change and a new generation of leaders who are
beginning to sprout up across the landscape.
Mr. Mohammed Al Qatari, Chief Financial Officer
at Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group represents
this new generation of local talent.…
“The role of finance within organizations is evolving, where
as previously they required a Finance Manager, they now
require a true CFO who can be second to the CEO, helping
set the strategic direction of the company, reaching out to
capital markets, creating sukuks, creating new areas of
financing. The type of manager required is becoming more
sophisticated.”
In a market where the only constant is change,
the Middle East has made huge strides forward in
the last decade and organizations and executives
have struggled to keep pace. The rate of change
within an organization must be greater than the
rate of change within the market; otherwise they
will find themselves in an uncompetitive position.
Change is managed by the senior leadership
team of an organization, this means the rate
of change at which the executive team is developing
must also be greater than the rate of
change in the market.
This requires a commitment by locals to develop
themselves and to operate outside of their comfort
zones. A trend we can see on a macro-level
with programs like the Sheikh Mohammed Bin
Rashid program for young leaders and Saudi Arabia’s
recent colossal investments in education,
which is currently the highest in the world. While
the commitment from local leadership is mirrored
by the dedication from GCC nationals, the
effects of these efforts is still to be felt and I am
sure in the long run the Middle East will reap the
benefits.

OCTOBER 2010
p7
*To Build or NotTo Build
This topic is too long for one article – however the
goal is to give a high level overview of why organizations
are / should be moving transitioning to
Managed Security Services. Information Security
can be defined in many ways but in its simplest form
it spans People, Process, Procedure, Products and
is concerned with Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability,
Privacy, and Compliance of an organization
digital or electronic asset.
The past two decades have brought about a lot of innovation
in software, hardware, intellectual property,
digital rights, etc but it has also introduced an increase
in malware, hacker and organized cybercrime
where our businesses are online all the time 24x7.
Thus emphasis on information security has gone
from nice to have to a must have in most organizations
including some being regulated (PCI-DSS, EU
Data Protection) which has made CxO level executives
responsible and sometimes financially liable.
Until regulators and organizations hold executives accountable
and liable in the Middle East much of the
same problems will continue based on each individual
executives capabilities and beliefs.
The topic of discussion is how we transition in this
E-Era to manage our governance, risk and compliance
(GRC) through security monitoring and management
of our critical assets including our security
devices (firewalls, IDS, IPS, Anti-Virus, etc), Servers,
Network Equipment and Applications. The concepts
of Defense in Depth, Layered Security and Holistic
Security have lead to a lot of security devices
working as silos with very little correlation if any. Over
the past decade I have focused my attention on the
dilemma of managing such large number of disperse
heterogeneous systems from various vendors and
trying to generate meaningful and actionable security
incidents that can be managed by a security department
or Computer Incident Response Team
(CIRT) as well as reports to support compliance and
information dissemination.
An organization typically has three options when
dealing with the need to manage their security and
risk through a 24x7x365 monitoring and management
function. The first is the most recognized form
which is to build an internal Security Operation Center
(SOC), the latest and most robust is to outsource
to a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) and
the last is to simply Pray which is what I see a lot of in
the Middle East and North Africa. I will start with the
last one as it is the one that gets most organization in
trouble and is not a sustainable or credible model in
the mid to long term.
S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
Prayer is not a strategy for achieving information security;
it doesn’t hurt but doesn’t replace the need to
either build or outsource this critical function. To
Build or Not to Build that is the question or in most
cases the dilemma. There is no clear cut answer that
applies to everyone – it really depends on the situation.
Globally most mature organizations have already
launched a Security Operations Center
(regionally this is limited) and have been benefited
from the pros and suffered from the cons which will
be discussed later. While more organizations in the
last half of the previous decade benefited from the
maturing and more accepted MSSP market by avoiding
the investments and headache of building, operating
and managing a SOC (this is still in its infancy
age in the region). Then there are those who decided
to build and then transitioned to MSS. In most cases
organizations put this requirement off as long as possible
until the problem of managing the security becomes
too obvious or regulation forces them to. In
other cases, organizations adopted best practices
and standards like ISO 27001 which require monitoring
of critical assets.
Whatever the reason and no matter what the size
of the organization if you are connected to the Internet
you are a potential target for a cyber attack.
Hackers or Cyber Criminals typically exploit victims
who are easy targets which unfortunately most of
the region is. Organizations that have ignored best
practices including regular vulnerability scanning,
penetration tests, patch management and maintenance
/ configuration controls on security appliances
are the most likely to experience a successful attack
ranging from being a nuisance to brand impacting
to financial losses. I equate the cyber security challenge
as an on-going war. When a nation goes to
war it typically has a modernized, equipped and qualified
military that is ready to defend the entire nation
– in this scenario a MSSP. We don’t typically see individual
towns, cities, states nor companies have their
own military or militia or in this case Security Operation
Centers. The costs of trying to achieve this
would be much higher than any one organization
could justify in most cases because the cost for Personnel,
Equipment and Operations would be too
high. This is one of the key reasons SOC’s fail; the high
OPEX and CAPEX required to truly meet the functions
that will improve an organizations security. For a SOC
to match a MSSP in functionality it would need to
provide at minimum the following functions: Security
Event Management, 24x7x365 monitoring by a
qualified team of security analysts, incident ticketing
/ workflow, reporting / dashboards, service level
agreements, change management, health monitor-
By Samer Omar
Executive
Newswire
To say we live in an E-Era is probably an understatement. Everywhere, Everything and Everyone is implementing
an E-initiative including E-Government, E-Banking, E-Commerce, E-Health, etc. It is clearthat InformationTechnology
has, is and will always have an impact on our lives. This is what makes the topic of Information Security
pivotal to our E-Future where we will be living in a connected world and are always connected.
The views, comments and opinion highlighted in this article are solely the personal views of Mr Samer Omar.
Co-Founder / Executive Board
Member of I(TS) 2
ing, log monitoring & retention, threat intelligence,
vulnerability management, device management, disaster
recovery and more.
The problem is that most enterprises embark on
building a SOC and only have the first four in mind
which doesn’t provide the appropriate level of security
monitoring and operations. The neglect to really
analyze the TCO of the SOC because they are technology
focused. Combine this with the fact that
80%+ of threats come from insiders – this means
without the appropriate internal controls an organization
is handing over the keys to the kingdom to
those same people who are prime suspects in any
potential security breach. Add to this that organizations
have very little recourse other than termination
of an employee even if a breach is due to their gross
negligence (in some cases there may be legal implications
but the laws and courts in the region are not
yet mature enough to prosecute). Finally, the door to
most SOC’s should probably be replaced with a revolving
one due to the low retention rate of these resources
who are in high demand.
This is why I favor a qualified MSSP; because not only
do you get the other functions listed above but they
are typically backed by professional SLA’s which include
service credits, penalties and insurance for
gross negligence or errors and omissions. Also you
buy security for your size organization based on the
number of devices you have; buy a ticket not the
plane.
There are many other advantages of going with the
MSSP option but you should be careful in selecting
the right one because not all of them are qualified or
focused. My top five recommendations are to:
Select a trusted and recognized market leader
(Gartner or Forrester) with proven experience and
references.
Select a MSSP vendor that has local and regional
support including an incident response capability
to include on-site response in case of emergencies.
Select a MSSP who understands your local laws,
regulations, customs and language.
Select a MSSP who has a firm commitment in the
region in the form of actual infrastructure (SOC, DC,
Resources).
Select a MSSP that has global affiliations or associations
(first.org) that provide better threat intelligence.

OCTOBER 2010
p8
S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
TheInformationRevolution
in the Middle East and North Africa
The Middle East was once home to the world’s most advanced
societies, its people skilled at mathematics, astronomy, science,
and medicine, and renowned for their poetry and arts.
The region is again becoming more closely integrated with the global economy,
its people are traveling more widely and continuing to emigrate to the
West in record numbers, social unrest brought about in large part by poverty
continues, and the spread of information and communication technology
(ICT) continues to encourage economic development. The ability and willingness
of these countries to allow, encourage, and invest in their own information
revolutions may have positive impact in the Middle East and North
Africa. The wealthiest countries in the region will continue to expand their
already-substantial networks and offer a greater variety of value added
services in order to continue to increase their profitability. Unconstrained by
finances, the ultimate shapes and uses of these networks will depend almost
entirely upon the governments’ continued efforts to control information access.
In countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE, government
will likely limit its control to other illegal activity, besides wealth, these countries
have in common reasonably stable and secure governments. The big
exception is Saudi Arabia, where the long-established social contract will
continue to be renegotiated with an increasingly restive polity.
The middle-tier countries, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Tunisia, for
example,willcontinuetoexpandtheirphysicalinfrastructures,andICTpenetration
will continue without any fundamental changes in the societies. The priority
in all these countries will be to maintain the peace according to local
interpretations of the social contract. The governments of Tunisia and
Lebanon, for example, will be fully occupied with economic-development
initiatives while the ruling parties attempt to maintain control. Egypt will
continue to appear at once as a police state and a burgeoning free-for-all.
The current rapid pace of technological change is expected to accelerate
over the next 15 years. In addition to increasing the digital divide between the
world’s richest countries and those that even today cannot keep pace with
change, rapidly changing technology and its associated industries will place
a premium on education and training. Education and training are already
front-burner issues for every government in the region.
“
According to Anton et al. (2000), Cultural adaptation, economic
necessity, social demands, and resource availabilities will affect
the scope and pace of technological adoption in each industry
and society over the next 15 years. The pace and scope of such
change could in turn have profound effects on the economy, society,
and politics of most countries.
“
The views, comments and opinion highlighted in this article are solely the personal views of Mrs Pascal Baz.
By Pascal Baz
Consultant with Stanton Chase UAE
for Technology, Life Sciences & Healthcare
Executive
Newswire
This cannot be good news for MENA countries, which have shown a proclivity
for resisting any form of cultural adaptation. Furthermore, variations in the
degree of economic necessity, social demands, and resource availability will
tend to continue the increase in wealth, health, and modernity in general
throughout the region. There is no single model for an information revolution.
And, just as MENA countries are starting from different baseline conditions,
the IR will play out differently in each country and the near- and midterm end
states will vary widely. Differentiation among countries of the region is
expected to grow, however, as some countries respond more effectively to
the challenges of the information revolution and of globalization more
generally. The effectiveness of their responses will be limited by the
availability of investment funds and the conservatism of ruling elites.
The countries that will have made the most progress toward an information
- centric future are Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. These countries are
“post-industrial,” having skipped directly from an agricultural or nomadic base.
With a foundation of oil, the Arab countries rely heavily on the financial sector
and international trade as their sources of wealth. All are seeking to reduce
their dependency upon oil, thus hastening the expansion of non-extractive,
non-industrial activities. The guaranteed country that might experience an
information revolution is Lebanon. Its culture is more open and cosmopolitan
than elsewhere in the MENA region, and commercial competition is keen.
Then there is the gray area: countries that continue to increase the use of
information technology without really achieving anything revolutionary. Chief
among these is Egypt, for which continued development is critical for
economic expansion, which is in turn critical for regional peace. All of
Egypt’s disaffected cannot be arrested and will not stay at home forever. Syria
hasthepotentialtocontinuetobeaspoilerinregionalpolitics,fuelingandhiding
from international crises. Its large and aggressively commercial trading class
urgently seeks any and all tools to further their interests, but it is in the end a
country of traders and small manufacturers (carpets, sugar, pasta) rather than
“information workers.” Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia will probably continue
modernizingtheirinfrastructuresandperhapsenjoysomeeconomicresurgence,
but are unlikely to achieve anything revolutionary. None of these countries
contributes significantly to regional politics or economy. Oman, too, is likely to
remain a backwater. It could be a major player in regional geopolitics if it could
figure out what to do with its position opposite Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.
However, Information Revolution is not on their critical path.
The Information Age is not dawning in the Middle East or North Africa, but
significant changes will occur. Some of the changes will be affected by the
proliferation of information technology, and some of the changes will affect
the future of ICT development in the region.
The information revolution is not a zero-sum game: All countries, cultures,
religions, and peoples can ultimately benefit. But the very core values of the
information revolution are at odds with the implicit and seldom-stated
national goals of every MENA country.

OCTOBER 2010
p9
S T A N T O N C H A S E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
MEA-Culpa!
By Ali Borhani
Director of Corporate Strategy
& Business Development for Bosch & Siemens
Home Appliances in Middle East & Africa
Executive
Newswire
Yes you guessed right, MEA is Middle East & Africa! Yet it rhymes very well with Mea culpa!
Mea culpa is a known Latin phrase that translates into English as "my mistake" or "my own fault". If you
want to add to the gravity of the mistake, "maxima" can be inserted, resulting in "mea maxima culpa,"
which then translates as "my most [grievous] fault."
Interestingly enough this term, applies to MEA for not having fully utilized the potential of a unique, rich and fertile
region to diversify beyond its legacy business culture & model. With the exception of Dubai, which has really stretched
itself in leaps and bounds, bursting on fiscal seams, the rest of the region have very little to show when it comes to the
topic of diversification. Even Dubai and UAE at large still have a long way to go to become a fully diversified economy.
This is clearly obvious in markets like Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and even KSA in Middle East and with the exception of a handful
of countries in Africa you will find very little “Bang for the Buck”! The vital important key to the future for this large region
is diversification, which lack of it continues to haunt these economies. Diversification is most of the time associated
to a departure from Oil & Gas to other revenue streams for the economies in Mid East and GCC in particular. In case of Africa
it refers to a move from commodity driven and mismanaged state run business models that unfortunately rest solely on
export of their natural resources, without harvesting the hidden yet, real value of the downstream industries.
Yet the real chance for MEA rests and lies with the ability, willingness and determination to diversify more than anything
else, the Mind-Set of how the region is functioning and how it plans to poise itself for a new decade. The biggest asset,
the major differentiator and yet the most unique winning card in this process for MEA is its young population & demographic.
However, the same advantage can be its Achilles’ heel. The recent challenges to region’s economy are not
only a byproduct of slowdown in Real Estate sector, the escape goat in GCC, or the periodical changes in commodity
prices. But more so a result due to the absence of a cohesive plan in building the blocks of talent, cross regional harmony
in investment and decision making process.
If you canvass the GCC you will find in flying time of a maximum one hour Academic Cities that are all boasting Placards
of some of the best International Universities, yet the scale, the research capacity and the necessary incubation infrastructure,
organization around these campuses, collectively all together, can be eclipsed by one of the universities that they
all represent! MEA is suffering from a Legacy Thinking Model in which the states have not realized the huge harnessing
power that can arise from a cohesive, consistent and transparent policy of opening their economies, at a regional
level and eventually globally. GCC for that matter is still hampered by overlap and cross investments in competitive
industries for which their individual state egos are not sufficient to win. In other words, what’s missing is the realism in really
putting together a long term, cross regional strategy as to what the region has to become and what is the role and
contribution of each stake holder.
Yet what I refer to as opening of the economies, is to create, a business culture in which the existing potentials can manifest
in successful business models, a comprehensive and cohesive and conducive mindset that is supportive of talent development.
Competition is going to be more and more defined and based around how economies develop, poach and
support talent. No matter how many so called “ Cities” like Technology City, Biotech City, Health Care City and likes the
states open at astronomical costs, the reality is that at large all these expenditures, since hardly you
can call them investments, will struggle to bear the necessary fruits and results. MEA will continue to
remain a magnificent and high potential region, plagued with haphazard policies, unless there is a collective
and perhaps genuine soul search as to how as an economical block it has to strategically position
itself in the global economy at large. The number of F1 circuits in GCC is more than China or Brazil
for that matter. But are we as fast as these economies on the circuit of diversification?
If MEA is to win the coming decades, it has to think of preparing a Talent Attraction, Development,
Nurturing, Integration and Support Strategy (TADNISS). I believe that there is a more important figure
in any society than Gross Domestic Product. It also has the same abbreviations, GDP but is called Gross
Domestic Participation. The more conducive, supportive the pillars of TADNISS the higher will this figure
be. No matter how high the oil prices go, the real growth of the Gross Domestic Product figure will
remain to be very low for years to come unless the Governments really “Diversify their Mindsets”!
CEOs and key decision makers in the region are best positioned to lobby, consult and assist the governments
and to collaborate for bringing these essential changes if MEA is to harvest its true potential.
Between now and that day, we shall continue to say MEA-Culpa!
The views, comments and opinion highlighted in this article are solely the personal views of Mr. Borhani.