EXTRACT

March 2019

The GCC Consulting

M a r ke t i n 2 0 1 9
M a r k e t Tr e n d s P r o g r a m m e
The GCC Consulting Market in 2019

Contents

1 2
GCC summary The GCC market—what you need to know
Provides an at-a-glance view of the main trends in E xplores the key trends and topic s that are
the market alongside key statistic s. front of mind for consulting firms in this market
right now.
Executive summary 3
Diversification: A balm for every
GCC overview 5
consultant’s soul 19
Explore the data 18
Changing client behaviour 25
Digitising, slowly 27
Business models 31

3 4
Market data Forecast
Looks at grow th , sizing , and forecast data split by A consultant and client view of what ’s likely
sec tor, ser vice, and consulting firm t ype, together to happen in the market in 2019 alongside a
with analyst insight about what ’s happening in summar y of forecast grow th figures for 2019 by
the market . sec tor, ser vice, and consulting firm t ype.
Sectors 41 The consultant view 101
Services 72 The client view 102
Consulting firms 94 Client perceptions 106
Forecasts for 2019 108

5
About this report
Our repor t draws on four main sources:

– Our global data model with 9.7 million data points

– Our annual global client perception survey of senior end-users of consulting firms
– Our interviews with senior management consultants from a range of consulting firms
– Our interviews with senior clients of consulting firms across a range of sectors and functions

A detailed view of our methodolog y and more information about S ource can be found below.
Methodology 112
Definitions of sectors and services 116
Contributors 118
About the authors 119
Programme schedule for 2019 120
About us 122

Client profiles
Health & safet y direc tor, transpor tation industr y 30
Senior manager, telecoms industr y 53
HR direc tor, transpor tation industr y 57
Senior manager, leisure industr y 57
Senior HR manager, healthcare sec tor 63
Operations direc tor, manufac turing sec tor 67
Health & safet y direc tor, transpor tation industr y 77
HR direc tor, public sec tor 87

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The GCC Consulting Market in 2019

GCC over view

TRANSFORMATION
G RO W T H O I L I N S TA B I L I T Y DY N A M I C
IMPLEMENTATION
DIGITISATION PAYMENT SCALE CONCERNS

DIVERSIFICATION
The GCC consulting market could never be accused of being boring—
indeed, the region of fers something of a rollercoaster ride for
consultants. A boom and bust c ycle of oil revenue-driven economic
grow th has created peaks and troughs in the consulting market too,
resulting in a need for dif ferent t ypes of consulting suppor t. The all-
out grow th agenda of a few years ago has now been replaced by an
appetite for cost cutting, and consulting firms scrambling to rebadge
their core exper tise as a result.

Of course, it’s not just the vagaries of economic grow th that influence
the level of demand in this or indeed any market—consultants have
their uses in both good times and bad. But generally speaking ,
economic grow th is not a bad predic tor of consulting volume, which
makes it all the more interesting that 2018 , af ter a slow star t, proved
to be a strong year for the GCC consulting market, despite prett y
modest economic grow th across the region.

2018 was a year of heav y grow th, whether in terms of clients, areas, or
countries.
René S eyger, Roland Berger

The market in the GCC has been improving as oil prices are getting back
to a more stable position. However, at the start of the year the market
was strug gling.
Nicholas Bahr, D uPont Sustainable S olutions

The GCC is a dynamic market with a huge amount of activity. For

Deloitte , there is an unprecedented amount of activity and RFPs, and
the scale of consulting opportunities is larger than in the past.
Tim Parr, Deloit te

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The GCC Consulting Market in 2019

The Saudi Arabia market—accounting for almost half of all consulting

spend across the GCC—saw par ticularly good levels of grow th in
2019, and there is one main fac tor to thank for this: the National
Transformation Program (NTP), established to diversif y the countr y ’s
economy away from a reliance on oil. The resulting wealth and
complexit y of ambitious change initiatives has been a boon to
consultants in the region, with prett y much ever y firm benefiting
from—and indeed growing to rely upon—the pipeline of work this
is generating. Even serious international concerns about Saudi
leadership ac tivit y show no signs—at least so far—of harming this
rich seam of work. Indeed, diversification has been a positive theme
across most of the region’s consulting market, and an increased
interest in digital initiatives has also stimulated a greater appetite for
consulting suppor t.

The consulting market continues to be ver y strong across the board in

the GCC . We have seen revenues growing handsomely in the double
digits and an increased number of accounts, especially driven by
demand from the public sector, energ y sector, and in financial ser vices.
Waddah Salah , P w C

Grow th has mainly been driven by three things in the region: Saudi's
Vision 2030, diversification programmes, and digital transformation—
including developing digital capabilities.
Dr. Anil Khurana , P w C

Outside Saudi Arabia, grow th has been patchy. Qatar’s increasing

isolation makes it a dif ficult market to ser ve, resulting in lacklustre
grow th, and the Bahrain and Oman markets are sluggish at best. On
the other hand, clients in the UAE continue to generate good levels of
demand for consulting ser vices, and firms operating in Kuwait have
seen an uptick in work. Overall, this was a market that grew by an
impressive 9.1% in 2018 , with demand looking prett y good into 2019.

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The GCC Consulting Market in 2019

Explore the data

All of the market size data in this repor t is available to explore online
through our global data model por tal. You are able to interac t with
the data in more detail and create custom views of the market to suit
your needs.

You can access the data via our repor ts page, as seen below:

EXPLO RE TH E DATA

Our global data model is the biggest and most sophisticated model of
the professional services industry available. It provides data on
market size, growth rates, and forecasts across 29 industries, six
service lines, 84 countries, and five firm types. It’s the platform on
which a growing number of professional services firms are basing
their understanding of the market and their performance within it.

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The GCC Consulting Market in 2019

About this report

Methodology
Sources
Our repor t is based on quantitative and qualitative research of consulting
firms in the GCC . This includes the following:

Megamodel: our global data model

The quantitative data contained in this repor t focuses on consulting done by
mid- and large-sized consulting firms (those with more than 50 consultants)
and t ypically includes work they have carried out for mid- and large-sized
clients—what we at Source call “big consulting”. It therefore reflec ts the
“addressable” market for the majorit y of mid- and large-sized consulting
firms; we don’t tr y to track the long, thin tail of work done by ver y small
firms for ver y small clients, nor the contrac tor market, as most readers
of this repor t would not seek or be able to compete with this par t of the
market. Our analysts work out the addressable size of the market through
desk research, identif ying the number of firms that meet our criteria, and
ex trapolating from that to reach a figure for the market as a whole.

Using this definition, we’ve built a bottom-up model of the global consulting
market from the information we get from consulting firms and our own
research, and we use it to size the industr y and its grow th rates. This is
based on our global model which contains detailed data about almost 1,60 0
firms, plus higher-level estimates about a fur ther 4 0 0,0 0 0 firms, all with
more than 50 consultants apiece, in addition to comprehensive primar y
research carried out by Source analysts.

Please note that our 2017 baseline figures have changed a little since last
year, as we have refined and implemented improvements to our research
methods. We are happy to provide subscribers who bought last year’s repor t
with a restated set of 2017 baseline figures should this be of interest.

We should emphasise that there are no standard sources of definitions

of data within geographies let alone bet ween them. We are, however,
confident that the richness of our qualitative data, combined with Source’s
unparalleled industr y exper tise, means that our analysis fairly and
accurately reflec ts the state of the market.

Please note that we have refined and implemented improvements to our

research methods for digital data, taking a bottom-up approach to firm-level
data this year.

All figures given in this repor t are in US dollars. For reference, Source is
using the following exchange rates in its repor ts this year:

US dollar to British pound US$1 = £0.75

US dollar to euro US$1 = €0.85

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The GCC Consulting Market in 2019

Client view
We inter view senior end-users of consulting in the GCC to help us
to build up a rich pic ture of how trends in the consulting market are
playing out within clients’ organisations. Our conversations focus on
the following areas:

–– What’s driving change in their organisation

–– How they are using consultants
–– Fac tors that af fec t the way clients work with consulting firms
–– What they value the most—and least—about working with
consultants

We also carr y out client sur veys. We sur veyed 277 senior clients
of consulting firms across the GCC . The majorit y (97%) work for
private sec tor organisations, many of which are multinationals. The
remaining 3% work in various public sec tor organisations. All work in
organisations with over 250 employees.

Our sur vey asks clients similar questions about how they buy
consulting ser vices. In par ticular, this repor t draws on how they
expec t their expenditure on consulting ser vices to change over
2019 and into 2020, what initiatives they ’ll be working on, and how
likely it is that those initiatives will drive consulting work. Their
responses are just one of the fac tors that we take into account when
forecasting future grow th rates.

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The GCC Consulting Market in 2019

Figure 15

Respondents by sector
Technolog y, media & telecoms
1% Financial ser vices
3% Energ y & resources
4%
4%
22% Ser vices
8%
Manufac turing
Retail
12%
Healthcare
18%
Pharma & biotech
13% Public sec tor
16%
Other

Figure 16

Respondents by organisation size

250–499 people
14% 17% 50 0–999 people
1,0 0 0–4,999 people
5,0 0 0+ people

27%

41%

Figure 17

Respondents by function

10% IT

11% 28% Operations

Finance & risk
General management
13%
Human resources
Strateg y
20%
18%

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Interviews with senior consultants

In addition to our quantitative research, we inter viewed 23 ver y
senior consultants (t ypically the most senior person in their countr y)
from most of the leading consulting firms in the countr y and many
smaller local specialists to understand more about how the consulting
market is per forming and what the major trends, changes, and
challenges are. Throughout the year, Source analysts remain plugged
into the global consulting market through our bespoke research and
consulting projec ts, adding fur ther depth to our understanding of the
consulting industr y.

In-depth desk research

We also conduc ted a thorough PES T analysis in the GCC that drills
down into finer macroeconomic details on a holistic and sec tor-
by-sec tor basis and allows us to fit our research into a wider
macroeconomic pic ture.

Definitions of sectors and services

Our definition of management consulting includes a broad range of
business advisor y ser vices, but excludes:

–– tax advisor y
–– audit
–– the implementation of IT systems
–– the deliver y of outsourced/of fshored ser vices
–– HR compensation/benefits administration and technolog y

Where mergers and acquisitions work is concerned, consulting on

deals is included (under strateg y), but corporate finance fees on
deals themselves are generally not included, although it is not always
straight for ward to separate the t wo.

For more information about how we classif y consulting ser vices and
sec tors, please see “Definitions of sec tors and ser vices”.

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Contributors
We are ex tremely grateful to all the people we spoke to for making this repor t possible. Below is
a list of the individuals who have contributed from consulting firms (some consultants choose to
remain anonymous).

Name Job title Firm

Sanjeev A gar wal CEO & Managing Direc tor for Middle East Protiviti Member Firm
& India

Abdulah Al-Shamma Vice President Araamis

Nicholas Bahr Global Direc tor Operational Risk, Safet y, DuPont Sustainable
and Resilience Solutions

Guy Elking ton Senior Managing Direc tor Ankura

Osama Ghoul Managing Par tner Middle East Devoteam Group

Nuno Gomes Principal, Career Business Leader MENAT Mercer

Stephan Haller Managing Par tner Middle East Hor váth & Par tners

Jonathan Holmes Managing Direc tor Middle East & Africa Korn Ferr y

Wasim Khan MENA Regional Advisor y Leader EY

Dr. Anil Khurana Par tner, Advisor y P wC

Rafael Lemaitre Par tner Sia Par tners

Tom O'Byrne Director, Market Development & Client Willis Towers Watson
Ser vices (Middle East)

Pedro Oliveira Par tner, Middle East & Africa Head Oliver Wyman

Vikas Papriwal Par tner, Head of Advisor y at KPMG Lower Gulf KPMG

Tim Parr CEO Consulting, Deloitte Middle East Deloitte

Francesco Pavoni Managing Direc tor MENA Region PA Consulting Group

Gianmario Pisanu Managing Direc tor – Consulting Lead – Accenture

Middle East & Turkey

Visar Sala Managing Direc tor of Accenture Strateg y Accenture

for Middle East & Turkey

Waddah Salah ME Consulting Leader P wC

René Seyger Managing Par tner Middle East Roland Berger

Chris Seymour Managing Direc tor Middle East Mott MacDonald

Kushal Shah Head of Digital, A sia and Middle East Roland Berger

Derek Sprackett Head of Business Advisor y, Middle East Arcadis

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About the authors

Zoë Stumpf
Zoë is Head of Consulting Market Trends at Source and is responsible for all
repor ts published as par t of the Consulting Market Programme. A world-leading
exper t on consulting trends, she is the driver behind Source’s bespoke analysis
of consulting’s biggest geographical and industr y markets. She is an ac tive
member of the Source research team and spends much of her time inter viewing
consultants and their clients all over the world, collec ting their first-hand
accounts of what is happening in the consulting world. She also brings ex tensive
experience as an analyst and writer to her post.

Prior to joining Source, Zoë spent more than 12 years working as a management
consultant in a variet y of roles with KPMG and Atos Consulting. She has also
worked as an independent marketing consultant.

Ashok Patel
A shok is a writer and editor at Source, contributing to our Consulting Market
Programme and Client Perception Programme repor ts. Prior to joining Source,
he was an editor and a consultant in the commodities market, and he also brings
experience from the UK automotive sec tor.

Zoë Stumpf A shok Patel

zoe.stumpf@sourceglobalresearch .com ashok .patel@sourceglobalresearch .com

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Programme schedule for 2019

Reports M a r ke t D a t a Client and Brand Emerging

2019 and Analysis Insights Tr e n d s

January Fo r ec a s t s f o r 2 0 1 9

Fe b r u a r y UK UK
N ordics
GC C

March GCC Fra nce The Futu re

B en el u x Ge rm a ny of Pricing
Nordics US

April Fra n c e En e r gy & R e s ou rce s

DAC H F ina n cia l S e rvice s
So u t h er n E u r o p e H e a lthca re
Te chno logy , Me dia & Te le com s

May US The Va lue

E a s t er n E u r o p e & Ru s s i a Proble m

June Canada Globa l Pe rce p tions of A udit F irm s

Globa l Pe rce p tions of R is k F irm s
Globa l Pe rce p tions of Ta x F irm s

July So u t h A m er i c a
A u s t ra l i a

August Africa The Ma ke -Bu y

Ri s k De cis ion

September India Ta le nt A ttra ctive ne s s in 2019

E n er g y & Res o u r c es
Planning for Growth
in 2020

October F i n a n c i a l Ser v i c es
China
So u t h E a s t A s i a

November Japan The Future

H ea l t h c a r e of De live ry
Tec h n o l o g y , M ed i a
& Tel ec o m s

December Ta x

White A p o w erf u l res e a rc h t o o l t h a t a l l ows subsc ri bers to keep up to da te wi th the

Space l a t e s t c o n t e n t b e i n g p ro d u c ed a nd ma xi mi se thei r return on i nvestment. A seri es
o f rep o rt s t h a t a n a l y s e t h e qua l i ty a nd effec ti veness of thoug ht l ea dershi p a re
p u b l i s h ed t h ro u g h o u t t h e yea r.

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We provide advice and custom research

services to the world’s most successful
professional services firms, helping
t h e m t o i d e n t i f y, a n d d e v e l o p s t r a t e g i c
responses to, their most pressing
opportunities and challenges.

Among other things, our work includes:

– D e e p m a r ke t a n d c o m p e t i t o r a n a l y s i s
– Acquisition strategy
– Proposition strategy and development
– Brand and client sentiment analysis
– T h o u g h t l e a d e r s h i p s t r a t e g y, d e v e l o p m e n t , a n d r e v i e w

Fo r m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t a n y o f t h e s e , p l e a s e v i s i t o u r w e b s i t e
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