Built for disruption: Why GCC businesses are betting on execution over stability

The war between the US and Iran continues along its volatile and unpredictable path. A halt of military strikes over the weekend ​might seem an improvement, but it does not come with any guarantees. Shipping volumes through the Strait of Hormuz have collapsed. Crude oil prices remain volatile. There are fluctuations in supply and demand. Most Gulf bourses are edging lower than normal. 

For business leaders in the GCC, the war in Iran is hammering home an essential reality: they are operating in a more unpredictable region. More importantly, risks won’t all disappear when the current crisis in the Gulf recedes.

And that necessitates planning for tomorrow, capturing the opportunities, and building stronger foundations. This urgency is felt by executives across sectors. The mindset isn’t just about reacting to the crisis, but rather creating and running businesses that are permanently crisis-ready.

BUILDING INTERNAL CAPABILITY

“The conversation has shifted from geopolitical risk to execution risk,” says Ashish Koshy, CEO of Inception42. “Businesses in the region are far less worried about stability today and far more focused on whether they can move quickly enough to capture the opportunities ahead.”

That challenge comes down to talent, infrastructure, and the pace at which new technologies—including AI—are integrated into day-to-day operations. “Capital is available. Ambition is available. The real constraint is execution capacity: how quickly organizations can build the internal capabilities to act on opportunities rather than simply fund them,” Koshy adds.

Apart from ongoing geopolitical volatility, the need for faster execution comes as companies contend with inflation, elevated financing costs, and shifting customer sentiment, which are making long-term investment decisions increasingly complex. 

“The challenge isn’t just managing today’s disruption; it’s planning for tomorrow with confidence,” says Rohan Mehta, Managing Director of Petrochem Middle East.

The regional disruptions have also amplified the pace of supply chain evolution. According to Nick Stadtmiller, Group Head of Research and Chief Economist at Emirates NBD, businesses have demonstrated greater adaptability by rerouting maritime trade through alternative ports and relying more heavily on air freight to minimize delays.

“These tactical workarounds come with a higher operational cost,” he says. “However, this vulnerability is not an isolated event. Supply-chain risk has been a challenge for several years and was evident during the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The situation, Stadtmiller adds, reinforces the case for strengthening resilience through “increased domestic production and near-shoring to reduce external dependencies.” 

As companies adapt to this new operating environment, their risk priorities are also changing. “Cyber threats remain a constant concern, while AI is climbing rapidly up the risk agenda,” says David Noël, Vice President, Middle East and Africa at Dynatrace. 

For now, he adds, the immediate priority is safeguarding operations and ensuring business continuity.

Even with the uncertainty, private sector leaders in the region have managed to adapt well, according to Tom Clarke, Partner at Heidrick & Struggles Middle East and Regional Leader of the AI & Technology Officers Practice for APAC and the Middle East. Still, he warns that “rebuilding stakeholder confidence in the region’s stability and opportunity will take time, and the groundwork, especially relationship building, needs to start now.”

LONG-TERM BUSINESS RISKS 

While leaders are dealing with short-term worries about “geopolitical uncertainty,” including supply chain problems, tighter liquidity, and selective capital markets, which are affecting daily operations, slowing decisions, and delaying investments, Armineh Baghoomian, Managing Director at Partners for Growth, points out that the bigger risks over time are more structural.

“These include executing ambitious diversification plans, developing young capital markets, keeping talent, and building institutional strength,” Baghoomian adds.

“Government-led programs such as Saudi Vision 2030 and We the UAE 2031 continue to anchor investment, innovation, and private-sector growth. The region’s maturing ecosystem gives well-run businesses a strong base to handle short-term disruptions with confidence.”

Long-term, the worry could be “relevance,” says Koshy. Global competition for capital, talent, and leadership is intensifying, and the region’s ambition is not just to participate in that competition but to help define its terms. 

“That requires sustained investment in capability, not just infrastructure. We see this directly in how organizations approach AI adoption: the ones who can operationalize an AI model, scale it, and fold it into how work gets done will be in a fundamentally different position years from now than the ones simply holding the latest model.”

As the region invests heavily in advanced technologies, including autonomous vehicles, robotics, and sovereign-level AI, Clarke says longer-term strategies will include strengthening core leadership and execution teams. “For the region to continue to lead with other mature nations, the question is no longer whether companies have one strong technology leader, but whether they have the bench strength across technology, data, cyber, and AI to execute at scale,” he adds. 

A ‘POLY-CRISIS’ ENVIRONMENT?

Today, businesses face not just one challenge but several overlapping pressures, often described as a “poly-crisis.”

“Suppliers are facing higher raw material, freight, and financing costs,” says Mehta.”That leaves companies like us balancing both ends of the supply chain at once.” 

“Our response has been to remain agile, leveraging our broad supplier network, maintaining strategic inventory through our storage capacity, and making decisions quickly as market conditions change. In today’s environment, resilience comes from flexibility and strong relationships, not simply from having the lowest-cost model,” he adds.

Noel sees the current environment as a “convergence of risks”. “Organizations have been dealing with cyber threats, the rapid pace of AI adoption, and economic uncertainty, often all at once,” he says. 

“Despite everything that’s happened, businesses have shown real resilience by keeping essential operations and critical services running,” he adds.

Koshy looks at the situation more broadly, calling it “a moment of poly-transformation.”

“Businesses are navigating multiple shifts simultaneously—economic and technological transitions, evolving regulatory expectations, and intensifying competition for talent,” he says. “The challenge is that these forces cannot be addressed in isolation; leaders have to treat them as one interconnected problem.”

This way of thinking is showing up in how businesses respond. Instead of pulling back, many are using this time to build stronger foundations. Baghoomian says the strongest companies are finding new funding sources, strengthening their balance sheets, and focusing on resilience rather than just playing it safe in the short term.

“As equity becomes harder to access on attractive terms, alternative financing solutions such as growth debt can play an increasingly important role,” Baghoomian says. “They enable high-quality companies to continue investing and scaling through uncertainty rather than waiting for fundraising conditions to improve.”

RETHINKING AND BUILDING

As geopolitical tensions, supply-chain disruptions, technological change, and financial risks become increasingly interconnected, Stadtmiller says businesses, rather than relying on siloed risk-mitigation strategies, are redesigning their operating models to be more resilient “by diversifying supply chains, investing in digital agility, and strengthening financial resilience.”

While these investments raise operational costs in the short term, he adds, “they support businesses in the long run by reducing vulnerability to future systemic shocks, positioning them to capitalize on new opportunities as market conditions stabilize.” 

Many business leaders view ongoing uncertainty as a chance to make real changes. “The opportunity isn’t simply to survive these pressures; it’s to rethink how the organization works,” Koshy says. “The businesses and institutions that will matter are the ones building deep, lasting competence, not the ones that treated this moment as a short-term catch-up phase.”

That shift in thinking reflects a broader reality: uncertainty is no longer an exception but a defining feature of the business environment in the region. “There’s rarely a year that’s plain sailing anymore, and modern leaders need to know how to operate in uncertainty,” says Clarke. “This won’t be the last disruption in the region—or globally—but it has been a period in which leaders and companies learned a great deal about their people, their teams, and the resilience of their business.”