Read our insights

As Saudi Arabia moves towards an age of increased digital participation, local financial institutions have begun to digitise their services to keep up with the global trend. While this shift towards modernisation offers vast potential benefits for businesses and consumers alike, it also introduces new cyber security risks, which must be addressed.

Traditional risk management has been an essential facet of every large enterprise for decades. However, this framework faces certain limitations that prevent it from fully addressing business risk in the current landscape.

The last quarter of 2021 was a record-breaking one for Saudi Arabia as the country saw a 400% increase in foreign investment licence issuance compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Most of this investment was in the technology sector, with start-ups and SMEs seeing substantial growth.

Saudi Arabia is fortunate to have an abundance of oil resources. This has been the foundation of their economy for decades, allowing the Kingdom to become one of the world’s leading energy producers. However, since the 1970s, Saudi leaders have expressed a desire to move the nation away from total economic dependence on oil revenue. In 2016, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman announced his Vision 2030 plan for the future of the nation. This agenda seeks to diversify the Saudi economy and increase private sector participation.

The cyber security landscape is constantly evolving, and businesses must stay ahead of the latest threats to protect their data and networks. In Saudi Arabia, the importance of cyber security is becoming increasingly clear as the country moves towards Vision 2030.

Historically, Saudi Arabia (“KSA”) has been a tax-free nation. However, in line with the government's efforts to diversify its economy and reduce its dependency on oil revenues, the nation has begun to introduce various forms of taxation in recent years. These new laws will further align the nation towards the government's national transformation program — Vision 2030.

In 2022, Grant Thornton’s Women in Business research has once again tracked the position of women in senior management across the world, and the progress towards gender parity in leadership. In this year’s data, we see mid-market businesses across the world taking decisive action to mould more flexible working practices around the needs of their people. They say that they are prioritising employee engagement and modelling open, inclusive working environments. By so doing, organisations are opening the door to bring female talent into senior positions in greater numbers than ever before.

As the modern business world evolves, finance functions must keep up with the changing data privacy landscape. New regulations and legislations require organizations to take a proactive stance when it comes to protecting customer data. Finance leaders need to understand why realigning their operations and strategies is important, as well as how they can do so effectively.

Providing awareness of new Standards, Interpretations that have been issued and amendments made to existing ones.

The way in which brands communicate with their customers has drastically changed over the past two decades. Communication used to be extremely limited to one-off instances, such as the point of sale. Advertisement and marketing were one-way channels — potential customers saw your ads on print or tv, but they could not respond to them directly. Now in the digital era, communication channels with our clients are no longer confined to these singular and one-way interactions. Social media means that our clients can directly interact with our marketing channels, post comments and responses to our ads and message our marketing teams directly.

‘War’ is the only fitting description for the intensity of contest for labour skills and it’s getting even fiercer. The underlying problem is the shortage of available skills. That’s clearly seen in the fact that a record 57% of all mid-market companies now see this as a constraint to their growth, nearly twice the long-term average, as highlighted by Grant Thornton International’s Global Business Pulse.

The stampede of mid-market companies looking to expand internationally continues, despite the added challenges of transport costs and disruptions. The percentage of companies expecting to increase exports in the next 12 months remains high at 45%, while the percentage expecting to increase international revenue has risen 3 percentage points to 44%, according to Grant Thornton International’s Business Pulse.

We share a brief overview of the QR code announcement, along with download links.

With less than 16 days remaining to e-invoicing becoming mandatory in Saudi Arabia, the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) have provided further clarity to the applicable penalties which will be enforced for any non-compliance with the e-invoicing regulations.

As we move from voluntary ESG initiatives to mandatory legislation, we explore what the banking sector needs to prioritise.

Four key barriers in the way of the mid-market realising its sustainability aspirations.