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As the Saudi market evolves, family businesses need to adapt their strategies to continue to flourish and thrive. This means understanding the new opportunities and challenges that exist and leveraging them to their advantage. There may be some bumps along the way, but with the right approach family businesses will be well-positioned to capitalise on the Kingdom's evolving landscape.

In the business world, due diligence is commonly used in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions, where one company intends to buy another. In these cases, due diligence typically refers to the process of investigating a target company's financial and operational condition prior to the acquisition. The goal is to identify any potential problems or risks that could lessen the value of the target company or make the deal less attractive. Failure to conduct due diligence can have severe consequences, as illustrated by the Enron scandal.

The creative industry is a major contributor to the cultural scene in KSA, providing richness and diversity. Saudi Arabia’s government recognizes the importance of this emerging industry and has made it a key pillar of its Vision 2030 plan

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.

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.

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.

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.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials are no longer merely a ‘nice to have’: they are a must have for much of the mid-market.

In December 2021 Saudi Arabia will make electronic invoicing mandatory for all in country taxpayers. The implementation of the electronic invoicing system, named “FATOORAH” will commence on December 4th and will be implemented in two phases. Phase One will commence from 4 December 2021 and will focus on e-invoicing generation and saving enforcement, with Phase Two commencing from 1 January 2023 aimed at integration enforcement which will be implemented in phases. We share insights of Phase One.

Eight of the 13 monitored mid-market industries returned to positive health in H1 2021, as assessed by Grant Thornton’s unique Global business pulse, compared with just two in H2 2020. And the spread of index results narrowed markedly, as more industries enjoyed the benefits of the overall mid-market recovery. Among the biggest industry movers, transport jumped 10.4 points into positive territory to 0.7, while healthcare and manufacturing rose 6.6 points, both also returning to positive ground.

Grant Thornton’s unique Global business pulse index has tracked performance of several industries between 2020 and the same period in 2021. The overall healthcare industry index score turned positive in H1 2021, climbing nearly 7 points to 1.6, which is higher than the global average. The outlook rose by a robust 12 points to 52, above the pre-pandemic level of 51. This was driven by a strong rebound in optimism, shooting up 27 percentage points (pp) to 65%, following a sharp fall in H1 2020 and only modest improvement in H2.