The Middle East Is Not Managed From Europe
In many organisation charts, the Middle East is one line inside “EMEA”. It sits under Europe, is reviewed from Europe, and is often run from Europe.
On paper, that makes sense. In practice, it is one of the most common reasons why companies struggle here.
The Middle East can be part of an EMEA organisation. But it is a region in its own right, with its own clients, its own rules and its own pace. And it is not developed from Paris, Milan or Frankfurt.
The Myths
The region is still poorly understood by many companies. And some ideas are surprisingly persistent.
The first one I hear most often: “You can’t find good engineers there.”
That is simply wrong.
The Gulf attracts engineers from all over the world — and, more and more, from the Gulf countries themselves. Many have worked on large and demanding projects across the region. They are just as competent as the teams companies are used to at home, they know the local context, and they are available.
There is a reason for this. In the twentieth century, people talked about the American way of life. Today, the Gulf offers its own: a high quality of life, international cities, and careers built on large, demanding projects. Talent comes here because people want to live and work here.
A second myth usually follows: “It’s very expensive, because everyone is an expat.”
It is true that most professionals in the Gulf come from abroad. But here, that is the local labour market. The engineers are already in the region, hired locally, on local terms. What is expensive is sending people from headquarters on expatriate packages to do work that a strong team recruited on site could do.
In the Gulf, almost everyone is an expat. And at the same time, almost everyone is local.
The question is not whether the talent exists. It is whether you are present enough to attract it, and organised enough to use it.
Following the EPCs From Europe
When I arrived in the region with a large European water group, industrial water in the Middle East was largely handled from Italy or France. Proposals were prepared there. From time to time, we won projects, usually because we were working with Italian or French EPC contractors who were bidding in the region.
That model creates a comfortable illusion: if the EPCs are in Europe, we can win and execute from Europe too.
But the EPC is not the real client. It represents the end-user. And by the time the EPC is bidding, the most important decisions have already been made: the concept, the technology, the specifications, sometimes the shortlist of suppliers.
If you only follow the EPCs, you arrive when the game is almost over.
Win Upstream, With the End-User
In industrial water, projects are shaped long before the tender, by the end-users themselves: the oil & gas operators, the petrochemical producers, the industrial groups.
With the major operators in the region, you need to be there constantly — almost every day — to really know them. To understand their constraints. To help them develop a concept, carry out feasibility studies, then pre-FEED and FEED work. To help them adopt technologies where it makes sense for you to be involved.
That cannot be done from a distance. And it cannot be done with a sales team alone.
It requires local technical capability: process engineers, people who can estimate costs, people who can sit with the client’s engineers and discuss options credibly. Sales opens the door. Technical presence is what keeps you at the table.
Local Content Is No Longer Optional
There is another reason why presence matters, and it is becoming more important every year.
Across the GCC, local content now counts in the evaluation of tenders. In the UAE, the In-Country Value (ICV) programme scores suppliers on their contribution to the local economy. In Saudi Arabia, Aramco’s IKTVA programme plays a similar role.
The consequence is simple: the lowest price does not always win. A company with a real local footprint — local teams, local purchasing, local investment — can be preferred over a cheaper competitor working from abroad.
When you work from Europe, you start every bid with a handicap.
What Can Travel, and What Cannot
This does not mean everything must be local from day one.
Execution is, to some extent, easier to move. Project teams can travel, and even EPC contractors often relocate execution teams to the country once a project is awarded.
But other activities cannot be run remotely at all.
Mobile water is the clearest example. You cannot run a mobile water business from a distance: the fleet, the people, the maintenance, the permits, the spare parts and the client relationship all need to be close to the sites.
The same applies, to a lesser degree, to products. Even if the products are manufactured elsewhere, selling them in the GCC requires a local sales team supported by a local back office.
Start With a Real Strategy
So where should a company start?
Not with an office, and not with a distributor agreement. With a serious strategic plan.
It comes back to the basics of business development:
Understand the region at a macro level. Which countries and segments are attractive, and which macroeconomic drivers support them?
Study the competition seriously. Who is already there? Where can you genuinely differentiate?
Assess your own capabilities honestly. What can you deliver locally, and what can you not?
Build a SWOT, then define a strategy and an action plan from it.
Only then does the question of where to establish yourself find its answer. And that answer depends on what you want to do.
For project business, the UAE is a strong base to attract engineering talent: experienced people want to live and work there. But be careful: covering Saudi projects from Dubai or Abu Dhabi is much harder than it looks.
For products, the exact location matters less; a base anywhere in the region can work.
Saudi Arabia is the largest market, and it expects companies to be genuinely local. Clients want to see a real entity, real teams and real commitment in the Kingdom — not a regional office next door. For mobile units, it is the natural base, and local manufacturing is increasingly part of the equation. For companies targeting Saudi projects, it is also where the project teams need to be.
There is no single model. But there is a single principle: decide based on a real analysis, not on habit.
A Region in Its Own Right
The Middle East rewards companies that take it seriously. Companies that are present before the tender, that build local technical capability, that invest in local content, and that make clear strategic choices.
It is not an extension of Europe. It is not a market you visit.
It is a region you commit to.
