BrazilA strong consulting sector in Egypt can deliver a range of national benefits
Developing a strong management consulting sector in Egypt should be seen as a broader strategic investment and as a matter of national interest, experienced local consultant Nadim Samna has argued in a piece for Egyptian English-language media outlet Ahram Online.
As one of the steadier management consulting markets in a growing, combined African sector worth an estimated $2.5 billion, the management consulting industry of Egypt still remains relatively underdeveloped, with its potential far from yet tapped. Doing so, and reaping the wider socio-economic benefits, will require a buy-in from a range of stakeholders, together helping to raise industry awareness, capacity and profile.
Already, the growing market potential can be perhaps evidenced through the recent arrival of international strategy and marketing consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners with an office launched in Cairo in June, joining other global strategy and management names with a permanent presence in the country such as McKinsey & Company and PwC’s consulting wing Strategy& (formerly Booz & Co. – which established a local office in 2006).
“We’ll be one of the few international strategy consultancies in Egypt,” Simon-Kucher’s CEO Georg Tacke said at the time of the launch. “The market offers enormous potential. Egypt is one of the two strongest industrialised nations in Africa. Strong economic growth and excellently trained local specialists make the market particularly attractive to us. Geographically speaking, Egypt is an ideal starting point to enter the African market.”
Now, Nadim Samna, the founder and managing partner of local management consultancy Stratexis, who holds an MBA from INSEAD and has previously worked in senior management positions for Oliver Wyman in Dubai and for eight years in Paris with Kurt Salmon (which was acquired by Accenture in 2016), has argued that further developing the management consulting industry in Egypt is a matter of national interest.
Writing for the local media outlet Ahram Online, an English-language off-shoot of the state-owned news publication Al-Ahram, Samna outlines a range of public benefits which could flow from a greater strategic investment in consulting services and the development of the industry itself, including not only the maximisation of profits and improved international competitiveness of local companies, but through job creation and the establishment of a knowledge economy.
“On a macro level, consultants play an important role in modernising the economy by diffusing best practices, whose effectiveness has already been proven in other industries or markets,” Samna writes. “The strategic partnership recently signed between Egypt and the UAE to transform Egyptian governmental services is a good example of such benefits. Consultants in different areas will be responsible for transferring knowledge from the UAE to Egypt.”
Further, he argues, the management consulting industry can work with local universities to improve the professional services skills of graduates in a modern economy while also creating and providing jobs, citing the some 20 percent of currently unemployed Egyptians who hold advanced levels of education according to International Labour Organisation statistics, along with the rising 35 percent rate of local youth unemployment.
In turn, skilled consultants can export their services and generate inbound national revenues, with a recognised local management consulting industry then able to compete with other regional hubs as a go to market. “Building a talent pool in Cairo will drive international consulting firms to consider Cairo more seriously as a hub for their teams to benefit from the cost advantage of Cairo compared to Dubai,” Samna states in conclusion.
