Business in the Middle East has always been personal. For decades, the foundation of every major deal from Dubai to Riyadh was a handshake – a long-term bond built on mutual respect. In this region, a partnership is only as strong as the relationship behind it.
However, as the region undergoes a historic transformation, we are beginning to see rigorous compliance and audit models that rival those any western market. Yet, this evolution has introduced an unintended side effect known as the trust paradox.
“While the region still values human connection, procurement has become tethered to a rigid Western legacy that does not fit our pace: the billable hour.”
While the region still values human connection, procurement has become tethered to a rigid Western legacy that does not fit our pace: the billable hour. To seek predictability, many organisations have defaulted to ‘best price’ benchmarking and an over-reliance on rate cards and manual labour costs as a proxy for value.
The billable hour belongs to a slower era. In a region defined by bold national visions and rapid economic transformation, a model that rewards time spent rather than value created acts as a handbrake on progress.
By trying to codify trust through the narrow lens of how many hours a junior designer spends on a task, we are inadvertently blocking the technological leaps these ambitious, large-scale initiatives were designed to achieve.
The billable hour is a hidden tax on innovation
The current procurement landscape creates a hidden tax on innovation. Metrics designed to ensure the best price often do the opposite. When a commercial evaluation is weighted heavily – sometimes as much as 70 per cent of a pitch score – it signals that the client is buying capacity, not capability.
This creates a flawed incentive structure. In a traditional time-and-materials model, an agency is essentially rewarded for time spent. If, for example, a task takes ten hours of manual coding, the agency is paid for ten hours. If that same agency invests in AI orchestration to complete the task in ten minutes, its revenue collapses. Efficiency is penalised and stagnation is subsidised.
But this mismatch represents a strategic risk. By assessing partners based on the volume of manual resources rather than the velocity of output, organisations cap their own potential. We end up with a box-ticking culture where timesheets are reverse-engineered to fit the model, rather than reflecting the reality of modern, tech-driven workflows.
To keep pushing the boundaries of what technology can achieve, we must transition to a model that rewards the solution, not the struggle.
Shifts in talent demand new ways of working
If the value of a partnership is no longer found in the number of hours billed, it must live in orchestration: the ability to coordinate talent, technology and AI to deliver at a scale that manual labour cannot match.
This shift is particularly resonant in the Middle East, where a young, digitally native generation is entering the workforce. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, roughly 63 per cent of the population is under 30.
Saudisation aims to empower these digital-savvy professionals to lead the machines that handle repetitive tasks, positioning them as strategic architects.
Rewarding results over labour
Unlocking the speed and scale of orchestration requires partnerships that favour transformational results over transactional labour. This evolution rests on three pillars: asset-based pricing, flexible subscription tiers and data-driven transparency.
The move towards asset-based pricing effectively solves the benchmarking trap. By establishing a cost per asset based on the optimal mix of talent and technology, partners can align on the total value of a delivered solution. This decouples hours from output, ensuring that as AI orchestration accelerates delivery, the commercial model remains focused on the quality and scale of the final result.
Flexible subscription models and managed service plans further strengthen this alignment by ensuring generative AI and automation remain adaptable across diverse use cases. Adopting these structures allows the commercial strategy to keep pace with technological growth, while performance-based incentives enhance synergy through bonuses tied to velocity and quality. Furthermore, real-time dashboards reinforce transparency by providing marketing and procurement teams with a shared view of the entire production pipeline. Such visibility offers the evidence finance teams require for an audit while granting marketing leaders the agility to pivot resources as priorities shift.
Building a new standard for excellence
Achieving the ambitions set out in national visions across the region – such as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 – requires a departure from the bottlenecks of legacy procurement. For marketing leaders, this transition begins with a shift in dialogue.
Rather than simply defending a creative idea, chief marketing officers (CMOs) can lead by bringing orchestration data to the table. By presenting procurement with clear models of how technology drives velocity, marketing can help internal partners evolve their definitions of value.
For procurement professionals, the opportunity lies in designing frameworks that prioritise technological efficiency. Embracing outcome-based models creates a more resilient supply chain where partners are motivated to innovate.
Ultimately, technology does not replace the deep, personal relationships that have always been the bedrock of business in this region. Instead, it makes those relationships more productive, transparent and scalable for the next generation. We have a unique opportunity to build a new standard for global excellence where high-trust partnerships and high-tech orchestration come together.
By Alex Oberberg, Chief Revenue Officer – EMEA, Monks
