From the Managing Partner's Desk

In the Gulf and the Middle East, most businesses, large and small, are still owned by families. However, there is a distinct trend to widen their ownership. The UAE Government has been making a number of moves to make this happen faster. The setting up of “Hawkamah” , the Institute for Corporate Governance, by Dubai International financial Centre (DIFC) is a welcome move indeed, the aim of which is to assist countries and companies to develop and implement globally, sound and well integrated corporate governance frameworks by providing technical assistance monitoring, analysis, research and consultation. Before going public a company needs to have corporate governance in place and many a time this path is not easy. Once implemented, this move by DIFC will go a long way in enabling family owned businesses to achieve transparency and a clear division between ownership and the management thereby perpetuating a company’s long term existence.

I am delighted to have Mr. Yusr Sultan, a young and dynamic chief executive of Shipping Terminalling & LPG, ENOC. He discusses Gulf Energy Maritime PSJC, its vision and mission and achievement in the short span since it was created.

I am also delighted to welcome Mr. Syed M.Salahuddin, Managing Director of ETA-ASCON Group of Companies. Mr. Salahuddin is a well known figure in UAE business circles. He talks about ETA ASCON and its significant achievements worldwide.

There are several other interesting articles in this issue. The Agile organization by Dr. Mohanbir Sawhney discusses what makes an organization agile and how to respond more quickly than competitors to opportunities and threats.

Jon Dee, Director – Business Risk Services for Hotels at PKF UK discusses how hotels are using risk management techniques to ensure that they take the right decisions.

To give more insight into how sampling is used as an audit tool, Vinod Joshi and Sachin Joshi from our audit team have written an interesting article to analyse this important matter.

We have our usual updates on happenings in the UAE, PKF International and the Offshore world.
Please feel free to write (update@pkfuae.com) if you would like to express an opinion on any matter inside.