MEP Middle East – November 2018

CELEBRATE IN

TOUGH TIMES

Rajiv Ravindran Pillai

4 MEP Middle East | November 2018 http://www.mepmiddleeast.com

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H

ope you all are ready for the
biggest MEP award’s event of
the year. The MEP Middle East
Awards 2018 will be celebrating its
twelfth year this year, and it’s time to rec-
ognise you, your projects and initiatives.
This year we witnessed a large number
of nominations for the Young Engineer of
the Year categor y. It is great to see companies pushing for ward
these engineers in order to be recognised for the incredible work
they have done. The six judges of the awards also felt this year the
nominations were of good quality. This proves how serious the MEP
sector is in taking the time out to bring forth their achievements.
After a few challenging years of oil price decline, public sector
spending cuts, tighter liquidity, and investor uncertainty, the MEP
sector in the region seems to be picking up. This revival is possibly
due to recover y in oil prices, the introduction of the tax reform and
the ongoing activity related to Expo 2020. However, market news
apart, I have also noticed a few companies who were quite promi-
nent last year at the MEP awards, are now no longer conspicuous.
During tough times, it’s best to protect your cash fl ow. Cash
fl ow is the lifeblood of an organisation. To keep your business
healthy, cash needs to continue fl owing through. One should see
what can be done to reduce inventor y costs without sacrifi cing
on quality. If your business is going to prosper in tough times,
you need to continue to expand your customer or client base
and that means drawing in customers from your competition.
Also, many organisations make the mistake of cutting their
marketing budget or even eliminating it entirely. But tough times
are exactly the times your business needs marketing the most.
Hard times make it harder to borrow and business loans are
often among the fi rst to disappear. With good company credit,
your organisation stands a much better chance of being able to
borrow the money needed to keep your business afl oat if you
need to. In addition, in preparation of a slow economy, your
company could also acquire failing businesses. The idea is to
always think long-term and what’s best for the company. It’s
best to be innovative in an uncertain economic environment.
Despite tough times, we still believe in celebrations. We all
acknowledge that this is a volatile market, and the remaining few
deser ve to be celebrated, and what better way to celebrate than
at the MEP Middle East Awards.

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