Much has happened in the past three years to change the historical assumptions held by professionals from around the world who are in charge of making business decisions. As a result, there is a shift toward corporate cultures that are challenging and are far more entrepreneurial and transparent—cultures that are increasingly adopting the belief that complexity poses an opportunity, rather than a threat.
As they step back and re-assess, CEOs are declaring that risk should be managed, not avoided, and that leaders will be rewarded for their ability to build successful organizations with adaptive business models, not rigid and absolute ones. Creative leaders of today are fighting the typical institutional urge to wait for full clarity, completeness and stability before making decisions to move forward and create new business opportunities. In some cases they are breaking with traditional strategy-planning cycles in favor of continuous, dynamic shifts and adjustments to their business models. They are driving decision making that is faster, more precise, and in some cases even more predictable. To do this takes a combination of deeply held values, vision (offset by the current events), and most of all a strong conviction to succeed, let alone the endorsement and support of shareholders.
While we at Elaf Bank (“Elaf” or the “Bank”) firmly believe that efficient and effective management together with good corporate governance will always be the keys to success, maintaining a good reputation, and building our competitive edge, we are also embracing some of these new realities and keeping pace with the changing business scenarios. To that extent, we’ve re-evaluated our business model and in some situations have made the decision to “go back to the basics”, hoping that this will trigger an improvement in the overall investor’s sentiment and risk appetite. We hope that this theory of “complexity poses an opportunity” will gain increasing credibility in the market, and that the investor’s sentiment will improve even though challenges persist.
With half the year already behind us, we are hopeful that the year 2010, with the noticeable positive signals, will go down as the dawn of a new era in investment banking domestically, and also on a regional and global level.
Jamil El-Jaroudi
July 2010
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