(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) Two UAE companies - Emirates and Etihad - are among the six Middle Eastern corporates that had found a place among the 100 global challenger firms from emerging market.
Titled Allies and Adversaries, the report by the Boston Consulting Group identifies 100 companies that are growing so quickly that they are reshaping industries and surpassing many traditional multinational companies.
The other four from the region include Saudi Aramco, Qatar Airways, SABIC and Elsewedy.
Allies and Adversaries is the fifth in a series of BCG annual Global Challenger reports identifying the fastest-growing companies in the emerging markets.
In Allies and Adversaries, BCG finds that global challenger companies are outpacing household names in the US and Europe and are having a profound impact on the global economy.
They come from 17 countries-with companies from Colombia and Qatar joining the list for the first time. Also for the first time, the global list includes companies from the financial services, health care equipment, and electronic commerce sectors.
In the past five years, these companies-many of them little known in the West-have added 1.4 million jobs, while employment at the nonfinancial S&P 500 stayed flat. Their average revenue was 26.5 billion in 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available, compared with 21 billion for the S&P 500's nonfinancial companies and 20 billion for the entire S&P 500. In the same year, they purchased more than 1.7 trillion of goods and services and invested more than 330 billion in capital expenditures.
"If ever there was a wake-up call for business leaders in the West, this is it," said David C. Michael, coauthor of the report, head of BCG's globalisation practice, and coauthor of a new book called The 10 Trillion Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India (Harvard Business Review Press). "We have been monitoring the rise of global challenger companies for nearly a decade, and the ambition of these companies-what we call the accelerator mindset-has never been stronger," he added.
In 2013, the Middle East is represented by four global challenger companies and maintains its share in the BCG Global Challenger top 100 list over previous years. The region is also home to two 'graduate' companies in the 2013 report.
Maintaining their status as global challengers, Saudi Arabian chemicals giant SABIC and Egypt's Elsewedy, a leading manufacturer of electrical wires and cables, continue to impress with their scale, international market positions and excellence in operations in the latest BCG study. New to the list are Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways, two of the fastest growing airlines in the Middle East. Both companies have been leveraging the region's favorable geostrategic location as a transportation hub at the crossroads of Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Africa.
Emirates and Saudi Aramco have also joined the BCG challenger 'graduate' list. This list contains companies that have moved from global challenger to global leader status in recognition of their outstanding achievements, rivaling or often exceeding the achievements of long-established incumbent players in their respective industries.
"The Middle East upholds it reputation as a truly dynamic region as we witness global challengers emeriti Emirates and Saudi Aramco establish themselves as true international players. Emirates Airline has reported a remarkable record of 24 consecutive profitable years, and its orders for the Airbus A380 superjumbo airliner exceeded that of any other airliner by three times.
Similarly, Saudi Aramco is the largest gas and oil company in the world, and has engaged in ventures all over the globe in its quest to become a global integrated energy business," said Thomas Bradtke, partner and managing director in BCG's Dubai office and originator of BCG's Global Challenger report series in 2006.
"Our four Middle East challengers for 2013 have equally promising forecasts, and are playing a significant role in the global economy. The number of passengers transported through and within the Middle East has grown 15 per cent per annum over the past years, due in large part to the significant investments that challengers Etihad and Qatar Airways have been making in meeting the needs of the global middle class.
These megacarriers, along with emeritus Emirates, are reshaping the international aviation landscape. SABIC and Elsewedy are playing equally influential roles in transforming the chemical and manufacturing industries," Bradtke said.
