We are in the midst of Ramadan and my team of 50 — a mix of Muslims and non-Muslims — are working reduced hours. However, because the company I work for deals with dozens of international clients, the demands on our time and resources are the same. How can I compress what needs to be done in a normal working day into the reduced time frame? AA, Abu Dhabi
This is of course a common challenge. Your version of it is made slightly more complex because the team is quite big at 50, and it is a mixed team where some members will be observing Ramadan and others will not. For me, the critical thing here is careful planning.
In all probability, given that your team deals with international clients, your workload is a mix of things that you can plan in advance (proactive planning) and sudden, short-term demands that you need to be able to absorb into the daily tasks (reactive responding). So the first thing to do is to decide what percentage of the things your team does are short-term reactive things. Make sure that every day, across your team, there is enough reactive time available to meet these short term customer-led demands.
Next, prioritise your planned work. This is the work which is not short term and reactive but which you know is coming. As far as possible, allocate this work in advance to named members of your team. Make sure that each team member knows exactly what they are to do, and make sure they can handle the work you are planning to give them.
So now you have made provision for the short-term reactive need and you have proactively planned for and distributed the work you know is coming. The challenge is this: can the plan realistically be delivered, and does it cope with the workload?
If you clearly do not have enough resources – even when you plan carefully, schedule in advance and allow for the short-term nature of some client requests – then you need to consider bringing in some temporary extra staff. You won’t have much time to train them, so apply them to the low skills tasks which can be quickly mastered, and team them with experienced people who will be able to keep an eye on them.
You can also encourage your regular staff to step up to the challenge: work smarter, not harder. Be punctual, work efficiently, don’t fritter away time in idle conversation. Get the team committed to taking on this logistics challenge and beating it. Create an achievement culture so that people want to succeed rather than complain.
You can and should also use your position as leader to analyse rigorously the demands from clients. Can any legitimately be held until after Ramadan? If they can be, then make that happen.
I think it is important that the workload during Ramadan is still distributed evenly across your 50 people. It may be divisive if you split the load and ask your non-Muslim community to pick up more of the weight. An unintended consequence of this might be to weaken the bonds that hold the team together.
So you have done all the above, prepared yourself as well as you can, yet still you worry that client demands cannot be met. What can you do about that? Often the best thing is to be transparent about the difficulty. Use media vehicles like your website, the signature bloc on emails and your recorded messages on telephones to remind customers that it is Ramadan and that special arrangements are in place to minimise the effect of this on customers. Use language to make it clear that you are offering the very best service you can, but that like every other company it is important to you to support your employees as they observe the requirements of Ramadan.
From time to time every organisation has to manage the unintended consequences of external events. If you are seen to be doing everything you can to minimise the effect on customers, then in my experience those same customers will be appreciative of the efforts you are making.
Doctor's prescription: The companies whose reputations will suffer are those who do not appear to be doing all they can to manage the situation … so make sure your organisation is not one of them.
Roger Delves is director of the Ashridge Executive Masters in Management and adjunct professor at Hult International Business School. He is co-author of the book The Top 50 Management Dilemmas: Fast Solutions to Everyday Challenges. Email him at business@thenational.ae for advice on any work issues
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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