Today's Edition
Mays Ibrahim (ABU DHABI)
The UAE ranks first among 27 markets globally for planned investment in digital supply chain finance platforms, according to Standard Chartered.
Its latest Future of Trade report, titled “Navigating an Age of Structural Uncertainty”, shows that 69% of businesses in the UAE plan to invest in the technology over the next three to five years.
Its findings are based on a survey of 2,100 senior corporate decision-makers across the 27 markets.
The UAE also ranked third globally for planned investment in real-time cash visibility, cited by 76% of respondents, and second for automated payments, at 53%.
“The UAE’s leading position in planned digital supply chain finance investment reflects the continued evolution of its trade ecosystem,” said Syed Khurrum Zaeem, managing director and head of Trade and Transactional Banking for the Middle East, Pakistan and Africa at Standard Chartered.
“Businesses are placing greater emphasis on strengthening supplier networks, improving visibility and connecting treasury more closely with trade,” he added.
The report found that UAE companies are placing greater emphasis on supplier resilience, with the priority given to supplier-focused strategies rising by 26 percentage points from the previous year, compared with a 4.3 percentage-point increase globally.
The focus on inventory management also increased by seven percentage points in the UAE, versus 2.9 percentage points globally.
Digitalisation is already delivering measurable benefits for UAE businesses, according to the report.
Some 90% of respondents said digital tools help them respond faster to supply chain disruptions, compared with 83% globally.
Meanwhile, 85% said digital tools improve decision-making through greater visibility and forecasting across supply chain and financial flows, while 87% reported clear, measurable benefits from at least one digital capability.
The report also highlighted a push towards closer integration between treasury and supply chain functions.
Some 44% of UAE businesses plan to adjust their treasury management strategies over the next three to five years, while 40% expect to increase their use of digital tools and systems.
The findings showed that 42% of UAE businesses have partially integrated treasury and supply chain functions, while 13% report full integration.
However, a lack of end-to-end visibility across supply chain and financial flows remains the most frequently cited gap, identified by 46% of respondents.
UAE businesses also expect digitalisation to generate cost efficiencies. The country ranked first among the surveyed markets for the share of businesses expecting digitalisation to reduce the cost of coordinating shipments and logistics by at least 10%.
It also ranked among the top three markets for anticipated cost reductions in compliance and regulatory requirements, payments and settlements, and engagement with overseas counterparties.
The UAE findings form part of a wider global shift towards digitally enabled trade. Standard Chartered’s report estimates that faster trade digitalisation could increase global trade by 6.9%, equivalent to $2.8 trillion, by 2031 compared with Oxford Economics’ baseline forecast.
