# RESILIENCE BUSINESS PULSE ## How UAE business leaders are navigating disruption and where the opportunities are **Publicis Groupe Middle East & Turkey** **April 2026** --- ## FOREWORD ### Bassel Kakish **CEO, Publicis Groupe Middle East & Turkey** In times of disruption, the instinct is to wait for clarity. But clarity is not something that arrives on its own. It is something you build. That is what this report represents and what this market is doing. This year, Publicis Groupe marks its centenary. One hundred years that have seen the Groupe rise from the ashes (sometimes literally), three times, reinvent itself many more, and grow from a small Montmartre hot shop into an industry-leading holding company. The spirit that carried us through a century of disruption is the same one captured in our centenary symbol: a lion never gives up. We see that same spirit in the UAE. Those who know the UAE understand its strength goes far beyond the facades. The fundamentals are strong and continuously strengthening: clear governance, an enabling business environment, robust infrastructure. This is not a market that flinches. That steadiness was most visible under pressure. During the pandemic, when global uncertainty peaked, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan offered three words that reassured a nation: 'La tshiloon ham' (Do not worry). Clarity and confidence, precisely when they were needed most. The UAE always walks the talk. And in that, we trust. The business community here reflects that same disposition. The leaders in our study are not passive observers of disruption, they are its architects of response. They are recalibrating: redirecting investment, stress-testing assumptions, making calculated bets on where the next cycle of growth begins. What strikes me most in these findings is the depth of conviction in the UAE itself. Every single leader expressed confidence in the country's trajectory. That is not a sentiment; it is a signal. Ninety-four percent trust the government to protect the business environment. Seventy-eight percent believe the UAE will emerge in a stronger competitive position. Confidence at this level, sustained through real disruption, is a strategic asset. It's the foundation on which recovery accelerates. The UAE has done this before. The evidence in these pages suggests it is doing it again. We share this research openly, because the insights belong to the ecosystem. Evidence should drive decisions. Not assumptions, not fear, not the loudest voice in the room. A lion never gives up. Neither does the UAE. --- ### Jennifer Fischer **Chief Innovation and Growth Officer, Publicis Groupe MENA** **They have earned the right to be optimistic.** The loudest voices about this region right now are coming from outside it. We wanted to hear from the people inside, and what they told us cuts through the noise. The reality on the ground is more resilient, more dynamic, and more promising than the headlines suggest, not because leaders are being optimistic, but because they have earned the right to be. These are operators managing real P&Ls through real pressure, and their conviction is grounded in experience. What made this study different is how it was built. By combining AI-powered interviews with human editorial judgment, we reached a level of candor and analytical depth that traditional research rarely achieves. Leaders spoke more openly when given the space to do so and AI helped us hear them more clearly than ever before. We are deeply grateful to every leader who participated, named and anonymous, for their generosity during one of the most demanding periods they have faced. That candor is what gives this report its edge. We built this to be useful, not decorative. Every finding is backed by data. Every recommendation connects to what leaders told us they need. It is designed to serve both the private sector and the public sector equally because the best recoveries are built on shared intelligence. This is ours. --- ## Acknowledgments & How This Report Was Built This report is a testament to what becomes possible when human intelligence and AI capability work as one system. It would not exist without the sixty business leaders who chose to share their time, their thinking, and their candor during an extraordinarily demanding period. We are deeply grateful to every participant, both named and anonymous, for trusting us with their perspectives. Special thanks to Arda Arat (Haleon), Walid Fakih (McDonald's), Frank Durrell (Arada), Dalia Salib (Mars), Hussein Freijeh (Snap Inc.), Fares Akkad (Meta), Pierre Choueiri (Choueiri Group), Amr Kamel (Microsoft), Anthony Nakache (Google), and Nour Al Hassan (Arabic.AI & Tarjama) for contributing on the record. Thanks also to the Publicis Groupe leadership team whose support and participation made this possible. Your openness strengthens the entire ecosystem. AI shaped this work at every stage. Anonymous interviews were conducted through Leonis, an AI interview platform developed within Atelier Potentialis, our proprietary AI capability platform. Leonis adapted in real time, probing, listening, and drawing out the candor that structured surveys rarely reach. The resulting transcripts were analyzed using AI-driven thematic coding, semantic clustering, and emotional register classification across the full corpus. The report itself was assembled with AI, integrating four distinct data sources into a single coherent narrative under tight timelines. AI did not replace editorial judgment, strategic framing, or the human relationships that made this study possible. It amplified them. The Resilience Business Pulse is proof of concept for a new model of market intelligence and a reflection of how Publicis Groupe works today. --- ## Executive Summary The Resilience Business Pulse draws on 60+ leadership interviews including structured survey data and qualitative data, paid media intelligence, and 300 youth survey responses to build the most comprehensive real-time picture of UAE business sentiment available today. Here are the eight findings that matter most. | # | Finding | | --- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 1 | **100% of leaders are confident in the UAE's trajectory.** Every respondent in survey selected at least one positive UAE trajectory statement. 94% trust the UAE government to protect the business environment. 78% believe the UAE will emerge in a stronger competitive position. Despite the current uncertainty, more than half would still recommend the UAE as a place to invest today. Confidence in the nation's governance and infrastructure is unanimous. | | 2 | **The market is reshaping, not collapsing.** While 72% of leaders report some level of demand decline, a third of the market is not declining at all: 17% see demand actively growing and another 17% describe demand shifting in shape rather than falling. Consumers are migrating across channels, price points, and categories rather than exiting the market entirely. | | 3 | **Supply chain disruption is the single biggest revenue threat.** 41% of all respondents cite supply chain disruption as a top revenue driver, rising to 77% in FMCG. Port closures, shipping cost inflation, and on-shelf availability gaps are creating a double hit to revenue and margin across the UAE. | | 4 | **Marketing budgets are being redirected, not eliminated.** Only 8% of leaders have fully paused marketing. 38% reallocated internally with total spend intact, rising to 60% in FMCG. The money is moving from out-of-home and brand building into e-commerce, retail media, performance marketing, and lower-funnel channels. | | 5 | **Sector divergence is extreme.** FMCG is absorbing a margin squeeze with demand shifting rather than collapsing. Media and advertising is experiencing transmitted pain from client budget freezes (70% cite this as a top driver). Automotive faces the steepest decline with reports of demand falling significantly, with revenue 25-50%+ below plan. One crisis, multiple realities. | | 6 | **Team morale is holding steady, but pockets of real strain exist.** On a scale where 5 represents normal, average morale across the sample is holding near-normal despite moderate-to-serious business disruption. This is a resilience finding, not a warning. The exceptions are real: Logistics registers 3.0/10 morale against 8.0/10 business impact, and Automotive sits at 4.0. Leadership responses of empathy, flexibility, and presence are clearly working across most sectors. | | 7 | **Digital transformation is the ultimate engine of competitive agility.** Digital infrastructure is a primary driver of competitive advantage. This transformation provides the structural agility to pivot instantly, allowing companies to bridge the gap between physical venues and the new "at-home" economy via e-commerce and AI-optimized operations. The "Resilience Dividend" belongs to the brands that have built 1:1 CRM and data capabilities; they aren't just reacting to the crisis, they are using their digital maturity to navigate it with surgical precision and personalized utility. | | 8 | **Recovery is sequential, and the large players are not waiting.** Leaders describe a three-gate recovery: clarity and stability first, then population return, then supply chain normalization. But the biggest companies are already investing through the downturn, absorbing short-term losses to capture market share from competitors who pulled back. Consolidation is underway. | > **The crisis is not destroying the UAE market. It is accelerating a structural shift that was already underway: toward digital commerce, performance media, AI-driven efficiency, and market consolidation. The companies and institutions that read the signals now will define the recovery.** --- ## The Language of Resilience Before diving into what leaders said, it is worth examining how they said it. A linguistic analysis of all interview responses reveals something the data alone cannot: a leadership cohort that frames crisis not as an existential threat, but as an acceleration catalyst. The dominant register combines technical resilience language with cautious optimism. Leaders speak with 4.67 times more certainty than hedging, deploy journey and navigation metaphors as their primary sense-making tool, and conspicuously avoid blame discourse. This is the language of adaptive agency, not reactive vulnerability. ### How Leaders Frame Crisis The metaphors leaders reach for reveal how they conceptualize the challenge. Six dominant metaphor clusters emerged from the corpus, ranked by frequency: | Metaphor Cluster | Frequency | What It Reveals | | ----------------------- | --------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Speed / Time | 46 | The core challenge is operational tempo, not existential threat. Leaders talk about momentum, pace, acceleration. This is a cohort managing velocity, not mourning loss. | | Weather / Storm | 43 | Storm language is navigational, not apocalyptic. Leaders say "headwinds" and "overlapping disruptions" (plural, manageable) rather than catastrophe. They navigate through, not survive against. | | Health / Wellness | 40 | "Resilience" (20x), "recovery" (24x), "robust", "strength" (19x). Crisis is framed as a test of organizational fitness, not pathology. "Vulnerable" appears only 6 times. The system is stressed, not sick. | | Journey / Navigation | 29 | Leaders position themselves as steering through: "navigating complexity," "roadmap," "direction." The leader is active and course-correcting, not passive and buffeted. | | Building / Construction | 17 | Emphasizes foundational strength: "build an organization that is structurally agile," "proved more robust than expected." Not repairing. Reinforcing. | | Battle / War | 5 | The notable absence. Only 5 war references in all responses. Leaders are not framing crisis as enemy or competition. Success is not zero-sum. The posture is adaptive, not combative. | ### The Vocabulary of Crisis: Opportunity vs. Survival How leaders describe what they are going through reveals whether they see themselves as under siege or in motion. The distribution is striking: | Language Type | Share | Key Terms | | ----------------------- | ----- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Opportunity Language | 46.8% | opportunity (14x), growth (11x), innovation (5x), advantage (3x), win, gain | | Transformation Language | 46.8% | shift (13x), adapt (8x), change (7x), evolve (4x), reimagine, redefine (3x) | | Survival Language | 6.4% | survive (2x), collapse (1x), fail (1x), loss (1x) | The perfect parity between opportunity and transformation language, combined with the near-absence of survival language, is the most important finding in this analysis. Leaders do not speak of "fighting for survival" or "preventing collapse." They speak of shifting, adapting, and gaining. This is a leadership cohort that sees crisis as a forcing function for necessary change, not as a threat demanding defensive posture. ### The Emotional Register: Confidence Over Hope The emotional vocabulary of these interviews reveals a subtle but important distinction. Confidence appears 2.3 times more often than hope. This matters because the two emotions are fundamentally different: confidence is about capability; hope is about circumstance. | Emotion | Frequency | Pattern | | --------------- | --------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Confidence | 35 | Stated explicitly, paired with action: "strong confidence," "strong foundation," "we will" (28 certainty markers total). Expressed through capability, not sentiment. | | Hope | 15 | Cautious and forward-looking: "hopeful about recovery," "positive outlook." Present but secondary to capability language. | | Concern | 6 | Acknowledged but contained. Concern is present in the data; it is not dominant in the discourse. | | Anxiety / Worry | 3 | Nearly absent. Only 3 instances in all responses. Whether resilience or professional norm, anxiety is not part of how these leaders narrate crisis. | Leaders express optimism not through emotional assertion but through action verbs (adapt, shift, navigate, build), forward time references (will, going forward, now), and capability framings (strength, robustness, agility). This is emotional maturity in professional context: confidence expressed through capability language, not sentiment. ### Certainty Outweighs Caution 4.67 to 1 Across the corpus, certainty markers (definitely, will, must, clearly) outnumber hedging markers (maybe, possibly, I think, seems) by a ratio of 4.67 to 1. Combined with the low anxiety register and the near-absence of survival language, it paints a picture of a leadership cohort that has moved past the shock phase and into operational response. They are not wondering whether to act. They are deciding how. ### What This Means for the Themes That Follow The language analysis matters because it calibrates how to read the thematic findings. When leaders describe supply chain disruption, they are not describing helplessness; they are describing a solvable operational problem. When they discuss demand shifts, they are mapping new terrain, not lamenting lost territory. When they talk about team morale, they frame it through capability and support, not distress. **The six forces that follow should be read through this lens: a leadership cohort in adaptive motion, not defensive retreat.** --- ## The Six Forces Six forces are reshaping the UAE business landscape. Each operates independently, but they interact: supply chain stress drives media reallocation, which creates the brand strategy dilemma, which the youth data helps resolve. Read them as a system, not a list. --- ### FORCE 1: Supply Chain -- The Single Biggest Revenue Threat Supply chain disruption is the most cited revenue driver across the entire dataset. It hits hardest in FMCG, retail, automotive where port closures, shipping cost inflation, and on-shelf availability gaps create a double blow to revenue and margin. But the impact radiates outward: logistics operators face severe international route disruption, and media agencies experience it second-hand through client hesitancy to communicate even when stock exists. What distinguishes the UAE response is the speed of adaptation. Leaders with prior crisis experience, whether from 2008, COVID, or previous supply interruptions, describe activating established playbooks: diversifying routes, shifting from international to local supply chains, building redundant sourcing options. The muscle memory is real. > "The ability to quickly define agile supply solutions has been very robust, allowing quick recovery from availability gaps through finding multiple routes and learning from past crises. Vulnerabilities remain in absorbing financial shock and quickly capturing growth through data and analytics." > > -- Anonymous, FMCG Senior Leadership > "The power of our supply chain team and operating model allowed for strong solutions to navigate shipping challenges in record time." > > -- Dalia Salib, CMO, Mars Middle East and Africa > "The depth of resilience in our local teams. When supply chains were under pressure and geopolitical tensions created operational challenges, it wasn't something that could be fixed from the centre. It required the people closest to the market to step up." > > -- Arda Arat, GM Gulf & Near East, Haleon **Strategic implication:** Supply chain resilience is now a marketing variable, not just an operations metric. Brands that can guarantee availability have an immediate media advantage: they can invest in demand generation while competitors with supply gaps must stay quiet. The companies that built pre-crisis infrastructure, including diversified routes, local sourcing, and stock buffers, are the ones converting disruption into market share. --- ### FORCE 2: Demand Reshaping -- The Consumer Didn't Leave The prevailing narrative is demand decline. The data tells a more nuanced story. While over half of leaders report falling demand, a significant portion see demand holding or actively growing. In FMCG, some leaders report moderate growth in the same breath that others report decline, because sub-categories are diverging sharply. The consumer is still there, just behaving differently. The migration patterns are consistent across sectors: from offline to online, from dine-in to delivery, from premium to value, from international tourism to domestic. One senior media leader offered a critical reframe: the demand slowdown is driven more by population leaving the market than by reduced consumer confidence. People still in the UAE are still spending. > "School closures and remote work didn't just change routines, they redirected spend entirely. At-home categories surged: streaming, groceries, gaming, online shopping." > > -- Anonymous, Banking & Finance, Senior Leadership, Marketing > "What we're seeing is a more selective and considered customer. Demand is still there, but it's consolidating around strong brands and clear propositions." > > -- Frank Durrell, Group Chief Marketing Officer, Arada > "In the quick service restaurant sector, we are seeing continued growth in delivery, alongside more demand in community-based restaurants. Customers are increasingly choosing convenience and proximity, opting for brands they trust." > > -- Walid Fakih, CEO, McDonald's > "During this time, we've seen an increase in searches around news, as well as travel and safety information. We also saw increased searches and steady growth in online groceries, apparel, beauty and luxury. People continue to look for entertainment content as we've seen an increase in YouTube watchtime hours." > > -- Anthony Nakache, Managing Director, Google MENA **Strategic implication:** Marketing must follow the consumer's new behaviour, not wait for old behaviour to return. The channel and message strategy that worked in January does not work now. E-commerce, delivery platforms, value-oriented messaging, and convenience-first positioning are where the consumer is. Brands that adapt to the migration capture demand. Brands that wait for "normal" lose position. --- ### FORCE 3: The Great Media Reallocation The headline is not "budgets cut." The headline is "budgets moved." Only 8% of leaders have fully paused marketing. The dominant move is internal reallocation: 38% report total spend roughly intact but redirected from brand building and out-of-home into e-commerce, performance marketing, and lower-funnel channels. FMCG leads this pattern decisively, with 60% of respondents reallocating internally rather than cutting. The direction of the reallocation is near-universal: out-of-home and events cut, influencer paused, upper-funnel digital reduced, TV maintained, e-commerce and lower-funnel increased. > "We narrowed focus to what mattered most: security concerns, at-home spend, and SME support. In a crisis, relevance beats reach." > > -- Anonymous, Banking & Finance, Senior Leadership, Marketing > "Decreased and paused influencer marketing. Significantly reduced upper-funnel digital spend, focusing on lower funnel. E-commerce marketing maintained, TV fully live." > > -- Anonymous, FMCG Mid-Senior Management > "Paused all Ramadan activities and social media. Refocused efforts on e-commerce and functional content, shifting from long-term equity building to lower-funnel objectives like product availability and visibility in-store and on e-com platforms." > > -- Anonymous, FMCG Senior Leadership > "Consumers have moved from dining in to delivery and that single shift is reshaping the entire business model." > > -- Anonymous, Hospitality Senior Leadership > "The primary shift we're seeing in demand is toward accountability and adaptability; advertisers want more measurable outcomes and plans that can flex as consumer sentiment and category dynamics move." > > -- Fares Akkad, Regional Director for Middle East & Africa, Meta > "Brands are leaning harder into what is measurable, staying closer to real-time signals, and making sharper choices about where they can remain active with confidence. What is driving that is not a lack of consumer attention, but a higher degree of caution in how businesses are planning and deploying spend right now." > > -- Hussein Freijeh, Vice President, APAC and Middle East, Snap Inc. **Strategic implication:** The media reallocation is not temporary. The shift toward controlled, accountable, commerce-oriented media structures was already underway; the crisis accelerated it. Brands and agencies that build performance, CTV, and retail media capability now are building for the post-crisis landscape, not just surviving the current one. --- #### Zoom on Performance: The Performics Playbook -- Where the Smart Money Goes Performics MENA's paid media intelligence confirms and sharpens what the leadership interviews revealed. Five findings that define where effective media investment is heading: **1. Sector behaviour diverged sharply.** An initial pause across almost all sectors was followed by cautious, selective reactivation. The speed and scope of return differs by how discretionary the category is. Telecoms and finance held steady (essential services). Travel and hospitality pivoted to staycation audiences. FMCG reduced but active brands captured CPM and CPC efficiencies in a less contested landscape. **2. Crisis-driven search is not commercial intent.** Flight and accommodation searches surged at crisis onset, but this was families relocating, not tourists browsing. Hospitality brands that stayed active pivoted targeting toward local, in-market residents with incentive offers. The lesson: read the signal behind the search volume. **3. Controlled reach is the new baseline.** The shift is not simply upper funnel to lower funnel. It is from broader prospecting to accountable, controlled environments at every funnel stage. Premium, measurable placements are holding or growing. Placement certainty has become non-negotiable. This is not purely a crisis response; it reflects a broader acceleration toward media structures that are visible, defensible, and controllable. **4. CTV is the standout beneficiary.** Connected TV absorbed a significant share of reallocated budgets, with an estimated 15-20% incremental allocation within programmatic. CTV delivers what social could not during crisis: premium reach without adjacency risk. Audiences are spending more time in streaming environments, making this both a reach play and a safety play. In-mall digital out-of-home showed similar resilience in controlled physical environments. **5. Crisis readiness is built before the crisis.** How quickly brands could act was determined by what they had already built. Brands with third-party verification tools escalated filter thresholds within hours. Those with broader geographic footprint could offset by pausing in affected regions while increasing spend where demand remained. Pre-existing operational rigour is what makes crisis response possible. > "Identifying advertising 'Green Zones' is a vital, continuous strategy. By balancing quality and efficiency within a controlled context, brands can ensure maximum impact during both normal and exceptional times." > > -- Elie Milan, Chief Performance Officer, Performics MENA, on brand secure advertising --- ### FORCE 4: What Brands Owe Their Audiences Now This is the highest-tension strategic question in the dataset. Two competing instincts are at play: the pressure to pull back on brand investment during uncertainty, and the risk of going dark when consumers are actively watching which brands show up. Business leaders see the tension clearly. One FMCG senior leader flagged a critical missed issue: understanding what consumers expect from brands during a crisis, including acceptable messaging guardrails that avoid triggering a negative reaction. However, the data suggests that the risk of silence is just as high. The stakes are quantified by Kantar, which warns of a "Recovery Penalty": brands that go dark for six months or more see a 39% drop in total brand awareness and can take up to five years to recover the market share lost during that period of silence. > "We're gaining market share without spending. That's either a testament to brand strength or a sign that competitors have pulled back even further." > > -- Anonymous, Banking & Finance, Mid Senior Leadership > "Investing in presence during a crisis isn't about opportunistic selling; it's about claiming the vacuum left by those who retreat. The data is clear: brands that maintain their Share of Voice (SOV) when others go dark see a disproportionate return on loyalty." > > -- Tony Wazen, CEO, Publicis Media ME > "The companies that maintain their presence, investment, and commitment through difficult periods are the ones that earn the deepest trust. Pulling back now doesn't just cost you current revenue; it costs you the right to lead when the recovery accelerates." > > -- Arda Arat, GM Gulf & Near East, Haleon **Strategic implication:** Brands that go dark lose their mental availability, while those that show up with the wrong tone (one that feels "tone-deaf" or purely profit-driven) risk permanent brand erosion. The narrow path to success lies in Calm Presence + Practical Value. By maintaining visibility with a tone of "pragmatic empathy," brands don't just survive the crisis; they rewire consumer habits in their favor, positioning themselves as the trusted choice for when demand inevitably returns. --- #### Zoom on Youth: The Youth Verdict -- The New Rules of Reassurance The Publicis Groupe Youth Studio surveyed 300 young consumers across the UAE (Gen Z and Millennials, March 2026) on exactly this question: what do you expect from brands during a crisis? Their answers resolve the tension the leaders identified. **Chart 1: Factors for Safety & Stability** *Question: What usually helps you feel a sense of safety or stability during times of uncertainty?* | Activity | Gen Z | Millennials | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------- | ----------- | | Spending more time with family or people I love | 30% | 36% | | Saving money or being more careful about spending | 25% | 27% | | Turning more toward faith or religious practices | 23% | 23% | | **Watching shows, gaming, or online content** (Gen Z over-indexes) | **21%** | 18% | | **Eating comfort food or snacking more than usual** (Gen Z over-indexes) | **20%** | 16% | | Spending more time at home or in familiar places | 19% | 20% | | Staying connected with my community | 18% | 24% | | Intentionally doing hobbies or activities to relax | 18% | 18% | | Sticking to routines that make me feel stable | 18% | 19% | | Following the news closely to stay informed | 16% | 21% | | Avoiding the news and focusing on everyday life | 13% | 18% | | Stockpiling essentials or preparing "just in case" | 12% | 12% | **Chart 2: Consumer Expectations of Brands** *Question: During times of crisis or uncertainty, what do you expect brands to do?* | Brand Action | Gen Z | Millennials | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------- | ----------- | | Offer something practical right now (discounts, support, useful services) | 31% | 43% | | **Keep communication calm and respectful, not dramatic** (Gen Z over-indexes) | **30%** | 28% | | Acknowledge what's happening, don't pretend everything is normal | 28% | 28% | | **Focus on reliability (products and services remain available)** (Gen Z over-indexes) | **28%** | 26% | | Support affected communities visibly (donations, initiatives) | 27% | 35% | | Provide small moments of comfort, entertainment, or escape | 25% | 25% | | Be transparent about how the situation affects business | 22% | 24% | | Pause or reduce promotional advertising during sensitive moments | 18% | 19% | | Stay quiet rather than forcing themselves into the conversation | 17% | 18% | Three rules emerge from the data: **Rule 1: Regulate the room.** Lower emotional intensity. Fewer urgency cues, no dramatic framing. Clarity before creativity. Service information before storytelling. Mirror how people already self-soothe: quiet moments, familiar rituals, togetherness. **Rule 2: Earn trust through actions.** Offer practical help. Make reliability visible: consistency is reassurance, availability builds trust. Shift to value-first communications that prioritize relevance and restraint over volume and urgency. **Rule 3: Be present beyond purchase.** Listen, then respond deliberately. Support communities at human scale. Action does not need to be big to be visible: supporting employees, local partnering, redirecting existing resources. > "Consumers, particularly the younger generation, don't expect brands to have all the answers, but they do expect them to show up with authenticity. The 'New Rules of Reassurance' require a shift from aspirational messaging to operational empathy. By choosing honesty over silence and practical value over platitudes, brands build an emotional bridge that carries them through the crisis and into a position of strength." > > -- Nathalie Gevresse, CEO, Publicis Communications ME --- ### FORCE 5: Resilience Under Pressure -- UAE Confidence and Team Steadiness Two findings sit at the heart of this chapter, and together they tell a story of remarkable institutional strength. First: confidence in the UAE is unanimous. One hundred percent of leaders selected at least one positive UAE trajectory statement. Ninety-four percent trust the government to protect the business environment. Seventy-eight percent believe the UAE will emerge in a stronger competitive position. Fifty-six percent would still recommend it as a place to invest today, in the middle of the disruption. This is not abstract sentiment. These are operators managing real P&Ls through real disruption, and their conviction in the country's governance, infrastructure, and crisis response is deeply grounded in experience. **Figure: UAE Confidence -- The Numbers That Matter** *Source: Resilience Business Pulse survey, n=66 respondents, April 2026.* A four-card statistic panel: - **Unanimous -- 100%** selected at least one positive UAE trajectory statement. - **Trust -- 94%** trust the UAE government to protect the business environment. - **Conviction -- 78%** believe the UAE will emerge in a stronger competitive position. - **Action -- 56%** would still recommend the UAE as a place to invest today, even during the crisis. > "The UAE government continues to demonstrate leadership, stability, and forward-looking governance. Their clear commitment to safeguarding people's wellbeing and maintaining economic confidence provides a strong foundation for recovery." > > -- Arda Arat, GM Gulf & Near East, Haleon > "Having operated in the UAE for over 30 years, we have strong confidence in the country's leadership and its ability to navigate any situation with agility and clarity. The UAE has consistently demonstrated resilience and forward-thinking." > > -- Walid Fakih, CEO, McDonald's > "What gives me confidence is that the underlying fundamentals of the UAE remain very strong. You still have population growth, inward investment, infrastructure development, and a clear ambition to position the country as a global hub." > > -- Frank Durrell, Group Chief Marketing Officer, Arada > "MEA will continue to be a powerhouse of growth, with its scale, high growth economies, sizable and young population, and per capita opportunities, representing the biggest potential. Those who exercise resilience with a strategic long-term vision will win in the end." > > -- Dalia Salib, CMO, Mars Middle East and Africa One striking detail: team morale is holding. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 5 represents normal, most sectors report morale at or near the midpoint despite moderate-to-serious business disruption. The overall average is 5.0. This is a resilience finding, not a warning. Leaders across the sample describe teams that are adapting, delivering, and supporting each other. The responses of empathy, flexibility, and presence from leadership are clearly working. > "First and foremost, UAE leadership. They have a proven track record of navigating crises with more clarity and decisiveness than most global powers and that's not rhetoric, that's the record." > > -- Pierre Choueiri, Chairman & CEO, Choueiri Group > "What makes me hopeful is simple: the unity of people here, the support structures, and the sheer enthusiasm to rebuild." > > -- Anonymous, Real Estate, Mid-Senior Management, Marketing **Strategic implication:** The combination of macro-confidence and team steadiness under pressure is the UAE's most important competitive asset right now. It means the human infrastructure for recovery is intact. Companies that invest in protecting this, through internal communications, leadership visibility, flexibility, and genuine support, are protecting their capacity to accelerate when conditions improve. Those that treat morale as an HR afterthought will face retention and productivity drag precisely when they can least afford it. --- ### FORCE 6: Digital and AI -- The Pivot to Operational Resilience Digital transformation in the UAE has moved beyond a "roadmap item" to become the operational backbone for surviving and thriving during a crisis. We are seeing a fundamental maturation of digital ecosystems. For instance, in Retail and in Hospitality, where technology is being used to bridge the gap between restricted physical movement and the rise of the "hosting economy." In Retail, the story is one of total e-commerce integration. No longer a secondary channel, digital commerce is now the primary engine for growth, requiring a sophisticated AI-driven backend to manage everything from predictive inventory to last-mile logistics. Similarly, the Hospitality sector has evolved to meet a massive shift in consumer behavior. The growth is concentrated in AI-optimized cloud kitchens that use data to anticipate demand spikes. Even the Fine Dining segment has successfully integrated temporary online solutions, moving beyond traditional table service to support the growing trend of premium at-home hosting and curated "in-residence" experiences. This could be for some a temporary pivot, but for others it could become a permanent expansion of how these brands deliver value. > "We accelerated website development and launched an AI agent — the crisis compressed our digital roadmap by months." > > -- Anonymous, Real Estate Mid-Senior Management, Marketing > "The resilience dividend is real, but in MENA it comes with an asterisk. Our consumers are among the most digitally fragmented in the world: multiple devices, multiple SIMs, lives that span borders. First-party data builds the foundation, but trust in a crisis is earned by the intelligence layer on top: reconciling fragmented signals into a coherent view of a person. The brands who crack that don't just reach people. They recognize them." > > -- Kareem Monem, CEO, Digitas ME > "The digital transformation roadmap has evolved to focus on building an internal infrastructure of talent and skills specifically to navigate artificial intelligence capabilities internally." > > -- Anonymous, Logistics, Mid-Senior Management > "Disruption doesn't pause for digital transformation roadmaps. When the mandate accelerates, whether that's food security, energy resilience, or continuity of critical services, the question isn't whether to act. It's how fast you can build something that works. That's exactly where we focus." > > -- Mounir Aris, Senior Managing Director, Delivery, Strategy, Sapient > "The shift we're seeing is from stress-testing resilience to governing it in practice. Boards are asking different questions now: not just where the risks are, but whether systems, partners, and people were designed for continuity in the first place and whether trust in data, operations, and leadership holds when conditions are strained." > > -- Amr Kamel, General Manager, Microsoft UAE > "Regulation is catching up with ambition. Vision 2030, Saudi Arabization mandates, UAE AI strategy, these aren't abstract national goals anymore, they're creating real compliance obligations for real organizations. When you have over 200 royal decrees making Arabic mandatory across contracts, disclosures, and digital services, the demand for Arabic-first technology becomes structural, not optional. That's the ground shift. Policy has become the accelerant." > > -- Nour Al Hassan, Founder & CEO, Arabic.AI & Tarjama > "AI can help companies move faster, operate smarter, and unlock better decisions across creativity, marketing, productivity, and customer experience. What matters now is practical adoption, responsible use, and making sure teams know how to apply AI in ways that create measurable impact." > > -- Hussein Freijeh, Vice President, APAC and Middle East, Snap Inc. > "Successful brands leverage AI to be more agile and stay relevant, extracting insights and responding with relevant communication. All in real time." > > -- Anthony Nakache, Managing Director, Google MENA **Strategic implication:** Digital and AI transformation is no longer about "doing what we do, but faster" -- it is about the ability to meet the consumer wherever they are. For retail and hospitality, the growth of e-commerce and premium delivery solutions proves that the relationship now lives in the data. The "Resilience Dividend" belongs to the leaders who have invested in CRM and 1:1 capabilities; they can navigate a crisis by offering utility and comfort directly to a consumer's home, ensuring the brand remains relevant even when the world outside feels uncertain. --- ## The Sector Scoreboard Not one crisis, but several. The disruption hitting the UAE business landscape is playing out very differently depending on where you sit. What follows is a ranking of sectors from most to least impacted, drawn from what leaders told us about the nature of the disruption they face, how demand is behaving, and how they are responding. | Sector | Nature of Impact | Demand Dynamic | Response Posture | | ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Automotive** | Deferred: High-ticket caution + supply chain delays. | Migration to Value + Consumers deferring + Population Impact. | Brand Maintenance: Protecting equity while pushing "Value/CPO" tiers. | | **Logistics** | Structural: international route disruption, cost inflation, order fulfilment gaps. | Critical: High demand for domestic and "Cold Chain" resilience. | Tech Acceleration: Using AI for agile routing and inventory forecasting. | | **Media & Advertising** | Transmitted: Client hesitancy is felt immediately in agency pipelines. | Demand declining moderately. A lagging indicator of broader confidence. | Budget reductions, accelerating AI and digital transformation. | | **FMCG** | Margin squeeze: Higher raw material costs vs. household price sensitivity. | Demand reshaping. Migrating channels and categories. Need to defend value VS cheaper products. | Budgets reallocated, not cut; investing to capture share. | | **Hospitality & Travel** | International inbound is sensitive to regional "flares," while the domestic market anchors stability through Staycations and the Hosting Economy. Quieter period being used to fast-track renovations. | Decline in traditional dine-in VS surge in at-home delivery. Focus on staycations. International travel is "Spring-Loaded," surging during windows of regional calm. | Lock in local residents for staycations; maintaining "Always-On" readiness to capture sudden international waves. | | **Real Estate** | Sentiment-driven: demand more selective, consolidating around trust and long-term value. | Demand still present but more considered. Buyers deliberate, not absent. | Pivoting to digital, influencer, and AI; staying active to hold position. | | **Banking / Finance** | Counter-cyclical: financial services demand steady or rising during uncertainty. | Demand growing. People need banking more, not less. | Trust Leadership: Communication focused on resilience and stability. And supporting people and businesses with crisis-focused solutions. | | **Tech & Telecom** | Essential Utility: Regional tension makes digital connectivity a baseline for safety and "WFH" stability. | Value-Driven: Surging volume but high price sensitivity; consumers are shopping for bundles and "Essential" tiers. | Utility-Led Growth: Gaining market share by launching community support packages that emphasize utility over profit. | | **Healthcare** | Systemic Anchor: Stress-driven demand for wellbeing, preventative care, and "Connected Care" ecosystems. | Proactive: High demand for telehealth and for mental health services. Non-essential services might get delayed. | Brand Through Presence: Building long-term equity by showing up as a support system. Messaging focuses on "Stability-as-a-Service" and reliability. | ### Voices from the Sectors **On FMCG -- Consumer Health** > "Two shifts are defining consumer behavior right now. First, value consciousness. People are making more deliberate choices with every purchase. Second, there's a real acceleration toward self-care and preventative health. Consumers are more informed than ever: reading labels, investing in oral health, vitamins, pain management, before they ever see a doctor. People want to own their health. That plays directly into Haleon's purpose." > > -- Arda Arat, GM Gulf & Near East, Haleon **On Real Estate** > "Buyers are asking more questions around trust, location, long-term value, and credibility. That's being driven by a combination of global uncertainty, increased supply, and the fact that customers today are better informed." > > -- Frank Durrell, Group Chief Marketing Officer, Arada **On Hospitality -- QSR** > "In the quick service restaurant sector, we are seeing continued growth in delivery, alongside more demand in community-based restaurants. Customers are increasingly choosing convenience and proximity, opting for brands they trust." > > -- Walid Fakih, CEO, McDonald's **On Media & Advertising** > "I expect conditions to improve meaningfully over the next two to three quarters, but unevenly across sectors. Performance-led categories and more domestic demand pockets tend to stabilize first, while broader brand budgets usually come back as confidence and planning visibility improve. Many advertisers are deferring and scenario-planning rather than making permanent structural cuts." > > -- Hussein Freijeh, Vice President, APAC and Middle East, Snap Inc. **On Luxury** > "E-commerce for lifestyle and fashion held up strongly, particularly among more affluent consumers. Discretionary spend didn't disappear, it moved online." > > -- Anonymous, Banking Senior Leader **On FMCG -- Food** > "We've been through 2008, COVID, supply shocks, currency swings. Every crisis built more muscle. At this point, volatility isn't a threat. It's the environment we were built for." > > -- Anonymous, FMCG, Senior Leader **On Hospitality -- Hotels** > "When travellers stop coming, the revenue impact is immediate, there's no lag, it hits the top line in real time. But even through that, we paused everything and still came back to the same conclusion: the crisis is operational, not structural. The UAE fundamentals haven't moved." > > -- Anonymous, Mid-level Leader, Marketing **On Logistics** > "Meaningful recovery requires two things: a return to peaceful conditions, and uninterrupted, redundant supply chain options. One without the other doesn't work." > > -- Anonymous, Logistics, Mid-Senior Management **On Banking** > "The UAE's regulatory environment is genuinely forward-leaning, the Central Bank has been pragmatic about enabling digital banking while maintaining rigorous oversight. That combination is rare globally. The structural drivers are already favourable: a young, digitally native population, increasing demand for Shariah-compliant products, and a regulatory framework that supports innovation. Our trajectory targets meaningful profitability this year and substantial scaling over the next four years." > > -- Anonymous, Banking, Senior Leader **On Technology & AI** > "Three things are happening simultaneously and they're compounding each other. First, the move from AI as a tool to AI as an agent. Clients aren't just asking for outputs anymore, they want systems that take actions, manage workflows, and operate autonomously within their environments. Second, the demand for on-premise and hybrid deployment has gone from niche to mainstream, especially in government and financial services. Third, and most importantly for us, there is a growing recognition that language is infrastructure. The quality of your Arabic AI isn't a feature decision, it's a foundational one that determines whether your AI actually works for the 400 million Arabic speakers it's meant to serve." > > -- Nour Al Hassan, Founder & CEO, Arabic.AI & Tarjama --- ## The Recovery Framework **What the data tells us about what comes next** Across every sector and seniority level, leaders describe recovery as a gated sequence, not a single event. The data reveals a consistent three-gate model that emerged independently across interviews: **Figure: The Sequential Recovery Model** *Source: Resilience Business Pulse Interviews, April 2026.* Three sequential gates that recovery must pass through: - **Gate 1 -- Clarity & Stability.** Geopolitical de-escalation and government signaling. Binding constraint for all sectors. - **Gate 2 -- Population & Demand Return.** Tourism restart, resident return, consumer confidence rebuilding. Binding constraint for Hospitality, Food Service, and Analytics. - **Gate 3 -- Supply Chain Normalization.** Route restoration, cost stabilization, on-shelf availability. Binding constraint for FMCG, Automotive, and Logistics. | Gate | Description | | -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **GATE 1: Clarity and Stability** | Geopolitical de-escalation and government signaling. Leaders cite this as the non-negotiable precondition. Until the external environment stabilizes, all other recovery drivers remain theoretical. The UAE government's crisis management, business-friendly policies, and proactive communication are consistently named as the reason confidence has held. | | **GATE 2: Demand Uplift** | Tourism restart, resident return, and consumer confidence rebuilding. Multiple sectors, from hospitality to food service to real estate, link recovery directly to footfall and population. FMCG leaders frame it as penetration-driven: recovery depends on total consumers in-market, not on spending per capita. Real estate leaders expect demand to reinstate rapidly once confidence returns. | | **GATE 3: Supply Chain Normalization** | Route restoration, cost stabilization, and on-shelf availability. This is the longest gate to clear. Even as demand returns, supply chain constraints will compress margins and limit the pace of recovery. Leaders with diversified sourcing and three-month stock buffers are positioned to capture share during this phase; those without are exposed. | > "I'd expect a period of adjustment over the next six to twelve months rather than anything more prolonged. In our category, recovery isn't always gradual, it can reinstate rapidly, so the focus now is making sure we're ready to accelerate when it does." > > -- Frank Durrell, Group Chief Marketing Officer, Arada > "Separate the signal from the noise. The UAE's fundamentals such as regulatory clarity, infrastructure quality, population growth, fiscal position haven't deteriorated. If anything, disruption has accelerated structural reform here, not reversed it. The investment case isn't speculative; it's backed by observable capital flows, demographic tailwinds, and a government that treats economic diversification as a national security priority. Boards that pull back now will spend more re-entering later." > > -- Anonymous, Banking, Senior Leader > "Resilience here is not reactive: it is designed, institutionalised, and reinforced over decades. For global boards evaluating their exposure to the region, that distinction matters." > > -- Amr Kamel, General Manager, Microsoft UAE --- ### The Consolidation Thesis: Who Gains Share One of the clearest signals in the data is that large, well-capitalized companies are not simply weathering the disruption. They are using it to consolidate market position. This is not speculation. Leaders are saying it explicitly. > "Pulling back now doesn't just cost you current revenue; it costs you the right to lead when the recovery accelerates." > > -- Arda Arat, General Manager, Haleon > "MEA is a resilient region and its potential is much larger than its problematic state. Those who will exercise resilience with a strategic long-term vision will win in the end." > > -- Dalia Salib, CMO, Mars Middle East and Africa > "When the pressure came, what held was the fact that we had spent 18 years going deeper into Arabic, into its dialects, its legal terminology, its medical language, its cultural nuance, rather than building a wide, shallow product that looked good in a demo. Clients don't just want AI anymore. They want AI they can stake their compliance and their reputation on. That depth is what we have and what's very hard to replicate quickly." > > -- Nour Al Hassan, Founder & CEO, Arabic.AI & Tarjama --- ### The Sources of Confidence When asked what gives them confidence in the next twelve months, leaders consistently cite four sources, in this order of frequency: | # | Source | Detail | | --- | --------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1 | **UAE governance and infrastructure** | Crisis management, business-friendly policy, digital infrastructure, economic diversification. The single most cited confidence driver across all sectors. | | 2 | **Financial resilience and balance sheet strength** | Solid balance sheets, multinational group backing, diversified client portfolios. The ability to absorb short-term losses without structural damage. | | 3 | **Team quality and operational agility** | Strong leadership, resilient local teams, culture of trust and flexibility. Leaders credit the people closest to the market with holding operations together under pressure. | | 4 | **Brand strength and consumer trust** | Established brands that consumers gravitate toward during uncertainty. Brand love and trust as a structural buffer that smaller or newer competitors cannot replicate. | What is notable about this list is what does not appear on it. No leader cited external forecasts, analyst consensus, or macroeconomic indicators as a primary confidence source. Confidence in the UAE market is grounded in direct experience: experience of the country's governance, experience of their own operational resilience, and experience of their teams' ability to perform under pressure. This is earned confidence, not inherited optimism. --- ## Three Things to Do Monday Morning This report was designed to be useful, not decorative. Below are three actions grounded directly in the data, designed for leaders who need to make decisions this week, not this quarter. | # | Action | Detail | | --- | -------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 01 | **Map Your Recovery Gates** | Identify which of the three recovery gates (stability, demand return, supply normalization) matters most to your business. Build a trigger-based plan, not a calendar-based plan. Define what signals tell you each gate has opened, and what you activate when it does. If you are in hospitality or food service, Gate 2 (population return) is your binding constraint. If you are in FMCG, it is Gate 3 (supply chain). Plan accordingly. | | 02 | **Decide Whether You Are Consolidating or Being Consolidated** | The data is unambiguous: well-capitalized companies are investing through the downturn to capture share from those who pulled back. If you have the balance sheet, this is the moment to increase visibility, lock in supplier terms, and attract talent. If you do not, the priority shifts to protecting core margins and securing partnerships that give you staying power. There is no neutral position. Inaction is a choice that benefits your competitors. | | 03 | **Reallocate Media Toward Where Demand Is Moving** | Consumers have not stopped spending. They have shifted channels, adjusted price points, and changed what they respond to. Your media strategy needs to follow them. Shift investment from awareness-only channels toward performance, e-commerce, and lower-funnel activations. Build pre-crisis search and intent infrastructure now, before competitors do. Use CTV as the bridge between brand and performance. The Performics data shows that the brands maintaining share of voice during the disruption are entering recovery with a measurable advantage. | --- ## The Evidence for Optimism This report began with a hypothesis: that the reality on the ground was more nuanced and more promising, than the prevailing narrative. The data confirmed it. One hundred percent confidence in the UAE's trajectory. Ninety-four percent trust in the government to protect the business environment. Seventy-eight percent conviction that the country will emerge in a stronger competitive position. Fifty-six percent willing to recommend it as an investment destination today, in the middle of the disruption. A market that is reshaping demand, not destroying it. Leaders who are investing through the cycle, not retreating from it. Teams whose morale is holding near-normal despite real operational pressure. A language of recovery that is practical, forward-looking, and grounded in evidence rather than hope. The crisis is not over. Supply chains remain stressed. Some sectors are absorbing severe margin compression. The path from here to full recovery runs through multiple gates that will open on different timelines. None of this should be minimized. But the defining characteristic of the UAE business community in this moment is not anxiety. It is agency. Leaders are not waiting for the storm to pass. They are navigating through it with clear eyes, operational discipline, and the confidence that comes from having done this before. > **The best recoveries are not waited for. They are built. The evidence in these pages suggests the building has already begun.**