Top risks for doing business in Europe, Middle East and Africa

One of the things I’m really enjoying since becoming CEO of Zurich’s Europe, Middle East & Africa business in October is the diversity of businesses in the region. From Turkey to Ireland, from Germany to the United Arab Emirates, from Russia to Switzerland and much more beyond. A wonderful blend of people, languages, cultures and markets across the 20+ countries I’m excited to lead.

We have one important thing in common – we’re passionate about protecting our customers and their businesses from the not-so-good things that may happen to them in life. This frees them up to focus on doing what they want to.

But just how diverse is the overall geography of this part of the World I am now working in? It’s been interesting for me to have a sneak preview of the just released Regional Risk for Doing Business Report 2018 of the World Economic Forum in partnership with Zurich. It shows the differences in how risks are perceived in different parts of the World. I’m not sure whether to be concerned or comforted that there is strong agreement that the stand out risk for Europe is cyber-attacks. Both Germany and the UK rate this as their number one and it’s also a growing concern in the Middle East. As society becomes more dependent on technology, hackers become more capable of delivering widespread harm. It’s critical for all businesses, large and small, to take this into account as we ‘progress’ to build new systems and capabilities to serve our customers.

You can, of course, also see country-specific issues coming through in the WEF’s Regional Risks for Doing Business report. For example, France concerned about unemployment. Italy concerned about potential financial crisis given local fragilities and some nervousness of this across the region too.  Perhaps we should not be surprised to see failure of national governance a concern in some countries. In the UK this has shot up the rankings which is almost certainly due to the strains of Brexit.

My conclusion? There’s plenty of diversity to keep me happy and there are certainly plenty of challenges to turn into opportunities. Enough to keep me busy for a lifetime! When I really think about it … perhaps what we, as human beings, really like is the challenge. I’m in.