Business

Foreseeing better futures, and implementing effective strategies, has always been at the heart of all that we do at Deloitte. Over the past year, no challenge was too big or too small; our practitioners were ready to put their expertise forward and strive to make an impact that matters. As we look into the future, our teams continue to be prepared to take on the responsibilities and challenges that come along with it.

Deloitte's expertise in data analytics helps drive business strategies and performance, manage and alleviate risks, and allow for organizations to meet their goals by becoming more insight and data driven. This positioned Deloitte to be a key collaborator with Expo 2020 in Dubai to map out their visitor journeys prior to the event and subsequently assist operating the 'Visitor Analytics' function during the event.

Expo 2020 Dubai was the first of its kind to take place in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. Hosting 192 country pavilions under the theme "Connecting Minds, Creating the Future," this outstanding event attracted more than twenty-four million visitors over its six-month duration. With the intention of offering the best visitor experiences and services to deliver 'The World's Greatest Show,' it was inevitable for data and analytics to play a key role in achieving this ambitious vision. Deloitte effectively completed its work with Expo 2020 Dubai to deliver analytics on visitor experience for the event, aimed at enhancing the entire visitor journey and attracting more visitors throughout its duration. Through data analytics, Deloitte was able to identify and generate clear insights to propose recommendations on the user experience, all the way to departing the event and post-event satisfaction.

Deloitte and Expo 2020 Dubai joined forces to deliver the goal of being the most data-driven Expo to date, and co-created the structure and capabilities of the data and insights team where analytics played a key role in achieving the goal. The capability created was crafted along the customer journey to identify touchpoints and determine what data could be captured to enhance the best experience for visitors.

Mohanaselvan Jeyapalan, Vice President, Portfolio Management Office Expo 2020 Dubai, had this to say about the Expo 2020 Data Insights programme: "Expo 2020's efforts in data availability, correlating and interrogating data to help find answers to visitors' current issues and predict future challenges enabled ephemeral decision making a requirement for our business and thereby helped achieve our objectives. As days went by, every data point told us a story on its own."

Tim Parr, CEO, Consulting, Deloitte Middle East, had this to say about this successful venture: "It was very exciting to collaborate with Expo 2020 Dubai on enhancing the visitor journey for the duration of the event. Through the data and insights team and producing AI-led daily and weekly insight reports and topic-based insights reports, we were able to generate insights and analytics that would allow an enhanced and improved visitor experience to the Expo 2020 Dubai site. Questions like how do visitors behave, what did they experience onsite, and what did they post on social media following the event, enabled tailored experiences to be created for visitors."

Scott Barlow, Director, Portfolio Management Office Expo 2020 Dubai, said: "Expo 2020's Data & Insights team were supported by Deloitte throughout the machine learning lifecycle, from calibration of our problem statements and development of data integration pipelines through to the application of advanced artificial intelligence techniques to identify opportunities to enhance and influence strategic decision-making. Driven by this support, the Data & Insights team had a robust footing to make data insights available and accessible to senior leadership during event time through reports with distilled insights and recommendations."

Building a solid foundation
The three key pillars that contributed to the success of analytics at Expo 2020 Dubai were:

• Audience – understanding the target audiences and their journeys;
• Data – mapping data capture and data collection points to the visitor journey and consolidating the various sources of data into a single repository; and
• Analytics and insights – cutting through the noise to use analytics to answer impactful questions and provide distilled insights and recommendations.

Target audiences
Expo 2020 Dubai welcomed a wide range of visitors, both domestic and international, from school children and families, to business leaders and dignitaries. It was vital to have identified these audiences and to map out their visitor journeys ahead of the event. With this in place, touchpoints where data was collected could be mapped out along the journeys, which provided insight into
visitor satisfaction and behavior.

Data collection
Data was collected at different points along the visitor journeys:

• Ticket purchases which provided basic demographic data for those purchasing through B2C as well as information on ticket upgrades;
• Ticket scans which allowed for the tracking of purchase to visit lead times, visitor arrival times, and the number of visits per ticket holder;
• Visitor satisfaction which was captured daily through surveys completed by visitors;
• Social media data which allowed for the tracking of visitor sentiment and to better understand the 'buzz' created by visitors about their experience at Expo 2020 Dubai; and
• Spend data across F&B and retail.
  

Being able to unlock value from these various sources was dependent on making it accessible to the teams within the required refresh frequencies in order to be able to deliver insights at pace. To this end, a cloud-based data and insights platform was implemented that consolidated the various data points in both near-real time and batches. The data was then made available to analysts through curated datasets to minimize time spent on data
cleaning and transformation.

Analytics and insights
Visitor analytics was focused on understanding who the visitors were, how they behaved, what they experienced onsite, what their spend behavior was onsite, and what they posted on social media about their experience; as well as how to increase visitation and repeat visitation.

Visitor satisfaction was tracked through NPS along with visitor satisfaction being rated across over 50 services and attractions across the event. The key factors of success depended on being able to provide insight at pace with which Expo 2020 Dubai leadership could use to make data driven decisions at pace. To this end, insights were provided through several mechanisms:

• Scheduled milestone reports;

• Topic-based reports such as demographic specific reports, live-event experience reports, and reports measuring the lasting impact that Expo 2020 Dubai made; and
• An on-demand help desk equipped to conduct rapid analysis to provide answers to specific questions.
  

Examples of topic-based reports include those that:

• Monitored visitor experience across multiple touchpoints along the visitor journey, such as attractions, pavilions, F&B, concerts, and exhibitions;
• Provided insight into the impact that Expo 2020 Dubai had on future generations;
• Provided insights to better understand the visitor journey for different demographics, which enabled tailored experiences to be created. 

The data also revealed numerous interesting trends in terms of visitor behavior, such as how the ticket-purchase to visit lead times varied amongst the different nationalities. One key observation was the change in peak arrival times from October to the remaining months of the event. This change in behavior can be attributed to 2 main factors: the cooler weather in the subsequent months, which allowed visitors to arrive earlier during the day and the amount of time required to experience Expo 2020 Dubai. As visitors returned, they realized they would need more time to explore the site and began arriving earlier and spending more time onsite. Another observation witnessed was the strong correlation between NPS and visit duration.

The success of these mechanisms can be seen by having had the NPS increase within the first two weeks of the Expo and by Expo 2020 Dubai achieving over twenty-four million visitors at a time when many countries around the world were still in lockdown or subject to travel restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic. Being able to provide distilled insights and recommendations allowed Expo 2020 Dubai leadership to swiftly take action and address visitor feedback.

Other areas of impact included F&B, where more vegan and vegetarian food options were provided to visitors as a direct result of their visitor feedback. Expo 2020 Dubai further went on to host a Vegan Food Festival.

Breaking new ground to build a system for the future 
Deloitte Middle East has led an innovative digitalisation programme to implement a leading national e-invoicing solution in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It will have a hugely positive impact on the country's government, businesses, and citizens.

As KSA moves away from a predominantly oilbased economy in a bid to generate sustainable economic growth, like most of the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries, it has seen the introduction of VAT and Excise tax in 2017/2018. For KSA, rolling out a national electronic invoicing platform is the next step towards enhancing a modern and sustainable e-invoicing economy. This will support a digitalised tax and fiscal eco-system.

For our client, Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the ambition was to connect the entire ecosystem, so buyers and suppliers could exchange e-invoices securely.

Benefiting environment and economy
With increased automation reducing paper use, digitalisation is more sustainable. But it also makes transactions more efficient – which improves the user experience, with faster payments and reduced costs. Plus, e-invoicing gives the government better insight on market conditions, enabling fairer competition and improving consumer protection, all in line with international best practices. 

Improved security is another factor. This is aided by a QR code on invoices, receipts and credit notes that, once scanned, provides instant verification and speeds up clearance.

"When I first saw the QR code on a coffee receipt, I was so excited – we had supported introducing technology capabilities that empower citizens and the government to easily verify the authenticity of a transaction," says Anbreen Khan, Tax Partner, Deloitte Middle East, who was involved in the
project from the outset.

E-invoicing also means the government can better monitor the movement of goods, services, and money, helping to reduce fraud and tax evasion. It can glean real-time insights on national economic performance across sectors, using invoices and VAT owed in a given period as a pulse-check. This then feeds into fiscal strategy.

Consulting Partner, Deloitte Middle East, Jamil Hamati adds, "From an economic and commercial standpoint, e-invoicing makes it easier and much more efficient for everyone to do business in a secure and digitally improved environment. It also allows the government to generate insights that can inform its fiscal strategy. For me what's important is that our team worked really closely with the technology teams at ZATCA to deliver this national scale project."

A global milestone 
Implementing a project like this on a national scale called for a range of disciplines, from tax expertise and analytics to business model design, technology design expertise, and cyber security. "It was a true global effort," says Hamati. "We learnt from colleagues across Deloitte, including teams in North and South Europe – specifically Deloitte Central Mediterranean – as well as India, China, and South America," he adds.

For Consulting Director, Deloitte Middle East, Philip Sinclair, the work pushed technological boundaries. "It has been amazing to implement a platform on a national scale using cutting-edge technology," he says. "This platform will ultimately handle over five billion transactions a year."

E-invoicing may have been a first for KSA, but it was an important milestone for Deloitte too.

"For me, it's a vision come true," continues Khan. "It's one of the most important national initiatives, and the most important national project undertaken as a tax authority since the introduction of VAT. That makes the team and I really proud to have been part of this important national infrastructure."

The Gulf Corporation Council consists of KSA, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.

Changes in regulation and tax reform continue to be on the rise in the Middle East. On 31 January 2022, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will introduce a federal corporate tax (CT) on business profits that will be effective for financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023.

The introduction of CT is intended to help the UAE achieve its strategic objectives and accelerate its development and transformation. The certainty of a competitive regime, together with the UAE's extensive network of double tax treaties, will cement the UAE's position as a leading hub for businesses and investments.

The UAE CT regime has been designed to incorporate best practices globally and minimize the compliance burden on businesses. CT will be payable on the profits of UAE businesses as reported in their financial statements prepared in accordance with international accounting standards, with minimal exceptions and adjustments.

With the announcements made, there is clarity around some of the main components of the CT regulations including, but not limited to, timing, scope, tax base, and rate. Businesses can start the thought process in terms of what the implementation phase may require. The implications can be far-reaching, and tax and finance teams should work on developing a roadmap.

As a first step, businesses should gain a good understanding of the required changes in order to be able to fully assess the implications. These changes might apply to the legal structure, business model, contracting and (transfer) pricing, accounting and profit, systems and data, and organizational structure (e.g., tax function). Tax and finance teams should be ready to start conversations with the different departments and stakeholders within the business around the anticipated impacts.

With these end goals in mind, Deloitte has developed a four-phased approach to help businesses achieve day one readiness, taking into consideration their own individual needs. Below is an overview of the various phases:

Phase 1: Impact assessment - before issuance of the CT law and regulations

• Perform a high-level qualitative/conceptual impact technical assessment based on the announcement made with a view to identify gaps as well as opportunities;
• Such assessment will focus on tax technical and systems issues but will also touch on wider concerns; and
• Build a preliminary roadmap for change.

 
Phase 2: Detailed assessment, design, and planning - after issuance of the CT law and regulations

• Validate the high-level impact assessment and perform a more detailed assessment; and
• Perform a quantitative impact assessment.

 
Phase 3: Implementation support - before CT effective date

• Implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems changes;
• Implement legal structure/business model changes; and
• Change tax operating models and implement adequate tax governance tools.

 
Phase 4: Post-implementation support - ongoing

• Provide ongoing tax advisory/implementation support;
• Assist with the preparation and submission of tax returns;
• Communicate with the tax office; and
• Assist with the preparation of appeals.
  

In phase one, businesses should start performing a high-level qualitative/conceptual impact assessment based on the announcement made with a view to identify gaps, as well as opportunities.

When preparing for the transition to CT, UAE businesses must consider various factors to ensure readiness from a technology perspective. These factors include assessing the extent of integration with current business processes, the sophistication and knowledge of the existing IT architecture and systems within the organization, and the extent of CT process automation that an organization wants to achieve.

Deloitte has created a complete set of "go to market" materials to help businesses understand the current state impacts and the extent of work required to meet the challenges of the implementation ahead. These materials include client webinars, tax alerts, a service offering brochure, a survey to gauge client readiness, FAQ's document, and a series of articles that are issued on a monthly basis. All of these materials are accessible on the Deloitte website under Corporate Tax in the UAE.

Deloitte has already supported a number of businesses throughout their readiness phases. Based on our experience so far in the market, businesses are advised to start preparing. It is important to consider that this a marathon and not a sprint. There is a great deal to be done for every business to be able to achieve day one UAE CT compliance.

It is undisputable how cyber security tactics have become absolutely essential for public and private entities. As individuals, corporations, and government agencies continue to envelop the dynamic, digital world more and more, it becomes clear that cyber security must be at the top of the agenda. This is where Deloitte came into play this year with proven expertise in effective cyber risk management and technical knowledge to make an impact that matters.

This past March, Deloitte and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Cyber Security Council (CSC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to engage in activities that support their cyber security agenda. This allowed Deloitte and the CSC to effectively join forces and utilize Deloitte's expertise and experience in UAE cyber security, while also employing useful practices that are globally-recognized to support the cyber security agenda. Creating computer emergency response team (CERT) guidelines, cyber trainings, cyber security strategies, as well as establishing a child online protection framework, were just some of the innovative ways Deloitte aimed to assist. The development of such initiatives clearly leads to greater protection for citizens, corporations, and nations against cyber threats, which are more and more prevalent in our economic geopolitical landscape of today.

Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cyber Security for the UAE government, had this to say about the partnership with Deloitte: "Our collaboration with Deloitte is a joint effort to create and build local cyber security capabilities and talent to support the UAE 'Projects of the 50' initiative, and signals our commitment to a secure digital transformation and a knowledge economy." He also expressed: "We want to ensure that cyber security grows into a thriving and sustainable sector within the national economy for decades to come."

Collaborations such as this one with the Cyber Security Council are not only for building confidence and capability within the UAE and the rest of the Middle East, but for also doing so worldwide in order to embrace global cooperation and extend support in the fight against cyber threats.