Think | Q1 2010

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timewriter.

In 1821 Nicolas Rieussec invented the first chronograph, a revolutionary device with two rotating discs beneath an index with an ink-filled tip that left a mark on the dials to indicate the time. Taking the essence of his invention, Montblanc has created a time-keeping masterpiece incorporating the rotating disc technique: the Montblanc Nicolas Rieussec.

Monopusher chronograph, self-winding manufacture movement. 13 3/4 lines, large screw-balance of 9.7 mm, 4 Hz. Off-centre hour, minute and date display. Second time-zone with day-night display. 30 min. and 60 sec. counters with rotating discs fixed on the counter bridge. Column wheel control, vertical disc clutch running virtually friction-free. Special toothing for more efficient power transmission. 72-hour power reserve display, sapphire glass back. 43 mm stainless steel case, alligator-skin strap. Crafted in the Montblanc Manufacture in Le Locle, Switzerland.

Montblanc Boutiques Jeddah: Red Sea Mall, Jeddah, 02 657 3939; Corniche Street, Al Hamra, 02 651 1135 | Al Khobar: Rashid Mall, 02 657 3939 www.montblanc.com

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P E R S P E C T I V E

24 Competitive Forces Competition drives productivity and commerce, causing each company and country to operate at its optimum level.

38 Warming up to the Cashmere Challenge Behind this luxury fibre is an industry combating shortages, high demand, fraud and environmental destruction.

50 medical intervention Is the franchising of top hospital brands, similar to the franchising of coffee, the new wave for expanding quality healthcare internationally?

30 Cloud+Clear Evolving and ubiquitous, high technology is bringing the world together in an age of compeitiveness, while encouraging collaboration.

42 beautiful investments The growing vanity business is helping both men and women maintain a youthful outlook by means of creams, treatments and procedures.

54 deadly threat The cost of diabetes in real terms as well as human suffering is escalating as this complex disease spreads around the globe.

34 The Bilbao Effect Can another architectural masterpiece repeat the economic effect Gehry’s Guggenheim design had on Bilbao, Spain?

46 food, feed or fuel Versitile corn plays a multitude of roles in today’s economy, posing the question, “What is the best use of resources and production?”

58 sporting chance Athletics can make Olympic champions of competitors of all levels, regardless of mental abilities or location.

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“Whenever you face a man who’s playing your instrument, there’s a competition.”

Wynton Marsalis

64 tactical sailing In an age of fluctuating economies, the business of high-powered, high dollar super yachts stays afloat by going green.

68 The lap of luxury When travelling in the Middle East for business or pleasure, a plethora of new and soon-to-open hotels offer the ultimate in hospitality.

74 style Discover new products that give you and your office that all-important competitive edge with a powerful, professional look.

78 looking forward from behind the lens Internationally acclaimed and award-winning photographer Faisal Almalki captures images with a new perspective.

regulars 13 spectrum

International achievements present a new perspective on the world of business and commerce.

19 art on the edge

The international art scene reports decreasing prices for masterpieces and increasing interest in Arabic artists.

The A-List of Business books

Golf Futures

Michael Dell

83 books for thought 84 thinking ahead 86 visionary

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COVER PHOTOGRAPHY

Faisal Almalki

Obaid Humaid Al Tayer Ian Fairservice Gina Johnson Jonathan Griffiths

Editor-in-Chief Group Editor + Managing Partner Group Senior Editor General Manager – Special Projects

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Design Studio Steve Hill, Joanne Molina, Ruby Rogers, Lisa Vincenti, Richard Warren

design International Correspondents

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EDITORIAL LIAISON – sagia Aseel A Al-Zamil

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Motivate Publishing LLC, on behalf of Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority, publishes THINK quarterly. SAGIA and Motivate Publishing do not accept liability for errors or omissions contained in this publication for whatever reason, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of SAGIA or of the publishers. SAGIA and the publishers take no responsibility for the goods and services advertised. All materials are protected by copyright. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright owner, except as may be permitted by applicable laws.

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q1 2010 Sakrin Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey; opened 2009

THINK In A New Direction THINK’s new editorial focus has been expanded to inspire you to reTHINK and re-examine your opinions on today’s vital issues.

In this issue, THINK contemplates sustainable competitiveness to rebuild the world’s economic arena, presenting global issues at a time when innovative thinking is essential for success.

Regardless of who you are, where you are, or what you are, in order to be competitive today you must redesign your priorities and THINK about new markets and how to view world opportunities, such as those offered in the new Saudi Arabia, from a strategic vantage point.

Most of all, we would like you to think with us, and as a global THINKer we look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Catherine Belbin, Senior Editor

THINK@motivate.ae

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<INBUSINESS> Bloomberg

with Margaret Brennan

WEEKDAYS 10:00 ET | 18:00 AST

Bloomberg TELEVISION

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GLOBAL economics written by steve hill

New investments, travel accolades, rising rankings and sky-high building plans indicate blossoming economic recovery in an expanding variety of international sectors.

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spectrum

Travel Awards Centre of attention

More than 70 million people are expected to visit the Shanghai World Expo, which takes place from May 1 to October 31.

The event, which has the theme Better City, Better Life, is set to be the biggest in World Trade Fair History with around 200 countries and 45 international organisations taking part. The 5.28 square kilometre site spans both sides of the Huangpu River and is 20 times larger than the venue for the 2008 Expo in Zaragoza, Spain.

The Shanghai Expo will also showcase the work of many leading architectural companies, including the Bjarke Ingels Group, whose design for the Danish pavilion features a series of Copenhagen experiences. Foster and Partners’ design for the United Arab Emirates pavilion, meanwhile, has been inspired by the form of a sand dune.

ready for take off Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) is set to modernise its fleet by buying 58 aircraft boasting the most advanced facilities, including A320s, A321s and A330s, from Airbus. A SR10 billion (US$2.6bn) contract has been signed with the French company to help Saudia meet global challenges.

Most competitive financial centres 1. Singapore 2. London (UK) 3. New York (US) 4. Hong Kong 5. Zurich (Switzerland) 6. Tokyo (Japan) 7. Dubai Intl. Financial Centre (UAE) 8. Frankfurt (Germany) 9. Luxembourg 10. Dubai (UAE) 11. Paris (France) 12. Dublin (Ireland) 13. Doha (Qatar) 14. Manama (Bahrain) 15. Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) Source: DIFC

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Virgin Atlantic has been voted Best International Airline in the seventh annual Travel Weekly Readers’ Choice Awards, which recently took place in New York.

The Business/First Class award went to Singapore Airlines while St Regis, on Bora Bora in French Polynesia, lifted the Best Worldwide Resort prize.

Rome and Italy were voted the best European city and country destination, with Sydney and Australia taking the plaudits for the Asia/Pacific region.

Simply capital Germany’s Ruhr River Valley has undergone such a dramatic transformation that it has been named a European Capital of Culture for 2010.

The former industrial heartland, which covers a region of five million people and 53 cities and towns, is to

host some 2,500 events this year.

Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, is also a capital of culture for the year.

In celebration, the Ataturk Culture Centre has been refurbished, while the Maslak Cultural Centre is opening as a new venue for performing arts.

Common goals

Tall story

Members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have moved a step closer to establishing a common currency as well as reaching agreement on a huge railway network and common power grid network.

Four of the members – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – have ratified a pact that will next year establish a GCC monetary council, which is seen as paving the way for a Riyadh-based central bank.

The GCC, which also includes Oman and the United Arab Emirates, has given the green light to establishing a railway authority that will construct around 2,000km of track costing up to US$25 billion.

And the electricity networks of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain are to be linked under the first phase of a GCC power grid project. Oman and the UAE are set to take part in the second phase of the scheme.

Burj Khalifa officially entered the record books on January 4, 2010 as the world’s tallest building at 828 metres and 160 storeys tall, but it may not be long before Emaar’s “vertical city” is dwarfed by an even taller structure. The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merril (SOM), who designed the sky-piercing Dubai tower, is already at work on a proposal for another Emaar project, the 1,000+ metre Kingdom Tower, which is destined to become the focal point of the ambitious Kingdom City development in Jeddah.

South Africa ready for kick off South Africa is not expected to be a serious challenger to lift the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which will be held in the Rainbow Nation from June 11-July 11, but the first African nation to host the biggest sporting event on the planet is on to a clear winner away from the pitch.

Auditing company Grant Thornton predicts that the football tournament will pump an estimated US$7.46 billion into the South African economy, creating around 415,000 new jobs.

Construction work on five new sports stadiums, major renovations on five more and extensive upgrades to airports, plus improvements to the country’s road and rail networks, will have an impact for years to come.

It is believed that the World Cup will attract three million visitors, while an international television audience of billions will tune in to watch the exploits of players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, further boosting South Africa’s tourism industry.

good as gold

Top of the table

Saudi Arabia is the leading foreign direct investment destination in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), according to figures released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

The Kingdom received just over US$114 billion, which equates to almost half the total amount sent

to the six member countries of the GCC, followed by the United Arab Emirates (US$69 billion) and Qatar (US$22 billion).

The figures revealed that more than US$90 billion in direct investments flowed to Saudi Arabia from 2004-08 thanks to reforms aimed at diversifying an oil-reliant economy.

Between the lines The Kindle electronic book reader was a marketing phenomenon in 2009, and looks set to become even more popular after online retailer Amazon’s Christmas sales of e-books trumped purchases of traditional hard and paperback publications for the first time.

The Kindle Reader saves time – a book can be downloaded on to the device in just 60 seconds – and

space, as it can currently hold up to 1,500 books. It is also good for the planet thanks to the number of trees that no longer have to be cut down to be turned into paper.

It is estimated that around three million e-readers were sold in the United States in 2009 and that number is expected to double this year with rivals such as the Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble’s Nook also challenging for customers.

Setting sail Construction work is due to begin in 2012 on Utopia, a US$1.1 billion ocean liner which has been conceived as a floating luxury residence.

The 105,000-tonne ship will feature 200 private residences, a 204-room boutique hotel, spa, theatre, nightclub, restaurants and swimming pools.

Residences will range from two to five-bedroom homes and will vary in size from 130 to 610 square metres.

Utopia, the third passenger ship to be built by South Korean company Samsung Heavy, will perpetually cruise the world’s oceans, taking in great cultural and sporting events such as the Olympics Games, the Melbourne Cup, Wimbledon and the Cannes Film Festival.

Services will include an art historian, personal shopper and qualified medical team.

Gold futures are being tipped to hit record levels in 2010 against a continuing backdrop of currency depreciations.

Bloomberg reported that gold prices advanced 24 per cent last year, while silver experienced its biggest yearly increase since 1979 as interest grew in alternative investments.

lucky for some The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remains on course to become one of the 10 top most competitive countries after being placed 13th in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business report.

The country has leapt up the rankings in recent years, from 67th position in 2004 to 38th in 2006, 16th in 2007 and now 13th in 2009.

Saudi Arabia has been listed as the best place to do business in the Middle East and Arab world for the fifth successive year thanks to a series of reforms that have greatly reduced the time, cost and complexity of launching a company and obtaining the necessary permits.The report also means that Saudi Arabia is ranked above Germany, Japan and France.

commodities surge

Commodities surged 24 per cent in 2009, achieving their biggest jump since the 1973 oil crisis according to the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index.

Copper and sugar prices doubled, while a 78 per cent increase in oil prices and a ninth successive yearly gain for gold helped fuel the rise.

Some analysts are predicting that investment flows into commodities will continue at the same rate, leading to further increases in 2010.

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spectrum

UK OUT IN FRONT The UK has retained its ranking as the leading European location for foreign direct investment in 2008, according to Ernst & Young’s seventh annual Country Attractiveness Survey.

The study analyses actual inward investment over the past 12 months and attitudes of global investors regarding their plans over the short to medium term.

The UK received 18 per cent of Europe’s foreign direct investment in 2008, followed by France with 14 per cent, Germany with 10 per cent and Spain with six per cent.

But the report’s author warned that five years of sustained inward investment growth in Europe came to an end in 2008, with many companies suspending geographical and market expansion, while the true effects of the global recession have yet to emerge.

Hot destinations Abu Dhabi has been named as one of the top destinations to visit in 2010 by editorial staff at Frommer’s, America’s best-selling travel guide series.

The emirate features alongside Santiago de Cuba, Cuba; the Florida Panhandle beaches; Hawaii (the Big Island); Salta Province, Argentina; Mexico City; Melbourne, Australia; Hanoi, Vietnam; Kerala, India; Tunisia; Copenhagen and England’s Isles of Scilly.

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Brazil in the spotlight Brazil is being widely tipped as an outstanding market for international property investment this year.

The largest country in South America is riding a wave of

positive publicity on the back of winning the rights to host both the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016.

Brazil is widely expected to become the fifth largest economy

in the world by 2016, with growth anticipated to outstrip that of rival nations such as Russia, India and even China.

International investment consultancy Property Frontiers said: “Property investors from around the world are flocking to Brazilian shores with a view

to snapping up real estate in anticipation of future capital growth. One local expert projects Brazilian property prices could appreciate by up to 200 per cent over the next decade, driven by the country’s burgeoning economy and the pending introduction of mortgages to overseas nationals.”

Rolling on

Space agreement

Rolls Royce, one of the world’s leading aircraft engine manufacturing companies, is studying the feasibility of establishing a research and development facility at King Abdullah Economic City’s (KAEC) Industrial Valley ahead of building a full production plant.

A delegation from Rolls Royce recently visited KAEC and also toured King Abdullah University for Science and Technology to discuss collaboration with research teams.

King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and NASA have signed a joint statement that allows for collaboration in lunar and asteroid science research.

The partnership recognises the Saudi Lunar and Near-Earth Object Science Centre as an affiliate partner with the NASA Lunar Science Institute at NASA’s Ames Research Centre in California.

Dr Haithem Altwaijry, deputy director of the National Satellite Technology Programme at KACST, said: “The Saudi Lunar and Near Earth Object Science Centre’s primary mission is to direct all lunar and near Earth object related research within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

It will reach out to students in addition to researchers and present fertile ground for scientific research.”

The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, has topped a poll to find the best place in the world to work. More than 2,350 experts took part in The Scientist magazine’s annual survey to find the top 10 international institutions from countries outside the United States. And the Planck Institute, which employs 400 full-time researchers, won the accolade after being rated on a range of categories including infrastructure and environment, teaching and mentoring. The top 10 list featured three British universities – Bristol (third), Dundee (sixth) and Cambridge (seventh) – plus two from Canada – Dalhousie University, Halifax (fifth) and University of Toronto (10th).

university challenge

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Discover a region rich in diversity.

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art+culture

Art on the edge International art markets are seeing more red than black, but new exhibitions continue to earn high interest.

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Above: Theo van Doesburg Right: Tim Burton

The

longest bull run in nearly a century of art-market history ended at Sotheby’s in London on September 15, 2008 with the landmark sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst for a staggering US$70 million, a record sale for a single artist. More importantly, perhaps, the auction also brought to a close a boom era, for just as the auctioneer called out the bids, Lehman Brothers was filing for bankruptcy in New York.

Prior to the sale at Sotheby’s, the world art market had already slowed down after prices had risen continuously since 2003. The market peaked in 2007 when it was worth more than US$65 billion, double the figure

of five years earlier. Since then the figure has dropped to around US$50 billion. The first part of 2009 saw sales freeze, galleries shut their doors and museums cut budgets, lay off staff or hike admissions.

Dozens of shows have been cancelled or postponed around the world, but worst-hit were US institutions, which saw much of their sponsorship and endowment wealth evaporate with the market losses.

None have been immune from trouble. The investment portfolio of New York’s Museum of Modern Art shrank 23 per cent, to US$610 million from US$788 million, over

the course of last year. In February 2009, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that its endowment lost US$700 million over the preceding eight months, or a quarter of its value, declining to US$2.1 billion.

In November, an exhibition of Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles was due to open at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art after first showing at Tate Modern in London and the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona.

The entire North American tour was cancelled. Likewise, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s touring Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design, which was due to have been presented at the Minneapolis 019

art+culture Institute of Arts in February this year, has now been cancelled. “We have seen some cancellations of our travelling exhibitions and it would be foolish to pretend there are no problems,” says V&A director Mark Jones.

But it seems the first timid steps toward a recovery were witnessed at the end of 2009, with some impressive sales at the major auction houses. Christie’s sold Raphael’s Head of a Muse for US$48 million, making the Old Master’s artwork the priciest to be auctioned off last year.

In fact, the recession has presented museums (and art connoisseurs for that matter) with a rare opportunity to acquire important works at lower prices.

“A number of museums are stepping up, feeling that they could buy things,” notes Allison Whiting, senior vice president and director of museum services at Christie’s.

Art Agenda Centre Pompidou, Paris Soulages Retrospective of works by Pierre Soulages, known as “the painter of black and light”, as he nears his 90th birthday.

Until March 8 Istanbul Modern, Istanbul Time Within Us: Photographs from Turkey, Russia, and Greece Photographs from 5 photographers from each country will be showcased.

Until May 16 Museum of Modern Art, New York Tim Burton The eccentric vision of director Tim Burton’s Gothic fantasies.

Until April 26 Mori Art Museum, Tokyo Roppongi Crossing 2010: Can There Be Art? Series of exhibitions, held once every three years, highlighting artists working in Japan.

March 20-July 4 Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson Works spanning this Danish-Icelandic artist’s diverse career from 1993 to the present day.

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Städel Museum, Frankfurt Botticelli Eighty works by the artist, his workshop and contemporaries, including Idealised Portrait of a Lady.

Until February 28 Tate Modern, London Theo van Doesburg Works by the pivotal avant-garde Dutch artist, plus 350 works by other key figures such as Jean Arp, Piet Mondrian, Sophie Taeuber and more.

February 4 – May 16

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Contemporary work from a new wave of Saudi Arabian artists is touring the world thanks to the Edge of Arabia exhibition.

Looking at the contemporary art landscape, the vision for the Edge of Arabia exhibition 2010 is one of strong themes, showcasing the everevolving world of what is the new Saudi Arabian art scene. The featured Saudi artists, both male and female, explore the complexities of life in the Middle

Top 10 Art Sales of 2009 Raphael’s Head of a Muse US$48 million (Christie’s) Henri Matisse’s Les coucous tapis bleu et rose US$46.5 million (Christie’s) Andy Warhol’s 200 One Dollar Bills US$43.8 million (Sotheby’s) Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn’s Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo US$33.2 million (Christie’s) Constantin Brancusi’s Madame LR sculpture US$37.6 million (Christie’s) Eileen Gray’s Dragons armchair US$28.3 million (Christie’s) Piet Mondrian’s Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir US$28 million (Christie’s) Alberto Giacometti’s L’Homme Qui Chavire bronze US$19.3 million (Sotheby’s) Edgar Degas’ Petite danseuse de quatorze ans bronze US$19 million (Sotheby’s) Piet Mondrian’s Composition avec grille 2 US$18.6 million (Christie’s)

East in the 21st century. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes comforting, the exhibition evokes a myriad of emotions and challenges viewers to rethink their preconceptions and to open their eyes to the new Saudi Arabia. But the traditions and heroics of the past, the roots of an evolving heritage, are still referenced, even as the artists look forward to new horizons.

Launched on its world tour at the Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh, the leading global event of its kind, in January 2010, the Edge of Arabia 2010 exhibition will travel to Art Dubai, the region’s premier art event, in March. It will then move on to the Berlin Biennale in June and July before travelling to Istanbul, a European Capital of Culture this year, for an exhibition with the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair in November and December.

In partnership with SAGIA and the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture and Information, the UN Alliance of Civilisations and the British Council, this year’s exhibition is expected to receive greater accolades than ever before

1. Botticelli 2. Saudi Impressions

Mohammed Farea, an architect from Riyadh and one of the youngest people featured in the exhibition, says that the traditional building style is part of his nation’s heritage and should be preserved in the brightly coloured, stylised structures in his painting Najd, which was completed in 2008.”I’m trying to find a way of combining new construction models with traditional learning.”

In Merwed, Maha Malluh from Riyadh transforms the viewer into a voyeur of sorts with photographs of common objects identifiable only by their outline and degree of translucency. Much as an airport security guard views intimate belongings in scanned luggage, we must instantly determine which are threats and which are benign. “Good art... forces you to pause, to contemplate and think harder about your surroundings.”

The photography of Ream Al-Faisal is important on many levels. She is one of the first women to be granted permission to photograph in the Holy cities of Mecca and Al-Madinah, where she captures the spirituality and beauty of the pilgrimage, in spite of the technical difficulties. She says, “I’m neither traditional, nor modern. Nor contemporary, or old-fashioned for that matter. Perhaps the best thing to do is say my work is a sign of love.”

Ayman Yossri Daydban from Jeddah creates a buffer between the fictional world of film and the real world with a crowd of tissue boxes, each with a colourful poster for a famous Arabic film from the 1940s or 1950s. In both world’s one often weeps and reaches for a tissue, or maharam, the Arabic word that relates to both tissues and close family – both act as emotional buffers against the outside world. “I don’t want anything I make to be still.

My objects must not die. Instead I want to keep them permanently in a state between birth and death.”

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Roppongi Crossing 2010: Can There Be Art? Idols of the Arab World Saudi Impressions ATHR Gallery

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while developing cultural links and opportunities between Saudi Arabia and the international community.

Seventeen Saudi artists from throughout the Kingdom exhibited together for the first time in Edge of Arabia 2009, exemplifying the new creative movement and expressing a range of relationships: with Islam, history, culture and ecology, among others. saudi arabian exhibitions ATHR Gallery Fifth floor Business Centre, Wing B Serafi Mega Mall, Prince Mohammed Abdul Aziz, Tahlia St, Jeddah, KSA One of the first contemporary art galleries in Saudi Arabia, ATHR is committed to creating a thriving environment for artists from the Kingdom. Founded by Hamza Serafi and Mohammed Hafiz, two local art patrons, its goal is to cultivate an environment that nurtures and promotes modern 022

Saudi and Arab artists across the region as well as internationally. The gallery participated in Edge of Arabia in London in 2008 and in the Venice Biennale in 2009, as well as Art Dubai 2009, where it will once again participate this year. The gallery exhibits international as well as regional artists.

Idols of the Arab World A Pop Art Exhibition January 24 – February 10 7.30pm – 9.30pm Featuring works by Hamad Al Saah, Ali Sultan and Bassem Al-Sharqi, this exhibition takes the style and themes of the Pop Art movement in delightful new directions.

Hewar Art Gallery 52nd floor, Kingdom Tower, Riyadh Saturday – Thursday, 9.30am-9pm Promoting art as an important record of a nation’s cultural identity, the Hewar

Art Gallery organises exhibitions for contemporary artists from all over the world, but especially for those whose work is influenced by the heritage, culture and environment of the Arab world. Its extensive permanent collection of paintings, sculptures, engravings and calligraphy includes work from some of the region’s most talented men and women, making it a respected home for Arab modern and contemporary art.

Celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, the gallery has three exhibitions planned during the next three months.

Shape of Light Photography by Her Royal Highness, Princess Reem Al Faisal from her Worldwide Travels collection.

Saudi Impressions Works by 13 Saudi artists

Akeel Al Awsi Works by Paris-based Iraqi artist Akeel Al Awsi.

Artist Survival Rating The top 10 current artists expected to remain important figures in a decade’s time.

1. Gerhard Richter 2. Jeff Koons 3. Cindy Sherman 4. Robert Gober 5. Andreas Gursky 6. Damien Hirst 7. Anish Kapoor 8. Bill Viola 9. Jeff Wall 10. Mike Kelley Source: ArtTactic

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our reforms demonstrate our determination to create the most

attractive destination

for investment opportunities in the world.

We invite investors to learn more about the

positive business environment in the Kingdom and to join in the growth of the business community.â&#x20AC;?

HE Amr Al-Dabbagh, Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority

Michael Porter

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Dr Michael Webb

competitiveness

Competitive

forces Competition is the intrinsic core of commerce – to develop and succeed, countries and companies must produce at their competitive best.

Written By Joanne Molina

In today’s

business environment, competition is about meeting the needs of the marketplace. While no single country or company can be the best at everything, each one must be able to satisfy at least a portion of the market in order to remain viable. Creating and sustaining the ability to compete, ie, competitiveness, is a vital issue, especially for emerging economies.

But what is the relationship between competitiveness and economic development? How is cooperation in modern society linked to success in the new global economy? Presenting and discussing such issues is the role of The Global Competitiveness Forum, which was established in 2006 by the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) as an opportunity for global leaders who share a mutual interest in competitiveness to raise awareness and enthusiasm surrounding the competitive challenges. The 2010 forum will focus on creating an environment for sustainable competitiveness. Important conversations illustrate how the world’s leading economists and development experts are invested in sustaining competitiveness in the 21st century and how it is linked to the region’s role in the global economy.

Addressing the competitiveness of Saudi Arabia, SAGIA Governor, Amr bin Abdullah Al-Dabbagh, says, “We are focusing on attracting investment into those sectors in which the Kingdom has a competitive advantage – energy, transportation and knowledge-based industries – as this is where we have the most to offer.”

According to Dr Michael Webb, Senior Manager of the Regulatory Economics Group, LLC, in Herndon, Virginia, USA, “You need to begin with the essence of economics, which is the study of choice. Specifically, economists examine the choices people make in a wide variety of contexts, including market contexts and non-market contexts.” He continues, “In most instances individuals have a wide variety of choices, particularly over the long-term. To successfully meet the needs of customers an individual, firm or country should focus on its comparative advantage – in other words, no individual, firm or country can excel 025

competitiveness in all areas. By specialising in those areas where one has a comparative advantage, one can provide a superior product. Thus, it is those areas where one can be most competitive.”

The idea of competition is intrinsic to commerce between humans as individuals and societies. There is not a point in recorded history where one cannot witness the impetus of enterprise or the flux of goods and services as dictated by the viability of one provider versus another. The idea of competitiveness in trade and industry is, by nature, perpetually evolving, as its very being is tied together with the fate of a perpetually evolving world. As Michael E Porter, AllWorld Network Chairman, Harvard Business School Professor and speaker at this year’s GCF explains, “Competitiveness is driven by the productivity with which business can be done in a nation.” The broadness of the statement is telling, as it indicates that the question of which nations can compete successfully within the world market is more open than ever. What we refer to as commercial competition is “something that’s easy to talk about, but difficult to achieve over the long-term,” explains Lyn Baranowski, Vice President of Vatera Capital, a pharmaceuticals investing firm in New York, “because being truly competitive means that you have to get many different things right.”

turn a product of human capital, infrastructure, accountable institutions, natural resource capital and local economic geography,“ he explains. “Basic investments in child health, maternal health, education, environmental management and infrastructure are essential…to boosting economic productivity. Many countries have promoted their competitiveness through concerted efforts to ensure all elements of society have the greatest opportunity to contribute to the economy and its self-sustaining growth.”

McArthur stresses that economic competitiveness actually demands a high quality of life for all of a nation’s citizens.

In addition to improving the quality of life, paving the way for both domestic and international business investment must also be coupled by measures that bring about the social and political stability that enables long-term business growth. Webb emphasises that “the nation should focus on promoting the rule of law, and specifically adopting institutional mechanisms that will assuage investors’ concerns that their property will be expropriated. Investors have a variety of choices regarding the location and type of investment. Given two projects of equal market risk, but different political risk, they will always choose the project with lower political risk.”

The opening of markets is a double-edged sword that provides both the

economic growth and sustained prosperity, encouraging entrepreneurship and the creation of new jobs.

“Competitiveness drives contributes to

Saudi Arabia’s increased competitiveness signals the ongoing development of a economy.”

dynamic and diversified

Dr Awwad Al-Awwad, Deputy Governor, Investment Affairs, SAGIA and President, National Competitiveness Council Since progressing through the industrial revolution of the 19th century and the digital revolution of the last half-century, the idea of commercial competitiveness is now entering a truly global stage.

One of the most vital aspects of a given nation achieving and maintaining a competitive status at a global level is the development of a social, governmental and economic infrastructure that fosters this goal – a process which ideally will have the dual effect of improving quality of life for the nation’s people as a whole. Porter explains, “Productivity depends on many things, but some of the most important are streamlined regulations and speed of doing business, good physical infrastructure in logistics and communications, open and free markets to encourage competition and the entry of new businesses, well trained and motivated employees and managers and efficient access to low cost capital.”

John McArthur, CEO and Executive Director of Millennium Promise, whose mission is to halve world poverty by 2025, explains that providing opportunity domestically and incorporating social change into a programme of national competitive viability is also vital for lasting stability and success.

“Economic competitiveness is grounded in productivity, which is in 026

challenges and benefits of ever-increasing competition. Daniel Griswold, Director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, states it succinctly – “Competition in a global economy means that producers must work extra hard to convince consumers to buy their products. Companies can no longer assume a dominant share of their domestic market.” While nations with a global business presence established over decades (or centuries) capitalise on their status as a known quantity, countries seeking to strengthen and diversify their presence might capitalise on their own unique advantages – particularly in light of the current global economic climate. Porter cites Saudi Arabia as an example: “The economic downturn has made global competition even more intense, and made productivity even more important to national success. Saudi Arabia has advantages due to its sound banking system and stable national budget. Now is the time to use this soundness and stability to grow and diversify. There are opportunities to attract much needed foreign multinationals to accelerate the efficiency and technology of business in the Kingdom, and invest in new businesses within Saudi Arabia.”

Saudi Arabia certainly seems intent on creating an attractive environment for international investors. In addition to beating regional

Successful, competitive individuals sharing their expertise at SAGIA’s Global Competitiveness Forum, 2010

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“Productivity depends on many things, but some of the most important are streamlined regulations and speed of doing business, good physical infrastructure in logistics and communications, open and free markets to encourage competition and the entry of new businesses, well trained and motivated employees and managers and efficient access to low cost capital,” Porter says. competition to become the home of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) Bank, King Abdullah has launched the “10 By 10” programme, an initiative to place Saudi Arabia amongst the top 10 easiest countries in which to conduct business by the end of the year 2010. It is not an unlikely goal – over the past four years the country has risen from 67th to 13th place (out of 181 countries) in the World Bank / International Finance Corporation’s Ease of Doing Business rankings.

The country, which naturally offers extensive tax breaks and streamlined routes of investment to foreign companies, has also wisely launched a programme providing further tax privileges for investments in six of the Kingdom’s less-developed regions. Another intended spur for regional development is the establishment of four “economic cities” – being built from the ground up to the tune of over US$60 billion to, in the words of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, “create over a million new job opportunities, homes for 4-5 million residents – and, most significantly, contribute US$150 billion to Saudi’s GDP.” Along with the courting of potential foreign business partners, the Saudi government has also made steps toward a more inclusive and incisive approach to education within its own country. The King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST), which opened this past September, not only places a focus squarely on the crucial arena of technology – uniformly agreed upon as a major engine of socio-economic improvement for any nation – but is also the first co-educational campus in the Kingdom.

The realisation of the University also represents a reassuring 028

Daniel Griswold

self-imposed challenge on the part of the current Saudi government. Porter emphasises how education and technology are crucial to maintaining a competitive edge. “Education and technology are the two keys to longterm increases in prosperity. Rising productivity is only possible with improving skill levels among workers and managers. This goes hand in hand with improving technology to equip workers with the best tools and allow companies to produce high quality products with up to date production methods. Fortunately, initiatives such as Al-Faisal University, KAUST, and many others are seeking to address these challenges.”

Saudi Arabia’s vast stores of energy and financial capital give it a distinct advantage in its bid to place itself favorably as a competitor for international business and investment. In terms of having an ideal relationship with investors, Webb’s insight is sage, “There is no ideal relationship that Saudi Arabia or any country might have with its investors.

Instead, Saudi Arabia should focus on broad principles including establishing appropriate institutional mechanisms. It should focus on its comparative advantages. Energy and access to significant financial capital would represent obvious areas of comparative advantage.” Porter agrees, illustrating that the competitiveness of nations, as that of companies, rests largely on diversification of business interests and opportunities, as well as a distribution of resources that, over the long-term, proves beneficial to both the investor and the given nation’s workforce and population.

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communication

CLoud+clear

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The key to competition in a period characterised by constantly evolving, every-changing, high-speed technology may be collaboration.

Cisco Unified IP conference station 7936 written by richard warren

globalisation

of technology creates opportunities and challenges, both virtual and real, as the world continues to shrink. Accessing data and maintaining communications, especially visual contact, wherever you may be is rapidly becoming a vital aspect of being competitive and the best way to achieve this state of constant contact with the rest of the world may be through technological cooperation and collaboration.

Collaboration is driving the next wave of technological development, says Wim Elfrink, Executive Vice-president and Chief Globalisation Officer of Cisco Systems. New collaborative tools such as video and audio will augment today’s text-based communications in the years ahead, the company forecasts. ‘Cloud’ computing – an internet-based development of computer technology where users do not need to have expert knowledge of the infrastructure that supports them – and greater mobility for users will also feature heavily.

Visualisation, ie using video, is forecast to become the norm when communicating in the future. Video links boost openness and discussions in online meetings, leading to more creativity and faster decision-making, Elfrink says. Avistar Communications Corp anticipates that videoconferencing will become easier to use, more available and ubiquitous, while significantly helping with productivity. New video conferencing and video phone products already on the market include Cisco’s TelePresence and the Avistar C3.

According to a study published by Cisco last year, online meetings that use video can help build stronger relationships between participants and reduce culture clashes and personality conflicts. However, video communication can also heighten anxiety and self-consciousness, the study found, so it recommended that businesses help employees develop the skills to make the most of these tools.

Video could prove particularly useful in Middle Eastern cultures, where building a personal rapport is essential in business.

“Video could help accelerate relationship building with ‘high context’ cultures such as China, Japan and the Middle East where relationships are based on integrity and social interactions,” Elfrink says, “Countries such as Germany, Sweden and Denmark are characterised by their ‘low power distance’ culture, meaning that colleagues generally relate to each as equals, regardless of formal positions. So when people from ‘low power distance cultures’ interact with people from a culture where hierarchy is much more rigid, such as the Middle East, video can provide non-verbal signs of respect to lessen the effects of these differences.”

Left: Teleconference meeting.

Right: Wim Elfrink, Vice-president and Chief Globalisation Officer, Cisco Systems.

Just as ‘visualisation’ has become a buzzword in the world of technological innovation, so has ‘mobility’, whereby people can move around the world while maintaining continuous contact with people and online-content.

United States computer manufacturer, Dell, recognises the move towards increased mobility. The company launched its first smart phones in Brazil and China in December 2009 and will introduce these products 031

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elsewhere in the years ahead. Smart phone technology will be the fastest growing category of handsets, especially in poorer countries that lack the infrastructure for land lines and where they will serve as substitutes for computers, predicts The Economist.

Connectivity saturation rates continue to increase, the global economic downtun notwithstanding. In 2010, there will be 80 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people worldwide, with the numbers increasing annually as new generations of technology expand their capabilities.

Mobile entertainment bought over the phone is expected to grow by 28 per cent in 2010 to more than US$54 billion, according to the Mobile Entertainment Forum.

A significant aid to this increased mobility will be the development of cloud computing. Today, data centres are geographically dispersed and operate independently of each other, which means data can only be accessed from certain computers connected to a particular data centre’s network. Studies show that only 10-20 per cent of most business data centres are virtualised. By placing all data on the internet, and optimising storage and computer technology, it should be possible to access information anywhere, anytime. This will make it easier for people to work from home or anywhere else they can go online.

“This blurring of the lines between the workspace and personal space will provide employees and employers with unprecedented levels of flexibility and productivity,” Elfrink says. The increasing demand for PCs, with sales expected to be up around eight per cent this year, will translate to 2.2billion people using the internet by 2013.

“High-speed networks have become part of the basic infrastructure of any country and, as the foundation of the knowledge economy, they enable growth and will help to power recovery from the current economic crisis,” he says, “It is essential for governments and business leaders to encourage universal broadband access to make the most of what highspeed networks have to offer.

“For many countries, broadband networks offer a unique, cost-effective 032

Above: Cisco headoffice Left: John T. Chambers, Chairman & CEO, Cisco Systems.

mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people, globally 2009

2010

2011

2012

73.5 80.0 85.2 89.6

global broadband subscriber lines in million 2008

2009

2010

2011

396 467 531 588

communication

Cisco in brief Cisco was founded in 1984 by scientists at Stanford University.

Cisco went public in February, 1990. Its share price was six cents.

The company has 63,756 employees worldwide.

Cisco made US$36 billion in revenue in 2009.

The company bought seven companies around the world in 2009.

The company’s Linksys brand received 151 product and corporate awards in 2008. n Cisco has won an additional 48 technology awards worldwide. n Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” list includes John Chambers. n John Chambers received the first ever Clinton Global Citizen award from former US President Bill Clinton in 2007. n John Chambers co-sponsors the Jordan Education Initiative. n In 2006, John Chambers co-led a delegation of US businessmen to form Partnership for Lebanon. n n n n n n

Tandberg Tactical MXP portable videocommunications tool

“For many countries, broadband networks offer a unique, cost-effective opportunity to enhance competitiveness while rising above physical and geographical constraints”

opportunity to enhance competitiveness while rising above physical and geographical constraints. Countries will see major benefits if they understand the power of broadband networks and are able to implement strategies to seize the moment. Not only will these networks improve national competitiveness across a range of sectors, they will also turn the challenging global economic environment into an opportunity for new growth, with employment creation driven by the knowledge economy having a major and lasting impact on a country’s welfare,” says Elfrink.

The latest in cloud technology is expanding the telephone handset to become a web-enabled touchscreen device with such applications as a calendar, SMS and email retrieval, allowing it to connect to the users’ mobile phones so contacts and voicemail messages can be shared.

Cisco and BT came together to launch a cloud-based IP telephony service in December 2009 for collaborative voice communications. It allows businesses to bring converged voice, mobile and data services to every desktop in their organisation. Available now in Britain, the hosted IPT service will be available to businesses in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East this year.

But introducing these new technologies is not without its challenges.

Data security is a problem because network-based collaboration introduces corporate data into a broader environment, which makes it tougher to protect, says Elfrink, who is concerned about criminal exploitation.

From personal identity theft to full-fledged corporate espionage, the possibility of compromised data is a valid concern. The more data involved, the greater the risk to businesses and individuals The loss of intellectual property, including proprietary product blueprints, financial data and merger and acquisition plans, can damage a company’s reputation, undermine its brand or jeopardise its competitive edge. Breaches of regulatory requirements for handling sensitive customer data can reduce consumer confidence and lead to fines, indicating a need for security awareness training for staff to help mitigate against these threats.

“While many spammers continue to operate with extremely high volumes, some are opting for lower-volume but more frequency in an attempt to remain under the radar. Attacks are now driven by profit, not just notoriety. With this increased focus on the profit motivated attack there come new methods of attack, making it even more difficult to defend against. Attackers now often operate slowly and over a longer period of time, using a stealth approach to hide their intentions,” comments Elfrink.

The effort of overcoming challenges will be worth it, according to Elfrink, because these technological developments will contribute to a better work-life balance and the development of sustainable communities where more people can work from home, reducing the need for commuting.

“The shift to collaboration and productivity enhancing tools will help us to be more effective in our daily lives,” Elfrink says, “Collaboration technologies like WebEx and TelePresnce have reduced our travel and enabled us to spend more time with our families. This is extremely important since over the next five years, 500 million people will be urbanised and technology will play a significant role in managing this change.”

Working with governments, the company wants to use the internet to integrate public services, including transport and utilities, so managers can respond quicker to problems and plan ahead more easily. This will provide a better quality of life for citizens and improve economic development, the company says.

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architecture

The Bilbao Effect

Frank O Gehry’s architectural masterpiece, the Guggenheim Bilbao, revived a rusting Spanish town. but is it still possible to recreate the bilbao effect in the current architectural and economic reality.

written by lisa vincenti

bilbao,

before the coming of the Guggenheim, was noted for its gritty steel mills and shipyards.

After the coming of Frank O Gehry’s groundbreaking design, the city morphed into an international tourist destination, home to sleek hotels, designer boutiques and the kind of swank restaurants once found only in Madrid or Barcelona.

More than nine million tourists have made the pilgrimage and the museum has generated what some estimate to be US$500 million in economic activity for the region during its first three years alone and US$100 million in taxes.

It’s called the Bilbao Effect, and civic leaders from Miami to Milan to Moscow are banking on it to reinvent themselves. But despite attempts to emulate Bilbao by recruiting all-star architects such as Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Sir Norman Foster and Swiss firm Herzog & de Mueron to design spectacles elsewhere in the world, very few have succeeded in generating the buzz and magic of Bilbao. Gehry’s architecture, the Guggenheim’s art, and the charm of gritty Bilbao have proven an irresistible combination.

“No one had heard of Bilbao, or knew where it was,” states Terence Riley, the former director of the Miami Art Museum and a former architecture and design curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Nobody knew how to spell it.

It happened in the fall of 1997. The Miracle in Bilbao screamed the cover of The New York Times Magazine, in which 035

architecture

2.

© paris tourist office – photographe: stephane querbes

Tourism Australia © robert wallace

1.

1.

2.

3.

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Eiffel Tower Sydney Opera House Frank Gehry City of Arts & Sciences in Valencia, Spain.

Designed by Santiago Calatrava.

5. Sir Norman Foster 6. Zaha Hadid

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architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp, likened the justfinished voluptuous museum to the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. Even architectural virtuoso Philip Johnson went so far as to call it the greatest building of our times. But there can be only so many great buildings, and Bilbaos.

Built on an old shipyard on the edge of the Nervin River which snakes through Bilbao, the city was the nexus of Spain’s Industrial Revolution, with its belching factories and ironrich mountains. Once the warehouses closed and production moved offshore to places like China, what remained was a wasteland of rusted vessels and soot-covered buildings, a post-industrial vacuum that carried with it a charm of its own, an edginess to offset the billowing, gleaming sails of the Guggenheim Bilbao.

“Gehry’s Bilbao has conflated cultural, economic and political interests, alerting all to what a dazzling object in the cityscape can accomplish,” explains Robert A Ivy, the editor in chief of the journal Architectural Record.

Frank Gehry built the spectacular scaled Guggenheim museum in Bilbao for less than US$100 million 11 years ago.

It paid for itself within a year and spearheaded an economic, social and cultural revival of the Basque region, which is now one of the most popular destinations in Spain after years blighted by terrorist violence.

Its appeal hasn’t waned, even though the travel industry witnessed one of it’s worst years in decades. Travellers to 036

Bilbao spent US$332 million in 2008, according to a report released by the Guggenheim, while the museum generated nearly US$42 million in revenues for that year alone. Since its opening in October 2007 through 2008, the direct expenditures of visitors, excluding more than US$431 million for the treasury and employment (which rose from about 800 to 4,196), was a smashing three billion Euros, not bad for a building that cost Gehry only US$100 million to build just more than a decade ago.

QUEST FOR THE NEXT BILBAO Architects, students and city planners throughout the world studied the Bilbao Effect, as second-tier cities sought to repackage themselves with their own architectural trophies.

But none have drawn the hordes that make their way to Bilbao. In Cincinnati, Ohio, a rust-belt town in the US Midwest, Hadid’s addition for the Contemporary Arts Center attracted the attention of architourists, a phrase coined in 2002 to describe those globetrotters stopping by just to soak up designs. Not too far away, the Milwaukee Museum of Art commissioned post-modernist Santiago Calatrava to design its Quadracci Pavilion. In London, Herzog & de Meuron’s addition to the Tate Modern now is one of the UK’s top three tourist attractions.

“Some of our donors who’ve made major contributions since the Guggenheim opened in Spain have told me they’ve

done so because of that,” notes Contemporary Arts Center’s director Charles Demarais “It’s clear that people are excited about exciting architecture.”

People do go out of their way to visit buildings, but they were usually ancient works of art like Chartres Cathedral, or historical monuments like the Tower of London or ancient sites like the Pyramids of Egypt or the ruins of Machu Pichu in Peru. Historically, buildings by modern architects were objects of veneration for students and architects alone, but they were not paid much attention to by the general public, at least until Gehry rewrote the rules.

A trip to Calatrava’s hometown of Valencia in Spain and his vision for the futuristic City of the Arts and the Sciences, completed in 2004, turned the city into a destination for design buffs, drawing tourists from rival cities such as Barcelona and Madrid. So while the spiky, organic shapes of Calatrava have boosted the number of visitors to Valencia, it hasn’t generated the widespread enthusiasm of Bilbao.

In Lithuania, civic planners have just completed a competition for the anticipated Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage Museum. The Guggenheim selected Hadid to build a new museum in Vilnius to open in 2013. “This is an important project in a move to attract tourists to Lithuania,” Gediminas Kirkilas, the countrys prime minister says. “It is also important to Lithuania’s image.” The estimated value of the project is US$117 million, with the Lithuanian government

Mecca expansion King Abdullah Ben Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia has backed a plan to redesign the Holy City of Mecca where devout Muslims make the Hajj 5. (pilgrimage) each year.

Zaha Hadid and Foster + Foster Partners have been approached to redesign the centre of Mecca, to ‘re-envisage’ the Al-Haram mosque and to present alternatives for Mecca’s northern expansion. The hope is that the multizoned, multi-billion dollar 6. project will create an order to the site that has evolved somewhat randomly over time, make the area more accessible to pedestrians and provide views of AlHaram from surrounding areas, while not impeding vehicular traffic. The vision is to accommodate more people – from 900,000 to 1.5 million in the first phase and up to three million upon completion.

Plans for the redevelopment of Mecca incorporate 130 skyscrapers, including the Abraj al-Bait Towers, which will be one of the world’s biggest buildings, a 2,000 room hotel, convention centre accommodating up to 1,500 attendees, a four-storey shopping mall and heliports.

The scheme, however, is not without controversy.

4.

to pay 10 to 15 per cent of the total. The museum will build its own collection and display art from the Hermitage and the Guggenheim. Arturas Zuokas, a former mayor of Vilnius who is an organiser of the project, said the museum could draw 400,000 visitors a year, half of them from outside Lithuania.

END OF AN ERA The Bilbao Decade, as some in the field would call the epoch ushered in by Gehry’s fantastic creation, inspired a boom of wild, fantastic structures around the world. The Petronas Towers in Malaysia, CCTV headquarters in China, Jakarta’s Regatta Hotel, Antilia residence in India, Aqua in USA, Russia Tower in Russia and Burj Khalifa in Dubai, are a mere shortlist of mind-blowing projects recently completed or soon-to-befinished. Sure, Dubai is flocked to by tourists around the world for its architectural luxuries, but there are scores of them. The power of one building to reinvent a decaying city and capture the imagination and attention of the world is a rare occurrence.

In fact, in a speech at the opening of his Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, London, Gehry said that the so-called Bilbao Effect had been misunderstood and is hogwash. A really successful building, like the Guggenheim, cannot simply be

churned out to order. “It is kind of miracle, you dont quite know how it happens,” Gehry says. “In the case of Bilbao, they asked for Sydney Opera House when we started, but they had a comprehensive plan for the community. Foster did the subway system, Jim Stirling was doing a train station that never happened, Calatrava did the airport and everybody did a vineyard.

“So there was sort of an intent to change the community, and it worked.”

Jack Pringle, former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, adds that while Gehry’s Guggenheim played a central role in repackaging Bilbao, it was also other less heralded improvements that made the city’s reincarnation possible. “Bilbao was a spectacular example of how to regenerate a city. The lesson to learn is that they had a strategy which included both infrastructure and iconic landmarks. It’s the combination of the two that works – a cocktail that can make the most amazing difference if you get it right,” states Pringle.

But is Bilbao, and the era of architectural history it introduced, drawing to a close? Severe architectural recession on the one hand, grotesque architectural luxury on the other,

likely signal the dawn of a more restrained, conscious chapter in the annuals of world architecture. Worldwide, people and communities are seeking a return to a simpler life, one that takes note of the resources spent and consumed, and also has more of a connection to nature and the natural world.

Sustainability, organic and green will likely be buzzwords of the next few decades.

“Buildings took on crazy forms, largely because the computer made it possible for structural engineers to figure out how to make almost any shape stand up,” pens Robert Campbell, architecture critic for the UK Globe. “A few leading international architects became, for the first time ever, media celebrities. The Bilbao Decade produced some wonderful buildings, but it was a time when the social purposes of architecture were sometimes lost. Architecture is supposed to be about making places for human habitation – rooms, streets, parks, cities – not merely skyline icons or beach-front palaces.

“Just as one feels a page turning with the arrival of a new American president, so a page is turning, once again, in the history of architecture. That’s not to say there isn’t room for energy and a little madness in the architecture of cities, but excess backfires when it becomes the norm.”

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industry

Warming up to the cashmere challenge written by Ruby Rogers

As the international demand for cashmere soars TO AN ALL-TIME HIGH, THE SUPPLY CHAIN IS met with new challenges.

demand

for more of the luxury fibre cashmere is at a 25 year high, due in part to record-breaking temperatures. Coveted for its soft, silky texture that is eight times warmer than wool, sales of some items are up almost 300 per cent. “Cold weather is accelerating sales as people are buying scarves, shawls, hats, gloves and socks,” says a spokesperson from Johnstons of Elgin in Scotland, who stocks exclusive department stores and designers such as Chanel with the luxury fabric.

Mary McGowne, founder of the Scottish Style Awards, feels that the increase in demand may also be due in part to the global economic downturn which has spawned an even wider trend – investment fashion.

“A recession forces consumers to think harder about what they spend their cash on, and people look for items that will provide long-term value for money,” she is quoted as saying. “Cashmere is a key commodity.”

However, she goes on to comment, quality is key.

Cashmere was once solely associated with luxury brands who sourced the very best yarns for their well-heeled customers. Spun or knit into a lightweight fabric, the yarn retains its loft (small air spaces trapped between the fibres), which makes it warm without weight, making it ideal for babywear as well as delicate, though expensive, garments for all ages.

Its exclusivity resulted from a scarcity of production; it takes the annual yield of two to three goats to make a single sweater, driving up the price.

The finest cashmere in the world comes from the goats that graze the Alashan Plateau, an area in northern China that straddles the Mongolian border where nighttime winter temperatures plunge to as low as -40C. The downy undercoat is the goat’s best defence against the extreme weather conditions, which it sheds during the molting season in the spring. The fine hair, which is collected with a coarse comb, fetches six times more money than ordinary wool.

The highest quality of cashmere, pashmina, has been produced in the 038

Cashgora goats in the Pamirs of Tajikistan.

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industry

valley of Kashmir for over 5,000 years. It is exceptionally light-weight, soft and warm and naturally occurs in colours ranging from white to grey, red, brown and black.

For cash-rich cashmere fans and investment fashionistas, it is a question of when the latest collections hit the stores; for high street shoppers it is a matter of making their way to the nearest shopping mall where designer looks for less are served up in generous measures, causing even greater pressures on the demand of this luxury fibre.

In an age when catwalk styles are snapped up and mass-produced, one country has paved a path like no other – China. Now producing approximately two-thirds of the world’s cashmere, followed by Mongolia, Iran, India and Afghanistan, China has spearheaded a successful campaign for cheaper cashmere, accelerating production to put prices within grasp of the average shopper, thus taking this luxury fibre from the upper echelons of the fashion industry, to the racks of ubiquitous high street shops.

This might sound like the perfect solution – increasing supply to meet a growing demand – but the breakneck speed at which cashmere is being 040

produced has meant that the breeding of goats has grown faster than any other livestock, putting tremendous pressure on the grasslands and rapidly turning them into deserts. According to Carol Kerven of Odessa Centre UK, a firm based in England with links to pastoral researchers and practitioners, desertification in China has been caused by government policies encouraging the migration of too many farming people into the grasslands, which were formerly only lightly grazed by nomads’ livestock. Also contributing to the problem are policies to settle these nomads, whose one-time mobility once protected the grasslands from overgrazing and desertification.

Research from a study by the Asian Development Bank reveals that desertification has resulted in a rising number of devastating dust storms.

In the 1950s, China suffered an average of five dust and sand storms each year; in the 1970s that number had risen to 14 and by the 1990s storms struck 23 times. More recently, storms have caused billions of dollars in damages as well as many injuries.

Quite apart from the environmental impact of cashmere is the battle to clean up its image, tarnished by traders willing to make cuts in order to win orders. A 100 per cent cashmere label is not always what it says it is, and just like other precious commodities, there are many grades of quality. For example,

The number of goats to make Scarf

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Woman’s sweater Man’s sweater Overcoat

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Scottish Cashmere Club

“In theory, quality cashmere is the ideal natural fibre that will not pill and will keep its form for years, even generations, getting softer the more it is used.”

sheep wool blended with dehaired cashmere fibres has been mislabelled as 100 per cent cashmere, reports the US Federal Trade Commission.

“Shorter, courser cashmere comes from new sources imported by China in the last decade from suppliers in former Soviet Central Asia [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan],” Kerven explains.

“Goats in these countries have been interbred in the Soviet era with Angola breeds. The result is ‘cashgora’, a courser, longer fibre that is not true cashmere and is cheaper to buy from Central Asian producers.

Chinese manufacturers blend this cheaper cashgora with their own high quality cashmere to produce a lower cost but poorer quality product.”

To combat the diluting of the luxurious fibre’s image, the Scottish Cashmere Club, a consortium of the leading manufacturers in knitwear weaving and yarn spinning, developed a trademark to designate quality that can only be displayed on products that meet certain exacting standards regarding origin, length and diameter of the fibre. With such names as Pringle Scotland, who has been knitting cashmere since the 1870s, and Ballantyne Cashmere, who exports internationally to over 50 countries, Scotland is becoming known for its cashmere in much the same way as the Swiss are known for watches.

Pringle creative director Clare Waight has transformed the company from a knitwear label to a luxury ready-to-wear brand. “I’m inspired

by Pringle’s rich legacy of beautiful Scottish cashmere and my aim is to embrace new approaches to knitwear and honour the brand’s heritage by creating truly luxurious collections,” she says. True to her word, she remained faithful to Pringle’s rich heritage for her Spring-Summer 2010 collection, with gorgeous knits in a chic colour palete of white, pale lemon and grey.

The message to the consumer is to buy from a reputable source to safeguard against cheap imitations and be prepared to pay good money for good cashmere – and to look for the Cashmere Club trademark. It’s a worthwhile investment, says Claudio Masserano of Masserano Cashmere, a family run company based in the famous textile district of Biella, Italy.

“In theory, quality cashmere is the ideal natural fibre that will not pill and will keep its form for years, even generations, getting softer the more it is used. A quality cashmere product is something that becomes part of your life and the lives of your children. I understand that this idea goes against the so-called ‘fast fashion’ of today, but I am sure that it will continue to survive. This is what I have learnt from my grandparents and parents, and this is what I think about when we create our collections.”

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business

written by lisa vincenti

The vanity business is positioning itself to come out ahead thanks to lifestyle trends, emerging markets and technological advances.

The

age-old quest for eternal youth and beauty is no longer solely a feminine domain. With an ageing population and men entering the vanity market, the beauty business, which has taken a hit in certain sectors, is soaring in others.

Anti-ageing formulas, make-up and skincare products designed to deliver an immunity boost or mood enhancing qualities have been made possible by advances in biochemistry. But when creams and potions aren’t enough to deliver the required results, non-surgical cosmetic procedures, including injections, microdermabrasion and laser treatments, increasingly come into play.

Once considered a secret never to be revealed, even top stars like George Clooney, recently voted most elegant man by Hello! magazine, now admits to having had cosmetic surgery to correct droopy eyelid skin and puffy bags under his eyes. “I think it’s important to look awake,” he commented on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Despite the world financial upheaval, cosmetic companies Proctor & Gamble, L’Oreal and Unilever managed to eek out minor gains, ending 2008 with a US$138.8 billion total profit, according to Beauty Packaging magazine’s annual 2009 round-up. Overall, research company Euromonitor International predicts that the beauty market will experience an average annual growth of three per cent, reaching global sales of more than US$337 billion by 2012. But behind the numbers, dramatic changes have been sweeping the industry, which varies widely depending on the region.

“The message is that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for success,”

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says Carrie Mellage, director of consumer products research for worldwide consulting and research firm Kline & Company. “The unique features of each country require marketers to think globally, but act locally, to capitalise on specific opportunities. As an example, the rural population in Brazil is a huge potential market that depends heavily on direct person-to-person sales.”

In the United States, the dominant player with an 18 per cent share of the worldwide market, department stores’ portion of total sales continued to contract, prompting marketers and retailers to actively engage customers with incentives. Brands like Lancôme, Estée Lauder and Clarins have all stepped up marketing directly to customers with online enticements like bonus gifts and free shipping with purchase, Mellage says. By contrast, emerging markets, notably Russia, Brazil, India and China, which are posting double-digit gains, are helping global players weather the economic storm as consumers in these nations discover more Western retail concepts. Buoyed by a burgeoning middle-class and higher consumption levels, increases were noted across the board from shops including Carrefour, Parkson, Wangfujing, Walmart and Sephora.

“People in the middle and low-income levels have seen a big improvement in their purchasing power, and they’re spending more on beauty products. But because value is still important, companies that offer quality products with midrange price points are among the fastest growing in the market,” Mellage says.

Scientific knowledge and technology have brought with them new

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beautiful investments

Dr Roberto Viel (left) and Dr Maurizio Viel

Matrimonial makeovers In a survey of 512 engaged women and 509 prospective grooms released on December 9, 2009, more than half the brides interviewed were considering an aesthetic treatment prior to their weddings, largely to look good in the photographs. n 39 per cent of the men were also considering procedures, often citing a desire to be more appealing to their intendeds. n 11 per cent of the women and nine per cent of the men who took part in the research had already had some work done.

The most popular procedures considered by women were: Botox – 68 per cent Teeth Whitening – 62 per cent Liposuction – 55 per cent Breast Augmentation – 47 per cent Face plumpers – 43 per cent The most popular procedures considered by men were: Veneers – 78 per cent Botox – 62 per cent Hair Plugs – 41 per cent Liposuction – 33 per cent Chest (mobs) Reduction – 25 per cent Source: goodsurgeonguide.co.uk

products that are actually capable of delivering the benefits of more youthful skin or plumper lips. And many small players are entering the field thanks to the internet and social media, which lower the cost of launching and distributing products. Ultra-niche collections of nutricosmetics, comprised of ‘nutritional’ actives like rhodiola rosea, griffonia and superoxide dismutase, and cosmeceuticals, those made of medical or pharmaceutical grade ingredients, are the coming trend.

“New technologies enable the next big thing. All that has come before has brought us to where we are today, with a deeper understanding of both ingredient chemistries and the skin, leading to the most sophisticated products ever,” notes Karen Doskow, industry manager for consumer products research at Kline.

Unsurprisingly, as the vanity markets grow ever more competitive, innovation holds the greatest advantage for staying ahead of the game. In fact, 2010, promises a new landscape, one permanently altered by changes in consumer attitudes – innovation and resilience will be the hallmark of what lies ahead.

Around the world a global lifestyle has emerged, one that stresses spiritual and physical wellness and well being, with the consumers in affluent communities wanting to not only look better, but feel better as well.

“In 2010, consumers will be able to enhance their mood through makeup and skincare, going beyond aromatherapy and simple use of scent,” 044

says Nica Lewis, director of Mintel Beauty Innovation, of a trend her company is dubbing “Mood Beauty”, a new space where psychology and well-being fuse with beauty products by offering psychological benefits and ingredients that act on people’s neurotransmitters.

There are now multiple tools to help people age gracefully. In addition to a fresh crop of skincare products, the field of cosmetic procedures, both surgical and non-surgical, have made looking young not only less painful, but also more affordable. When Botox hit the market, it revolutionised the field by offering a relatively pain free option for keeping the years off. Other injections, including fillers like Restylane and Juvederm, soon stepped in to add another dimension to the cosmetic business and have now become de rigueur for the youth obsessed.

However, financial worries did see consumers postponing procedures, and many providers posted a drop in business due to the poor financial climate, according to Millennium Research Group, a medical technology market researcher. The almost US$1.2 billion global facial injectable market recorded a five per cent drop in 2009 compared to 2008, but the market is expected to begin to recover this year, and by 2014 to return to the strong pre-recession growth rates of more than 15 per cent growth.

In the United States, cosmetic surgery procedures posted a major decline, contracting to 1,669,026 in 2008 from 1,901,049 in 2000; while minimally invasive procedures (including peels, laser treatments and fillers) nearly doubled over that time to almost 10.5 million.

“Understanding the ageing process has revolutionised the treatments

business

George Clooney in 2006 and in 2009

The masculine mind

In a report dated November 17, 2009, a study of more than 3,000 men in the UK by goodsurgeonguide.co.uk, the UK’s only review and recommendation website for cosmetic practitioners and clinics, discovered that the number of men undergoing cosmetic surgery had increased by 82 per cent since January of the same year.

Additionally, 64 per cent of those surveyed would consider cosmetic surgery; n 21 per cent admitted to having had Botox or dermal fillers to smooth out the skin on their face. n 91 per cent admitted that the increase in celebrity men having procedures influenced them. n Unsurprisingly, men between the ages of 20 and 35 were most open to the idea of cosmetic surgery.

in rejuvenation and cosmetic dermatology,” says Tanya Kormeili, a dermatologist and a clinical professor in dermatology at the University of California in Los Angeles and a contributor to New York-based Pierce Mattie’s beauty trend forecast. “The new thinking in cosmetic dermatology prevents deep wrinkles long before they form. Hence, Botox is now used at the onset of wrinkles, prophylactically, to relax the very muscles that cause deep wrinkles over time.”

In fact, many consumers no longer view ‘looking young’ as a luxury for the few but see it as a necessity, especially in a difficult job market where competition for slots is fierce.

“We did notice a drop in the first part of 2009, but it bounced right back,” says Cap Lesesne, plastic surgeon and the founder of New York City-based International Cosmetic Surgery, where about 30 per cent of the clientele is from abroad. Interestingly, Lesesne created a new line of cosmetics, available online and at Saks Fifth Avenue department stores,

because Saks had suggested he develop a more medical-based product.

“People still need to have work done and it is a very, very competitive world. They need to look good.”

Lesesne’s experience is echoed by Maurizio Viel and Roberto Viel, who created a targeted line of skincare products and head the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery, which has offices in London and Dubai. “At the worst point of the global crisis, in November 2008, when markets were at rock bottom, we saw more injectables being requested and surgery sales were relatively low. One year on, the demand for surgery is back again in both London and Dubai,” says Maurizio, noting that many of the centre’s patients opt for more natural injections, where an individual’s own blood or fat is harvested for the procedure.

“The public wants something that has essentially no down time, that has maximum improvement, that is non-invasive, that has no discomfort and that has no cost,” cautions Dr Robert Singer of San Diego. “They want magic. That magic pill doesn’t exist.”

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agriculture

Bio fuel Ferrari F430

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Food feed or fuel The versatility of corn as a foodstuff, sweetener, livestock feed and biofuel has dramatically increased the demand for this affordable, sustainable and global agricultural product.

Written by Joanne Molina

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agriculture could have predicted that the strange grain introduced to European settlers by the indigenous people of the Americas would shape the economic and human history of the New World – and still play a prominent role in the 21st century as an important resource for global economic development?

The exponential spread and usage of corn, its contemporary ubiquity as a commercial crop debated but nonetheless very real, has taken it from being the staple food of Native Americans to, by weight, the most heavily cultivated grain in the world. Its popularity as a crop, as well as the concerns given rise to by that popularity, is largely due to its commercial flexibility: corn has gone beyond its initial usage as a food grain to also become one of the world’s most relied-upon sweeteners, livestock feeds and fuel sources.

While it became a global crop centuries ago, corn – or maize, its more exact name – is traditionally an American crop. However, drastically increased demand, particularly for usage in biofuel, has spurred production worldwide. In 2007, the United States contributed almost half of worldwide production with more than 300 million tonnes, according to the Food & Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). In the same report, China was a distant second, producing about half that amount, with South American and European nations producing only comparatively fractional amounts of the crop. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, production of corn in Saudi Arabia Rick Tolman, CEO of was 90,000 metric tonnes in 2009 – the National Corn 45 per cent higher than production Growers Association in 2000 and about 22 times more than what was produced in 1999.

Corn’s current particular importance can be further emphasised by a comparison to the FAO’s wheat production rankings in the same year, where China ranked first in worldwide production and yielded roughly twice the amount of wheat as the US. Yet it is also notable that China still produced more corn in that year, by weight, than it did wheat.

While some of its popularity as a crop may be attributable to historical precedent, a more likely and pragmatic cause is corn’s reliability as a profitable farming endeavour and an agricultural product headed out to a diversified, largely stable market. As Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association, points out, a wide variety of businesses and industries “stand to gain when we can increase production in an economically and environmentally sustainable fashion”.

“Anything that can be made from oil or hydrocarbons can be made from carbohydrates or plant material,” he says. In addition to its wellknown role as a cereal grain and its usage in the production of corn syrup and ethanol, corn – in particular corn starch – is also used in the production of plastics and adhesives. A byproduct of wet-milled corn is frequently used by the biotech industry as a culture medium for the growth of micro organisms.

But despite its diversified applications, the fact remains that corn’s 048

major usages – and the source of most of the contemporary controversy surrounding the crop – fall into the categories of feed, biofuel and corn syrup. A majority of the United States’ corn production remains devoted to livestock feed – about 45 per cent of it during the 2007-2008 season, according to the Nebraska Corn Board (NCB). The sheer volume of above-ground (or epigeous) mass contained in a corn plant as opposed to other cereal grains has made it one of the first choices for silage, a fodder that is produced by the harvesting and processing of the entire plant. It is this same preference by the livestock industries that has put corn-for-fodder at odds, by many accounts, with corn-for-ethanol. While the NCB’s 2007-2008 statistics showed that the percentage of domestic corn used for ethanol was only a little over half the amount used for feed, demand for ethanol has grown exponentially since 2000 and factors such as a federally mandated ethanol production capacity goal of 15 billion gallons by 2015 will only serve to spur that increase.

This trend has put the livestock industry up in arms due to an increase in the price of the corn they use to feed their animals. As corn farmers prepared to take advantage of a seller’s market in 2008, livestock farmers – particularly those raising pigs, which often eat a diet consisting almost entirely of corn – felt the pinch of feed costs, often to the tune of tens of dollars per animal. However, the overall supply of corn has also been put into flux by demand. David Lehman, of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group, explained in an interview that same year that “[ethanol] is a new demand factor in the corn market… It’s doubled, in terms of its percentage of our corn use in the past two years. However, corn production is increasing very rapidly as well. Our corn production in the last year [2007] was over 13 billion bushels, and that was up from about 11 billion the year before.”

Tolman adds: “Thanks to technology on the farm and in the seed, the corn industry has been able to achieve a steady upward production trend per acre, while at the same time reducing inputs and environmental impacts per pound of corn.”

The ‘technology in the seed’ that Tolman refers to is agricultural biotech – specifically the development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). One of the industry’s success stories of the past decade in terms of acceptance, genetically modified corn is one of the few commercially grown GMO crops. About 80 per cent of the corn grown in the United States is modified and maize is the only GMO crop grown commercially in the European Union, according to GMO Compass, which specialises in information on genetically modified products.

Despite being dwarfed by the amounts used for fuel and feed, the relatively small portion of the world’s corn used for direct consumption by humans is significant in that it mirrors the diversity shown by this grain in its industrial uses. Maize’s introduction to Europe and its

Dow AgroSciences

Who

“Thanks to technology on the farm and in the seed, the corn industry has been able to achieve a steady upward production trend per acre, while at the same time reducing inputs and environmental impacts per pound of corn.”

Dow AgroSciences

erstwhile colonies and trade routes during the 1600s has resulted in an astonishingly widespread cultivation as a direct source of sustenance across the globe. Relatively similar porridges made from the meal of the grain can be found in kitchens in South America, the southeastern United States, northern Italy, Romania and Africa. But it is inarguable that corn has become even more ubiquitous as a foodstuff since taking the form of corn syrup.

Corn syrup’s use as an alternative to cane sugar was spurred in the United States largely because of the high price of sugar within a country with a long history of sugar quotas. However, its popularity as a sugar alternative worldwide is less arcane: its cost-controlling appeal for manufacturers and businesses is coupled with its physical and chemical properties, which deter unwanted crystallisation in food products and help retain both moisture and freshness over a longer time during product shelf life. The fact that corn syrup’s rise in consumption has run parallel and in conjunction with the industrialised world’s increased consumption of heavily processed foods has made it a flashpoint for arguments about public health, particularly obesity.

While it is true that corn syrup has found its way into a seemingly endless array of products, the dietary and nutritional issues stemming from the industrialised preparation of food are wide-ranging and complex, with no one ingredient a catch-all culprit.

“Corn sweetener is metabolized in the body in the same manner as any other sweetener and has not greater, nor no less role in causing obesity than any other sweetener. Obesity is a serious issue in the United States, but it has to do with consumption of too many calories, not with corn sweetener per se,” Tolman argues.

“This is a marketing issue, not a metabolic issue,” stated David Klurfeld, national programme leader for human nutrition in US Department of agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and editor of the June 2009 Journal of Nutrition supplement, The State of the Science on Dietary Sweeteners Containing Fructose. “The real issue is not high fructose corn syrup. It’s that we’ve forgotten what a real serving size is.

We have to eat less of everything.”

In a sense, the dietary controversy surrounding a seemingly mundane industrial sweetener is a reflection of the socio-economic and technological questions surrounding corn in general. Its almost unmatched flexibility as a crop has given rise to new sets of issues regarding supply, technology and investment and also cemented its popularity in the contemporary global market.

How that real and growing demand plays out over time will reveal much about the future of a world economy where populations and economies, food and fuel are becoming evermore intertwined and interdependent.

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franchising

Medical intervention Advances in technology have facilitated the globalisation of medical diagnostics, treatment and expertise. Is the franchising of top hospital â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;brandsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the next trend in expanding quality healthcare across the world?

written by lisa vincenti

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Catherina Hospital, Eindhoven, The Netherlands by Philips Healthcare

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franchising

Millions

across the globe recognise and seek out the golden arches of McDonalds, assured of a familiar taste. Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee shop chain, has loyal customers in 49 countries who’d sooner give up food than forego a grande caffè latte in the morning.

Even hair salon Toni & Guy has operations in 41 countries.

These super-brands got to where they are by franchising their businesses.

But is it possible to import the franchise model, one typically reserved for fast-food chains and more mundane services, to the proliferation of cutting-edge medicine? The scenario is so uncommon and complicated that few even label such expansion efforts by healthcare facilities as a ‘franchise’ by normally calling them ‘branches’. The Harvard Health Policy Review was so reluctant to apply the label to the healthcare field because, according to the term’s strict definitions, money is at the heart and soul of the matter and “financial gain should not be the sole goal of [healthcare] providers, patients or the coordinating agencies”.

The concept of a medical facility expanding to new locales is a well-established practice. For example, MD Anderson, a renowned Texas cancer centre, has locations throughout the Houston area and has expanded to neighbouring states, as has the Maya Clinic, which now has facilities in three states. Quest Diagnostics, which provides half of the laboratory testing services in the United States, also operates in such diverse locations as Canada, Brazil, Mexico, India, Belgium, France and Britain.

Exchange and educational programmes have long been a recognised medical practise for improving healthcare, especially in remote locations. Associations among hospitals, such as the relationship between Methodist International and Emaar Healthcare in Dubai, and state-of-the-art telemedicine technology is designed to provide top quality care in previously under-served areas.

However, the establishment of an arm of a well-known medical facility across international borders is still a relatively uncommon concept. When Ohio-based Cleveland Clinic announced plans to open a US$2 billion-plus facility on the newly created Sowwah Island in Abu Dhabi, it was certainly something new – and an experiment that will be watched with interest around the world.

“No other academic medical centre from America has ever done this before,” Cleveland Clinic chief executive officer Delos M Cosgrove, MD, told THINK. “I’m incredibly excited about this. American medical knowledge has been held in significant esteem and we are trying to begin to share that intellectual capital. The United Arab Emirates is a developing country that has not had a strong academic background and it has not trained a lot of medical professionals. They want our intellectual capital: they want to know how to build a hospital, how to staff it and how to measure quality. It wants to jump start its medical healthcare system.”

Although the term ‘franchising’ has been noticeably absent in the discussions about this association, when an outsider finances the venture, in this case Mubadala, a government investment vehicle in Abu Dhabi, it is obvious what this venture is.

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Dr Cosgrove in the operation theatre

Exchange and educational programmes have long been a recognised medical practise for improving healthcare, especially in remote locations.

“As governments of developing countries fall short of providing widespread access to care, and traditional charityfocused non-governmental organisations offer limited or temporary solutions, the private sector presents an opportunity for sustainable scale-up of healthcare services alongside social

and economic development,” states Dominic Montagu, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Franchising healthcare is certainly an area worth consideration and has been done on a smaller scale in places like India. One of the pioneers at the vanguard of this new frontier is the Apollo Hospitals Group, founded in the early 1980s by Dr Pratap C Reddy, who in three years, along with his four daughters, doubled the group’s capacity by franchising.

At the same time, the Chennai-based company went after a chunk of India’s booming primary healthcare market by building 250 franchised clinics. Today, Apollo is one of the largest private healthcare providers in the world.

But the Cleveland Clinic, unlike Apollo, has a long history reaching back almost a century and has an international reputation to match. Like its counterpart in the United States, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (CCAD) will be a physician-led medical facility served by North American board-certified physicians and right from the start the new hospital promises state-of-the-art treatment that will be designed to take advantage of the latest technologies in surgery, imaging, telemedicine and

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Siemens operating room of the future Philips computer tomographic imaging Acuson S2000 by Siemens X-ray technology by Siemens

electronic medical records. But can the clinic’s business model succeed and culture be duplicated abroad?

Long ranked as one of the United States’ top medical institutions, especially rated for its cardiac medicine and cardiac surgery, the Cleveland Clinic has long been a preferred destination for patients from all over the world. However, it is more than just a hospital at the forefront of medical treatment, it is a unique business model, one which pays physicians a salary and fosters a multi-disciplinary approach to healthcare, and is seen by many as a highly efficient and effective solution to the ever ballooning cost of medical care.

The Cleveland and Mayo Clinics are the two largest group practices in the world, where doctors are paid the same salary every month regardless of whether they perform one surgery or 20.

At most US hospitals, surgeons and doctors work autonomously and independently of one another, the result for patients is often extra testing, unnecessary procedures, additional red tape and little collaboration. Even the clinics’ non-medical practices are designed to improve outcomes for patients – electronic medical records let patients upload their health information, such as weight-loss or blood sugar data, from devices at home.

Cleveland Clinic’s Cosgrove says he hopes the new hospital

Siemens press picture

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will establish the clinic as the first US healthcare enterprise to emerge as a worldwide brand on a par with the Solomon.

Guggenheim Museum in New York or the Louvre in Paris, both of which have expanded to other parts of the globe.

The groundwork to expand the Cleveland Clinic’s international presence has already begun. In 2006, the company opened an outpatient branch in Canada, and has signed a contract to manage a cardiac centre in Vienna, Austria. In the Middle East, Cleveland Clinic has managed the Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, a network of facilities in Abu Dhabi. The magnitude of the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi undertaking, however, dwarfs Medical City, with a sprawling 2.2 million-square-foot facility, designed to be “five years ahead of state of the art”.

“The goal of the project was to create a different approach to healthcare: a de-institutionalising and blurring of the lines between hospital and hospitality,” says Alexander Wu, a principal with HDR, the architect commissioned for the facility. From the sounds of it, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi could do for the Cleveland Clinic brand what Bilbao has done for the Guggenheim, by giving it a new lustre, but more importantly a highly visible track record globally.

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“There have been other US healthcare institutions that expanded into foreign regions, but this is unparalleled,” Cosgrove notes, adding that Cleveland Clinic has been treating patients from the region for over 30 years, since Khalid bin Abdul Aziz, King of Saudi Arabia came to the Cleveland Clinic for a heart operation in the 1970s. Many from the Gulf region followed, including HH Sheikh Zayed who in 2000 had a successful operation and stayed in Cleveland for several weeks. “Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi will be led and staffed by physicians who are Western trained and board certified, offering the latest technologies to create an environment that combines excellent amenities with world-class care. This is a true extension of the Cleveland Clinic model – addressing the needs of patients who have traditionally had to travel great distances for specialty services.”

Although Cosgrove says that the clinic has received enquiries from 70 different countries looking for clinical capabilities, no new projects are in the works at the moment. “You have to manage one well, it takes a substantial amount of effort to do that well.”

With such a prestigious reputation at stake, it might be sensible to move slowly.

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THINK Health

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Health

The mounting costs as a result of diabetes present a staggering toll on global economies written by lisa vincenti

Deadly Threat “In

two decades, the total number of people with diabetes is likely to swell to nearly 440 million. To put that in context, that’s more people than the current population of North America,” says president of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Prof. Jean Claude Mbanya.

The latest data published by the IDF in its Diabetes Atlas shows the disease is now far more prevalent than just 10 years ago. A condition in which the body either does not produce enough or does not properly respond to insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas, diabetes causes a range of health complications from blindness to amputation. Each year, seven million people will develop diabetes and 3.8 million people a year are killed by complications arising from it, which is similar in magnitude to HIV/AIDS. In 2000, the estimated global prevalence of diabetes was 151 million, but it has now spiked to around 285 million, representing 6.4 per cent of the world’s adult population, with a prediction that by 2030 the number of people with diabetes will soar to 438 million.

LIFESTYLES IN TRANSITION Diabetes is a truly democratic disease: its reach is universal, cutting across cultural, social, political and economic boundaries. So while

many erroneously see this as a condition of higher income nations and Westernised lifestyles, the major burden of the disease is born by low and middle-income countries, where access to treatment is limited and expensive.

A complex interplay of genetic, social and environmental factors is driving the global explosion in diabetes. In more affluent societies, lifestyle choices significantly increase an individual’s risk of developing diabetes. Obesity, smoking, lack of physical activity and poor diet all contribute to this increased risk. Obesity is one of the highest risk factors for developing diabetes and as experts watch the world’s waistlines grow in both developed and developing nations, concern mounts.

While it’s true that many affluent nations, notably the United States, have adopted some unhealthy habits in the form of poor dietary choices and a sedentary lifestyle, diabetes is very much associated with poverty.

For low and middle-income countries, economic advancement often leads to changes in the living environment, which results in altered diet and activity levels within a generation or two. Consequently, people can develop diabetes despite relatively low gains in weight. In the developed world, diabetes is most common among the poorest communities.

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Health Wherever poverty drives families to low cost-per-calorie foods and packaged drinks, diabetes thrives.

“This epidemic is responsible for so much suffering and loss of life, yet so little is being done to tackle it,” says Mbanya. “Where growing economies like India and China lead, many will soon follow. Doing nothing in the face of the epidemic will place significant stress on the economic development of many countries and will jeopardise the Millennium Development Goals.”

Economics of Disease In fact, the loss of life and human suffering aside, diabetes costs the world billions in not only healthcare expenditures, but also lost productivity.

The World Economic Forum 2009 identified chronic diseases as one of the most significant risks facing the global economy, exceeded only by the risks posed by sudden oil/gas price rises, retrenchment from globalisation, asset price collapse and a slowing of the Chinese economy.

According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the US loses US$58 billion a year from lost earnings due to lost work days, restricted activity days, low productivity at work, mortality and permanent disabilities resulting from the disease.

A person with Type 2 diabetes is two to four times more likely to get cardiovascular disease and 80 per cent of people with diabetes will die from it, resulting in a loss of 12-14 years. Medical costs for a diabetic are two to five times higher than for those of a person without it, according to the IDF. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that up to 15 per cent of annual healthcare budgets are spent on diabetes-related illnesses.

The WHO predicted net losses in national income from diabetes and cardiovascular disease of US$557.7 billion in China, US$303.2 billion in the Russian Federation, US$336.6 billion in India, US$49.2 billion in Brazil, between 2005 and 2015. The figures are staggering.

“In 25 years, there’s going to be this convergence of the population getting older, but also many people having had diabetes for a long period of time, and that will lead to higher costs,” says Elbert S Huang, who is part of a University of Chicago’s diabetes research team. “Duration of diabetes is as important a predictor of complications as glucose.”

Earlier onset and a longer duration directly result in both an increased cost of treating diabetes and lowered productivity for each person with the disease.

Diabetes imposes a large economic burden on the individual, national healthcare system and economy.

Global healthcare expenditures to treat and prevent diabetes and its complications will top US$376 billion in 2010, and are predicted to jump to nearly US$490 billion in 2030.

The United States alone is projected to

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Prof. Jean Claude Mbanya

spend a staggering US$198 billion, or 52.7 per cent of global expenditure, on diabetes this year, while India, the country with the largest number of people living with diabetes, will pay out a mere US$2.8 billion, or less than one per cent of the global total. It is obvious that the financial burden in many developing nations rests on the individual. Those living in lowincome countries shoulder a larger share of the expense because of poorly organised systems of medical care insurance or a lack of public services.

In Latin America, for instance, families pay between 40 per cent and 60 per cent of medical care expenditures from their own pockets, the IDF states. In the poorest countries, people with diabetes and their families bear almost the entire cost of the medical care. So as global employment shrinks, fewer people have the resources to pay for their care.

“The world needs to invest in integrated health systems that can diagnose, treat, manage and prevent diabetes,” says Professor Nigel Unwin, a medical officer with the diabetes unit at the WHO. “Governments also need to invest in actions outside the formal health sector, particularly in promoting healthier diets and physical activity, to reduce obesity and the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Without effective prevention, diabetes will overwhelm health systems and hinder economic growth.”

In fact, an orchestrated effort that includes businesses, doctors and government is likely to be the only way to tackle the epidemic. Because diabetes is partly a lifestyle disease, global citizens need to not only learn of the risk factors associated with the disease, but also have incentives to make changes in their daily lives to reduce their risk of developing it.

“The epidemic represents nothing short of a global health emergency,” says IDF President Mbanya. “It is alarming that world leaders stand by while the diabetes fuse slowly burns. The serious impact on families, countries and economies continues with little resistance. Governments, aid agencies and the international community must take concerted action to defuse the threat now, before the diabetes time bomb explodes.”

prevalence* (%) estimates of diabetes (20-79 years) by region, 2010 and 2030 Prevalence (%) 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

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Sports

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Sporting Chance Two international charities have worked tirelessly to show the healing and redemptive powers of sport Written by Steve Hill

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Sports

Johann

Koss may have become an international icon after winning four gold medals as an Olympic speed skater, but the moment for him that defines the real value of sport to society came far from the competitive stage, in the unlikely setting of Eritrea.

The Norwegian was visiting this impoverished country in 1993 as an Athlete Ambassador for Olympic Aid, a fundraising organisation put together by the committee preparing for the Lillehammer Winter Games the following year.

Koss stumbled upon a group of children admiring posters of Eritrean war martyrs and started to talk to them before a small boy arrived and grabbed their attention instead.

“I was intrigued,” he says, “so I asked this boy why all the kids ran toward him. He pointed to his long sleeved shirt... and as we were speaking, he took off the shirt, rolled it up and tied it into a ball. The boys immediately lost interest in our conversation, as well as the posters, and began kicking the ‘ball’ around. This experience highlighted for me the power of sport.

“I began to wonder: what if we used sport to show children that courage, perseverance and dedication will make them strong – not guns?

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That fairness, respect for one’s opponent and negotiation are the route to solving conflicts, not violence? That athletes – not soldiers – could become their heroes and role models? That looking after yourself and one another is the path to a better life?”

Koss later challenged fellow athletes and the public to donate money for each gold medal he won, raising US$18 million that was used to fund a range of programmes, including building a hospital in Sarajevo and schools in Eritrea.

Olympic Aid, later to become known as Right To Play, has since evolved from a fundraising vehicle to become a Non-Governmental Organisation that uses sport and play programmes to improve health, foster peace among children and communities, and develop life skills in 23 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America.

With Koss at the helm as president and CEO, it trains local community leaders to deliver projects that reach almost 700,000 children a week, an increase of almost 100,000 on 2008.

And these schemes, Koss says, have proved to be a powerful platform for change. “We have seen how sport serves as an effective tool to combat

Special Olympics gold medals.

Olympic Revenues Construction work and preparations to welcome the world are in top gear with less than 1,000 days to go before London hosts the Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games from July 27 – August 12, 2012.

Latest projected final constructions costs for the event are at US$11.95 billion, according to official British Government figures, while the overall budget remains at US$15.4 billion.

The Olympics have plenty of domestic detractors in the UK, but the event is having a significant economic effect, helping drive an ambitious regeneration programme and the construction of the largest new urban park in Europe for 150 years.

More than 3,300 people are currently working on the Olympic Park site, 17 per cent of whom were unemployed beforehand. And it is estimated that the Games will help generate US$3.3 billion in tourism gains.

The word legacy is never far from the lips of London officials who stress that the Olympic effect will be felt for generations to come with five facilities built especially for the event having a long-term future as permanent sports venues.

poverty by reducing the risk of diseases that intensify poverty. We know that sport can reduce stigma, increase self-esteem and improve social skills, leading to increased employment and lower levels of poverty and hunger. Sport is helping us work toward the goal of universal primary education by keeping children in schools and improving academic achievement,” he says.

“Our programmes also promote gender equality and empower girls and women, building their capacity as leaders. And we’ve seen how sport can help combat HIV and AIDS by improving education and access to health information and by reducing stigma and discrimination. All of these are success stories for Right To Play, but more importantly for the communities who have welcomed and taken ownership of our sport and play programmes.”

Koss, who will be assistant coach for the Norwegian speed-skating team at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver from February 12-28, is particularly proud of Junior Leader projects, which aim to give roles of responsibility to youths between the ages of eight and 17. “These young leaders develop important life skills like confidence and self-esteem and build knowledge that will allow them to prosper in the future,” he says.

“We have seen former coaches and leaders go on to become role models and true leaders in their communities.”

Using

sport as a vehicle for change is also central to the

phenomenon that is Special Olympics, whose chairman and CEO is Tim Shriver. Demand is at an all-time high – and continuing to grow exponentially – for an organisation that has profoundly changed attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities.

Since taking charge in 1996, Shriver has recruited more than two million athletes around the world to serve over three million people in 175 countries.

He has also worked with world leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton to advance the growth of the Special Olympics mission, and spearheaded programmes in developing or war-torn countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia Herzegovina. Other initiatives include Healthy Athletes, which has become the world’s largest public health screening and education programme for people with intellectual disabilities, and Unified Sports, which promotes acceptance and inclusion across the globe.

Special Olympics is a year-round community-based movement that empowers people through sport and is totally unrelated to Paralympism, which provides an elite sporting stage for competitors with physical disabilities. Shriver is well versed in finding the right words to detail these differences, but maintains that the most important aspect of his job is the ongoing need to work on behalf of those who find themselves marginalised or suffering from prejudice because of their learning difficulties.

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Sports

“There is still a great amount of work to do in continuing to shine a light on the gift and the value that people with an intellectual disability can bring to society... when they can be teachers to non-disabled persons, teaching us lessons about tolerance, openness and caring.”

Tim Shriver CEO & Chairman of Special Olympics

“There is still a great amount of work to do in continuing to shine a light on the gift and the value that people with an intellectual disability can bring to society... when they can be teachers to non-disabled persons, teaching us lessons about tolerance, openness and caring,” Shriver says.

Sport has proved to be the perfect tool for opening doors and making changes. “There are prevailing attitudes towards our population that associates people with intellectual disabilities with people who have no skill or no value,” he continues.

“But sport can change the identity of a person... in Special Olympics, you see only a footballer, a swimmer or a runner and suddenly that becomes a catalytic moment when any prejudice is taken away and people change to become believers. Our athletes are given the chance to redefine who they are in a world that doubts them and become valuable citizens in a world open to possibilities.”

Special Olympics has certainly come a long way since 1962 when Shriver’s mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, launched a summer camp at her own home for children with intellectual disabilities. The event was such a success that momentum quickly grew, eventually leading to the organisation of the first Special Olympics in Chicago in 1968 involving around 1,000 contestants in swimming and track and field competitions.

Fast forward to 2007 and Shanghai hosted the 12th Special Olympics World Summer Games, attracting more than 7,500 athletes from 164 062

countries. These huge gatherings, along with daily activities in villages, towns and cities across the world, demonstrate the reach of a movement that now boasts offices in cities as wide ranging as Beijing, Delhi, Johannesburg, Cairo and Riyadh.

These are worrying times for many major organisations because of the ongoing global economic slowdown, but Shriver is determined that Special Olympics funding will not be dramatically hit as a result. “It is a very tough environment and we’re no different from anyone else in being affected. But I think we will survive and recover quickly because people are hungry for what we offer,” he says.

“Arm twisting can only go so far, if you have a deep relationship with a sponsor, one that has been built year-on-year and is successful and makes them feel that they are investing in their own future... that’s not a duty or an obligation to remain involved. We are very strong with these companies and are part of the fabric.”

One of Shriver’s targets for the next 10 years is to increase the amount of unified sport being played. “I would like to see Special Olympics in every school around the world, which I realise is not a mild goal,” he says. “I believe strongly that it should be a formative experience for kids growing up wherever they are, we should be exposing children to exceptionality and making them realise that they don’t need to fear difference.”

Johann Koss and Tim Shriver are among the speakers at the Global Competitiveness Forum 2010, taking place at The Kingdom Centre – Four Seasons Hotel, Riyadh, from January 24-26.

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yachting

tactical sailing As the world’s largest private yacht readies to launch, new values embraced as a result of the economic downturn inspire the sustainable luxury of the innovative Wally-HermÈs Yacht written by lisa vincenti

In

the early years of the 21st century, all that mattered was the wowfactor, from mansions to art collections to mega-yachts, as the world’s super-rich sought to outdo one another. But consumer attitudes, even among the wealthiest, are changing, as a more eco-conscious and soulful spirit emerges.

A case in point is the yachting world. So even as the world’s largest private yacht, the Eclipse – replete with at least two helicopter pads, several hot tubs, one pool, three launch boats, a private submarine and a missiledetection system, readies to launch later this year, the shipyards of Monacobased Wally, in conjunction with Hermès, is dreaming up a new model of the mega-yacht, one that has sustainability at its core, without any sacrifice to amenities. Welcome to WHY, the Wally-Hermès Yacht.

“There is a dramatic sensitivity for the sake of reputation – you don’t want to be seen as a conspicuous luxury consumer,” says Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, which is based in New York. “There has also been a shift to a more modest footprint in terms of consumption and social responsibility.”

The growth of the super yachts took off in the past decade as the new wealthy aspired to live the life of the mega-rich, and yacht sizes grew to match. Today, industry players estimate about 5,000 super yachts (those over 24 metres in length) are on the water. In 2008, the last year for which data is available, 241 superyachts were built at an average cost of US$31 million, with each taking between two and four years to build, according to the (SUPER)Yachting Index by Camper & Nicholsons, an international yacht broker.

“The industry is not as busy as yacht builders would like due to the global downturn in economic terms,” says Michael Jordan, who has been involved in the design of numerous super yachts. “There is a shift in global purchasing power away from the 95-metre-plus super yachts to more 37-metre to 45-metre boats. The running costs are a little lighter!

But the world’s super-rich who are not affected quite as much on costs are still lining up to have the 150-metre-plus yachts built at places like Lurssens in Germany.”

According to Jordan, many people are choosing to remodel their existing yachts instead of purchasing new ones. “Yards such as Pendennis Shipyard in Cornwall, UK, have full order books but mainly for refurbishment work.

This is where clients who really would like to have a new build but are finding it a pinch just have their old yacht remodelled,” he says.

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yachting The World’s top Super yachts Eclipse The world’s largest private yacht, measuring more than 170 metres, will hit the waters this year. Owned by Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich, this will be the crown-jewel of his fleet of yachts.

Everest This proposed giga-yacht, topping the charts at 200 metres, would dwarf Eclipse, with accommodation for 36 passengers and guests consisting of 17 apartments and an owners’ private penthouse suite on the top deck. In addition, the yacht will have an outside swimming pool with a cinema arrangement, large gymnasium, sauna, steam rooms and indoor cinema. With a suggested price of more than US$500 million, the yacht is expected to be finished in 2011.

Across the board, spending habits have changed with frivolous luxury being replaced by more thoughtful purchases.

“It is a sombre environment out there in terms of luxury because of the lack of money and the failure of the luxury industry to deliver on what consumers now see as the fundamentals,” Jordan says, adding that superior quality, craftsmanship, design, exclusivity, brand heritage and customer service is what will make the difference going forward. This is where the Parisian house of Hermès steps in.

Hermès, a fashion label that achieved cult status with its Birkin bag, made waves a couple of years ago when it unveiled its cross-branded helicopter complete with Hermès fixtures, such as calf-leather seats, leather-trimmed controls and a Hermès canvas in the interior. The Parisian atelier followed this by creating a customised Veyron, a limited edition sports car by Bugatti.

“When we met, in autumn 2007, Luca Bassani Antivari [the president of Wally] had thought about asking Hermès to accessorise the interior of one of his boats,” says Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermès.

“I was impressed by the daring of his projects. My instinct was to get on board with him and go and seek out new territories in yacht design, but I had no interest in speed.”

WHY is the embodiment of a new way of thinking and living, one where the desire for simple, slower living and social consciousness go handin-hand with sophisticated, cutting-edge design. It is a moving island, developed with the latest and most advanced sustainable technologies, without a sacrifice in amenities (a seawater swimming pool 25 metres long and there is room for 12 guests to go jogging).

“We hope to open a new path, to offer a new lifestyle that is different, serene, contemplative and respectful of the environment, moving slowly on the water, combining the pleasure of sailing and absolute comfort,” Dumas says.

The creators of WHY explored a new shape that speaks a different vocabulary from traditional sharp-nosed vessels cutting through the open seas. A revolutionary triangular shape, inspired by the cable-handling ships 066

used for geo-mining in the North Sea, gives WHY, measuring 58 metres long and 38 metres wide, a completely different aspect from other yachts.

“Today, we want comfort, slowness, depth,” Dumas says. “My inspiration is the Greek caique, roomy, generous and slow. This eulogy to slowness is demonstrated in such a magnificent way. A pared-down craft with nothing superfluous about it.”

WHY also delves into the core issues on the minds of everyone today, and was crafted with sustainability at its core. It addresses the problem of consumption and features the most advanced sustainable technologies.

Eco-friendly features include the use of different sources of energy that are managed by a central computer. A diesel electric engine powers the yacht and its 900-square-metre panels provides solar electricity and WHY will also be equipped with a telescopic wind-turbine system. A retractable mast with a computer-operated sail is planned to be installed to produce at least 30 per cent of energy needed to propel the luxury yacht.

“We provide an answer in a field where clients are responsible for setting an example, embracing a new ethic,” Dumas says. “What this market needs is a boat designed with the environment in mind. This new way of moving on water must give way to a new way of managing energy, its sources and uses, how to recycle it, etc. The same goes for the choice of materials; we have to limit the effect on the environment.”

Luxury isn’t what it used to be. Conspicuous consumption is frowned upon and greed has been replaced by a new frugality, according to research on the spending habits of the wealthy. The luxury market’s slowdown was partly driven by the super-wealthy’s curtailment of overthe-top consumption. “It’s not that they don’t have the money – they’re being conservative right now,” Pedraza says. “There’s a lot of soulsearching and a lot of experimenting. It’s a very turbulent period in the minds of executives. In the next few years, I think we’re going to see some really dramatic innovations from people in the luxury industry.”

With WHY, one example is already here.

Motor Yacht A Created by Philippe Starck, the superstar French designer, A is a deliberate slap in the face to an industry known for its classic conformity. Motor Yacht A, at 119 metres, is a private yacht built for Andrey Melnichenko, the 36-year-old Russian billionaire industrialist, with a price tag of more than US$300 million.

Dubai Holding the record for the world’s longest yacht, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s German-built yacht made waves at 160 metres.

Rising Sun Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, reportedly sold half of this 138-metre yacht to friend David Geffen.

Octopus Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s 127metre Octopus is an expedition-like Land Rover for the seas.

Opposite page: Clockwise Luca Bassani, President & CEO, Wally; Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Artistic Director, Hermès; Gabriele Pezzini, Design Director; Mauro Sculli, Naval Architect, Wally.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The WHY yacht looks very unfamiliar but it remains on a human scale. Space is the greatest luxury on the seaâ&#x20AC;? x

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travel

The lap of luxury The Middle East is home to some of the world’s hottest hotels; check out the THINK guide to the best before you check in written by Ruby Rogers

This

year numerous new properties are scheduled to open across the region, most of which were planned in the boom period but still defy the current economic downturn.

Many Gulf-based architects and interior designers are involved with numerous new hotel projects in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and other parts of the MENA region, which have been less severely hit by the world recession. While tourism fell by approximately 13 per cent region wide in 2009, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria bucked the trend and reported positive growth rates.

The long awaited Asia-Asia hotel in the UAE is expected to open for business, boasting a staggering 6,500 rooms. Its arrival might seem at odds with the global economic slowdown, but research by hotelprojects.com reveals that more than 2,100 first class and luxury hotel projects will be opened worldwide in the next 13 months, proving that tourism remains big business.

Across the Middle East, numerous new international chains and privately owned hotels are adding to the momentum, setting new standards in design, architecture and hospitality. Giorgio Armani has chosen to make his debut in the hospitality sector with the opening of the world’s first Armani hotel in the region during the first quarter.

Meanwhile, the Italian design firm Missoni, best known for their knitwear, is to open their first Middle East hotel in Kuwait in 2010, following the successful launch of their first hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland last year.

Saudi Arabia has seen its tourism industry strengthen and, according to a recent study by Business Monitor International, the Kingdom can expect six per cent growth annually until 2013, with the total number of hotel rooms rising by 40 per cent over the next three years.

Swiss hotel chain Mövenpick has recently opened its doors in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, a city that attracts millions of visitors every year. “The Holy City of Mecca is the most important destination for Muslims around the world, and with over 4.5 million visitors during the Hajj and Umrah season, we are confident that this new hotel will be a welcome addition to the city,” explains general manager Omar Boujlid. The message is clear: the Kingdom, and indeed the entire region, is open for business.

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Six Senses Spa, Jordan

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Four Seasons

The legendary Four Seasons hotel chain is synonymous with comfort, quality and reliability, but none more so than the Four Seasons Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Occupying the 30th to 48th floors of the impressive Kingdom Centre in the capital’s financial district, the Four Seasons features 249 generous guest rooms, including 32 suites and 20 long-stay residential suites with spectacular views over Riyadh.

Rooms at the Four Seasons boast all the amenities expected of a hotel of this calibre including high-speed internet access and DVD player. The marble bathrooms are equally well equipped with glass-enclosed showers and large soaking bathtubs, the best way to unwind after a busy day.

If you venture away from your comfortable bedroom you will discover the newly refurbished Four Seasons Health club, offering the very latest exercise equipment together with a whirlpool, cold plunge pool, sauna, steam room and outdoor swimming pool. For more active guests there are also two indoor squash courts, one racquetball court and two outside tennis courts.

Book into: The Four Seasons Riyadh Where: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Why: Comfort you can rely on Contact: 966 (1) 211-5000 or www.fourseasons.com/riyadh Le Gray

There’s a lot to love about Lebanon’s capital Beirut, which is determined to shake off its troubled reputation and re-emerge as the jewel of the Middle East. For starters, there is its enviable location – perched on a peninsula offering breathtaking views of the Mediterranean Sea and flanked by mountains. And then there is its rich history, excellent restaurants and wealth of leisure activities, which range from water sports to winter skiing.

Since October 2009, there has been another reason to love Beirut, namely Le Gray, located in the historical heart of the chic Central District and said to be equally as stylish as the city itself. That may be a bold statement but judging by the cool modern decor of its 87 spacious suites backed by state-of-the-art technology including plasma televisions, WiFi and iPod docking stations, it is more than justified.

So what can you expect when you book into Le Gray? Fresh fruit and flowers delivered to your room daily, walk-in showers and baths, a choice of eateries, including a rooftop restaurant offering spectacular views of the city below, and if this isn’t enough, the PureGray Health Club and Spa offers a comprehensive range of stress-busting treatments.

Book into: Le Gray Where: Beirut, Lebanon Why: The stunning panoramic views while taking a dip in the rooftop swimming pool.

Contact: +961 1 971 111 or reservations@legrey.com Evason Ma’In Hot Springs & Six Senses Spa

Prepare to be pampered like never before at the Evason Ma’In Hot Springs & Six Senses Spa in Jordan, located 264 metres below sea level directly under one of the natural hot spring waterfalls that cascades into the main pool. Book into one of the resort’s 94 rooms and suites, which boast stunning views of the surrounding valley, and indulge in fivestar features such as butler service, pantry and living room with a games table.

Beyond your bedroom there is a fully equipped gym, well-stocked 070

Six Senses library, plus a pool with first class views of the hot spring waterfall. For food, head to any one of the spa’s dining options, including the sensational Panorama restaurant, which sits on a cliff top overlooking the Dead Sea and offers front row seats to some stunning sunsets.

At the top of your holiday agenda should be a visit to the stunning Six Senses Spa, which features 10 treatment rooms and a steam cave designed to relax and rejuvenate even the most stressed out guest. Be warned, you won’t want to leave.

1. Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Hajar Tower 2. The Yas Hotel 3. Le Gray 4. Evason Ma’In Hot Springs & Six Senses Spa

Book into: The Evason Ma’In Hot Springs & Six Senses Spa Where: Madaba, Jordan Why: The perfect place to retreat and relax Contact: +962 5 324 5500 or reservations-main@sixsenses.com The Yas Hotel

Location, location, location is what sets The Yas Hotel apart from its competitors – it is built half on land and half on water overlooking the marina and the Formula One circuit race track. But that’s not all, this newcomer to Abu Dhabi’s hotel scene is further distinguished by its futuristic design, an incredible grid-like structure that can be seen from miles around and is said to resemble a fishing net.

Step inside and there are 499 contemporary rooms and suites from a spacious deluxe with floor to ceiling glass panels opening out onto a private balcony, to a Presidential Suite offering terrace access, lap pool, private elevator, full chef ’s kitchen and a dining room that can accommodate up to 16 people.

Relaxation is guaranteed with a visit to one of the rooftop swimming pools or luxury spa featuring 10 private treatment rooms plus a sauna and steam room.

Book into: The Yas Hotel Where: Abu Dhabi, UAE Why: Its distinctive design inspired by a fishing net Contact: +971 2 656 0000 or reservations@theyashotel.com Al Tarfa Desert Sanctuary Lodge & Spa

No expense is spared at the Al Tarfa Lodge in Egypt; its rooms are individually designed, furnished and decorated, the swimming pool is set on top of a sand dune and serviced by a terrace, and private dining can be arranged amid the surrounding palm groves. What’s more, Al Tarfa is Egypt’s first eco-friendly lodge, meaning that luxury comes without compromising your green ethics.

The lodge is located in the heart of Egypt, surrounded by the greenery of the tranquil Dakhla Oasis and set against the backdrop of the desert.

Built with local and natural materials using traditional techniques, the hotel calls upon Saharan mud-brick architecture to create its 20 freestanding rooms and suites furnished with locally sourced products.

Visitors are free to relax by the pool, indulge in the hotel spa or take part in cultural tours, guided walks, horse riding, 4x4 desert excursions and camel rides. This is eco-tourism at its finest.

Book into: Al Tarfa Lodge Where Dakhla Oasis, Egypt Why: Eco-friendly luxury Contact: +2 092 9105 007 or info@altarfa.travel

“Saudi Arabia has seen its tourism industry strengthen and according to a recent study by Business Monitor International, the Kingdom can expect six per cent growth annually until 2013, with the total number of hotel rooms rising by 40 per cent over the next three years”

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The Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Riyadh

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And still to come…

Al Tarfa Desert Sanctuary Lodge & Spa

Hotel Missoni Kuwait Another fashion house to have dipped a toe into the hotel market is Missoni, which has already opened its doors in Edinburgh and is set to entice travellers to Kuwait in 2010.

Missoni’s boutique hotel empire has been brought about by a collaboration with Residor Hotel Group and aims to cater to well-heeled guests while embracing the distinctive creative vision of Rosita Missoni – bold, brightly coloured prints. Watch this space!

Book into: Hotel Missoni Kuwait Where: Kuwait Due to open: 2010 Why: Bold and beautiful Contact: www.hotelmissoni.com Palazzo Versace Due to fling open its fashionable doors in 2011, the Palazzo Versace Dubai follows in the footsteps of its successful sister hotel on Australia’s Gold Coast, which opened in 2000 offering guests the chance to immerse themselves in the luxurious world of Versace.

Dubai is home to the second of 15 Palazzo Versace hotels and resorts slated to be built, located on the banks of the Dubai Creek and complete with its own private marina.

For those lucky enough to book into the luxury designer resort there are 217 hotel rooms and suites tastefully decorated with Versace furniture and linen. Numerous outdoor swimming and relaxation areas are scattered across the complex, together with the Salus per Aquum Spa and Versace Boutique showcasing the very latest home and fashion collections. Three restaurants are set to serve the exclusive clientele with everything from local to international delicacies.

For those who want to linger for longer, there are also 169 private residences complete with balcony, self-contained kitchen, private rooftop terrace and dining area, plunge pool and private marina berth.

Residents will also have access to the hotel’s concierge and customer care staff, as well as the dining, leisure and spa facilities.

Book into: Palazzo Versace Due to Open: 2011 Where: Dubai, UAE Why: It’s Versace, need we say more?

Contact: www.palazzoversace.ae

Qasr Al Sharq

Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Hajar Tower

Book into: Qasr Al Sharq – a member of The Waldorf Astoria Collection Where: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Why: Old style opulence and world-class dining Contact: +966 2 659 9999 or qasralsharq.jeddah@hilton.com

Book into: Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Where: Makkah, Saudi Arabia Why: The views from the top of the spectacular Hajar Tower Contact: +966 2 571 71 71 or hotel.makkah@moevenpick.com

If you have ever dreamt of waking-up in a palace, then the Qasr Al Sharq is the place for you. Pure gold, handpicked crystal and porcelain china, intricate mosaics, cultured marble and the finest works of art are just a few of the opulent features that have earned the Qasr Al Sharq its reputation for pure indulgence backed by outstanding service.

The spa alone is enough reason to check into the hotel, which boasts Jeddah’s only Aquamedic pool that pumps underwater jet streams specifically designed to massage and relax the body. There is also a fitness area, traditional Hammam, pool with a fully retractable glass roof, and a variety of healing and wellness treatments Guests have a choice of 46 suites, including the extravagance of the Qasr Al Sharq Suite, which features two master bedrooms with ensuite dressing and bathrooms, private sitting room, office, dining room, fully fitted kitchen and in-suite spa. The hotel’s culinary offerings are also in a league of their own and include the world famous Bice Italian restaurant, which has fantastic views of the Red Sea. What better way to enjoy exotic Saudi Arabia?

Mövenpick has boosted its presence in Saudi Arabia with the opening of its newest property in the prestigious Hajar Tower in Makkah. Aiming to appeal to pilgrims and business travellers alike, the Italian-inspired décor, together with a state-of-the-art business centre, satisfies the burgeoning expectations of its guests.

Accommodation runs from deluxe rooms to royal suites depending on how much cash you have to splash; all are equipped with HIWI internet and a safe. Boasting 1,204 rooms in total, it’s not surprising that the hotel has five dining options to cater to diverse tastes. Among them are Al Naseem, the hotel’s main dining restaurant offering international and local cuisines; Al Firdaous, which is able to seat up to 500 guests; and Hajar, open during high season and serving up Arabic and international favourites.

To build up an appetite, visitors can work out in the new fitness centre or relax in the steam room, sauna, Jacuzzi, Turkish bath or indoor swimming pool. The choice is yours.

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style

powerful perceptions Communicate a message of confidence, competence and power by presenting a professional image whether you are in your office, an airport or on location. written by ruby rogers

Embody, designed by Jeff Webber and the late Bill Stumpf for Herman Miller, is a health positive seating experience.

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Never forget with the stylish new lacquered memory stick from Parisian jeweller Cartier.

Knollâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s award-winning Generation chair is designed to respond to the way people really sit, including unconventional postures.

Share your vision with state-of-the-art audio and video from Denmark’s Bang & Olufsen.

Negotiate from a position of power at Karim Rashid’s Uno e Zero for Dellarovere, the world’s first high impact fibreglass desk.

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style

Save My Tie by Hermès has a reflective fluorescent stripe that illuminates the night with a bit of offbeat humour.

Dress for boardroom success in this classic yet chic suit by Paul Smith.

Bulgari’s new Sotirio watch celebrates the company’s 125th anniversary.

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Smooth alligator Oxford shoes with a rounder shape create a professional aura from the ground up by Hermès.

DĂŠco, with its micro-crocodile print, is a stylish personal organiser from Filofax.

Communicate with sophisticated glamour with the golden Nokia mobile.

Soar beyond your limits in flight suit-inspired corporate dressing by Hermes.

Alpha, by Tumi, organises all your travel essentials in this elegant snakeskinesque bag.

Step ahead of the competition in these architectural-inspired shoes by Lara Bohinc.

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looking forward from behind the lens International award-winning photographer Faisal Almalki captures the essence of Saudi Arabia and the world through his camera lens. written by dorothy waldman

The Arrival

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photography

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photography

Among

the names to watch on the international art scene is that of 33-year-old Faisal Almalki from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who was recently named Photographer of the Year in the third annual Masters of Photography Cup in Los Angeles (The Color Awards) in the amateur division. The panel of 36 judges from 18 countries also awarded him First Place in the Architecture category for his photo Rhythm Nation II and second place in the People category for his work Happy Together.

In addition to these prizes, a total of 16 of his works were selected as finalists in six different categories, a tribute to his versatility.

However, these are not his first accolades. He was also named Fine Art Photographer of the Year at the International Photography Awards, “The Lucies”, in New York City in 2008, scooped first place in the annual Popular Photography reader’s contest, as well as gold medals from international photography competitions in Austria and Qatar. One of Faisal’s photographs is now on a greeting card in the UK for the Worldwide Wildlife Fund.

Relatively new to the world of photography, he has already amassed an impressive portfolio that includes a range of subjects – architecture, abstract travel – and techniques – abstract, abstract architecture and realistic images. However, regardless of his subject matter, he always attempts to capture it from a perspective that causes one to pause and contemplate it in a new way. It may be the way he frames or crops the image, or the way he utilises the camera to play with light and shadows that creates his special effects.

THINK asked the talented young photographer about his work, future and dreams.

How do you see your work evolving?

As much as I enjoy photography, I enjoy the bit of randomness in my approach to it. I enjoy surprising myself with a few twists and jumps to new subjects and stories every now and then. Lately, I have started to feel more comfortable behind the camera and more content with the new results – even when they are received differently from older works.

I think I’m shooting more what I really want to shoot and showing what I enjoy seeing.

What would be your dream photographic experience?

It would probably revolve around doing more travel photography. I’d love to be challenged with travel related stories to capture and then push myself to try doing it.

Locally, I’d love to spend hours or days shooting inside the main lobby of the holy mosque in Mecca. I think there are endless stories to tell in and around it.

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Do you digitally enhance your photography?

It depends on the image. There are images that only require minimum digital input [adjustment to light levels and contrast] but other images that require more care and time. I usually shoot a lot and so I’d prefer to spend as little time as necessary editing them – unless I have to.

How have your past experiences affected your photography?

Graphically, there was a phase when my fascination with balance and pattern was evident in my photos, then there are moods when all I try to do is break that balance. I think my graphic approach is also inspired by the years I spent in advertising.

Why do you exhibit internationally and enter contests?

Why internationally? Because it’s where the bigger audience is – as well as the experts, markets, critics, etc. I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by a very supporting circle of family and friends, and in order to seek honest feedback I participated in those contests around the world. After winning a few, my objectives changed and I continued to enter for exposure: for myself and my credentials – as well as exposure to see others and what they produce.

What has been the value/result/aftermath of these exhibitions and awards?

Seeing winning works by people from all over the world helped push me to improve myself and search for the new and good. At first, I used to shoot only to post my photos online, but photography exhibitions, magazines and contests offered me a greater audience to shoot for. I think participating in some of these competitions, although costly and at times exhausting, is incredibly rewarding, making me look and evaluate my photographs differently.

Could you say something about finding and following your passion?

Photography has really given me a new, more beautiful life – and I was already loving my life. I think it has a lot to do with how I now enjoy looking at anything – no matter how ordinary or mundane. Suddenly everything and everyone around me is interesting.

What about the business of being an artist?

After months of deliberation, I think I’ll be ready to do this full time, starting in the first quarter of this year. I promise to answer this question then.

Faisal Almalki

Photography has really given me a new, more beautiful life – and I was already loving my life. I think it has a lot to do with how I now enjoy looking at ANYTHING – no matter how ordinary or mundane. x

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Life in Technicolor

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â&#x20AC;?i think participating in some of these competitions, although costly and at times exhausting, is incredibly rewarding, making me look and evaluate my photographs differently.â&#x20AC;? x

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Rythm Nation II Yellow

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books

Architect Zaha Hadid

reviews by dorothy waldman

Library and Learning Centre, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Europe’s largest university focusing on economics and business and ranked by the Financial Times as one of the top 50 B-schools, 2009.

Peaks and Valleys Spencer Jonson, M.D. Simon & Schuster By the author of Who Moved My Cheese?

Peaks and Valleys is a similarly short, simple parable with a profound message about how to make both the good and bad times work for you. Focussing on the highs and lows of business as well as life, the author distils the lessons in the story to short, easy to remember, yet quite profound, statements such as: “Whether you are temporarily up on a Peak or down in a Valley, ask yourself: What is the truth in the situation?

Make reality your friend. Good advice in any situation.

Inside Rupert’s Brain Paul R La Monica Portfolio A contemporary legend, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of News Corp, has intrigued the world with his business acumen that enabled him to go from owning a small Australian newspaper company to a multi-billion dollar international media mogul whose holdings include newspapers, film studios, radio stations, television and cable networks, books, internet sites and more.

This small volume, written in an intriguing, readable style, examines his successes and failures, his gambles and his vision to reveal how he managed to buy MySpace, Fox and Dow Jones to create his empire. Though some fear him, few really understand him.

Ecological Intelligence Daniel Goleman Broadway Books Even when we try to be informed, ecoconscious consumers, hidden consequences may negate our good intentions. Even products labelled ‘green’ frequently have hidden environmental costs. For example, an organic cotton shirt may have been coloured with toxic dyes. Unveiling this hidden damage to the environment in what the author calls “radical transparency,” will allow consumers to make smarter purchasing decisions. But this can happen only when Life Cycle Assessment, which reveals the total environmental impact of a product from conception through to disposal, is available to consumers.

The New Gulf Edmund O’Sullivan Motivate Written by a Middle East expert from the UK, this book examines the sweeping changes occurring in this part of the globe and how modern Arabia is changing the rest of the world for the better. By examining the history of the region from the geological origins of the world to the present time, O’Sullivan examines how history, geography and the discovery of oil have impacted the six Arabian countries that make up the GCC. He then moves seamlessly to his predictions of how the emerging forces will grow in affluence and influence for a positive result.

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forward thinking

golf futures written by steve hill

It may soon be possible to conduct business on the golf course, regardless of climatic conditions.

The Dutch Indoor Golf Arena project enlisted the help of Nicklaus Design, the renowned company established by golfing superstar Jack Nicklaus, to help bring their concept to life.

And the end result is an arena that could act as a general weather-independent sports centre, as well as a focal point for golf excellence in the Netherlands.

It is anticipated that the arena will also feature a golf shop of more than 1,000 square metres, a wellness centre with sauna and spa, and a four-star hotel.

Officials believe that around 170,000 visitors a year could be drawn to the first indoor centre â&#x20AC;&#x201C; due to be realised in 2012 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; while there are plans to build further arenas around the world with developers in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, USA, Italy, France and Scandinavia currently expressing interest.

And the project would have solid green credentials thanks to the use of solar energy, which would be generated to meet some of its power demands.

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www.indoorgolfarena.eu

Climatic conditions, such as sand or snow blizzards, will not deter deal making on the golf course, thanks to plans for a huge indoor centre that could also prove to be of interest to environmentalists and Middle Eastern markets where watering costs at the height of summer can bring a tear to the eye of those paying the bills.

Amsterdam-based architectural company Zwarts & Jansma has produced designs for a self-contained golfing arena which would feature 14,000 square metres of training facilities on synthetic grass, 20 golf simulators and a 34-bay rooftop driving range.

Golf is the fastest growing leisure activity in the Netherlands, and the indoor centre aims to help meet increasing demand from players, and also relieve pressure on existing courses.

The sport has traditionally been linked with business, hence there are plans to provide related facilities such as lounges, offices and restaurants to enhance meetings and transactions.

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visionary written by dorothy waldman

Michael Dell Providing the customer with exactly what he wants in a computer is Dell’s forte.

courtesy of Dell Inc.

When

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Michael Dell dropped out of college at 19, he had a thriving business building computers to his customers’ specifications. To keep the prices of his computers lower than other PCs, he eliminated brick and mortar stores and middlemen by selling directly to the customer with the use of order forms, phone orders and now the internet. Explaining his marketing model, he said, “Well, we started the company by building to the customer’s order. And interestingly enough, we didn’t do it because we saw some massive paradigm in the future.

Basically, we just didn’t have any capital [to mass-produce].”

When his company went public in 1988, it was valued at roughly US$80 million, and in 1992 it was on the Fortune 500 list of the 500 largest companies in the world, making Michael Dell, at 27, the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Today, customers have the option of buying stock models, or they can select only those options they need without being required to get – and pay for – extras they do not want. Dell considers listening to and satisfying his customers a hallmark of his success, stating, “Our business is about technology, yes. But it’s also about operations and customer relationships.”

In 2004 he left his role as CEO, but remains on the Board of Directors and devotes much of his time to the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation dedicated to improving the lives of children.

Powered by performance Life is constant. The energy to power society can be no less. Each and every day Sempra Energy companies provide reliable, sustainable energy to millions of people. We take great pride in owning the largest natural gas utility in the United States and building large scale energy infrastructure. This includes one of the largest thin-film solar sites in North America and joint development of the most expansive natural gas pipeline built in North America in the last 20 years. We operate one of the leading LNG import firms in the United States. Our cleanburning natural gas power plants produce over 2,600 megawatts of electricity. At Sempra, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not about who we are. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about what we do.

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