Built to compete: Business model reinvention for tech champions in the Middle East

Learned a lot lending an editorial hand here:

PwC Strategy& Middle East, April 2026

By Achilles Drettas, Chady Smayra, Nikolaos Lioulis, and Ibrahim Moufarrej




Driven by innovation, customer needs, and government actions, the Gulf’s technology markets are growing and morphing at a dizzying pace. To win in this environment, tech company leaders must act, but they cannot simply chase the rapidly multiplying opportunities. Instead, they must reinvent themselves with intent by making deliberate, aligned choices about how they create, deliver, and capture value through business model reinvention (BMR).

BMR begins with strategic clarity. To become champions, tech companies need to formulate a distinctive way to play based on their inherent strengths and market dynamics. This requires making a set of clear, interdependent choices about how the company will compete, whom it will serve, what products and services it will offer, and how it will go to market.

Next, tech champions must ensure that the organizational capabilities required to execute the way to play are in place. Each way to play demands a distinct configuration of strengths across the realms of technology, talent, go-to-market, and delivery. When the right set of capabilities is intentionally developed and integrated, companies can turn strategic clarity into competitive advantage and then scale with confidence.

Finally, tech champions must design and implement an operating model that consistently enables the capabilities its strategy requires. The operating model defines decision rights, investment and resource allocation, governance and risk thresholds, performance metrics and incentives, core processes and enabling systems, and the operating cadence that shapes everyday behaviors. When these choices are properly aligned with the capability system, a way to play becomes a muscle memory within an organization.

In the Gulf’s fast-paced technology sectors, BMR delivers impact only when a company’s strategy, capabilities, and operating model are tightly aligned. This alignment is what separates technology champions from their competitors. Download the viewpoint here.