KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) is opening up. Why it’s good news for the world?

KSA is making all the right decisions. In its push to diversify the economy away from oil towards sustainable industries, it is implementing a Vision 2030 plan that aims to make Saudi Arabia a global Islamic centre with a moderate version of Islam.

KSA aspires to become a regional centre of global trade and finance, like Dubai, by leveraging its unique location between Asia, Africa, and Europe. It’s investing billions in key growth industries. Tourism is a key pillar in the plan to create a dynamic and sustainable economy.

KSA’s biggest advantage is its petro wealth. It’s one of the big 3 (along with Russia and the USA) oil producers. It runs huge budget surpluses when the oil prices are high and owns one of the largest SWF (sovereign wealth funds) in the world called PIF. It has the luxury to use its immense wealth to promote industries that other poorer countries can’t. They are dependent upon foreign investments. KSA doesn’t need FDI to build infrastructure.

KSA is the world’s biggest investor in tourism and has committed a staggering $550B towards developing new tourism destinations. This is larger than GDP of Pakistan. The kingdom received 93.5M international visitors in 2022, making it one of the top tourism destinations in the world.

In 2022, Saudi Tourism Authority launched a digital platform for international tourists to plan their travel. Now KSA has waived the condition of tourist Visa for residents of GCC countries. Earlier, only GCC residents of certain occupations could apply for Saudi visa.

KSA means business. It’s inviting the best global talent to come and work in the kingdom. As the largest West Asian country with a young population, these initiatives will make KSA an economic powerhouse. It also means the world will see another growth engine.

We might see KSA becoming a 10x version of UAE and Dubai. Such a development will create job and business opportunities for millions of people all over the world.

It’ll also lead to another moderate, successful, Islamic country with a robust economy that’s not dependent just on oil revenues.

If someone calls your looks “average”, then you’re scientifically one of the most attractive people in the world. Think of the average of all the noses in the world — a few will be rightward skewed, the other extreme would be bent towards the left a few will be a little too fat, and some other way too thin if it’s the scientific average of all such noses, it’s the darn perfect nose that can ever be.

The same applies to the size of your eyes the shape of your lips. The same also applies to the colour of your skin (shudders) your height and your waist size.

I was reading more about this and stumbled upon the concept of “Koinophilia” which states: Koinophilia is an evolutionary hypothesis proposing that during sexual selection, animals preferentially seek mates with a minimum of unusual or mutant features, including functionality, appearance and behavior.

which means “average” is actually the most attractive as it has no extreme or rare features. Now, in the context of business, when someone asks you what’s your moat? You’re actually required to describe how you’re different.

And imagine if you could get the average documented practices and processes for hiring, sales, marketing, innovation, finance, operations, supply chain for all the companies in the world who have those practices documented, and just apply them to your businesses, what would happen.

I think it’ll be a game-changing business that will actually kill the market because it runs like clockwork. Because the deeper I think about it, I feel there can be two reasons for business success.
1/ Either do one thing remarkably well that no one else can beat you at it
2/ Or do average things and processes so well with no error across any, that there’s never a weak point to sink you down

And if a business is at a crossroads, finding itself in a commoditized market with massive competition, while the focus would have to be on finding a differentiating factor longevity of the business can be increased by just having all functions running well through a process so that there is not even one weak link to sink the ship… till of course, it helps you find a superior differentiator.

And I feel if functions of “innovation” and “learning & development” are actually run with average processes, they will find a unique moat because unfortunately, 99% of businesses don’t even have an innovation or L&D division in its true sense.