Post-COVID recovery demands extensive digital edifice/innovation tied to suppleness that will absorb future shocks: Baker Tilly, CEO

Surya Narayanan Krishna Moorthy said it will also play a significant role in accelerating the migration to digital technologies.

Baker Tilly Middle East’s CEO for UAE’s Northern Emirates and Deputy CEO for Audit and Assurance in the Region, Surya Narayanan Krishna Moorthy, is an acknowledged and well-known expert in his line of functionality with around 40 years of rich and varied experience across multifarious sectors such as manufacturing and retail, cyberspace and cloud-computing, information technology and big data analysis, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, pharmaceuticals and hospitals, holding companies and investment entities, venture capital and unicorn companies, mutual funds and exchange houses, hospitality and catering enterprises, government departments, construction materials producers, automotive entrepreneurs, and public educational institutions, including public interest entities in the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Canada, and the United States of America.

Surya, apart from having acquired a Masters in Commerce, is also a Fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.  He has abundant and diverse professional practice of around four decades in India and overseas. His forte includes project formulation and feasibility reporting, risk management, financial analyses and presentations, audit file reviews, audit quality assurance, engagement quality control reviews, deliberations on audit procedures, and proper presentation and disclosure in financial statements under the IFRS framework, mainly of listed companies.

Surya observed that in the ‘recovery period’ from the COVID-19 pandemic, preparations and strategies for a new future compel entrepreneurs to change the work reality by investing heavily in digital infrastructure and innovation that facilitate the success factors, including:

  (a)  Upskilling and reskilling of the workforce; 

  (b)  Quicker performance methodology; 

  (c)  High-quality-implementation of engagements; 

  (d)  High-tech cyber gears; and 

  (e)  Mental wellness. 

This shift shows the dramatic restructuring of the future economic and social landscapes by productivity, flexibility, quality, and end-customer connectivity, as well as the need to double productivity growth to sustain economic development rates and to mainly facilitate digitisation, which will in turn ease the flexibility to face future startling crises.

Organisations in the Middle East region are considering options to both curtail and branch out supply chains in order to develop superior supply chain protection and resilience, keeping in mind that local production is also being encouraged by the governments.  Consequently, national enterprises are allocating enormous local currencies in potential purchase agreements for local manufacturers.  

Subduing the surprises and getting on the ball of opportunities will be the name of the game to overcome imminent and unexpected catastrophes. Innovation-driven enterprises will henceforward thrive. 

Surya remarked, “Significant role play is necessitated in accelerating the migration to digital technologies at staggering scale and speed, across every sector, with technologies like robotics, automation, digitisation, and artificial intelligence accounting for over 75% of potential productivity growth in the next demi-decade.” 

“This will necessitate the allocation of substantial investments in digital infrastructure, 5G/6G networks, smart cities, smart services, health, education, and trade to enable rapid adaptation and catalyse growth by creating digitally enabled ecosystems that allow entrepreneurs to succeed in businesses connected to internet services, digital entertainment, e-business, e-commerce, e-transportation, e-payments, e-groceries, and home-delivered-food coupled with keenness and suppleness to absorb future shocks!” he added.

Surya shared that “Those entrepreneurs who were self-confident that this uncertainty (negativity) would undoubtedly move away permanently with the sturdy support (positivity) of the national leaders, were the entrepreneurs who sustained the devastating era and swiftly bounced back to normality, by shifting to digital daises and by also perseveringly pursuing the success factors, enumerated above.”

Surya Narayanan Krishna Moorthy has been selected to be part of the elite panel of judges, this year too, as he brings with him his wide-ranging expertise from diverse experience.

  (a)   Extensive innovation; 

  (b)   Substantial impression on the society-at-large; and 

  (c)   Intensifying forthcoming positive prospects;

These will be Surya’s basic ‘search and analyse’ criteria to recognise the outperformers amongst this year’s nominees in the Middle East International Business Awards.