Who gains control of Gulf commerce, and who loses it.
Every year the Institute reads company filings, published data and what regional leaders tell us. You see who gains control of the customer, the delivery and the cash across Gulf commerce, and where your business sits. The 2027 edition has six chapters.
The six chapters
- 1 · The control map: where the Gulf's commerce groups sit today
- 2 · Platforms and power: how margin moves between platforms, brands and fleets
- 3 · The agentic shift: when AI chooses on the customer's behalf
- 4 · The network as a profit pool: the changing economics of fulfilment
- 5 · Capital and succession: family businesses, investors and the next generation
- 6 · Your agenda for the year ahead
How the report reads your business
A sample business, shown the way the report shows every position: who holds the customer, who holds the delivery and who keeps the margin.
You deliver the order. A platform owns the customer.
Chapter 1 places each business by who owns the customer and who owns the delivery. The more of each you hold, the more of the margin you keep.
38/ 100
Control of your customer
The score this sample business earns on the customer. Your own score comes from your own files.
Control held, you against par, out of 100
Of every hundred orders, how many come through your own channel
Your own channel 21Par 45
- 21 / 100Orders through your own channel
- 38Customer control score
- 3Positions read: customer, delivery, cash
Every order splits its margin between three pairs of hands.
Chapter 4 asks who keeps the profit in the network. The answer changes with who delivers the order.
32/ 100
Of each order's margin, kept by you
The platform and the fleet take the rest in this sample.
Where the margin on one order goes, out of 100
- 41Platform
- 27Fleet
- 32You
What one order leaves you, by who delivers it, BD
- 0.160Platform
- 0.220Mixed
- 0.280Own fleet
- 32Of each 100 of margin, yours
- 41Taken by the platform
- BD 0.14Gap to par on a platform order
Three kinds of evidence, four marks on every claim
The report rests on company filings, published data and conversations with regional leaders. Each claim carries one of four marks, verified, inference, scenario or unknown, set out in Moneyball Finance. You see which parts you can lean on.
The first chapter places commerce groups on the Control Matrix by who owns the customer and who owns the fulfilment. The chapters that follow ask what each position stands to gain or lose as platforms, networks and agents change the terms.
Read them now in our perspectives
The themes of chapters 2 to 4 already appear in our dated perspectives. When AI chooses for the customer, every position on the matrix moves is the overview, and Who keeps the value of a 6 pm delivery window? takes the fulfilment chapter's question to a single order.
The report is written for owners and chief executives like you. To see where your own business sits, get my score.
Related
- Moneyball Finance: our methodOur method: find the measures that create value and the headline numbers that mislead.
- When AI chooses for the customer, every position on the matrix movesAgents put paid visibility, the customer relationship and platform terms in question. Tenants, Merchants, Carriers and Sovereigns each face a different answer.
- Get my score
Bring last month. Leave with a score.
Sit down with Qasim Abbas. One table, your numbers, and a clear read on where you stand against par.