Digital Content Editor, Eve Goode speaks exclusively with Scott Wilcox, Founder of Sicuro Group, on why one size fits all security strategies fail in the Middle East.
Why does a one-size-fits-all security approach set companies up for failure across the diverse Middle East markets?
The short answer is that the region doesn’t move as one. Each country has its own rhythm, its own pressures and its own habits when things get difficult.
If you treat it as one environment, the gaps show up very quickly. One policy – yes… but there must be flex within that policy to reflect the realities of each country or operating environment.
Take Lebanon. Nothing “collapsed” overnight in 2024, but several things slipped at the same time… currency, basic services, comms – and the whole operating environment tightened.
Plans that relied on consistent government delivery simply didn’t stand up for long. People ended up relying on their own networks instead of formal systems, which tells you a lot about how the state was functioning.
Syria tells a different story. The country missed decades of digital and institutional development. When people talk about Syria “reopening,” they often imagine a standard frontier market.
But what you get is a system that still runs partly on paper, partly on relationships and partly on timing. You need to know how decisions get made, which often has very little to do with who sits in which office.
Saudi Arabia is the opposite in many ways. It’s moving quickly with investment and regulatory changes and the decisions taken in Riyadh influence behaviour across the region – especially in aviation, logistics, energy and technology.
Saudi’s pace is accelerating and the rest of the region adjusts around it. And even the most stable Gulf states aren’t insulated.
Qatar’s airspace incursions during the Iran–Israel exchanges reminded everyone of that. Decisions taken outside the Gulf had immediate and detrimental knock-on effects for movement and supply chains inside, and around it.
So, the idea of one rigid model that fits all of this simply doesn’t work. You need to understand where each country is heading and what pressures it sits under today.
How do you design security protocols that are robust enough for high-risk environments but don’t become operational bottlenecks?
Firms must involve security at the beginning and design around reality – not around how corporate processes ideally work on a good day.
No matter how many times I say and warn against it, I still see it too much. Look at Turkey’s “investigations” into foreign companies in 2024/25.
Inspectors arrived without warning.
Staff were questioned. Devices were seized and reviewed. Any protocol that depended on approval chains or sign-off simply couldn’t react in time.
People on the ground needed the authority and experience through practice to make decisions straight away.
You saw the same thing during the summer air traffic changes across the Gulf. Flight schedules shifted repeatedly, often out of hours.
Teams waiting for headquarters approval were stuck because the people who needed to give approval weren’t online.
The teams with delegated authority moved immediately and avoided disruption – kudos to those in Bahrain and Qatar who, instead of waiting, took pre-emptive measures aligned to how they had practiced and ensured business continued.
There’s also a broader issue that’s worth being honest about: The communication gap between regional teams and headquarters.
People in the region pay attention to the signals that actually matter – how ministries behave, what official news channels put out, changes in administrative tempo and how fast NOTAMs are updated.
These are the real indicators of what’s coming and we have created free guides for leaders in this that they told us proved invaluable in decision-making.
Headquarters often base decisions on generic threat feeds or headlines. They’re not wrong, but they’re not the whole picture and they certainly aren’t early warning.
When HQ and regional teams are working off two different views of the same situation, decisions slow down and the company loses room to manoeuvre.
That gap became even more obvious when some companies stopped involving their regional security teams in early planning.
Decisions were made, budgets set and only then did someone ask security to “make this trip safe.” That’s backwards.
In this region, security teams need to be part of the strategy, not the afterthought.
The protocols that work here are practical, simple enough to use under pressure and built around how the region actually behaves – not how we wish it behaved.
During regional conflicts, how do you maintain business continuity without exposing personnel to unacceptable risk?
You focus on what actually changes on the ground – not what makes headlines. Take the Iran–Israel exchanges. The airstrikes caught attention, but the biggest operational impact came from airspace restrictions.
Flights were delayed, diverted or cancelled across the Gulf. That affected cargo, rotation schedules, meetings, everything.
Road access into Egypt or Jordan was open and daily life continued, but aviation – which the region depends on – was unsettled. Companies that understood that airspace would be the pinch point acted early.
Another issue that came up again was private travel. Staff taking leave, visiting family or adding a couple of days to a regional trip found themselves caught out when conditions changed.
Their employers didn’t have operations in those places, but they still had to step in because the individual had nowhere else to turn.
Moving people out often meant indirect routing through places like Armenia, Azerbaijan or Turkey. These situations remind companies that many crises start with personal travel, not official assignments.
The Red Sea disruptions showed the same pattern. The early warning signs weren’t in necessarily in “security alerts”.
They were in shipping delays, insurance requirements as the markets moved quick and slower customs processes – perhaps linked?
Companies that watched those indicators had more time to adjust than those who relied solely on generic risk reports.
Continuity in the Middle East depends on understanding how quickly states adjust airspace, borders and processes under pressure.
Those administrative decisions shape and impact your operating environment, staff morale and stakeholder or investor confidence far more than the initial crisis.
You’ve said, “good posture removes the need for crisis response.” What does that look like in practice?
It means being ready for the pace and shape of the environment you’re in – before something happens. In Lebanon, posture means assuming outages are part of daily life.
Accommodation, cash access, satellite comms – basics. In Syria, posture means understanding the realities of reconnection.
Which ministries matter? Which documents work? What slows things down? These are the questions that keep you ahead of friction.
In the Gulf, posture is about understanding how wider tension affects practical movement. The UAE and Qatar look similar at a glance, but they behave differently under stress.
Organisations that understand that tend to make small early adjustments – delay a trip, extend a stay, shift a meeting – which stops minor issues becoming major ones.
A lot of posture comes down to alignment between regional teams and headquarters. If one side is focused on practical signals and the other is focused on headlines, decisions will be slow.
When regional insight is brought into the conversation early, posture strengthens naturally. The core of posture is simple: Understand how the state behaves, have your logistics in order and give people the authority to act without waiting for a committee.
How are rising standards and security demands in the Middle East shaping the global industry? What should leaders elsewhere learn from this?
The region’s economic shift is raising expectations. AI infrastructure, semiconductor work, new data centres, expanding financial markets – these developments mean security teams now deal with regulation, tech, supply chains and geopolitics as part of everyday work.
The UAE is a good example. Data exposure, cloud dependencies and crypto activity now sit alongside traditional operational concerns.
Regional teams often see these risks first because they’re in the middle of them. Saudi Arabia adds pace and weight.
Decisions in the Kingdom influence regulatory and commercial behaviour across the region. Saudi moves fast these days and companies need leaders who can keep up or better still, anticipate and communicate.
This region carries some of the biggest opportunities for global companies hence the attention it received from the Trump administration in 2025.
And that means you need your best security leaders here – people who understand business, policy and operations at the same time.
The difference is noticeable in those with an understanding of their business and those with only an understanding of security – and there is no longer a place for the latter.
Iraq and Egypt show how reform shapes operating conditions. Iraq has held a promising and workable balance despite the pressures of 2025.
Egypt, a hugely important player in the region is pushing through tough reforms while managing the impact of Gaza to its East, Libya to its West, Sudan to its South and its domestic challenges.
In both cases, understanding the political economy tells you more than watching incident counts.
All of this is pushing security into a different role. It’s becoming part of commercial planning and state engagement, not just protective work. That is what I find both interesting and challenging.
If there’s a lesson, it’s this: To do your part in helping your company realise the amazing opportunities the region has to offer, you need to understand how governments behave under pressure, how economies adjust and how decisions in one capital ripple across several others – and what that means for your company and its people.
