I started my career on drilling rigs in the North Sea. I have since worked across refineries in the Gulf, ports in West Africa, mine sites in South America, and distribution networks from Calgary to Riyadh. Forty-four years. Forty-two countries.
The same five problems surface in every one of those environments. Not similar problems — the same ones, almost exactly, regardless of the country, the sector, or the size of the organisation. The names change. The underlying pattern does not.
The problem is never what leadership thinks it is
The first question I ask any operator, in any country, is always the same: show me last shift’s exception log. The second question is: who reads it? In most operations the answer is — nobody above the shift supervisor. The data exists. Nobody has been paid to read it.
Twenty years ago my standard approach was to walk a site, speak with the foreman, write a report. A foreman tells you what he sees on his shift. What he cannot see is what every other shift saw for the past two years. The data tells you that.
Why MENA is different — and why it is not
The operational problems in the Gulf, the Levant, and North Africa are structurally identical to those in Canada, Australia, and the North Sea. What is different is the environment those problems sit inside.
In Saudi Arabia, Vision 2030 giga-projects have created procurement volumes that have genuinely overwhelmed standard management. In Iraq and Libya, I have worked directly with field operations and government ministries — the reconstruction environment creates procurement volumes rarely subject to analytical oversight. In the UAE and Oman, the organisations are sophisticated and the people are sharp. The problem is systems: finance, operations, and procurement each running their own platform, none connected.
The five things that always surface
Inventory that has never been written off. Stock that stopped moving years ago, still on the books at original cost.
The same item purchased at two different prices from the same supplier. Happens when procurement is decentralised across sites or divisions.
Freight lanes that have not been benchmarked in a decade. The rate agreed in 2015 is often still the rate in 2025.
Equipment sitting idle because the schedule never reached the operator. Two systems, both working correctly, never connected.
Reports that satisfy the audit and tell the board nothing useful. Financial statements accurate to the cent. Operations report precise on throughput. Neither tells the board where the actual risk sits.
Why we start with the data, not the tour
We start with a data export because the data does not have a political position. The walk-around comes after the analysis. By the time I visit a site, I already know what I am looking for. The site visit confirms how to fix it — not whether there is something to fix.
If you are running operations in the Gulf, the Levant, or North Africa — or if you are a CFO whose operational data has never been joined to the financial picture — contact amadden@ajmsolutions.ca. The number is in your data.
Michael Cooper is a senior operations and supply chain executive with 44 years of experience across 42 countries. He is a partner at AJM Solutions Inc., leading operational delivery across all Data Diagnostic engagements.
Related: Remote supply chain simulation for MENA operations — how AJM applies these principles without requiring boots on the ground.