Six automation tools powering smarter business in the Middle East

Gulf Today

30-07-2025

The Middle East's competitive growth-focused economy is pushing companies to streamline how they work. With pressure mounting across industries, 64% of businesses in the UAE alone plan to boost their automation spend in 2025, especially in finance, HR, and customer service. To support this shift, here are six tools helping organizations drive real efficiency gains across core business functions.
1. Spend management platforms
Manual expense tracking often means scattered receipts, delayed reconciliations, and limited visibility into corporate spending, especially for high-volume or cross-border teams. These gaps risk compliance risks and profit leakage.
Spend management platforms, like Qashio, solve this by enabling businesses to automate approvals, create smart corporate cards, and access real-time reporting, through direct integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. This helps businesses gain tighter control over budgets and spend patterns.
Travel businesses, for example, have used Qashio for Travel to dramatically cut fraud, FX losses, and operational delays. From SMEs to enterprises, companies benefit from custom cards, embedded tools, and B2B loyalty rewards with air miles and hotel points, helping even small teams manage finances like pros.
2. HR automation systems
Manual HR tasks are time-consuming, error-prone, and costly. Mistakes can run companies thousands, even millions, every year. From applicant tracking systems (ATS) to automated onboarding and payroll processing, HR automation platforms streamline operations while reducing compliance risks from a centralized dashboard. Time-off, benefits, and tax documents are simpler to access and less prone to errors. This frees up HR teams to focus on bigger strategic initiatives like talent development and workplace culture.
3. Marketing automation tools
Growing audiences and multiple touchpoints make manual marketing unsustainable. Marketing automation tools send targeted emails, schedule social posts, and score leads based on engagement. These platforms help craft tailored customer journeys by analyzing behavior across channels and delivering relevant messages at the right time.
From drip campaigns to omnichannel messaging, the goal is better engagement and ultimately, higher conversions. More than just saving time, this empowers teams with deeper insights into user trends, enabling smarter decisions and better ROI.
4. Customer support automation
As demand grows, manual support systems can cause delays, long queues, and overwhelmed agents, turning off customers fast. Automation fills the gap with tools like chatbots, smart ticketing systems, and auto-routing helping customers get answers faster, often without needing a human agent at all. A 2025 study reported that 90% of C-level execs believe over 80% of customer issues will soon be resolved autonomously.
AI-powered platforms can suggest help articles, assign tickets to specific employees, and translate requests in real time, leaving human agents to focus on complex cases. This leads to better satisfaction scores, leaner support teams, and 24/7 availability without increasing headcount.
5. Project management software
Without automation, managing distributed teams becomes chaotic—missed tasks, delays, and miscommunication. Project management tools streamline assignments, track deadlines, and provide real-time status updates. Managers can instantly see who's working on what, identify bottlenecks, and generate reports to keep stakeholders updated.
Alerts and reminders keep everyone accountable, while centralised documentation ensures everyone stays informed. As businesses scale, this kind of structure helps teams stay agile without losing oversight.
6. Procurement and purchasing platforms
Procurement often stalls due to scattered invoices, slow approvals, and poor spend visibility, causing overspending, delays, and strained vendor ties. Purchase requests, approvals, invoice processing, and vendor management can all be digitized and streamlined. These platforms often come with budget enforcement features, real-time analytics, and integration with ERP systems.
Procurement teams benefit from faster, more accurate cycles and clearer data, spending less time chasing signatures and more on strategic sourcing. Stronger supplier tools also lead to more reliable, cost-effective vendor networks.
Automation frees up teams to think bigger, act quicker, and focus on higher-value work, whether in finance, HR, marketing, or support. That's why 60% of Middle East CEOs say they'll need to evolve their businesses within the next decade to remain viable. With tools like these already delivering results, the shift is in motion.