Iran has traditionally been a high-volume automotive market, whose geographic advantage has endowed it the potential to serve as a production hub in the Middle East. The recent lifting of economic sanctions has burnished the country's reputation as a business hotbed, with the automotive market expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.4 per cent from 2014 to 2022. Unsurprisingly, global original equipment manufacturers, suppliers and other market participants are exhibiting unprecedented eagerness to be a part of the Iranian growth story.

Discrete industry manufacturers' quest to reduce capital expenditure, shorten lead times, and improve productivity is expected to fuel investments in the global product lifecycle management (PLM) market. Growing emphasis on product innovation will also catalyse the adoption of PLM across all tiers of business.

Despite many underlying tensions, the Middle East has maintained a positive economic outlook, according to Frost & Sullivan's "International Supply Chain Excellence Programme-Gulf Edition 2014." This is evident from the region's ability to maintain a positive growth rate when most economies globally have struggled to be above the red line.