Where Capability Becomes Credible‭: ‬
The difference between making and competing

A defence company’s home market is a key determinant of success in export markets: what is supported and trusted by the nation’s armed forces is much more likely to interest a strategic partner or allied force. 

A defence company needs to be at the forefront of trends and new technological possibilities. At the same time, products must be robust, cyber secure and very often interoperable with other products and users, both within the nation’s own force and also with allied forces. Nowadays, software updates and licences are essential to stay relevant on the modern battlefield. 

This is one aspect of what makes the defence industry unique. The other is the political element of procurement – the need for capabilities that support the overall security policy set out by the home country. Understanding how a product or system will be used from the specific end-user’s perspective is critical, in addition to knowing which other customers might have that same need. When it comes to defence capabilities, trustworthiness often stems from robustness: not only of the product itself, but of the company, and sometimes the nation, that supports it. Documentation, training, sustainment and upgrades are not first to spring to mind when talking about a defence product and its competitiveness, but are crucial to the equation. The company’s robustness and willingness to be there for clients in peacetime and in conflict is what defence customers need and should expect. It is about being a reliable partner when it really counts. 

I have come to see this from a useful vantage point. Saab UAE is part of a national effort to build sovereign and indigenous defence capability, for the UAE’s own requirements and for the international market. We carry the engineering discipline and export experience of Saab AB’s global operations, and we operate as a landed Emirati company with the size, expertise and talent to adapt quickly as customers’ needs change.

A product is not export-ready at the point that it works. It is export-ready when a customer can adopt it without assuming operational risk. That explains why capable products sometimes lose to competitors that are technically less impressive but institutionally better prepared. Performance earns a place in the conversation; it does not conclude it.

Once a product’s performance has been demonstrated, what a customer is assessing is the organisation. A defence procurement commits a nation to a relationship that will outlast changes of government, shifts in the threat landscape and a generation of turnover in the operating force. The relevant question is not whether the product works today, but whether the supplier or product will still be present, accountable and capable in 15 or 20 years. OEMs entering export markets often prepare thoroughly for the first question and are unprepared for the second. 

Defence exports are not conducted in a purely commercial space, and it would be unrealistic to suggest otherwise. Importantly, export defence sales are assessed based on established legal frameworks and subject to stringent rules and regulations set by the company’s home country. Defence export approvals are mandatory from the onset of the sales cycle. Authorities evaluate applications based on national security, foreign policy, international treaties and more. Customers often weigh bilateral relations and political reliability alongside technical merit, and whether the wider framework surrounding a programme will hold across its full life. A great deal of that sits beyond any company’s control.

What a company can control is the quality and consistency of customer relationships. Our experience has taught us that close, collaborative and transparent working relationships are what make technical delivery possible. Standards, certification and compliance rarely feature in discussions of defence innovation, yet they determine a great deal. Their function is verification. They allow a customer’s engineers, auditors and procurement officials to confirm what a supplier claims without having to rely on the claim itself. Interoperability standards perform a related role at the operational level, since they determine whether a new capability strengthens an existing architecture or complicates it.

One area I would encourage newer manufacturers to weigh more heavily is sustainment. A defence platform’s life is measured in decades, and the point of sale represents a small proportion of both the relationship and the cost. At Saab UAE, we maintain dedicated support teams, including field service representatives able to assist on site, after-sales specialists and technical maintenance and repair expertise, because reliability across a lifecycle is a capability in its own right rather than an administrative function.

Training is where sovereignty is either created or withheld. There is a meaningful difference between teaching a customer how to operate a system and equipping them to sustain, adapt and eventually develop it further. The first produces users; the second produces national capability. Our commitment to Emiratisation belongs in this part of the discussion rather than under corporate responsibility. Emirati engineers and specialists at our facility in Abu Dhabi are developing products, not just supporting them – and that is the most durable form of capability transfer any supplier can offer.

Defence markets are conservative because the consequences of a procurement error are not primarily commercial. Credibility in these markets cannot be asserted. It accumulates through demonstrated performance over long periods, and customers form judgements as much from how a supplier behaves when a programme encounters difficulty as from how it performs when everything proceeds as planned.

Saab’s strategic partnership with the UAE has been the cornerstone of our regional presence since the 1980s. In 2018, that relationship reached a significant milestone with the establishment of Saab Ltd – Abu Dhabi,  an Emirati company serving as a hub for advanced development and production based at Tawazun Industrial Park.

The UAE was the launch customer for our airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) solution, GlobalEye, in 2015, at a point when the requirement it set out to serve was ahead of prevailing thinking in the market. That platform is now widely regarded as the global benchmark for AEW&C. And this outcome was produced by a customer prepared to specify what it genuinely needed and a supplier prepared to build it, working closely together over several years.

The Coast Control Radar, developed in Abu Dhabi and launched in 2025, reflects a later stage of the same relationship. It is a next-generation, phased-array, non-rotating and software-defined radar designed for coastal surveillance with international application. Its relevance to an environment of contested waters and congested maritime approaches is readily apparent. Solutions that answer a nation’s requirement while remaining credible in export markets are precisely what a maturing industrial base produces.

Nations building a defence industrial base reach the point where the engineering is proven, the product performs and international markets prove harder to enter than expected. Making something that works is an engineering achievement. Making something that competes internationally is an institutional success. And while it cannot be built quickly, it can be built deliberately.