Dubai's Widening Tech Ambitions: The Checklist Logistics Companies Actually Need in UAE

Direct answer: Dubai's push to attract frontier technology investment, underscored by Sheikh Hamdan's meeting with Elon Musk, signals that the emirate's logistics sector will be judged against a rising technology bar rather than a regional one. For logistics companies operating in the UAE, this means the systems running dispatch, warehousing, customs documentation, and customer visibility need to hold up against global-standard expectations, not just local competitors — and the practical response is a focused audit of where custom software would close the gap.

In August 2026, Computer Weekly reported on Sheikh Hamdan's meeting with Elon Musk, framing it as part of a wider pattern of Dubai courting high-profile technology figures and investment to reinforce its ambitions as a global tech hub. This is not an isolated headline — it fits a multi-year trajectory in which Dubai has positioned itself as a jurisdiction that wants to be mentioned in the same breath as Singapore, London, and Silicon Valley when technology leaders think about where to build. For logistics companies, whose operations sit at the intersection of ports, customs, warehousing, and last-mile delivery, that positioning has direct consequences: the businesses that supply, serve, and move goods through Dubai's corridors get pulled into a higher-visibility, higher-scrutiny environment simply by proximity. We don't have a precise figure for how much new logistics-specific investment this meeting itself will generate — that number isn't publicly available yet — but the general pattern from Dubai's prior tech-courting moves is consistent: attention at the top tends to accelerate expectations and funding availability for the sectors positioned to benefit, and logistics has repeatedly been named as one of those sectors in Dubai's stated economic diversification plans.

What Actually Happened, and Why It's Not Just Noise

High-profile meetings between government leadership and technology figures get dismissed by some as symbolic. That skepticism is fair in isolation, but it misses the pattern. Dubai's leadership has a track record of using these meetings as a lead indicator for policy and infrastructure moves that follow months later — free zone incentives, data infrastructure investment, or sector-specific accelerator programs. Sheikh Hamdan's meeting with Elon Musk lands in that same category: a visible signal that logistics, mobility, and autonomous systems remain squarely inside Dubai's technology ambitions, not a legacy sector left to run on old playbooks.

For a logistics operator, the useful takeaway isn't "Elon Musk is coming to fix my warehouse." It's that the policy and investment environment around technology-forward logistics in the UAE is likely to keep tightening in your favor if you're prepared, and tightening against you competitively if you're not. When government attention concentrates on a technology narrative, tenders, free zone benefits, and partnership opportunities tend to favor companies that can demonstrate they're already operating on modern, auditable, integrated systems — not spreadsheets and phone calls stitched together with WhatsApp groups.

There's also a capital-allocation dimension worth understanding. When a jurisdiction's leadership is visibly courting technology figures at this level, it tends to change how investors and larger enterprise clients evaluate the businesses operating inside that jurisdiction. A private equity fund or a large multinational shipper doing due diligence on a UAE logistics partner now has an easier time justifying a "technology maturity" line item in their evaluation criteria, because the broader narrative around Dubai gives that criterion more weight. Companies that can answer those due-diligence questions confidently — how is shipment data tracked, how many manual handoffs exist between systems, how quickly can an exception be traced back to its source — are the ones that convert that broader attention into actual deals. Companies that can't are increasingly the ones quietly filtered out before the shortlist stage, even when their physical operations and pricing are competitive.

The Regional Context Matters

The UAE logistics market already competes with Saudi Arabia's logistics investments under Vision 2030 and with established Asian hubs. Dubai's response has consistently been to lean into technology differentiation — DP World's automation investments, the push toward paperless customs processes, and repeated public statements about the emirate wanting to be the region's smart logistics capital. A high-visibility meeting like this one reinforces that this differentiation strategy is still very much active, which means the pressure on logistics companies to modernize isn't a one-time push — it's a sustained direction of travel.

This regional competitive dynamic matters because logistics, unlike some other sectors, is genuinely mobile at the enterprise-client level. A shipper choosing between a UAE-based freight forwarder and a Saudi or Southeast Asian alternative is not bound by geography the way a retail customer is bound to a local storefront. If Dubai's stated ambition is to make the emirate the obvious choice on technology grounds as well as location and free zone benefits, the operators who fail to keep pace are the ones most exposed to losing contracts to competitors one country over — not to a competitor down the street. That's a different kind of competitive pressure than most local logistics companies are used to planning around, and it's precisely the kind of pressure that a high-visibility signal like Sheikh Hamdan's meeting with Elon Musk tends to accelerate.

Why This Specifically Matters for Logistics Companies in the UAE

Logistics is one of the few sectors where the gap between "we have a website" and "we have production-grade software" shows up in daily operating cost, not just brand perception. A retail brand can survive with a mediocre website for years. A freight forwarder or 3PL operator with a mediocre dispatch system, weak API connectivity to customs platforms, or no real-time shipment visibility is bleeding margin and losing enterprise clients every month that gap persists.

As Dubai's tech ambitions get more airtime, three things tend to follow for logistics specifically:

1. Enterprise clients raise their bar. Multinational shippers and manufacturers choosing a UAE logistics partner increasingly ask about system integration, API availability, and real-time tracking as a baseline requirement, not a differentiator.
2. Free zone and government tenders start favoring digitally mature operators. When technology is a stated national priority, procurement processes quietly shift to reward companies that can demonstrate integration capability and data transparency.
3. Talent and investor attention concentrate on companies that look technologically credible. A logistics company running on outdated, manual systems struggles to attract both the operational talent and the growth capital that a technology-forward narrative is pulling toward the region.

None of this requires a company to build anything resembling what a tech giant would build. It requires having software that actually reflects how the business runs today — not a patchwork of disconnected tools accumulated over a decade.

It's worth being specific about how this plays out day to day, because "raise the bar" can sound abstract until you see it in an actual sales cycle. A procurement manager at a manufacturing company shortlisting UAE logistics partners will now routinely ask for a demo of the client-facing tracking portal, ask how exceptions are flagged, and ask whether the operator can provide API access for their own internal systems to pull shipment status automatically. Five years ago, a confident verbal answer and a shared spreadsheet were often enough. Today, a logistics company that can't show a working, real-time answer to those questions is quietly moved down the shortlist — not because the buyer is obsessed with technology for its own sake, but because the operational risk of partnering with a company that can't answer those questions cleanly is now well understood across the industry.

How This Compares to Other Regional Logistics Hubs

It helps to place Dubai's positioning against what's happening elsewhere in the region, because the pressure on UAE logistics companies isn't happening in a vacuum. Saudi Arabia's NEOM and broader Vision 2030 logistics investments are explicitly framed around automation and smart infrastructure. Singapore, still the benchmark hub most global shippers compare against, has spent over a decade building a reputation for paperless trade documentation and port automation. Dubai's continued high-visibility technology courting — of which this meeting is one data point among several over recent years — is best read as an attempt to stay ahead of Saudi Arabia's growing logistics ambitions while holding its position relative to established Asian hubs.

For a UAE-based logistics company, this competitive triangle has a practical implication: your technology posture is no longer being benchmarked only against your direct local competitors. Enterprise shippers evaluating multiple bids across the region are implicitly comparing your visibility, integration, and automation capability against what a Saudi or Singaporean alternative can offer. That's a higher bar than most mid-size UAE logistics operators have historically had to clear, and it's rising specifically because of the kind of national-level technology positioning this meeting represents.

What Changes in Practice for Your Systems

This is where the abstract trend becomes a concrete engineering conversation. Most UAE logistics companies we talk to are running on some combination of: an ERP or TMS that was configured five-plus years ago, a customer-facing tracking page that shows stale data, manual reconciliation between warehouse management and finance, and no real API layer connecting to carriers, customs brokers, or client systems.

The Practical Checklist

• Real-time visibility, not batch updates. If your customers or internal ops team are refreshing a page to see "last updated 4 hours ago," that's a system-level gap, not a training issue.
• API-first architecture. Your platform needs to talk to carrier systems, customs documentation platforms, and client ERPs without a human re-keying data. This is the single biggest driver of both cost savings and client retention in logistics software.
• Custom workflows over generic SaaS. Off-the-shelf logistics software is built for the median use case. If your operation has non-standard routing, mixed-fleet management, or region-specific customs handling, a rigid SaaS tool will always be fighting your actual process.
• Internal knowledge that survives staff turnover. Dispatch exceptions, client-specific handling rules, and customs quirks usually live in one ops manager's head. Read our piece on building an AI-powered internal knowledge base for your team for a concrete way to fix that before it becomes a costly single point of failure.
• Lead and quote handling that doesn't leak deals. Logistics sales cycles involve a lot of inbound quote requests that die in someone's inbox. Our guide on AI lead qualification automation is directly applicable to freight forwarders and 3PLs fielding high volumes of inbound RFQs.

This is also a moment worth pairing with broader macro awareness. Companies pricing international freight contracts should keep an eye on currency dynamics — our analysis of de-dollarization and reserve currency diversification in 2026 is relevant background for any logistics operator invoicing across multiple currencies in a shifting monetary environment.

What to Do About It: Building vs. Buying vs. Patching

Faced with this pressure, logistics leadership teams in the UAE typically choose one of three paths. The first is patching — adding another SaaS subscription on top of the existing stack to cover the newest gap. This works short-term and compounds into a worse problem within eighteen months: more systems that don't talk to each other, more manual reconciliation, more places for data to silently diverge.

The second is buying an enterprise logistics platform outright. This can work for very large operators, but the licensing and implementation costs are steep, the platforms are rarely built for UAE-specific customs and regulatory workflows, and customization requests to the vendor move at a pace that doesn't match how fast the local market is changing.

The third path — and the one that tends to hold up best for mid-size and growing logistics companies — is investing in Custom Software Development that's built specifically around your actual dispatch logic, your actual client integrations, and your actual customs workflows. This doesn't mean building everything from scratch. It usually means a core platform that owns your operational data model, with well-designed integrations to the carrier APIs, customs systems, and finance tools you already depend on. Done properly, it's the difference between a system that gets more brittle every time your business changes and one that gets more valuable.

The reason this matters more now than it did two years ago is straightforward: as Dubai's technology ambitions attract more scrutiny and more capital toward companies that look operationally modern, the logistics companies still running on fragmented manual systems will find it progressively harder to win enterprise contracts, qualify for favorable free zone programs, or attract investment — regardless of how good their actual physical operations are.

Common Objections From Logistics Leadership (And Why They Don't Hold Up)

Every logistics leadership team we've talked to has some version of the same three objections when this conversation comes up, and each one is worth addressing directly rather than glossing over.

"We're too small for this to matter." Smaller operators often assume that enterprise-grade expectations only apply to large 3PLs bidding on major government contracts. In practice, the pressure shows up earlier than expected — a mid-size manufacturer choosing a freight partner for a growing export line will run the same basic diligence questions regardless of the logistics company's size, because the manufacturer's own risk exposure doesn't shrink just because their partner is smaller.

"Our current system works fine, why change it." This is usually true in a narrow sense — the system handles today's volume without falling over. The problem is that "works fine" and "competitive" are different bars. A system that requires three people to manually reconcile shipment status every morning is working, but it's also quietly capping how much volume the company can take on before headcount has to scale linearly with shipments, which a properly integrated system avoids.

"This sounds expensive and risky." This is the objection worth taking most seriously, because building software badly is genuinely expensive and risky. The answer isn't to avoid the investment — it's to scope it correctly, starting with the highest-impact gap rather than attempting a full platform rebuild in one pass. This is exactly why a tiered approach, starting at the Essential or Growth level, exists: it lets a logistics company prove out value on a contained, well-defined piece of the problem before committing to a larger scope.

Pricing Context: What This Kind of Work Typically Falls Under

Custom software work for logistics operators varies significantly based on scope, but most engagements map cleanly onto three tiers.

Tier	Typical scope for logistics companies	Starting price
Essential	A focused fix — a client-facing tracking portal, a single carrier API integration, or a lead intake and quoting workflow	$1,000
Growth	A connected operations layer — dispatch, warehouse, and customer visibility tied together with two or more system integrations	$2,000
Enterprise	A full custom platform replacing fragmented tools — multi-carrier integration, customs workflow automation, internal knowledge systems, and reporting	$4,000+

Most UAE logistics companies starting this conversation land in the Growth tier: they don't need to rebuild everything, but they need their core visibility and integration gaps closed before the next enterprise RFP or free zone tender evaluation.

Key Takeaways

• Sheikh Hamdan's meeting with Elon Musk (Computer Weekly, Aug 2026) is a signal, not a one-off — it confirms Dubai's sustained push to be judged as a global technology hub, and logistics is directly inside that ambition.
• Enterprise clients and government procurement processes are quietly raising the bar for what "digitally credible" logistics operations look like.
• The practical gaps to close first are real-time shipment visibility, API connectivity to carriers and customs systems, and durable internal knowledge that doesn't live in one person's head.
• Patching with more disconnected SaaS tools compounds the problem; a properly scoped custom platform tends to be the more durable investment.
• Most logistics companies should start this conversation at the Growth tier, focused on integration and visibility gaps rather than a full platform rebuild.
• Currency and macro shifts, like the de-dollarization trend, are worth tracking alongside technology investment for any logistics operator pricing across borders.

Dubai's tech ambitions aren't slowing down, and the logistics companies that treat this as a signal rather than noise will be the ones winning the next round of enterprise contracts and free zone opportunities. If you want help figuring out exactly where your systems have the biggest gaps, book a meeting with our team.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Sheikh Hamdan's meeting with Elon Musk actually involve?

Computer Weekly reported in August 2026 that the meeting was part of a broader pattern of Dubai's leadership engaging high-profile technology figures to reinforce the emirate's ambitions as a global tech hub. Specific deal terms or investment figures from the meeting itself were not detailed in that coverage, so we're reasoning from the pattern rather than a disclosed agreement.

Does this meeting mean new regulations are coming for UAE logistics companies?

Not directly and not immediately. What it signals is a sustained direction — Dubai's continued prioritization of technology-forward positioning — which historically has preceded policy and infrastructure shifts that favor digitally mature businesses, including in logistics.

Why should a mid-size logistics company care about a high-level tech meeting?

Because the ripple effects show up in procurement standards, investor attention, and client expectations well before any formal regulation appears. Companies that get ahead of the expectation curve are better positioned when tenders or partnership opportunities tighten their technology requirements.

Is this trend specific to Dubai or does it apply across the UAE?

The specific meeting is a Dubai story, but Dubai's positioning has ripple effects across the UAE logistics sector broadly, since Dubai handles a large share of the country's freight, customs, and trade infrastructure that other emirates' businesses rely on.

What's the single biggest technology gap in UAE logistics operations today?

Based on the pattern across the sector, the most common gap is a lack of real-time, API-connected visibility between dispatch, warehousing, and customer-facing tracking — most operations still rely on manual updates or batch syncs rather than live data.

How do I know if my logistics company needs custom software versus an off-the-shelf TMS?

If your routing logic, customs handling, or client-specific requirements don't fit neatly into a standard transportation management system's configuration options, you're likely paying a "flexibility tax" in workarounds that custom software would eliminate.

What does Custom Software Development actually mean for a logistics business?

It means building software specifically around how your operation actually runs — your dispatch rules, your carrier relationships, your customs workflow — rather than adapting your operation to fit generic software built for a different market's median use case.

How long does a typical custom logistics software project take?

Scope drives timeline more than anything else. A focused integration or portal (Essential tier) can often be delivered in a few weeks, while a full connected operations platform (Enterprise tier) typically runs several months with phased delivery.

What's the difference between the Essential, Growth, and Enterprise tiers for logistics work?

Essential covers a single focused fix like a tracking portal or one carrier integration. Growth connects multiple systems — dispatch, warehouse, and customer visibility — into one coherent layer. Enterprise replaces fragmented tooling entirely with a full custom platform including customs automation and reporting.

Can custom software integrate with UAE customs and free zone systems?

Yes — integration with customs documentation platforms and free zone reporting systems is one of the most common and highest-value pieces of custom logistics software, since manual re-entry into these systems is a major source of delay and error.

Will investing in custom software actually help win enterprise contracts?

It directly addresses a common blocker: many enterprise shippers now include system integration and real-time visibility as evaluation criteria, so demonstrable technology maturity removes an objection before it's raised.

What happens if a logistics company ignores this trend and keeps using manual systems?

The short-term operations may continue fine, but over time the company loses ground on enterprise deals, free zone incentive eligibility, and talent attraction to competitors who can demonstrate stronger technology infrastructure.

Is this really about AI, or is it broader than that?

It's broader than AI specifically. The signal from Dubai's tech-courting activity covers a wide range of frontier technology — AI, autonomous systems, robotics, and infrastructure — with logistics benefiting from investment and attention across most of these areas, not one narrow tool category.

How does real-time shipment visibility actually get built?

It typically requires an API layer connecting your TMS or ERP to carrier tracking feeds and customer-facing portals, with a data model that updates on events (pickup, transit, customs clearance, delivery) rather than periodic manual refreshes.

What's the risk of relying on a generic SaaS logistics tool instead of custom software?

The main risk is a growing mismatch between the tool's assumptions and your actual operations, which shows up as workarounds, manual patches, and eventually a rebuild that costs more than building it right the first time would have.

Should a small logistics operator worry about this trend, or is it only relevant to large 3PLs?

It's relevant at every size. Smaller operators actually have more to gain relatively, since a modest, well-scoped software investment can close the visibility and integration gap with larger competitors faster than it took those competitors to build their own systems.

How does internal knowledge management fit into this trend?

As logistics operations scale and staff turnover happens, undocumented exception-handling knowledge (customs quirks, client-specific rules) becomes a growing liability — a structured internal knowledge base prevents that knowledge from walking out the door.

What role does lead and quote handling play in a logistics company's technology maturity?

High-volume inbound RFQs are common in freight and 3PL sales, and slow or manual qualification directly costs revenue — automating the qualification step ensures serious leads get fast, consistent responses.

Are there compliance risks tied to poor system integration in UAE logistics?

Yes — manual re-entry of customs and shipment data increases the risk of documentation errors, which can trigger delays, fines, or compliance flags with UAE customs authorities.

How does currency volatility connect to this technology conversation?

Logistics companies invoicing across multiple currencies are exposed to shifts like de-dollarization trends, and having accurate, real-time financial reporting built into their software makes it far easier to manage that exposure responsibly.

What's the first step a logistics company should take after reading this?

Start with an honest internal audit: map where shipment data currently lives, where it has to be manually re-entered, and where customers or internal teams are working from stale information.

Does Dubai's tech push mean more government funding will be available for logistics tech projects?

It's reasonable to expect increased attention and potentially more favorable programs given the stated pattern, but we don't have confirmed funding figures tied specifically to this meeting, so treat funding availability as an evolving possibility rather than a guarantee.

How do free zones factor into this trend for logistics companies?

UAE free zones frequently tie incentives and renewal terms to demonstrated business growth and, increasingly, digital operational maturity, so a company's technology posture can influence its standing within these zones over time.

What's a realistic budget range for a first custom software project in logistics?

Most first projects for logistics operators fall in the Essential to Growth range, roughly $1,000 to $2,000 in starting scope, focused on the highest-impact gap rather than trying to solve everything at once.

Can existing legacy systems be integrated with new custom software, or does everything need to be replaced?

In most cases, legacy systems can stay in place with new custom software built around them as an integration and visibility layer — full replacement is usually only necessary when the underlying system can't support modern API connections at all.

How does this trend affect logistics companies serving e-commerce clients specifically?

E-commerce clients tend to have the highest expectations for real-time tracking and fast exception handling, so logistics companies serving that segment face earlier and sharper pressure to modernize their visibility systems.

What's the biggest mistake logistics companies make when trying to modernize their systems?

The most common mistake is adding another disconnected SaaS tool to solve a narrow problem, which compounds integration debt instead of resolving it — a properly scoped custom layer avoids that trap.

How does hiring and talent attraction connect to this technology trend?

Skilled operations and technology talent increasingly prefer working at companies that demonstrate modern infrastructure, so a company's technology maturity becomes a factor in its ability to recruit and retain strong staff.

Will AI-driven automation replace logistics dispatch staff in the UAE?

The pattern so far points toward augmentation rather than replacement — automation handles repetitive coordination and data entry tasks, freeing dispatch staff to manage exceptions and relationships, which remain fundamentally human tasks.

What's the relationship between this trend and Dubai's broader economic diversification goals?

Dubai has repeatedly named logistics and mobility as priority sectors in its diversification strategy, so high-visibility technology signals like this meeting reinforce rather than distract from that stated direction.

Does this affect logistics companies based outside Dubai but operating in the UAE?

Yes, indirectly — since Dubai handles a significant share of UAE trade infrastructure, shifts in its technology expectations tend to influence standards and client expectations across the wider UAE logistics market.

What kind of ROI can a logistics company expect from custom software investment?

ROI typically shows up as reduced manual reconciliation time, fewer customs documentation errors, faster quote turnaround, and stronger retention of enterprise clients who value integration — the specific magnitude depends heavily on the starting point and scope.

How does data security factor into custom logistics software?

Custom software gives you direct control over how shipment, customer, and financial data is stored and who can access it, which is generally a stronger security position than stitching together multiple third-party SaaS tools with separate access policies.

Is now a good time to invest, or should logistics companies wait and see how Dubai's tech push develops?

Waiting has a real cost — competitors who move now on visibility and integration gaps will be harder to catch later, while the actual investment needed to close those gaps doesn't meaningfully shrink by waiting.

What's the difference between digitizing paperwork and true system integration?

Digitizing paperwork just moves the same manual process onto a screen; true integration means systems exchange data automatically without a person re-entering it anywhere in the chain.

How does this trend interact with UAE's push toward paperless customs processes?

Paperless customs initiatives depend on logistics companies having systems capable of submitting and receiving structured data electronically, so companies still working on paper-adjacent manual processes will need to modernize to keep pace with that infrastructure shift.

What should logistics companies ask a software partner before starting a project?

Ask specifically about experience integrating with carrier and customs systems relevant to the UAE, how they handle data ownership, and whether they design for phased delivery so value shows up before the full project is complete.

Can custom software help with multi-currency invoicing for international freight clients?

Yes — a well-built financial layer can handle multi-currency invoicing, real-time exchange rate application, and reporting that adapts to currency shifts, which is increasingly relevant given ongoing reserve currency diversification trends.

How does warehouse management connect to this broader technology trend?

Warehouse systems are often the least integrated part of a logistics operation, and closing that gap — connecting warehouse activity to dispatch and customer visibility in real time — is usually one of the highest-impact steps available.

What's a sign that a logistics company has outgrown its current software?

Recurring manual workarounds, staff maintaining private spreadsheets to track what the main system can't, and customers asking for status updates the system should already provide are all clear signs.

Does this trend apply equally to freight forwarders, 3PLs, and last-mile delivery companies?

The core pressure — rising expectations for visibility and integration — applies across all three, though the specific systems involved differ: freight forwarders focus more on customs and carrier integration, while last-mile operators focus more on route and delivery tracking.

How should a logistics company prioritize which system to fix first?

Prioritize the gap causing the most manual labor or the most client complaints first — usually real-time visibility or a specific integration bottleneck — rather than trying to address everything simultaneously.

What's the connection between AI lead qualification and logistics sales specifically?

Freight and 3PL sales teams often receive high volumes of inbound quote requests of varying quality, and automated qualification ensures the highest-value opportunities get fast attention instead of getting lost in a shared inbox.

Will this trend increase competition from international logistics tech providers entering the UAE?

It's a reasonable expectation that rising attention on Dubai's tech ambitions will draw more international competition, which makes local operational and system readiness even more important for existing UAE logistics companies.

How does an internal knowledge base actually reduce operational risk for logistics companies?

It captures exception-handling knowledge — customs quirks, client-specific rules, non-standard routing decisions — in a structured, searchable form so operations don't grind to a halt when an experienced staff member is unavailable or leaves.

What's a realistic first conversation to have with a software partner about this?

Start by describing your current pain points in plain terms — where data gets re-entered manually, where customers complain about visibility — and let the partner map that to a specific, scoped recommendation rather than starting from a feature wishlist.

Does Scult work specifically with logistics companies in the UAE?

Scult builds custom software for businesses across industries and regions, including logistics operators in the UAE, with a focus on integration, visibility, and operational systems rather than generic templated solutions.

How does this trend affect logistics companies' relationships with their existing software vendors?

It raises the bar for what those vendors need to deliver — logistics companies may find it worthwhile to push existing vendors harder on integration capabilities or to supplement gaps with custom-built connective tissue.

What's the long-term outlook for UAE logistics technology given this trend?

The consistent pattern points toward continued investment and rising expectations rather than a plateau, meaning the technology bar for competitive logistics operations in the UAE is likely to keep climbing over the next several years.

How can a logistics company measure whether its technology investment is working?

Track concrete operational metrics before and after — time spent on manual reconciliation, customer complaint volume about tracking, quote-to-close time, and customs documentation error rate are all measurable indicators of progress.