Firms must start forming alliances, get some new visions, or if they haven't got them get people who have. Without restructuring, they may miss out not just on overseas expansion but in their own domestic markets. And it will come. They'll get eaten alive. The answer, for a handful of firms at least, is to go public.
Capital is actually number two.
From a business point of view they are a good thing, they impose an efficiency, a structure. It forces companies which started small but are now very large, to restructure themselves. Having shareholders enforces a discipline. You'll have to do it eventually, and it's difficult to suddenly go back over three years of results. Kuwait's private sector is still predominantly family owned, although draft laws to allow foreign investment may stimulate change.