The Middle East has in recent years become one of the most active IT markets and organisations in the region are often found to be the earliest adopters of the latest technologies and trends. It is easy to see the potential for growth in the region and yet, only a few locally established IT companies have managed to rival the expertise and professionalism of their foreign counterparts, says Stephan Berner, Managing Director at Help AG Middle East.
While this failure has been attributed to a long list of well-worn excuses, I firmly believe that with patience and the right long term strategy, a locally based IT organisation can grow to just as successful in the region as a global brand- this is after all what Help AG has managed to do over the last decade! Some of the key ingredients in our formula for success are as follows:
Playing to your strengths
One of the key strengths for Help AG’s has been our dedicated focus on IT security. Far too many organisations in the region endeavour to position themselves as ‘one-stop-shops’ for everything IT in the hope that this would give them wider relevance in the market and a greater scope for business.
What these companies fail to realise however is that strategic specialisation does not lead to pigeon holing, but rather allows you to offer unmatched value and quality in your area of expertise. Solutions from the various domains of IT such as security, network, storage, ERP, and application development are leveraged by all major industry verticals and the growing complexity of IT today encourages the utilisation of best-of-breed point products rather than single vendor architectures. Finding your niche and investing in your workforce to develop an unmatched level of expertise is what will set you apart from the competition.
Addressing the regional skills shortage
Lack of qualified professionals is often cited as a major hurdle to growing an organisation’s local presence. However, I believe that the problem is not lack of expertise but rather failure to attract and retain skilled personnel. Paying employees sufficiently and ensuring that they are content in their jobs goes a long way in addressing this challenge.
At Help AG, we have found that looking abroad is also a good way to find the right talent. While it might mean having to provide higher salaries, it is worth the investment to ensure you employ the right people. After all, the saying, ‘If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’ holds true.
Another initiative that we have found to be particular effective has been our internship program. Not only does this give back to the IT community at large, we have been able to successfully absorb a number of interns into our organisation as permanent employees. As they have been trained as per our company policies and best-practices, they require little or no time to ramp up their skills and rapidly turn into contributing team members.
Developing a culturally diversified workforce
The population of the Middle East is extremely diversity as the region is home to expats from all parts of the world. Because of this, more often than not things go better, deals close faster and projects go smoother if you “match-make” the customer and service provider on many levels including the obvious professional requirements and less obvious things like people’s backgrounds, cultures, languages.
One of the subtle factors to Help AG’s success is that we realised the value of diversification of the workforce from the onset and today we have an outstanding mix of employees of 35 nationalities among 130 employees.
Focus on customer retention
While in the initial years, a company will see the majority of its business being driven by new projects with major regional accounts, as time progresses, it is the recurring revenue streams that will contribute the larger portion to total revenues. Any organisation that hopes to build long term business relationships must adopt a ‘cradle to the grave’ solution selling model that includes a good deal of emphasis on post-implementation support.
A strong set of support capabilities also stands as worthy credentials to both customers and partners. In a region where few vendors have sufficient locally-based technical resources, partners capable of stepping in and offering Level 1 and Level 2 support services on their behalf are far more likely to rise rapidly through the vendor’s partner ecosystem. A well-staffed locally based support centre means faster time to resolution and highly satisfied clients.
Invest in regional initiatives
In the region, in-house IT teams are stretched, which is why IT managers and decision makers often find it challenging to keep up to date with the latest trends in the industry. This places a premium on market knowledge and stepping in to fill this gap could elevate your organisation to the position of trusted advisor. This dispersion of information is better received when it isn’t just a thinly veiled sales pitch.
Initiatives such as round tables for CIOs and high-level customers that foster the sharing of information and best practice; quarterly forums that outline and detail the latest trends and developments; and even webinars and training sessions are all very effective means towards this end. And while they will require investment of both time and money, they help build brand value in ways that few marketing campaigns can match.
How and when to expand
The economic, political, and social diversity in the Middle East has meant that market dynamics can vary greatly from country to country. This makes identifying the next territory for expansion something of a challenge. At Help AG, we have undertaken a slow but very strategic expansion. After establishing our regional headquarters in Dubai, we then opened fully staffed hubs in Abu Dhabi, Doha and most recently Riyadh.
With each new expansion, we first take the time to get our operations stable and up to the quality of our brand before we begin to look at the next market. This not only provides a solid base to build upon, it also helps gradually build a resource pool that can then be deployed to a new office location without impacting operations at existing offices.
Our corporate vision is very clearly defined to be the number one trusted partner for information and cyber security services and solutions in Middle East and Africa. This outlines our future strategy for further geographic expansion always keeping in mind quality service delivery and customer excitement as the key priorities.
Incorporating these tips into your business strategy will help you establish a trusted brand that can sees not just short term, but long term growth and benefits not just your organisation but your customers and partners alike!
About
Stephan Berner is leading Help AG ME’s efforts to further increase the organisations investment, business activity & partnerships across the MEA region. He works closely with dedicated support teams, to define and drive Help AG’s growth strategy, and effectively manage its investment plans in the MEA region.
Stephan established Help AG ME in 2004 and has overseen the company’s phenomenal growth to date.
Prior to Help AG ME, Stephan was the Managing Director of NOXS / RISC Technology Germany GmbH for three years, leading a team of highly qualified sales, pre-sales, consultants, and support engineers across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Stephan joined Help AG Germany and established Help AG ME with the primary objective of servicing the Information Security and IT Infrastructure market, specifically the Corporate, Enterprise and Government sectors in the MEA region. Under his leadership Help AG established itself as a market leader in the MEA region with many successful projects across the region.
Click below to share this article
