From Real Business (20 August 2008)

Local knowledge is key to success in the Middle East

by Catherine Woods

The key to succeeding in the Middle East is having an understanding of local business practices and customs as soon as you’re on the ground, says BIW Technologies chief Colin Smith.

The Middle East is the place to be for BIW, which sells software to support building projects, because there’s so much construction activity in the region. The company has established a strong business in Dubai and Smith has his eye on other centres in the area such as Abu Dhabi and Qatar. He notes: “They’re starting the process that Dubai has been in for some years.”

Smith says BIW learnt a number of important lessons from the Dubai experience. “In Dubai, there are quite a number of requirements when you’re establishing your company as a legal entity," he explains. "You have to have the right advisers; people who understand local customs, practices and bureaucracy. It would have saved us a lot of hard work and cash had we known that beforehand. The next time we open a branch in a region in the Middle East, we’ll be doing it from a much more informed start point.”

BIW won’t, however, be changing the way it staffs the new venture. When the company was starting out In Dubai, it worked with some of its UK clients that had a presence in the region. Then, BIW sent in some of its top people. “If you open a branch in another country, you have to have the top guys and girls out there," Smith says. “We supported the new venture largely by seconding UK staff there but now it's going, we're recruiting almost exclusively in the region.”

(Original Real Business article available online here)

 From Emirates Business 24-7 (20 August 2008)

Dollar strength to create problems

by Martin Baker

extract:

That said, I've been very impressed with the size and scale and ingenuity of Dubai property development. When you look at the 1.4 billion square feet Waterfront development that Middle East property developer Nakheel has taken on, the sheer scale and logistical difficulty make one think of, well, something not unlike the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

I was surprised to learn that this and another Nakheel development, the transformation of the QE2 liner into a luxury resort hotel, is being managed by a huge system of super-smart internet-based software that allows the project managers to co-ordinate the efforts of suppliers from all over the planet. Each contributes its own bit to the project and is given access to relevant buts of the site. The system software is rented out to developers such as Nakheel by a highly successful and dynamic company based in England, BIW Technologies, which is, apparently, looking for investment capital (a market listing is a possibility, once the markets pick up). I wish the company luck. Without systems like BIW's platform, major global-scale developments wouldn't be Hanging Gardens of Babylon, more disorganised Towers of Babel. Mind you, not using clever systems would be one way of making them that much more expensive.

(Original Emirates Business 24-7 article available online here)