Come Together

IHCC has experience building healthcare cities in Dubai. How will you take that experience and adapt it to the local Saudi market?

Right now we are doing projects in Dubai, Egypt, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. We realized that the boom was going on outside Saudi Arabia, but now it has returned in Saudi. We have learned a lot from Dubai and the guidelines used there, as well as international standards. Our plan for 2015 is to get back into the Saudi market and apply what we have learned in healthcare and education. We plan to open a new office and hire new people to implement this strategy in 2015. We have worked in a range of markets from cosmopolitan cities such as Dubai with international standards, to places such as Yemen, where the standards are not that high, and cities in Egypt, which is a dynamic environment with a huge population that is growing along with their standards. In Saudi Arabia, we can draw on all these mixed experiences to make us more dynamic. Saudi Arabia has a lot of opportunities and potential.

What approach does IHCC take to the development opportunities on offer in Saudi Arabia?

In Saudi Arabia people are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of projects. This is something huge. It is also a significant challenge and responsibility, both for us and for the country, to ensure that these opportunities have a positive outcome. We really want to make sure that we come together and look at the best practices internationally, and try to utilize them in Saudi Arabia. We cannot just copy and paste. You have to learn and adapt to the local environment for it to be a sustainable development. There are a lot of people involved in this equation: it is a mix between the authorities and the service providers, and the ministries and the actual operators. If you want to make a healthcare city, you have to make sure that there are certain guidelines present for the building and the operation. The way to go forward is to have design and build, as well as turnkey approaches. This process eliminates most of the issues because when you are a designer and a project is handed over to a client who hires another contractor, there will be miscommunication about what to do with this design. When it is a design and build project, the collaborative team wants to work at its best to reach the same objective, and will try to solve problems from within. Saudi Arabia is going through this boom at the same time as it is trying to take care of its younger generation and give them the best education and support it can. I am one of these people. My duty is to make sure that everything I do and am involved in considers their interests. For us, a building is not an end goal, but a part of an integrated infrastructure that gives back to the people afterwards. People should start looking at growth using an integrated model, and we are part of that design and build turnkey services right from the beginning.

What are your main short-term goals?

Part of our focus now is regional, in particular Egypt because it has a very interesting market even though it has had some issues recently. Despite this, we believe Egypt is really a treasure here in the region because it has a lot of professional human capital. It has a demand and a need to add more supply. In addition to Egypt, we are thinking about focusing more on North Africa. In terms of Saudi Arabia, we hope to grow with our experience by tapping into design and build projects in the country. We want to grow by being selective, not by throwing ourselves into any and every project, because as a professional you have a duty to be realistic in your approach and deliver on what you promised. In 2015, we want to make sure we seek out the projects going on in Riyadh and are part of developments we can add value to, specifically projects in the healthcare and education sectors. We want to start approaching projects using new models, thinking from a purpose point of view and thinking about what we can add. One new concept we are considering is the public-private partnership (PPP) model. We are thinking about collaborating on a design-and-build project, through a consortium, for example, and then transferring that on. The government is doing its best in terms of investing and monitoring, but it cannot do it all. The necessary projects are too large now and the government needs the support of the private sector, which offers a different point of view to that of the government. The government is always a given. It wants to give its people the best without looking at the bottom line, at how much they are spending. The private sector will never go into a venture without thinking about how much money it is going to make. The combination of the public and private approach works well from a macro and micro economic point of view. The government can act as a facilitator and ensure that the correct macro strategy is in place, as well as setting out the necessary guidelines and regulations, while private enterprise can develop specialized projects and add value to them for the benefit of all.

© The Business Year – January 2015