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Posts Tagged ‘Saudi Arabia’

The Saudi Anti-Corruption Commission; The Fast & Furious

09 May

So by the approval of the Saudi cabinet of ministers on the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Commission, the royal decree that guided, or better to say, sponsored the idea of a national anti-corruption commission comes into effect.

As outlined in this announcement, the commission responsibilities revolve around combating all forms of administrative and financial corruption, following up on plans concerning the public interests to ensure fair execution and compliance to laws, that’s in addition to promoting transparency in all governmental work.

Quite goals to accomplish and objectives to satisfy. Given that the commission is just starting, we, as Saudis, certainly hope that it will reach those nicely put strategic goals. However, strategy won’t move unless carried on tactical wheels, so to speak. If it is legitimate to ask how Saudis are reacting to the announcement of such commission. I would say that they are full of hope, but yet skeptical! Public policies, for some reason or another, are usually doomed with slowness. Once you got caught at the web of bureaucracy, it is extremely hard to break out!

For that, and if they are willing to take my advice, for this commission to establish itself on the scene and to gain credibility and respect, I would say that they should adopt the slogan of ‘Fast & Furious.’

Be Fast: Do not allow much of a time to pass without issuing some kind of comments, reports, or even punishments against those practicing any kind of corruption or misusing power! I agree that the commission is new and it would definitely need some time to create its own organizational structure and culture, and I know that it will be dealing with sensitive cases that need to be investigated independently and thoroughly, but acting fast would give it an immediate presence on the scene and, most importantly, it will be taken seriously!

Be Furious: be furious in the sense of not adhering to normal and usual bureaucratic obstacles. And more importantly, not submitting to ‘Wasta’ and people of power and influence. After all, the King himself got your back! There are many managerial initiatives and techniques that could be used to maneuver obstacles and constraints. They just need fresh innovative minds, and the desire to embrace modern managerial practices!

 
7 Comments

Posted in Communication, Culture, General Management, Saudi business

 

The Friday of Royal Decrees

18 Mar

Beside its religious importance for Muslims, Friday seems to be taking another level of significance for Arabs nowadays. It is the day of change or, at least, cries for change.

For Saudis, this Friday was the day of royal decrees. A series of decrees that touched down on most of the ‘operational’ hot topics currently discusses by Saudis everywhere. And I am saying ‘operational’ just to differentiate those topics from the ‘organizational’ ones that are also discussed especially on the more elite levels!

From where I stand, I see these decrees as another leap forward. They have been strategically thought through and have been designed to give immediate, short term, and long term returns.

These are the most important points which sopped me:

  • According to the analysis of Saudi-Fransi bank (mentioned in this tweet), this Friday’s decrees would need about SAR 350 Billion to be covered. Adding this to the measures taken less than one month ago, about SAR 485 Billion (about 29.7% of the last year’s GDP) is entering the Saudi Economical cycle. That is a huge amount of money that should be looked at by both enthusiasm and caution. Enthusiasm because this amount of money means new projects, stronger infrastructure, healthy flow of cash, new jobs, and new economical opportunities. Caution because such huge amount of money could lead to inflation and commodity prices increase. The Saudi financial authorities are certainly up for a challenge this year; let’s just not open the topic of budget and reserves now!
  • The most important decree, in my opinion, was the one dictating the creation of the governmental anti-corruption committee. It is the committee that is supposed to be fighting both administrative and financial corruption and misbehaving within the governments’ work. I would like to stress on the administrative part of this committee work. It’s just about time we truly think about our project management practices in contracts awarding, quality of work, and I hope they will add the principle of ‘citizen services’ to this committee’s list of duties. Let their slogan be ‘to modern management and less bureaucratic practices.’
  • The health care sector took a lion share of the incentives as well. Again, with the new hospitals and research centers, the principles of quality medical services should be integrated to the formula.
  • The 500,000 housing unites all over the country are a good start. I wish this move would prove itself worthy and can be generalized on a later stage to be a project of citizens housing similar to what is happening in UAE and Qatar.

Now the success of these points, and the rest mentioned in the remaining decrees, are subject to the sincere implementation of those entrusted with the work as ‘public servants.’ This is the time for innovative ideas and creative new ways of getting the job done. Saudi Arabia and Saudis have all potentials to positively change and catch up with the rest of the world.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Culture, General Management, Saudi business

 

Saudi is Going Nuclear

18 Apr

No doubt about it; it is a historical moment for Saudi Arabia that just decided to go nuclear. A royal decree initiated the nuclear era for the Kingdom by announcing the establishment of King Abduallah Nuclear and Renewable Energy City in Riyadh. For a wealthy country that can afford the initiating stage of nuclear facilities like Saudi Arabia, such decision should not come as surprise at all. It could be even said that it’s been an awaited decision for some time now.

Such a move is a step further in many fields and on so many levels. And these are some interesting points:

  • Modernizing the almost expired electricity and desalinated water infrastructure beside reducing the dependance on hydrocarbon resources.
  • Meeting the increasing demands on power and water in a country that besides its huge requirements, it aspires to attract more foreign capital and creates more competitive investment environment.
  • Opening a whole new market with all its needs of manpower, technology, and logistics.
  • Familiarizing the country with the technology that could be later on extended to the medical field applications and scientific research requirements (it seems that because of KAUST, we are now more relaxed talking about scientific researches … and let me tell you, that feels great :) )

I still remember how the nuclear engineering department in King Abdulaziz University (KAU) was not amongst the favorites by us, the engineering students, by that time. I assume that it will be among the most desired majors in the coming few years in the Kingdom and we might see more nuclear sections in both science and engineering within our universities. And that is another benefit of going nuclear.

 
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Posted in Branding, Human Resources, Saudi business

 

There is No One Answer

13 Mar

What is really interesting about management, and social sciences in general, is that they do not believe in one and unique answer. For each and every topic, there is a number of theories and point of views that sometimes come to be as contradicting to each other as it can be. There is no equations that should be balanced, but there are interests that should be maintained and situations that should be studied. And if you come to think of it, unless you are talking about mathematics or physics, this is life in general, there is rarely a one answer.

For that, if you are a manager and you, somehow, think that you possesses the answer to every problem. And if you, for some reason, think you can force everybody to follow your brilliant ideas, then you better leave your managerial chair because you do not deserve it.

And if you, by any chance, hold one of those master or PhD degrees (MBA included!!), and you do not know how to engage in a scientific debate and you do not believe in others’s right to have their own opinions about a certain subject, no matter how strongly you believe in your own point of view, you better burn that piece of paper you hang on the wall because it does not mean a thing.

Now, the above concept of being open to different ideas and point of views is a vital corner of answering this important question; why we do not have a number of great leaders? In a matter of fact, it is one of the major problems we have as a whole society.

 
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Posted in General Management, Saudi business

 

What do you mean ‘No to Cancer’??

07 Nov

It has been three days now since I start noticing some kind of ads on the street billboards with few words on them and bunch of logos stating ‘Yes to life … No to cancer.’ Now, I do not know if it is only me … or these few words are a bit offensive!

It turned out that these ads are part of the Saudi ministry of health (MoH) cancer awareness campaign. And it seems that a similar campaign with a similar tagline had taken place last year as well. This is something we should all be thankful for and MoH should be credited for their efforts in providing the public with basic information about how to prevent cancer by cutting out bad habits like smoking or considering preliminary medical care to minimize breast cancer. But with this tagline … pleeeeeeease!!!

Cancer is not something that can be easily prevented by covering your mouth while sneezing or running out of a room when someone lights a cigarette. So what about those who already have cancer and happen to see these ads; why should we tell them that they have a disease that is against life. In other words, why should we shout at them that cancer means death (we know that this is not true in all cases)!! I can hardly  imagine how emotionally and psychologically affecting such a message is for those who have cancer or those who lost someone because of it?

The bottom line is that this tagline gives you the impression that you should be blamed if you got cancer. And if you got it, you are an outcast (No to cancer!!). This sense of guilt and responsibility is not the right message that should be communicated in an awareness campaign, or any campaign for that matter. People tend to show resistance to any blames and that usually lead them to take a defensive position and miss the whole point of such ads.

Am I exaggerating; could be! What do you think?

 
18 Comments

Posted in Advertisement

 

Saudi Business World and Climate Change

15 Oct

I am writing this blog post in response to the ‘Blog Action Day 09, Climate Change’.

To be honest, writing about this subject, in Saudi Arabia, is a bit weird!! You know why? Because the whole philosophy of preserving the environment and taking serious measures to fight the climate change is still young in the minds of both; the public and the business world.

For that, thinking about the climate change prevention idea in the Saudi business world will definitely lead you to consider the concept that contains such ideas; that is the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This concept is still new in the Saudi business environment. And even more, it is not totally understood, let alone embraced. Following the subject in the media, you would be encountered with a bunch of articles; most of them are written by Saudi academics trying to explain the concept. I am not saying this is wrong; on the contrary, it is advisable and certainly good to bring such concept to the public attention. But still, most of the examples provided to illustrate the concept are based on employees’ benefits and charity. Yes, these are main elements of the CSR, but they are not everything.

I believe it is reasonable to claim that preserving-the-environment awareness is a cultural issue before any nothing else. Unfortunately, showing respect to nature, saving power resources, and respecting the green life in general are some things we are not growing up with around here. So any initiatives to address such matters should always consider this cultural lack of understanding.

Nonetheless, hope is there and it is not all a black picture. There are some companies’ initiatives to promote environmental awareness and practices. ARAMCO and SBIC (Saudi Electricity, to some extent) always come to mind, at least for their fields of interests if not for anything else. However, although the efforts to adhere to modern industrial standards are important, the effort to raise employees’ environmental awareness is something we should concentrate on, at least, to compensate for the lack of it in our normal life. Maybe building this awareness in the corporate culture will be pay its dues and we will start seeing its results in the normal life.

Finally, more regulations, incentives, and programs are required to address this issue. And they better to be real and sincere and not to be used as way of advertisement! Such efforts are needed from both, public and private sectors, to raise the awareness of such critical matters. Critical matters to the essence of our existence on this planet.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Saudi business