Interview with Mohammed Nashar Al-Rashidi, CEO of Kafaa
What is your overview of your sector and what purpose does Kafaa play?
We are part of the administration consulting sector which generally handles many companies like monetary consulting, technological operation consulting and advisory, companies’ restructuring strategies, tactics enhancement, acquiring running versions, and HR linked consulting subjects. All of that and lots of subtopics are categorised as management consulting. The sector alone in Saudi Arabia has been developing more than the yrs in a lot of areas these types of as from affordable sides, evolving in terms of the varieties of services and management consulting companies, in terms of how much it is supporting the private sector, and in terms of the wide array of enterprises and govt entities it handles. Now, the administration consulting sector is value about $1.6 billion in Saudi Arabia and that benefit has been escalating over the previous five decades. It slowed down in certain many years for different motives, but it recovered immediately and continues to evolve. Substantially like quite a few other sectors and firms, our sector reacts to oil costs and in general regional and country economics. For example, in 2017 when oil costs diminished, the administration consulting sector quickly recovered, averaging properly even for that 12 months. The very same matter took place with the effect of COVID. Of study course, globally and regionally, all corporations have been impacted in 1 way or one more however, when other sectors experienced, the administration consulting sector managed to sustain the excellent development that it designed in between 2017 and 2019. Perhaps the advancement and the slope of the growth is not as steep as it was in prior a long time, but there has been advancement. We experienced an fantastic year in 2019 which served us have above to 2020 and the get started of 2021. Nevertheless, the pace of the restoration and how quickly we are shifting has been really very good. Vision 2030 had a incredible influence on the advancement of this sector, a lot like quite a few other sectors. Precisely, it assisted this sector to increase not only from a organization point of view but it also aided the sector to create to include broader elements of each the non-public sector and the public sector, covering all measurements of businesses and not being restricted to the huge spenders or major government entities, but also serving many sub entities and scaled-down providers as properly. The Vision unleashed large vitality towards transformation and boosted our progress in general performance which genuinely sparked the have to have for that specific expertise to gas this rapidly transformation and growth that we aspire to accomplish. All of this has designed the management consulting sector quite balanced. The significant players have been present all along, but their existence has been strengthened and specified even much more and the top quality of their involvement has improved, which assisted the in general field. Lots of new smaller and medium providers have began. Both they existed exterior the nation and they released their tactics in Saudi or were like ourselves in Kafaa wherever we commenced from scratch practically six several years ago. There is a large amount of operate that nevertheless needs to consider location in buy to fulfil the aspirations of Eyesight 2030, the two in the personal sector and the general public sector. At all concentrations and companies, we will go on to target on making sure that we have the correct techniques, but additional now, the aim is likely into the implementation of strategies that ended up produced earlier and how to have out the true transformation at the appropriate pace and at the proper high-quality in accordance to the organization designs and approaches that have been built. The sector is big and the methods and the companies it delivers are wide. At Kafaa, our concentrate is in operational optimization, these as how we enhance functions and working styles, how we rework procedures into practice, how we assure that transformation is finished with the correct operating design, how we be certain that the corporation is established to provide, and guaranteeing that it is actually offering on the ground dependent on what it intended alone to supply. We use the science of operational excellence to do that in several ways that support those running products function at their ideal.
What expert services do you give at Kafaa? What makes you distinctive from your competition?

Kafaa is a company that delivers a broad variety of administration consultancy and business transformation providers that goal to add worth to our clientele, utilizing our community, regional and global experience.

Kafaa’s history relates to my own heritage a ton, what I did in my career, as very well as my lover and co-founder of Kafaa, and all the folks who joined us in Kafaa as very well. It is the job expertise, the enthusiasm, the issue make any difference abilities that most of us put in our professions executing. I have labored a lot more than 30 years in operations and operational optimization, inner consulting, in significant firms this kind of as Procter & Gamble internationally and domestically in operational excellence and producing. The record of procedure optimization and working with the capabilities of operational excellence and full quality management has been with me and about me for decades the place I follow it and I have the joy of carrying out it. Supporting other people was the underline of how I can enable entities, organizations, groups, and even folks working with demonstrated planet course properly-recognized tools to complete greater and reduce waste so that they can achieve their business enterprise aims in a speedier and far more economical way. I came to a point in my occupation exactly where I needed to build a platform that does that with the use of operational excellence. There are numerous management consultancies that attempt to offer this kind of a service, but several of them use the common theoretical applications that exist and are made use of in excess of and more than. We occur from additional of a palms-on experience. We come from functions. We do not at first arrive from consulting. So, we communicate the language of real functions as we have worked operations with our personal palms. We know what it normally takes to employ one thing productively. We know how to differentiate and customise the methods for our customers in a way that will make perception not only to their top rated management, but also to the people today who are doing the job with them on the floor. We have been there, we have completed it ourselves, and we have that fingers-on practical experience making use of and practising individuals equipment that we uncovered from the operational excellence frameworks that are offered throughout the world. These include things like lean imagining, Kaizen methodologies, complete productive servicing in producing, and many other folks. We received to the issue where we had the know-how to build our individual equipment and personalize them more for what ever purchasers we function with. That has been acknowledged not only by the many large shoppers that we perform with but also by numerous of the Large Four consulting businesses that we affiliate with or we operate with as a market or certain know-how that enhances their perform in phrases of developing working types or methods that will need to go into implementation.
In conditions of our products and services, to start with, we offer tactic implementation. We just take methods that have been developed by quite a few of the vital gamers in that industry, lots of massive consultancies, and we just take it a stage additional to layout that the suitable functioning design is customised to the shopper needs. The key factor that served us thrive is our worldwide exposure in many of the assets that are accessible in Kafaa. Area Saudis like myself have had the probability to get the job done in unique areas of the planet, have an understanding of the distinct knowhow that exists globally, and then are able to deliver it again regionally and customise it to the area demands. Transferring that international knowhow and that global understanding into a tailored knowhow has been a pretty precise results that we have been equipped to show about the past six years. That equilibrium amongst acquiring those people global experiences by the crew, via the leadership, and then the potential to blend individuals ordeals with our area comprehension and abilities is what made our alternatives incredibly well-known and uncomplicated to put into practice and combine for all of the customers that we are doing work with. A different services we offer is operation optimization. We get rid of 3 birds with just one stone. Initially, we optimize functions so that it presents the suitable excellent, no matter if that operation’s output is a provider or a product, or irrespective of whether that operation is in the non-public sector or the public sector. We think about how we can make improvements to the inner procedure of that corporation or that entity so their output companies are also enhanced. Next is how we improve the agility of that group. We work on not only serving to them function quickly but assisting them in conditions of responding to their shoppers, to the marketplace, or to whomever benefiting from their expert services more quickly. We give that capacity to have them perform superior and with improved agility. 3rd, and one particular of the most critical points, is improving upon their price usefulness. We do the job with them not only in assisting them reduce expenditures, simply because that can be finished by monetary services, but we do a lot more than that. It is seriously aiding the customers do extra with considerably less, which is the accurate meaning of value performance. We also have a massive concentration on manufacturing as a standalone sector due to the fact that is where we initially arrived from. We have the know-how to build manufacturing techniques, item provide techniques, operating models, improving upon existing operations, having them from losses to profitability, strengthening their complex operations in how to operate the manufacturing lines in a entire world class requirements, how to increase the factory’s manufacturing processes, and personnel capabilities.
In the previous two decades, we have expanded to other providers these as supplying venture management workplace providers not only in a supportive way but in a lot more of a directive way to insure issues are carried out and according to the desired designs. This implies aiding on the floor managing initiatives and jobs and up to providing them to the last issue. We are also growing some of our products and services into the HR sector in conditions of improving HR expert services within just an corporation which includes organizational progress, optimizing the organizational buildings, furnishing the ideal interior set up, function procedures, and operating conditions. We appear at the long run to expand all of these services moreover many other people that we are building. Quite a few of these primary providers we are developing and have released by now as digital remedies. Digitizing is a significant thing that we are doing work on and we have presently introduced, but we are not halting there and we are moving into automating quite a few of these products and services in the coming years.
What is your business enterprise philosophy? What are your organization ethics?
We foundation all of our working internally and externally on our foundation values which are out there on our site. From working day one particular, as we ended up developing our in general internal approach, even prior to Kafaa was set up as a authorized entity back in 2016, we required to make certain that we have a strong base that assists us manage this organization and expand with it. We realized that we were, at that time, starting off in an location that could be challenging to start out any small business. To get started a little and medium business was not ideal at that time. So, we desired to make positive that we did it right. Just one of the vital factors that we reported we wanted to do suitable was getting the proper values that we genuinely feel in. I remember locking ourselves in for a several times, just brainstorming and writing out charts of our serious values that we definitely feel that come from our hearts, how we are heading to run in a way that describes our personalities, how we imagine, how we want to conduct the business, and how we could produce that. My business enterprise spouse and I both of those identified how essential this is mainly because we are likely into management consultancy, which is some thing that involves remarkable management in terms of taking the necessary methods to really comprehend a person else’s problems and then using even more measures to definitely supply the finest remedies that customer warrants. In management consulting, it is quite variable and it adjustments from 7 days to week and from month to thirty day period and from shopper to consumer. Often, when you are on your possess or with a lesser workforce, all those management values enable you navigate and help you assist other individuals to navigate to the correct methods that include value and impression. Leadership is important to all firms in all places, but for us in Kafaa, it is a critical issue that we essential to assure.
The second issue was possession. If we want to present know-how, when we go as consultants, the client does not appear at us as standard individuals, but as authorities. As a result, we have to have the suitable ownership in definitely turning into experts in the places in which we are offering alternatives. At all of our degrees across the company, we have the suitable possession of our remedies so that they are a lot more personalized and personalized. That drives a large amount of innovation in our imagining in how we, as the Kafaa family members, present methods that carry our particular touches. Therefore, we individual each depth of these answers. When it arrives to trust and regard, we are an functions management consultancy which suggests that we do not only come and look at the significant-degree tactics, meet up with with firms or government entity leaders, and give them shows, etcetera. We do all those items, but then we dig deeper. We see everything they see, we open up all the guides, and we function with almost everything that could not be visible to all people else. In order for us to do that, we have to have to attain the rely on and regard of the consumer which we can’t do if we do not have that internally. This indicates we as a workforce have faith in and regard each and every other’s abilities and benefit-included wondering and interactions. That was quite essential to set up as a price and as a culture inside Kafaa. We are after optimization and advancement, so steady enhancement was a purely natural factor to take place. We continuously boost our methodologies internally, our framework, our applications, our capacity, the way we do things, and how we handle matters. We are never ever pleased with what we do and when we go to the shoppers we are also there to assist them come across far better techniques of how they carry out their small business to gain far better benefits. If every single working day of a occupation is to fix complications and to be confronted with issues, it could be a incredibly adverse and stressful atmosphere. It is a stressful task, but we have to have to offer positivity to equilibrium that out.
Remaining positively oriented was the subsequent price that we believed of and how to be positively oriented via all of the anxiety we are satisfied with. We are looked upon as industry experts or difficulty solvers and everyone expects magic to occur out of each person. That is a large responsibility and if we do not have that positivity as a price and as an frame of mind, it could be a great deal a lot more tricky.
Last but not least, one of the hardest things that we place on ourselves, but one of the most critical things as very well, is doing the ideal factor. Pushing, convincing, and accomplishing our finest hard work to really carry out the most effective solutions for our customers, encouraging them see what we see if we believe that it is the right issue for them to do. Several instances, you get tempted to just do what the client thinks is the proper factor to do and get his or her acceptance and shift on, but we usually pledge that we will not do that as extended as it is not the ideal matter for the shopper and for what he or she trustworthy us with. Occasionally that is distressing, but it generally pays off at the end and it developed much more trustworthiness for Kafaa and helped us distribute through potent word of mouth in the current market.
What is your eyesight for the company in 3 years’ time?
To start with is to proceed our organic advancement in what we do. We are getting much more and far more abilities every working day in what we do and that provides us an even further more edge in perfecting what we do which provides us extra outreach and credibility in our standard companies. This is creating tremendous needs on us. Next is how significantly we can capitalize on technologies, on the World-wide-web of People today, and the Web of Matters, to supply our companies in digitized kinds as very well as automatic strategies so that it is a lot quicker to employ, much easier to management, and fixable to increase and multiply. Capitalising on that perception on machine learning and the evolving earth of metaverse surroundings. Industrial IPO 4. is progressing globally, quicker in some international locations than other folks, but it is surely hitting the ground in Saudi Arabia, the GCC and the Middle East area as a complete. This will have an impact on how fast Kafaa can progress to aid our customers utilize and capitalize on this kind of systems to cope with consumer and purchaser requirements in the future. These services are still in the layout phase. We have been approached by different investors who want to sign up for us and we have been open up to that. However, we want to have the suitable investor who shares the exact same passion. We do not only loom for the economical contribution but also the proper added price that assists obtain our vision and growth options.
In the subsequent three to five a long time, we believe we can definitely double the company. We have been rising extremely nicely. We commenced with a very small team of much less than 5 of us in 2016. We are now effectively higher than 60 individuals sitting down concerning Jeddah and Riyadh. We go nearly in all places in Saudi and wherever we have clientele. That quantity in the coming couple of yrs could expand to 100 individuals with various knowledge. Currently, our groups have fantastic range from distinct nationalities. Also we have male and woman despite the fact that we could boost in having additional females in our team. A single of the unwritten visions I had individually for the enterprise was, and still is, how Kafaa will come to be a system for those people who want to have a vocation in procedure excellence and who want to develop their knowledge in this industry. which does not exist in other places. That is one of the special matters we deliver to young engineers who join us as a career. It requires often decades and very good attempts to establish skills in this subject, but it is extremely worthwhile on the qualified amount, as well as the fiscal degree. We have folks that have been escalating really nicely in their careers because they started as new hires and now, they are in far more sophisticated management positions with a extremely good technological expertise. The expansion folks make with us in their professions and their exposures and advancement is exponential. Kafaa family associates, and even all those who moved on to other areas, always truly feel happy of the rapid improvement they witnessed in the course of their journey with us. They basically look at months operating in Kafaa to months and decades elsewhere. This definitely provides me special pleasure simply because I envisioned how much people today can occur to Kafaa and find out about operational excellence and how they can advance their occupation and choose it somewhere else as perfectly. That is surely just one of the successes that I personally celebrate and my enthusiasm is to spread this knowhow additional as a great deal as I can.
For more info, you should stop by: https://kafaa.sa.
Honest USE Plan
This substance (which includes media articles) could not be revealed, broadcasted, rewritten, or redistributed. Nevertheless, linking immediately to the web page (together with the supply, i.e. Marcopolis.internet) is permitted and encouraged.