I always wanted to visit Saudi Arabia. I don't know why, but it has been on my to do list for many, many years. This year in spring I got a phone call from a headhunter asking me whether I was interested in a 3 month project there and I said I was interested. 2 weeks later I was sitting on a plane heading towards Riyadh.
The contracts are normally annual ones, but lucky me, it was much shorter, as that company needed an urgent replacement for someone and only for a few weeks.
So, the adventure began. I can only recommend to anyone who goes there to ask for a place in a compound rather than accommodation outside. And the reason being is very simple - at weekends and after work it is just nice to see and chat with westerners from a similar cultural background. Also, in compounds women can walk around freely (outside they are more or less expelled from society).
The work I did was in a PMO environment and I was a subject matter expert for PMO and Customer Relations Management where I was tasked with 2 themes:
1) I managed 14 projects to manage the interface to customers and ensure their water supply for the drought period 2012
2) I developed a management system for the sales and marketing department of the Treated Sewage Effluents division.
I am not allowed to mention the name of the company, but one can see it is a utility company, the biggest one of its kind.
What did I learn and bring back as experience from my trip down there?
1) Speed in Saudi Arabia is different from the western world. In Europe we implement changes so much quicker than there. As consultant we are always trained on speed, but we need to skip that when working in Saudi.
2) Relationship to your clients is key. Arabs more like westerners like to get to know someone first before doing business with them. So, the western approach "Hello Mr Clients, let's do business" does not work. Talking is key and that includes lots of small talk. And I need to say, I rather like this approach.
3) Saudi Arabia is all about who knows whom from the Royal Family - and that family is big, and I mean seriously big as succession to the throne does not go downstream in the family tree, but sidestream. So, the current king is the last son of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Anyway, in a business environment this means, if your client knows someone in the Royal Family, this is a key client to watch, as the whole organisation will evolve around him.
4) There are laws out there to prevent Saudi companies from hiring foreigners directly. This is called "Saudiisation" and means that many positions are filled with staff (and we speak higher positions) who are not really able to do the work. Foreigners are still needed but hired through consultancy companies or other bypass organisations.
5) Saudis are not overly fond of having tasks delegated to them. They in fact seem to expect the consultant to do it for them. For the whole change management experience, that's of course problematic when it comes to creating ownership, etc. And again, this adds to the speed of implementation; it just takes time!
All in all, workwise it was a very good experience and I absolutely loved it. I also loved working for that utility company. Culturally, the country can be a bit of a challenge and it certainly helps to be a man!
Whoever is interested, I also have a travel blog and had one entry per day. That was sort of my hobby and gave me something to do during the time when there was absolutely nothing to do (like after work and especially at weekends). One has to scroll down to April/May/June 2012 in order to find the blog entries.
Roland's Travel Blog
All the best and happy scrolling through my blog.
The contracts are normally annual ones, but lucky me, it was much shorter, as that company needed an urgent replacement for someone and only for a few weeks.
So, the adventure began. I can only recommend to anyone who goes there to ask for a place in a compound rather than accommodation outside. And the reason being is very simple - at weekends and after work it is just nice to see and chat with westerners from a similar cultural background. Also, in compounds women can walk around freely (outside they are more or less expelled from society).
The work I did was in a PMO environment and I was a subject matter expert for PMO and Customer Relations Management where I was tasked with 2 themes:
1) I managed 14 projects to manage the interface to customers and ensure their water supply for the drought period 2012
2) I developed a management system for the sales and marketing department of the Treated Sewage Effluents division.
I am not allowed to mention the name of the company, but one can see it is a utility company, the biggest one of its kind.
What did I learn and bring back as experience from my trip down there?
1) Speed in Saudi Arabia is different from the western world. In Europe we implement changes so much quicker than there. As consultant we are always trained on speed, but we need to skip that when working in Saudi.
2) Relationship to your clients is key. Arabs more like westerners like to get to know someone first before doing business with them. So, the western approach "Hello Mr Clients, let's do business" does not work. Talking is key and that includes lots of small talk. And I need to say, I rather like this approach.
3) Saudi Arabia is all about who knows whom from the Royal Family - and that family is big, and I mean seriously big as succession to the throne does not go downstream in the family tree, but sidestream. So, the current king is the last son of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Anyway, in a business environment this means, if your client knows someone in the Royal Family, this is a key client to watch, as the whole organisation will evolve around him.
4) There are laws out there to prevent Saudi companies from hiring foreigners directly. This is called "Saudiisation" and means that many positions are filled with staff (and we speak higher positions) who are not really able to do the work. Foreigners are still needed but hired through consultancy companies or other bypass organisations.
5) Saudis are not overly fond of having tasks delegated to them. They in fact seem to expect the consultant to do it for them. For the whole change management experience, that's of course problematic when it comes to creating ownership, etc. And again, this adds to the speed of implementation; it just takes time!
All in all, workwise it was a very good experience and I absolutely loved it. I also loved working for that utility company. Culturally, the country can be a bit of a challenge and it certainly helps to be a man!
Whoever is interested, I also have a travel blog and had one entry per day. That was sort of my hobby and gave me something to do during the time when there was absolutely nothing to do (like after work and especially at weekends). One has to scroll down to April/May/June 2012 in order to find the blog entries.
Roland's Travel Blog
All the best and happy scrolling through my blog.
