How was business during the pandemic and what are your expectations for 2022?
In the height of the pandemic, it was critical for us to scale down some of our operations in specific sectors, but as the months passed and the market saw signs of recovery, we witnessed a significant rise in demand, and Serco successfully achieved an agile realignment, thanks to our flexible outsourcing model.
We are a services-to-government company and our biggest sectors in the last few years have been transport and citizen services. During the pandemic, we stood up alongside governments, set up and operated field hospitals and we’ve gone above and beyond to help clients and organisations during the most trying of times.
I am hoping for a bigger rebound in 2022 as we expect significant growth in the region. With the introduction of major giga projects in Saudi Arabia such as NEOM and the Red Sea Development Project, we have seen a real resurgence in our business activities in the kingdom. The UAE market too has recovered significantly and will continue on this path in 2022.
With the signing of the recent asset management contract in Jubail, you are clearly eyeing growth in Saudi Arabia. Tell us about your plans in the kingdom. If you run a business in the Middle East and you haven’t got huge aspirations to grow in Saudi Arabia, then you are probably in the wrong place. In 2020 and 2021 when most companies were downsizing their investments in the region, we decided to invest and put more effort and resources into the kingdom. We have massive plans for the kingdom in 2022, including the launch of our new office in Riyadh – and of course hiring is big on our agenda.
A key part of our strategy is nationalisation because we believe in giving back to the countries in which we work by transferring international best practice, knowledge and skills to nationals. In 2022, we will continue to recruit, train and upskill both Emirati and Saudi nationals.
We have recently appointed a Saudi national to help lead ExperienceLab in KSA, our user-centred research and design agency, which will help organisations and the Saudi government ensure that their end-user is provided with world-class experiences.
We believe in the Saudi Vision 2030. As the country is developing a number of complex and multi-purpose giga projects, we are tremendously enthusiastic about the potential in the kingdom, and we want to grow in line with their vision. We are closely following the development of these giga projects. We have been operating in the kingdom for a decade, supporting the government and large corporations in the areas of citizen services, transport, healthcare and defence and our aspirations are to grow across all these sectors.
The Middle East fire protection systems market is witnessing double-digit growth, making it one of the largest fire protection markets in the world. You have recently signed an agreement with EDGE to provide fire and emergency response support. Tell us more.
The fire safety market in the region has huge potential across many sectors including transportation, particularly in aviation, which is something we specialise in here in the Middle East, in addition to supporting military with fire and rescue operations.
Fire rescue is a market where clients heavily prioritise quality and reputation over price because they don’t want to get it wrong. It is certainly one of our biggest strengths and we have a lot of credibility internationally. Through Serco’s world-leading fire training centre, International Fire Training Centre (IFTC), we bring fire rescue expertise and technology to the region, specialising in the aviation, industrial, offshore, marine and civil defence sectors.
The collaboration with EDGE Group will give us the opportunity to further help organisations with their fire rescue and training needs. As many as 242 public-private partnership projects worth $223bn are under development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which is set to go up as project execution picks up with return to normalcy.
To what extent will it impact the businesses of public service firms like Serco?
Serco has participated in PPP projects throughout the world and has covered areas like education, healthcare, defence and justice. Globally, we are partners in approximately 20 PPPs. With our experience in helping governments implement user-centric designs in their assets, it’s an ideal model for us.
Innovation in a crisis – why is it more critical than ever? How are you doing business differently?
The pandemic forced entities to realise how important user-experience is and kickstarted the need to improve these experiences. There is a strong drive to digitise government services and embrace a user-centric approach to cater to the needs of citizens and residents.
Serco’s ExperienceLab helps clients optimise their customer experiences by using insights and behavioural data across services. We work with our clients and identify the areas where we can improve the end user experience, specialising in understanding user expectations across different services and subsequently helping clients to translate that into world-class experiences.
An innovative approach is required to ride through these challenging times. Smart organisations understand the pulse of the market and act with agility.