Tamkeen senior manager for private sector support Qusay Al Arrayedh shares the company’s new communication and evaluation system, encouraging new entrepreneurs to achieve their goals.
Would you mind telling us who you are and what you do?
I’m Qusay Al Arrayedh, I run the operations within the Private Sector Support department at Tamkeen. My job requires me to lead the team that handles the various applications coming into Tamkeen.
How do you set the criteria of measurements for the quality of handling the applications?
We have taken steps into shifting Tamkeen into a service institution that focuses on the quality of the service and its delivery. In doing so, we have taken major strides in developing our customer service and enhancing our efforts in reaching out to our customer base.
But also more importantly, we are creating the tools from within and the systems that strengthen the relationship between us and our clients.
A good example of that is creating a portal where our clients, vendors, and ourselves could all utilize this portal for their respective needs. For example, a company that wishes to apply for a program can do so through the portal’s online application as well as track, communicate, follow-up, etc… We communicate and receive all kinds of documentation, all kinds of information from the client through that portal.
That is a work in progress. It was launched, I believe, six months ago. Since then, we have been improving it, and we’re trying to create more features. Whatever we see as important and will reduce the gap between us and the client, we will do. For instance, besides the online application, which is the major feature, clients will be able to track their application and upload documents.
Clients will be able to upload any kind of documents required from the accounts team in order for us to proceed with their payments, etc. It’s exciting, because it has transformed Tamkeen and how we do our business, and took it to a different level. It’s just the start; when you start to look into automation as a means of communication and a mean of easing or reducing the gap between us and the client, then the sky is the limit.
It was received very well from people. With the previous version, things were not fully automated; the biggest obstacle that we faced from an operational and communication perspective is that the client in so many occasions wasn’t made aware of the progress of his application. As soon as they applied, they lost all progress reports on their application form. That agitated the clients. They would not know what had happened until they got in touch with the call center.
What are some of the challenges you guys faced in setting it up, especially migrating from the older system to this new one?
I want to point out that we have worked on this internally. It is 100 percent made in Tamkeen from scratch. It was a hectic period during last summer as we worked to meet the deadline.
So far, I am happy with the initial results especially when our initial target was just to create an online application. However once we started to dig in deeper and deeper, we realized that it’s more than that.
We can truly provide a great service to our clients, and we can give them any information they may require just by entering the portal.
Amal: As a business, what are the benefits that I would get from the portal other than online applications?
The online application is just one of the main features. There’s an online application, there is tracking of the application itself. For example, let’s say we have finished and finalized the assessment stage, and we have provided you with what we call an “action plan,” that is mutually agreed between us.
You will get an activation plan on the portal. You will see it as an attachment, and you will also see it on the website itself, itemized with the amounts. For each item or service, what stage is in? Is it in process of approving? Is it approved? Is it rejected?
Once an item has been approved or a quotation for certain items or services has been approved, you will also receive a notification to go online and print this approval if you wish. You can also pick it up from any of the centers available in order to present it to your supplier and vendor and follow up with them on obtaining that service or product.
Back in the day, all of these steps were more or less there, but we would require the client to physically come over here.
Our next step isto strengthen our relationship with vendors. A good example of that is improving our current payment methods to make it as efficient as possible.
Since you guys launched the online portal, what are some of the measurable and significant improvements you’ve noticed?
One of the most important things is to always compare the workload of one application that we have to work with to the time it takes to deliver a response. That’s one of the achievements that we have; communication is much stronger and happens more.
The new system internally provides the clients with different features, not only from a customer-centric perspective, but also the way we are packaging our solutions. We spoke about how the portal works and how it’s customer-centric, but the main revamp of the program is how we calculate our grants and how we package our solutions.
Clients now have the ability to focus on one aspect or one area that they require support in, rather than being limited to a certain amount in each specific area that we provide. We have approximately five services. We provide clients with financial aid toward machinery and equipment, ICT, marketing services, business consultation, any kind of business improvement in terms of certification, and any of those processes and procedures such as quality assurance and stuff like that.
We’re looking also to increase those services and improve them, but the main feature of the new system is the grant calculation model. , An application depends on so many different aspects. Each applying entity would have different characteristics and that would affect how we calculate your grant.
Did you notice any clear patterns on how people are using the new systems?
Yes. As expected, the majority of our clients are using the program to acquire machinery and equipment. That’s also good news for us because at the end of the day, acquiring machinery and equipment is directly related to the enterprise’s production and hopefully growth, depending on the sector and industry they’re in.
How do you feel the new system helped reduce fraud and abuse?
There are a couple of things. We have today a direct relationship with Anti-Economic Crime Directorate. So far, it’s been working very well. On the other hand, reducing the share from 80 to 50 percent created a sense of responsibility.
We witnessed a change. The application itself is different. Today we ask companies about their current operations, current marketing strategies, HR policies, financials, and plans for the future. We’ve raised the standards in general.
Obviously, after making this change from 80 to 50 percent, I’m personally interested to know if there has been a significant increase in a certain type of business that used to apply to Tamkeen.
In general, I would put the average at applications a day. We do have certain sectors that have a higher number of companies than others, so retail and wholesale as well as accommodation and food services will always take a bigger percentage in terms of the number of applications that we receive from that particular sector.
That’s only from the perspective of a number of application. However, the number of grants per company and as a sector, these are not the number one sector.
To reiterate the point of money spent, there are fewer companies applying in the manufacturing and the construction with higher amounts being distributed and spent on those sectors. That’s one trend that we have witnessed, which I believe is also healthy, reasonable and makes perfect sense. The machinery equipment is the number one demanded service from Tamkeen to aid the companies financially.
Another trend is that we have witnessed a lot of startups are applying. Approximately 40 percent of our applications are from startups which are in the phase of starting up your business or have been in business for less than a year.
Was this something you expected?
Honestly, I expected that initially, because we have stopped the program for a couple of months and then revamped and opened it again with its new look. I expected a lot of entrepreneurs to be waiting for the program to re-open.
In the first two or three months, the percentage was 49 to 50 percent. I don’t recall that figure precisely. I expect the numbers to start diminishing, but not to the level that we will never have startups applying for the program. You always need entrepreneurs with new ideas. You never know—one of those startups might one day end up growing and being one of those big companies, hopefully.
That’s a direct impact that we have on startups. Today they are more encouraged to open their business. Tamkeen is there to enable those companies or those individuals to take the next step by reducing the risk.
There’s always two sides of the jigsaw here. On one hand, you have the entrepreneurs themselves. They need to feel the freedom to go about in doing their business and achieve their ideas and reach a level where they feel a sense of achievement of creating something.
At the same time, if I can make that flourish, then maybe it will have an impact on the venture capitalist and the individuals who want to invest because they will have more businesses to look at. They will have more entrepreneurs that have created those startups to look at. And overall, that is healthy for the economy.
As you’ve mentioned, currently Tamkeen reduces the risk for startups to start, or for businesses to develop by subsidizing 50 percent of what they need. Has Tamkeen thought about doing the same for investors? Like, just taking off 20, 40, and 60 percent of their investment burden?
We don’t lack ideas. We have a very strong management team, a very strong vision displayed by our board and our chief executive. We always listen to the public. We do quarterly consultation sessions, and we listen to ideas, and we try to see what can be done. But when it comes to the investment side, it’s something that we have not tapped on, but we have discussed it internally.
There are other aspects that need to be addressed as well, and I believe that if a platform was created to enable SMEs to go from their current state into being publicly listed and be able to start, we will definitely play a role there.
What should we look forward to when it comes to your new repackaged system? What is in the future?
As I said, the portal will continue to have more features. We will try to make it as useful and user-friendly as possible. We will include more benefits, more programs, and more services.
Hopefully, in the future, you will see all of our programs, and you will be able to communicate to us directly through our portal; you’ll be able to maybe have live chats with our reps to discuss certain issues.
We’re focusing on customer-centricity, whether it is from a client perspective, somebody who’s benefiting from a program, or somebody who’s providing the service for our clients. We are all undergoing a major restructuring exercise, not only for our program but also for our organization itself and how we deliver our services.
What three quick tips would you give people who are applying to the ES program?
First, take your time. There’s no need to rush. The more you spend on understanding what you need to do and what your plans are, the more thorough you are in conveying those plans, and the better your application will be handled.
I would say number two, don’t limit yourself. If you have an idea, the risk is totally diminished now. Apply. Open up this dream business that you always wanted to have, and we’re going to be your partners. We’re going to co-share your risk, and hopefully, your business will succeed and we will see you grow. I would like to see more young entrepreneurs and young business-minded individuals with innovative ideas. Finally, it’s important to know where you’re heading because if you don’t know where you’re heading you’ll never get there.
Would you mind telling us who is Qusay outside Tamkeen? What do you like to do?
I am a family man. I have a wonderful wife, two kids, and I enjoy spending the majority of my time with them. I also like to spend a lot of time with my friends. I am a football person. I watch and play football as much as I can.
I like reading articles. I hate reading books. I read a lot of the Harvard Business Reviews, and all of that kind of interesting business articles. I get most of my knowledge and ideas from those articles. Besides that, I like traveling and trying to explore different cultures.
I’d say outside work is not so different from inside work. A guy who tries to always see the best in people believes that every single person has a certain quality. It’s up to us to unlock the quality of those individuals.
It works both ways. If we focus on the quality, whether it is in the workplace or outside the workplace, then we will reach the optimal benefit for all. This works everywhere. If you believe in that, and you take that approach, you realize that you reach your goal, your vision, much more quickly.
Thank you Qusay & Amal for this wonderful opportunity to talk to you both. I learned a ton!