Ziad Mortaja, CEO, Al Moammar Information Systems (MIS) • Interview
MIS is on a continuous journey of transformation in its portfolio of products and services and its operations with the fundamental goal of growth in revenues and profits.
Every crisis presents an opportunity. What opportunity has COVID-19 presented to MIS and the Saudi IT sector?
The IT industry today is the core of all industries and businesses, including government services. No doubt it changed the way people live, learn, work, and play and people depend on it in most aspects of their lives. With its continuous innovation, IT solutions bring more productivity, provide better customer experience, and generate stronger data analysis for improved strategies. This was clear when the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and the way countries and businesses reacted. There was a boom in demand for IT services and solutions that enabled continuity and sustainability. Investments in strong and integrated IT solutions were the catalyst that helped many businesses continue operations during the disruption caused by COVID-19. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, MIS invested heavily in its infrastructure to become an agile company and prepared business continuity plans. We did not experience issues when we started working remotely because we had already instilled it in the DNA of the company. We helped many of our customers build secure infrastructure and designed solutions to help them adjust to the new reality forced by the pandemic. One example of that was when MIS was selected as the technology systems integrator for the G20 Virtual Summit project; a project we carried out successfully in a demanding environment and a short amount of time.
What are your plans to generate more profit than the SAR76-million net profit recorded in 2019?
MIS is on a continuous journey of transformation in its portfolio of products and services and its operations with the fundamental goal of growth in revenues and profits. We strongly believe in the Saudi market as demand for IT solutions and infrastructure are essential to enable the Kingdom to realize its aspiring Vision 2030. MIS is expanding its horizontal and vertical solutions, offering to cover more elements of the IT value chain. In addition, we always look for ways to leverage our resources better, reduce operational costs, and enhance customer experiences. We are defining MIS 3.0 with the core theme to work on positioning Saudi as a digital experience, or “SaDX.” We had an ambitious plan for 2020 based on our deep analysis of market opportunities, government and industry directions, and internal capabilities. We then adjusted the plan to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lower oil prices, but overall we see positive outcomes for many elements of our plan.
What services have you offered in this time of uncertainty to ensure business continuity and support the economy?
We have assured all of our clients we are there for them and will go the extra mile should any unforeseen circumstances affect their businesses. For our employees, we provide assurances that our priority is their safety and wellbeing. We want to ensure we meet both our customer and employee satisfaction, as you cannot look after one and compromise the other. It is all about ensuring everyone can still conduct their tasks in the new normal. We have many critical projects to enable virtual meetings, remote and secure access to information with mobility, and high availability.
You have created a Dr. Robot project with the Ministry of Health to target Hajj visitors. Can you tell us more about how that project is going?
Dr. Robot and all the other telemedicine devices we invested in are USA and Saudi FDA certified and designed to be used in hospitals for medical diagnosis and patient followups. The devices help doctors conduct medical checks on patients remotely and even read and check vital signs and reports. Our goal is to localize this technology in the Kingdom in terms of manufacturing and software development.