SamTech Middle East — SME Case Study (UAE)

SamTech Middle East Introdution SamTech Middle East is a software development company established in 2003 by Samir Abdulhadi (Founder and CEO) in Dubai, classified as a medium- sized enterprise in terms of turnover and number of employees. SamTech Middle East is leading in the region for providing innovative software solutions which integrate GPS, GPRS/3G/4G/Satellite, specialized in vehicle tracking solutions, fleet management systems, and GIS that falls under the IoT industry. It has been rated A+ by the DUBAI SME rating framework.

At SamTech, the endeavor is to build solutions that match customers requirements, which increases operational efficiency, improves reliability, reinforces productivity, and facilitates decision making through cutting edge business models and improvement of the SamTech Middle East quality provided by business and government entities all over the MENA region.

“With the advancement of technology playing an integral role in people’s daily lives, SamTech’s mission is to ensure the comfort, security and ease of operations for our clients through continuous innovative development of smart solutions.” (Abdulhadi, 2017).

Vision “To be the region’s most trusted and environmentally conscious IoT solutions provider.” (Abdulhadi, 2017).

Organizational Structure

CEO Vice President Samir Abdulladi Rabeha Nabolsi COO Amr Khattab HR & Admin Dept.

Accounts Dept.

Sales & Marketing Commercial Dept.

IT & Innovation Dept.

Project, Customer Service Support/Quality Assurance Dept.

Figure 13: SamTech Organizational Structure SamTech’s organizational structure starts from the CEO who is the founder of this organization, the Vice President is his wife, Mrs. Rabeha Nabolsi, so it’s basically a family business. Under her, there is a COO and then five departments. Each department has a Head of Department (HoD) who reports to the Vice President.

Under each department, as shown in the detailed organization structure in appendix, there are two to three sections, or they prefer to call it, major tasks that fall in each department’s responsibilities, such as the

following

• HR and Administration Department: This department

handles three major tasks: COE Office which includes secretary and driver, Administration which includes a receptionist and office cleaner, and HR which includes documentation and an HR officer.

• Accounts Department: This department manages the

accounts of the organization and is currently outsourced, but the other positions are in-house, such as chief accountant, general accountant, accounts supervisor, and then a collection officer, junior accountant, purchasing officer/storekeeper and messenger.

• Sales, Marketing and Commercial Department: This

department has two sections, the commercial section which is managed by the PR and documentation manager, sales and the marketing section, which includes Sales Manager (vacant), the business development and marketing manager (vacant), and then a team of sales and marketing executives.

• IT and Innovation Department: This department has

two sections, the IT section, which is totally outsourced to an IT company that provides backend support for SamTech. There is also an IT administrator who coordinates between SamTech and the IT company. The second section is software development, headed by the head of the software development team. Under him, there are two software engineers, a mobile app developer, UI graphic designer, and a junior web developer, who mainly provide support to the clients, and sometimes when there is a project that needs someone to understand software requirements, they attend meetings with SamTech’s clients to gather technical requirements.

• Project and Customer Service Support / Quality

Assurance Department: This department has two sections: the operations section headed by the head of operations and the quality team. Under him, there are three customer support agents and four technicians, who are responsible for implementing GPS projects, installations, receiving tickets, troubleshooting, and user training for all SamTech clients. The projects section is headed by the senior projects / R&D manager. Under him, impounding projects are in charge, then eight impounding technicians. This team is basically dedicated to the most critical projects they have with Dubai Police, Ajman Police, Um Al Quwain Police, and Fujairah Police, where SamTech implements vehicles impounding solutions.

Leadership Leadership at SamTech Middle East starts with founder and CEO Mr. Samir Abdulhadi, who has 35 years of experience in the IT and telecommunications industries, and established SamTech Middle East in 2003.

The Vice President is Rabeha Nabolsi, who has 20 years of experience in the GIS industry, developing business strategies, and leadership.

Vice President Chief Operating Officer Rabeha Nabolsi Amr Khattab Samir Abdulhadi Chief Executive Officer Figure 14: Founders of SamTech The COO is Amr Khattab, who joined SamTech in 2017 as a human resource manager, then as deputy Vice President. After that, he was promoted to chief operating officer.

The total number of employees in SamTech Middle East including the outsource staff is around 65.

The last restructure or they call it “transformation plan” was done at SamTech in December 2018, where the top management decided to shrink 30% of the resources.

The main reason was to cut costs. They had a board of directors that included CFO, CTO, and CMO with attractive salaries, who could not provide the expected results, they just came to get benefits with no significant output.

Therefore, this transformation plan was put in place by decreasing the high monthly payroll, giving more tasks to available resources, outsourcing accounts and IT sections, and adopting digital transformation, which was easy for them since they are a technology company and they could manage to retain the same level of service quality.

When the COVID-19 pandemic came in 2020, SamTech was not significantly affected because everything was done before the pandemic. It made good business during the pandemic, as digital transformation has become the new normal in our lives, and since it is a technology provider, it got the maximum benefits out of it. Hence, the business has achieved more revenue compared to 2019 contrary to expected.

SamTech has a variety of products and software solutions

which fall under four categories, as show below

Road and Transport Solutions

Logistics Solutions

Energy and Utility Solutions

Other Solutions

Figure 15: Product Descriptions

Brief Description About the Main Solutions

¡ Smart Trace Solution Software with user friendly interface, strong reporting tool, and variety of features that allow you to monitor and track your vehicles anytime anywhere, includes fleet management system, driver behavior, manage expenses such as maintenance, salik, fuel, fines, and many more through web and mobile applications.

¡ Smart Job Management Data management and workflow solution, that help your outdoor staff to perform their task efficiently, such as scan barcodes, print receipts, digital signature, save photos that are integrated with back-office team and clients.

¡ Smart Route Optimization Solution Route planning platform as a cloud and on-premise solution, which supports shipping sectors, by providing comparison tools, planning, estimated time of arrival calculations, and freight cost calculations.

¡ Smart Vehicle Inspection Solution A mobile application that allows you to manage your fleet and maintain it efficiently through a user-friendly predefined checklist, and many other useful features for asset inspections.

¡ Vehicle Vision Camera Solution A solution that utilizes AI technology to observe driver behavior that includes facial recognition, detect fatigue, detect a smoking driver, harsh break and acceleration.

¡ Smart School Bus Solution An automated system that assists parents about their children’s location, monitors bus driver behavior, enhances bus utilization, and contributes to increasing children’s safety.

¡ Smart Health Care An integrated solution for monitoring and tracking patients’ condition and can help send the nearest ambulance in case of emergency.

veriety Price Quality Figure 16: Business Strategies of SamTech SamTech’s business strategy includes the following

elements

¡ Quality: Through integrity and respect, SamTech delivers excellence, strives for continuous improvements and responds vigorously to change.

SamTech is accountable for the highest standards of conduct, including honesty, productivity and fairness in all aspects of its work. SamTech consistently treats stakeholders with respect, takes pride in its contributions to the business and understands their needs.

¡ Variety

Through leadership and innovation, SamTech leads through competence, creativity, and teamwork. SamTech is founded on talented employees effectively applying advanced technology and innovative solutions to make the community a better place to live.

¡ Price

Through excellent customer relations, SamTech understands client needs and requirements, and strives to exceed their expectations in affordability.

SamTech’s operational strategy includes the following

elements

¡ In-House Software Development: SamTech is developing the business applications and tools required by themselves, and they don’t rely on a third party, which makes them distinct and more competitive.

¡ Intuitive Smart Applications: SamTech is adopting digital transformation and is reflected in all the applications it develops. In addition to that, it has the advantage of being user-friendly and easy to use.

¡ Locally Hosted in the UAE: SamTech provides applications that are hosted by its infrastructure or on a cloud, which means it is accessed through the Internet all over the world with web interfaces that enable the user to interact.

¡ Turnkey Solution Provider: SamTech provides solutions that are ready to install, implement, and connect to the client’s network. Turnkey solutions have advantages of saving cost, are reliable and test solutions. It doesn’t require the customer to provide specific requirements, and is easy to upgrade and improve.

In-House Software Development Turnkey Solution Provider Locally Hosted Servers in UAE Intuitive Smart Applications Figure 17: Operational Strategies of SamTech SamTech’s marketing strategy involves the mix of product, price, place, and promotion blended to yield

the return it wants in the target market

¡ Product: It is apparent that SamTech has a variety of products that are classified in categories such as Road and Transport, Logistics, Energy and Utility and others, which fulfills the wide range of customers needs.

¡ Price: SamTech has the flexibility to adapt to the market situation, and accordingly amend their products prices as a response to many factors, such as economic factors and customer segments that align with its aim of achieving customer satisfaction.

¡ Place: SamTech is one of leading companies based in Dubai, that is a hub for business in the MENA region, and has partnerships with many entities in the region to increase the reach to a wide range of target customers and maximize business.

¡ Promotion: One of SamTech’s marketing strategies is to create promotions that ensure the closing of deals with target customers, such as: offering extended support and maintenance contracts without fees, extra discounts for big customers, and competitive prices for the products and services compared to competitors in the market that is done through several advertising channels.

PLACE PRODUCTS PRICE PROMOTION TARGET MARKETING THE MARKETING MIX Figure 18: Marketing Mix of SamTech

As we witness rapid change in this time we are in, especially in business and given the circumstances we are going through, SamTech is like other businesses. It

faces some challenges including

¡ An issue with customers who have limited budgets to spend on technology enhancement.

¡ More competitors, mainly from Asian countries, trying to get a market share.

¡ Customers are not ready to pay a one-time payment, and are seeking long-term payment plans.

¡ Customers are delaying projects due to cash flow issues and uncertainty.

New Event COVID-19 Cash Flow Figure 19: Company Issues

To overcome the above challenges, SamTech has adjusted its current roadmap in a way that fits the tough time we are in, to pass the obstacles we encounter, and

to overcome the difficulties in the business, such as

¡ Introducing a solution for the retail and healthcare sectors to support customers in this tough pandemic situation.

¡ Introducing the OPEX model for the software, and three-month installment for initial installation charges.

¡ Highlighting its core product values, ROI and customer references to win projects against new entrants.

New Solution OPEX Model ROI Figure 20: Best Successful Practices of SamTech Success is not only made in achieving targets, but also by maintaining a reputation and career, gaining market share, expanding the business, running smart management, and expanding partnerships in the region.

Companies are always seeking for more advancement, translated into being the number one in terms of GPS industry and having the biggest market share (Khattab, 2021). Below is a summary of successful best practices

in SamTech

¡ In 2020, SamTech’s business performance increased by 15% compared to 2019. Based on financial reports, its income in 2019 was AED 11 million, while in 2020, it was AED 12.5 million. This was achieved by minimizing cost or overheads, and by outsourcing accounts and IT departments.

¡ They defined certain key elements for such a position’s performance. Part of the KPI is HR, as they set 25% for attendance, appearance, complying to policies, and relation with colleagues, and 75% for professional performance. KPIs are measured monthly, by HR and the head of each department.

¡ Implemented a reward system based on the KPIs results, which has positive implications for performance.

¡ Adopted digital transformation in the running of the business during the pandemic, which contributed to great performance.

Outsourcing Rewarding System Digital Transformation KPIs Figure 21: Continued Best Successful Practices of SamTech In 2018 and 2019, SamTech hired a board of directors with big salaries. The aim was to take the company to the next level as a large organization and it was a terrible idea. SamTech just paid salaries for nothing. They were drinking coffee, looking for facilities, thinking about long-term plans to make sure that they were earning such attractive salaries and they moved slowly on tasks.

SamTech was suffering from paying such salaries without getting results. There were salaries above $10,000 for only six people. In addition, they had an ego, other than the top management, and were not easy to manage.

SamTech as of Today Between 2003 and 2021, Samtech has grown from a training institution that introduced vehicle tracking and fleet management solutions to the largest GPS solutions provider in the region. SamTech achieved ISO 9001- 2008 for design, develop, installation, testing, and after sales related to vehicle monitoring systems, ranked #7 amongst the top 100 SMEs in the GCC, won a corporate social responsibility award from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, and was awarded the GCC Automotive Fleet Management “AFM” Telematics solution provider by Frost and Sullivan.

Based on the leadership style that was observed during the case study, it’s recommended to improve and grow leadership skills for the current leaders in SamTech, to gain more knowledge about leadership styles, leader’s behaviors and its impact on tasks, team, and the entire organization, enhance listening skills, and reinforce decision making abilities for followers, since it was noticed that the decision-making is exclusively for admins. Finally, this case study would be considered as a base for future research and further studies on this topic.

Figure 22: Recommendations of Work Flow

¡ The leader has to raise leaders is the first lesson I learned.

¡ It’s important to hire the right people at the right time for the right positions.

¡ Leaders have to grow and followers have to take the leadership in their jobs.

¡ SMEs have to have clear short-term and long-term strategies.

¡ Digital transformation has become part of the business models and introduces new cultures.

The above case study can be summarized by the fact that leadership influences others in order to direct them to perform what is required with great efficiency, and the leader should have the strengths of personality, the ability to communicate and persuade, and other characteristics that make him able to run the group. There are many leadership styles, from the authoritarian style based on the monopoly of opinion, to the democratic style based on collective participation, and the non- directed leadership style that is between the two. There are several factors that influence the type of leadership style used. Leadership theories developed from one concept to another from other theories based only on the characteristics of the leader, which sees that the leader is born and carries hereditary traits. Other theories see that the leader will depend on two behaviors based on its work or workers.