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Alex Mussallam is a man well aware of the enormous task facing him as he plots MAF Dalkia’s course through an increasingly competitive market in the Middle East.
As the CEO of the joint venture between the UAE’s Majid Al Futtaim Group and the UK based Dalkia Group, Mussallam is charged with standing out in a crowded GCC market by providing effective and sustainable energy management to companies in the region.
That’s no easy task given the number of rivals that have cropped up in the last few years, all of them clamouring to grab hold of business in a region that is becoming increasingly aware of the numerous benefits of energy management.
However, Mussallam has a plan, and it’s one that that is starting to pay dividend, with a number of major projects in the bag, and more in the pipeline.
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The company is funding an extensive training course that is geared towards improving the technical ability of its team. The core focus is on training, coaching and improving the management skills of the more than 1,200 employees in operations across UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman, the genial Brazilian says.
“We’re focusing on training. We have been growing at around 20% on a yearly basis, and we’re looking for a kind of sustainable growth. We’re careful in our studies, we want to make sure that it’s a customised solution (we’re providing) for each client,” Mussallam says.
However, the early signs have been good, with recognition from within the industry already taking place. The company recently won the award for the MEP Company of the Year at the Facilities Management Awards, 2011.
He adds that MAF Dalkia is involved with its client every step of the way, maintaining and preserving a continuous relationship with them. This extends to running a continuous 24/7 help desk that provides the company with a vital backbone for its operations. In turn it allows the company provide its clients with the energy management they need.
“Clients are looking to get the best efficiency from their systems. And this is where we come on board,” he says. “It brings us the opportunity to run all the MEP systems more efficiently, and this is a fantastic opportunity for us. Clients will look more and more for companies that can provide technical capabilities and who deliver all these technical abilities with their own staff.”
With an estimated $60m in annual turnover, the company’s philosophy seems to be paying dividends, but Mussallam, who took over as CEO of the joint venture in 2009, says he is in no mood to rest on his laurels.
“EPC contractors are going into maintenance, soft sell companies have also started providing maintenance, which means competition is very tough,” he cautions, adding that he feels that the time is ripe to expand MAF Dalkia’s reach into the wider GCC market.
“We hope to be establishing in Qatar in 2011 and Egypt in 2012 hopefully. Levant, let’s say in Lebanon, we’ve got some discussions on going. I forgot one, Kuwait, will also be along with Qatar,” he says.
Qatar is the major prize, Mussallam asserts, with work in the country having already begun, fuelled by its vast natural gas reserves. Even before the World Cup win, the business for a company like MAF Dalkia was already there.
“We participated in tenders in Qatar in the past, we’ve even been the preferred bidders with them, but have not materialised the contracts,” he explains. But, he adds, he intends to continue targeting the Middle East. Particular sectors, especially healthcare, telecom, commercial and financial, are the ones that he sees receiving the most attention from the company.
Most recently, the company agreed a five year contract with the Arcapita Building in Bahrain Bay. The deal came after MAF Dalkia had already provided sufficient bespoke facilities management consultation to Arcapita Bank during the initial design and construction planning stages of the building.
The company will be responsible for the provision of multi-technical services, from air-conditioning, electrical, plumbing, building management systems, lifts and generators. In addition, it will manage soft services such as cleaning and landscaping the 16,000m2 building.
In April of this year, the company landed perhaps its biggest deal in its short history, winning a contract with the Sharjah Department of Civil Aviation to provide all maintenance works the Sharjah International Airport.
This is the first aviation-related contract for MAF Dalkia and includes MEP and specialised maintenance for the airfield systems and equipment. This means that the company will be looking after navigation aids, radio, communication, airfield lighting and runway civil works.
Abdulwahab M Al Roomi, director general of the Department of Civil Aviation, Sharjah, says, “The agreement will help the airport’s engineering department to function properly amidst rapidly growing movement of passengers, airplanes and airfreight, as well as the airport’s high rates during recent years.”
“This requires an effective maintenance department that assumes its functions accurately and professionally,” he explained at the time, adding that the engineering department has many significant duties, including ensuring public safety in the airport, emphasising the role MAF Dalkia will play for the duration of the three year contract.
He said that the contract is also subject to annual assessments of MAF Dalkia’s maintenance operations.
Mussallam reveals that it was the Sharjah International Airport project that possibly highlighted the success MAF Dalkia has been having for the last year.
“It’s one of the projects where we provided all of the technical services that are commonly known, for the ‘beauty’ side and also the airfield, the aeronautical side. We provide overall beauty and maintenance, MEP services and the aeronautical, the airfields, the telecom and navigational systems.”
“I think what’s important about the Sharjah International Airport, was the social engineering scheme we have at the Dalkia Group, which has been applied to MAF Dalkia. We worked with the client and we transferred existing employees from the airport to MAF Dalkia and tried to develop their skills to match that of the new systems that are being implemented, the development work that’s going on, and to improve their technical skills,” he explained further.
“I believe they put their trust in MAF Dalkia because of the expertise we have in managing cooling systems. As you know, we have Dalkia Utilities. Today we manage more than 130,000 tonnes of cooling for our clients, on behalf of clients, which is a significant number in the market,” he adds.
Along with the success of the Sharjah Airport contract, the company also handles Du Telecom. In January 2011, MAF Dalkia signed an agreement with the UAE’s second telcom to centralise its facilities management services at more than 3,400 sites across the country.
The contract includes MEP, energy management, health and safety reviews, administrative tasks and a range of hard and soft FM services.
In September of 2010, the company inked a deal with the Abu Dhabi government to manage and maintain 412 mosques in the UAE capital and the Baniyas region. The three year contract will see the company cover air conditioning, plumbing and electro-mechanical maintenance.
“The technical expertise we have to guarantee, the reliability of the systems, the data centres that we also maintain, and the knowledge that we have, that all comes from the Dalkia Group.That combination of the international player with the local player (the Majid Al Futtaim Group), is a fantastic win-win (for us),” Mussallam says as he attempts to explain the company’s success in recent years.
“The platform we have today, (such as) providing services to Du Telecom in the UAE, we want to develop that (too) where we can have international support for all the subsidiaries and specifically in the maintenance of telecom services,” he says.
Mussallam stresses that the key to maintaining this performance is to continue implementing the long term strategies that he had put in place over the last few years. He’s determined to continue the annual 20% growth that the company has achieved so far.
As a result, the focus is now on pre-qualifying for projects in the fields of aviation, healthcare and the like, particularly in the public sector, which is tipped to be the major spender in the MEP field, he says.
“We have proposals under discussion in the public sector in Abu Dhabi,” Mussallam says, “The proposals are ongoing. I believe that there are a lot of projects ongoing. But in terms of the big ones, the ones that you say, “yes, we want that one,” I believe that the public sector in Abu Dhabi, aviation and hospitals are very important.”
“Our target is sustainable growth. We’re very happy with the projects we’ve been awarded. We’re in line with our budget and step-by-step, we’re growing this company.”
Rumoured targets for MAF Dalkia include major projects in an unspecified Abu Dhabi university, though Mussallam is reluctant to discuss this, given the sensitivity of negotiations. However, he does confirm that the company is participating in the provision of MEP services to the Abu Dhabi government.
In addition, he says a major target market is the HVAC systems market.
“I believe that air conditioning, actually all HVAC systems, are always a key target of clients and so I believe we can continue leveraging the MAF Dalkia capabilities, backed up by Dalkia Utilities.”
Finally, he says that his biggest challenge now is to maintain MAF Dalkia’s portfolio. To do so, he concedes that the plans to recruit new talent into the company, are a necessity for the company to succeed in its quest to win new projects.
“We have been working very hard, competition is in the market place, and margins have of course, dropped. We have to meet our budget, that’s a challenge, but the (biggest) challenge is to maintain our portfolio. This is the most important thing, and I believe that this is the balance we’re looking for,” he says in conclusion.
Middle East specific stats:
- 3 million sqm Commercial Buildings
- 650,000 sqm Housing
- Over 120 facilities Education and Research
- 3,400 sites Telecom
- 130K TR Over Networks
- 44,141tons Reduction of CO2 emissions in 2010
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