Q&A

Rami Sakka, MD of KSA-based Atlas Machinery answers our questions.

What do you provide?

Our company provides new and used machinery as well as rental services.

One of our most popular lines are tower cranes. We supply Italian self erecting cranes manufactured by Cattaneo - one of the world leaders in such machines, the Cattaneo cranes facilitates contractors in building low rise structures at efficient times and reasonable cost. Our traditional tower crane models are manufactured by Yongmao.

We are proud to be the agents of Yongmao in Saudi Arabia since it is considered to be the best tower crane in Asia and by far has the largest and most advanced facilities.
 
Yongmao tower cranes are the only Chinese tower crane that are certified to inter Europe and the United States and has strongly proved its ability in some of the most sophisticated projects in the UK, Finland, Italy, Belgium, China, and the United States in addition to the 600 cranes used in the Middle East by the some of the most reputed contractors.

How does the market in KSA regard Chinese equipment?

Some of the Chinese products are designed and built to compete in price and quality others are designed and built to compete in price only. In the Saudi market both types are available. Some contractors are price driven so they are happy to go for the cheapest option, other more professional firms can’t afford to take such high risk which may cost them their reputation, great financial damage, and not to forget safety, which is the most important aspect.

Atlas Machinery is very keen to research into bringing onboard good quality products that is up to the international standards at most competitive prices no matter if it is from China, Europe or the United States or anywhere else in the world.

How has the financial crisis hit Saudi Arabia?

I usually say that we haven’t seen much of a drop in the amount of projects ongoing – it has dropped, but not dramatically. What has changed is the behaviour of the client. Instead of buying they are getting into rental and instead of buying new, they are buying used machines.

To cover such change we added more machines to our rental fleet. Our strategy in used equipment, aims to seek and acquire excellent condition machines through our dedicated technical team and after the equipment undergoes a detailed proper inspection, usually not older than five years

You have expansion plans though, what are they?

Our expansion plan aims to complete three full-fledged showrooms and service centres to cover the major reigns in Saudi Arabia in addition to seven satellite office targeted to cater clients in remote areas around the kingdom. The kingdom is growing and areas other than Riyadh, Jeddah, and Khobar have substantial markets that shouldn’t be neglected.

These will be in areas that have been neglected as a market but these offices will act as a communication between such remote areas and the closest regional centres. Our plan is to work with the most important construction machinery firms in the country.

We have a very good chance because of the level of professionalism that we have.

So what is the key to success in your market?

It’s definitely service - quality and price competitiveness are for sure key elements but I emphasise on service because it’s an area in my opinion that was never given enough attention and because of that contractors have been suffering and paying the price.

When I say service I don’t mean repair service only, but proper service orientation to cover sales, maintenance, availability of spare parts, qualified team. These days every company is placing such nice expressions on their brochures and adverts, but not all believe in that.

The word ‘service’ is very overused in marketing. Everybody says ‘Yes, we will provide service!’ They copy what’s written in the western world and say ‘Yes! We provide service and safety!’ But to actually go and do it is an altogether different matter.