Primary focus on human and technological backbone to support the infrastructure investments
Technology is changing logistics landscape
Newsgate360- Riyadh- Ali ElZein CEO Agility – Saudi Arabia spoke to Newsgate360 on how technology changing the logistics landscape in Saudi Arabia and the kind of technology should businesses in Saudi Arabia be investing in to help ease their supply chain and said: “Nowadays the Kingdom’s primary focus is on the human and technological backbone to support the infrastructure investments. Agility for example, introduced state of art technology platforms bringing visibility to the supply chain through WMS and freight forwarding/clients EDI – order receipt/processing, etc…. add to that, Road freight GPS providing accessible dispatch real time updates – reducing inventory costs/just in time promotion and speed to market. Electronic point of sale – stock counts hit a pre-determined level and then a re- ordering process is automatically made, based on sale trends. Stock does not run out providing more consistent sales revenue streams.”
On what makes Saudi Arabia well-suited to be a logistics hub in the region and the strengths he sees, ElZein noted that the main points are geostrategic Location, but it has also competition, the size of market in B2B/B2C and the well-developed port/airport infrastructure providing connectivity to ALP’s and onward dispatch to customers, nevertheless, the increase in bonded zone access and the faster clearances and value add activities.
Last year in the AEMLI, KSA was ranked 6 in the global rankings and 5 for business fundamentals and how ElZein sees the ranking this year, he believes that the only way, is The Way forward, at least one rank ahead in globally (5) and no 4 business fundamentals and there are key drivers for this: The Government realized the importance of private sector in the Saudi Market, in particular the multinationals who’ll bring the international expertise and best practices into the local market and these will create Job opportunities.
On Oct 17th, Agility signed off a MOU with HE The Governor, for the first bonded state of art zone outside the ports/airports areas. This is a big move and would open doors for multinationals to become more believers in this newly unique, dynamic and agile market like KSA.
