Engineer Ahmed Al-Baker
Eng. Ahmed Al-Baker, Director of Marketing and Public Relations at a Tenders Company, revealed that more than 650 construction contracts have been offered for the benefit of small and medium-sized companies during the last period and have contributed to the development and development of the construction market in the country. Engineer Al-Baker said in an interview with Al-Sharq, that the company that established a network is the first of its kind in the Middle East in terms of how to organize and submit tenders electronically. Or its digital platforms to use in his future project Al-Baker spoke to Al-Sharq about the latest digital project that enables the electronic design of homes under the current circumstances, a project that designed your home from your home that provides citizens with this service automatically, fast and free, and we review the details as follows:
Have the design and construction projects implemented and monitored by a tender company affected after the Corona crisis, and how have they kept pace with the current conditions to ensure the continuity and sustainability of the business?
The company was ready with innovative projects and plans before the emergence of the Corona pandemic, and the company’s design team was primarily working on a pioneering electronic project of its kind, which is a project that designed your home from your home, which provides everyone with the design service from inside the home via the Internet, and this service was in the final phase Before the emergence of the Corona virus, and with the emergence of the virus and the start of the precautionary measures, the ground was ready to launch this project and it was actually launched, and it came at the appropriate time, and it does not require more than entering the platform of the company’s website and then choosing the required form according to the vision that the homeowner wants only Area, number of rooms and type of building. This program comes within the framework of a remote communication project, and the company was one of those who race to it as of the beginning of this year, as the company developed a vision for the categories of the audience that deals with it based on three categories that we began to take into account in terms of the service provided to it before Corona, and these categories are first: the busy owner :
This program seems interesting and concerns many of the citizens applying for the design of housing houses. What is the nature of this program?
We were working on this scenario from January 2020, and with the start of the precautionary measures in March, we had started launching the program Design Your Home from Your Home www.DMH.qa, which is a website linked to the company’s website www.monaqasat.net available to any Qatari citizen and he can View it and download the application within a period of time not exceeding three minutes, and then work on the design begins so that the design is ready for receipt or dispatch within a maximum of 7-10 days, and these data include important issues for the design of the house in terms of the land, its shape, the nature of the housing or the project, and the annexes, And the style of the required, the shape of the stairs, and the type of financing to know the budget, and any other additions, and then the person clicks on the button to send the design request to start work in the design department directly.
In light of the digital infrastructure that you talked about, did you come forward to benefit from the financial support package that the government provided to companies during the current situation?
We did not offer this support because we did not need it, thanks to God, and if we thank the state for providing it to other companies, and on the contrary, we witnessed an expansion thanks to the plans that we had started and which we developed with the beginning of the crisis, and in this period we witnessed a growth of 18% of the business, and we received in just two weeks 197 applications, and we were able to achieve a record number during the closing period, as we witnessed 19 clients signing contracts in one week, and these numbers are a source of real pride for us, because only four people were working from the office, they were the directors of departments and the rest of the work team was working remotely, and therefore We were in a challenge with oneself and we succeeded in it, thanks to God.
What are the most prominent achievements or services that you have provided to citizens during this period?
During this period, we raised the completion rate and exhausted the vertical expansion to a large extent, and we are currently heading to horizontal expansion, and currently most of the development is heading to developing the product itself, and we have developed the virtual reality service that we previously launched on 01/01/2020 which provides the owner of the project with the opportunity through glasses Virtual reality preview the design as if the project is on the ground as it is, by wearing glasses, after which the design in the company turns into the house of the concerned person that will be built and looks at the various facilities as they are in reality, and the room spaces ,, as if it is your actual home, and I have witnessed this service A great turnout during its launch and in less than two months, more than 24 customers benefited from it, but it has now been stopped after Corona’s measures due to the precautionary measures.Therefore, we added a new service, which is the 3D visualization service, and we also developed a free new design service on the Instagram website, where we offer a new design on a weekly basis that reached 63 free designs for citizens, in the interest of the company’s board of directors that the general population, especially the youth coming to build from these, benefit Designs, and now we are in the process of launching plans that were previously postponed due to the Corona pandemic, and an electronic service will be launched that will surprise everyone, God willing, as part of our horizontal expansion in the development of the company’s products.
Are there support or facilities that you provide for small and medium enterprises?
The company has strategic goals that go beyond just the economic work of the company, including support for Qatari national companies, especially medium and small, and a bidding network has been established in order to contribute to changing the culture of construction locally and creating a better environment for the development of the construction sector and improving companies’ opportunities to compete with the principle of equality, and in this regard Recently, we were able to achieve an important number in terms of achieving this goal, by offering project contracts that benefited local Qatari companies that executed these contracts for the benefit of Qatari citizens. Among these contracts, we currently have 646 projects implemented and under implementation, while 1524 designs were completed with creative ideas for the benefit of the beneficiaries. These data also benefit from a large number of local contractors, amounting to 1,672, among them more than 600 active contractors who carry out works and projects as required.
A citizen who wants to build a house of life, an investment house, or a residential complex, has special concerns and caveats regarding the progress of the project and ensuring that contracts with contractors are fully implemented, are there guarantees that you give to clients in this regard?
Most of these criteria are implemented in the presence of the citizen who wants to build his house, and we also visit the sites where the contractors carry out the works to verify and inspect them for the benefit of the citizen who owns the project, and if two companies qualify and the owner becomes confused in choosing, for example, we ask for advantages from the two companies to see which is better for the citizen. There is periodic evaluation during project implementation.
How do you see as a design office the latest building permits directory?
This topic is very important, and we commend the move of His Excellency Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, to launch this guide, and this serves us in the issue of designs because most of the requirements included in the guide were in the past exceptions obtained from the municipalities, such as clarifying heights The permissible without the need for exceptions, as well as for the setbacks, which have been clearly defined in all areas of different population density in them, and in the matter of windows, it has become permissible on the street, as it was previously rejected in some areas without providing at least two meters from the external borders of the land. In the case, the basement under the majlis has recently become permissible and clarified more in the guide, as is the case for the roof floor for 70% and this is part of the requirements that citizens needed exceptions to in the past, and the guide came to better clarify what is available.This made it much easier for the designers and consulting offices, because things became clearer for everyone.
Are you considering adding consulting services in addition to the design services currently provided by the company?
This issue is not on the table for us, and we have a specific vision that we move through, which is to provide all building design services, even designs for other projects such as factories and others, free of charge to citizens, and even the designs that we implement do not charge any fees, and with regard to consultations, we respond daily to dozens Consulting, whether on the company’s phone or via social media, but as paid engineering advice we do not think about it at all.
We are interested in supporting the industrial and commercial movement in the country, and our primary focus is on the middle-income citizen who is troubled by the issue of building and designing a home, and then supporting young people wishing to participate in industrial or commercial development and build their new project. We have delegates with government agencies who can review on behalf of the citizen wherever possible to clear the transactions related to building housing with those authorities, such as the Housing and Urban Planning Administration, the Ministry of Justice, the Development and Municipal Bank, and so on, for free.
The implementation schedule and we notify the owner if we notice any error, breach of implementation, or delay in the period. In the event of disputes that cannot be resolved amicably, we assign a lawyer to defend the citizen until the case ends, noting that litigation fees cost an average of 89,000 riyals according to the cases that we have followed in the past, and the company takes over in full. For us, the percentage of cases that we were involved in does not exceed 1%, compared to a much higher percentage in the market.
