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New Project Player to Slowdown thebuzz Jewel of the Nile ONCE LARGELY DEFINED by pyramids and projects in 2009, and is considering up to $3.3 bil- petroleum, Egypt is widening its economic scope lion in additional spending this year to mitigate any and quietly emerging as a new project player to slowdown. watch in the Middle East. Even as the world economy stumbled, Egypt HIGHLY CONNECTED pulled in $8.1 billion in direct foreign investment One area where Egypt’s government clearly sees over the 2008 to 2009 fiscal year and posted a potential is in the country’s nascent IT industry— modest 4.7 percent bump in GDP growth last and it’s investing accordingly. year. Those numbers could get even better, with Since forming in 1999, Egypt’s Ministry of an array of projects spanning the IT, tourism, Communications and Information Technology has construction and government sectors all poised to poured more than $6 billion into IT infrastructure take off over the next decade. and mainstreaming technology projects. One of In many regions, the surge is already evident, the latest efforts is the Maadi Technology Village. says Rania Al-Maghraby, PMP, an independent Located just outside of Cairo’s city center, the project manager based in 6th October City, Egypt. development of about 40 fiber optically connected “We can be optimistic regarding the climate of buildings is expected to be complete in 2012. the project management profession in Egypt,” she That kind of government support, coupled says. “It’s expected that more demand will gener- with solid telecom infrastructure, means opportu- ate more opportunities in the future.” nities for IT project managers in Egypt, says This is not to say there aren’t challenges. Khaled Yousry, PMP, Europe, Middle East and Unemployment is high at 9.7 percent, and the Africa operations director for Cegedim, a pharma- massive economic growth has not reached large ceutical IT company based in Cairo. parts of the population. And as with many Last year, Egypt made its debut on consulting emerging markets, project management maturity giant A.T. Kearney’s list of top IT outsourcing lags in Egypt. markets, and Mr. Yousry predicts the cities of To keep the economy moving in the right direc- Cairo and Alexandria will be software develop- tion, the government implemented a $2.7 billion ment project hotspots in the coming years. stimulus package heavily tilted toward infrastructure “There is a demand from the region to reduce costs, outsource, restructure and Grand Egyptian Museum focus on core business,” he says. “Egypt has proven over the past few years it can deliver quality work, and the labor cost is still relatively low compared to the Western Hemisphere.” With a population 79 million strong, the North African power- house is positioning itself as the region’s go-to technology resource. S T “Because Egypt is the biggest C E T I H nation in the Middle East in terms C R A G of population, it also has the largest N E P N number of qualified IT profession- A H G E als who speak native Arabic and N E H F good English,” Mr. Yousry says. O Y S E “Most Middle Eastern nations uti- T R U O lize Egyptian project management C G N I R skills, either for onsite projects or E D N E for outsourced remote ones.” R 18 PM NETWORK MAY 2010 WWW.PMI.ORG thebuzz RIGHT THERE, NEXT TO THE PYRAMIDS takes its toll on some of Along with the surge in IT, Egypt’s construction those once-white-hot sector has grown 3.9 percent since 2005, says markets, Egypt may make $2.7 Bassam Samman, PMP, CEO and founder of even more headway. Collaboration, Management & Control Solutions, billion a project management consulting firm in Cairo. ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT The amount of stimulus The industry is expected to hit $7.34 billion by With all the action, Mr. funds issued by 2015, he says. Samman says Egypt needs the Egyptian government As with IT, the Egyptian government is pump- to become better at project in 2009 ing money into many of the projects, especially in management. the promising tourism sector. The Egyptian Organizations must General Co. for Tourism and Hotels, for example, develop and document has established an aggressive plan to help renovate their project management 13 million and upgrade the country’s historic hotels, includ- procedures and then require The number of Internet ing the Mena House Oberoi in Cairo and Sofitel that they be followed by users in Egypt—the largest Cataract in Aswan. project team members. online population in Africa One of the biggest and highest-profile construc- Mr. Samman also would tion projects is the Grand Egyptian Museum. In like to see organizations the works since 2002, the $550 million project mandate certifications such took a big step forward when the Egyptian as the Project Management 6th Ministry of Culture issued a tendered project man- Professional (PMP)® cre- Egypt’s place in agement contract to a joint venture between Hill dential to ensure team management consultantcy International and EHAF Consulting Engineers. members are familiar with A.T. Kearney’s ranking of “With the selection of a project manager, we the requirements for success- the top IT outsourcing have achieved yet another milestone in the devel- fully managing a project. markets—the first time the opment of the Grand Egyptian Museum,” said Ms. Al-Maghraby country has made the list Farouk Hosny, Egypt’s Minister of Culture. points to the reluctance she To be located adjacent to the Pyramids of Giza, encountered establishing a the 500-hectare (1,235.5-acre) museum will be par- project management office. “We really struggled tially buried in the sand, requiring construction of to let the staff cope with the new mindset, one of the largest retaining walls of all time. “This is methodology and tools of project management an iconic, once-in-a-lifetime project,” said Raouf S. practices,” she says. Ghali, president of Hill’s project management group. Project managers who can make their case, Despite some of the challenges that come with though, should find a willing audience. “Once working in the country’s remote areas, the con- the value of such adoption is realized, people are struction sector is poised to heat up as other usually well-prepared to apply and practice it,” Middle East resort markets cool, says Ahmed M. Ms. Al-Maghraby says. Osman, PMP, vice president and area manager at And given the number of high-profile projects project and construction management firm on the country’s radar, Egypt looks like it will get Projacs International, Cairo, which is handling plenty of practice. several hotel construction projects in Cairo as well “Despite the fact that Egypt has a high num- as Aswan resort renovations. ber of PMP® credential holders, there is still room Although opportunities have always existed, proj- for improvement,” says Mr. Osman. ect managers have often preferred to work in nearby “The culture—especially older generations— locales such as the United Arab Emirates or Qatar, always boasts that we built the pyramids without which offered more lucrative salaries, he adds. project managers. But my simple answer is, maybe “However, the last couple of years have seen a if we were around, we would have built them in less correction in the salary scale of project managers in time, for a lower cost and would have documented Egypt,” Mr. Osman says. And as the financial crisis the secrets of how they were built.” —Jenn Danko MAY 2010 PM NETWORK 19.
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