International Equipment & Contracting
Ahmed Suhail Bahwan, MD, Suhail Bahwan Group
International Equipment & Contracting Company is the heavy equipment division of Bahwan International Group Holding.
The Bahwan Group made its debut in Oman’s commercial life in 1965 with a shop named Suhail & Saud Bahwan, established by the two brothers in the Muttrah ‘Souk’. Following initial trading in materials and fishing nets, Suhail Bahwan turned his attention to securing electrical brands, and found initial success in 1968 to 69 with Toshiba and Seiko.
International Equipment & Contracting Company was established in 1985, and has a modern 3-S facility on Nizwa Road, Mawaleh and branch locations in Sohar and Salalah. With dedicated teams for sales and service, IECC serves customers in all the important segments in Oman.
International Equipment & Contracting Company (IECC), recently secured a massive order for a fleet of 207 Iveco Trakker trucks with Galfar Engineering & Contracting for use at Duqm refinery.
Sheikh Ahmed Suhail Bahwan, commented: “In just seven years, IECC has carved out a strong position for itself in the commercial vehicle market in Oman, driven by an ethos that puts the customer first. This partnership is a further step in this direction.”
International Heavy Equipment
Hani Mohammed Al Zubair, Chairman, Zubair Automotive Group
International Heavy Equipment is the dealer for Volvo Trucks and Renault Trucks in Oman.
IHE’s vision in Oman is to be one step ahead of the competition, and part of this commitment is an extensive network in the country.
Customers, located in the interior areas of Oman are serviced by fully trained personnel and the extensive service network of Zubair Automotive Group.
IHE also has its own training facilities, in addition to mobile units capable of providing on-site training to its widely dispersed customers. The mobile units not only focus on training in engine, gearbox and suspension maintenance, but also cover intensive driver training programs. IHE has also established a centrally located warehouse complex where over 40,000 line items are stocked.
IHE maintains its warehouse with modern racking system designed for easy and quick retrieval of spare part, and an inventory management system using proprietary software designed to source products and parts from around the world, to helps maintain efficient inventory flow.
Iveco
Luca Sra, EMEA Iveco Brand Business Director Africa and Middle East Region
Iveco established its first office in the region in Cairo in 1950 under the Magirus Deutz brand, which later merged with Iveco. Today Iveco has two offices in the Middle East: one in Cairo and the other one in Dubai, employing 15 people locally and plans to grow this number in future, and a further five people dedicated to the region at its headquarters in Turin.
Iveco considers the presence of the workforce in the region as fundamental to the support of its business partners and customers in the region, and so is building a world-class network of support for fleet owners and operator customers.
Sra joined Iveco brand almost 20 years ago, and has commercial and marketing experience in Europe, Turkey, UK and Ireland, and was appointed EMEA Iveco Brand Business Director Africa and Middle East Region in 2013, with responsibility for both the Iveco and Astra brands within the region.
In October 2015, Iveco supplied 207 Iveco Trakkers to Galfar Engineering & Contracting in Oman through International Equipment & Contracting Company (IECC) for use in site preparation activities at the Duqm Refinery. Within the same week, Iveco also unveiled the New Daily panel van in Oman.
With a better fuel efficiency, load capacity, ergonomics and agility, the New Daily has been completely redesigned to meet every light commercial transport need. The New Daily has been named the “International Van of the Year 2015” for its contribution in setting new standards in terms of TCO, comfort, driveability & efficiency.
Iveco also presented the Trakker with EuroTronic automated gearbox in the UAE at the Dubai Autodrome in November 2015, with its UAE distributor, Saeed Mohammed Al Ghandi & Sons, aimed at lowering operating costs while raising driver comfort levels.
In April 2016, Iveco and Astra officially relaunched in Saudi Arabia ship with their new distributor, FAMCO, celebrating across three well-attended events that attracted more 650 industry professionals.
Sra says: “The current Gulf situation in some countries has been subject to economic and political issues, which has affected the CV market growth. Iveco, however, has maintained its growth patterns and sales increased by 15% in the last year in 2015 selling over 4,000 trucks in the region.
“We have been performing well across our range, including the new Iveco Daily — sales of which in Oman have grown by over 25% compared with the previous year. Other big deals have included the sale of 60 Iveco mixers to Arab Contractors in Egypt and 69 Astra for Schumblerger in Saudi Arabia.”
Jaidah Heavy Equipment
Ayman Ahmed, Managing Director
Jaidah Heavy Equipment is a division of locally-based Jaidah Group, and is the largest equipment supplier in Qatar. For over 30 years, Jaidah Equipment has proven itself again and again in Qatar’s demanding transportation and construction machinery segment, and today has 200 employees, three showrooms and a range of aftersales facilities across Qatar.
Jaidah distributes brands including: Komatsu Heavy Machinery, Bobcat Compact Machinery, Isuzu commercial Vehicles, UD Trucks, Palfinger Cranes, Link-Belt cranes, STILL material handling and SANY Cranes. It also has a rental and used operations through its subsidiary Al Maysan Heavy Equipment, and Yutong Buses.
Jaidah Equipment has supplied a multitude of industries, including energy, construction, civil works, such as the Metro project, orbital roads and other infrastructure projects in Qatar.
Ayman Ahmed is a senior Manager with 20 years’ worth experience in running complete operations of dealership organisations, including three years with the Jaidah group, but more than 15 years across the GCC with heavy machinery and commercial vehicles dealerships.
In Qatar, he notes: “Due to the growth of the infrastructure projects, the excavator market has shown a tremendous growth — approximately 40% in Qatar in 2015 — and almost 75% of demand is for excavators.”
As excavators often exceed 4,000hr in annual uptime, effective aftersales support is essential and Jaidah offers comprehensive repair contracts to support our customers’ operations.
Jaidah t is also partnered with Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) to provide small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) with a range of finance products.
JCB
Marco BersEllini, regional director – ME
Another top 10 global manufacturer of construction equipment, JCB has had an established presence in the region for many years. As a leader in backhoe loaders and telescopic handlers, JCB also has a strong presence in the Middle East, specifically within the telehandler sector.
Marco Bersellini highlights JCB specific achievement of cornering some 50% of the Qatari market for telehandlers.
He noted: “We dominate this market. Our top seller telehandlers are the 14t and 17t machines. Last year we started promoting the 20t machines and so far this year we have achieved very good results.
“Our dealers in the region meanwhile support the products and JCB customers with a professional, dedicated and well trained service network, with hundreds of technicians and service vans. Our spare parts availability is second to none,” he adds, referring to JCB’s Middle East Part Centre warehouse in Dubai.
JCB’s innovation was also evident at this year’s Bauma exhibition in Munich, where is unveiled the ‘Hydradig’ — the “first wheeled excavator purpose-built from the ground up”. With a one-tonne capacity at maximum reach, a 4m turning radius, a 3.5-tonne towing capacity, and a 40kmph on-highway speed, the Hydradig is a versatile machine in a segment otherwise dominated by highly classic design and function.
Following Bauma, JCB immediately received a 50-unit order for a UK dealer.
However, JCB’s forte remains its backhoes, which are incidentally celebrating their 70th production anniversary this year. JCB has been the world’s largest backhoe manufacturer of the machines for the past 15 years, and to date has sold 600,000 units.
Lord Bamford, noted: “The backhoe loader was the building block for the success of JCB, and while we produce many other machines for construction, agricultural and industrial applications, it remains one of our most important products.”
Jubaili Bros
Jad Jubaili, Business Development Manager – Middle East
Jubaili Bros was established in Lebanon as a provider of electromechanical services in 1977 and began its operations in UAE in 1991, Kuwait in 2004 and Qatar in 2011 — expanding to the entire GCC market. To date, Jubaili Bros has nearly 40 years of experience and 1500 employees deployed in 8 countries. With 26 branches and service centres, it is a leading power solutions provider in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
With the largest stock of diesel generator sets in United Arab Emirates, Jubaili Bros offers complete power solutions through its fully functional branches in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Jebel Ali Free Zone. To offer its world class power solutions to South Africa and neighbouring countries, Jubaili Bros will launch a new branch in Johannesburg, South Africa prior to 2016 end.
With a background in marketing and economics, Jad Jubaili has more than nine years of experience working with Jubaili Bros.
As a business development manager, Jad is Responsible for growing the power generation business at Jubaili Bros by expanding its dealer network, procurement of new products, and improving internal processes. In connection to this, he develops business relationships with suppliers and customers in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. He also engages co-workers to promote a productive work environment by working with them to set goals and implement change within the organization. The age of any regional operations, the size of the workforce, and the location and scale of the local facilities.
LiuGong Dressta Machinery
Tolga Ural, Regional Sales Manager – Middle East
LiuGong
Headquartered in China, Guangxi LiuGong Machinery is one of the fastest growing construction equipment companies in the world. LiuGong machines are carefully designed to be reliable, tough and durable both in remote and rough conditions, and the company philosophy is centred around customers and dealer satisfaction as a top priority.
The company’s main goals are offering a full range of intuitive machines, providing dependable service and support to customers around the world, and providing solutions that best fit the global construction demands.
Behind the current dynamism of LiuGong lays nearly 60-years of experience in designing and manufacturing quality products.
Since operations began in 1958 with a single factory in Liuzhou, China, where LiuGong built China’s first modernised wheel loader, it has become a global player and a leader in construction equipment manufacturing industry quoted on the Shenzhen Stock Market.
The company employs over 10,000 people and has 24 manufacturing facilities worldwide, 10 global offices and five R&D facilities, together with a dealer network spanning 136 countries.
Located in Jebel Ali Free Zone LiuGong Middle East (LGME), is one of 10 global offices, and, as a regional hub, is responsible for supporting dealers and customers across the entire Middle East and North Africa region.
A parts depots also operates at this base to ensure customers receive the support they have come to expect from LiuGong and Dressta.
LiuGong completed its acquisition of Dressta, a manufacturer of a full line of bulldozers, in 2012 — giving the company a further strategic foothold and access to a range of additional regional markets.
Dressta
Headquartered in Poland, Dressta has a rich heritage through which it has grown into a prominent manufacturer of crawler dozers, wheel loaders and pipe layers. Dressta’s products are known to be powerful, and durable in the toughest of applications.
Behind the current dynamism of Dressta lies nearly 70-years of experience in designing and manufacturing quality products.
Those years were essentially marked by a cooperation and license agreement signed with the International Harvester Company, followed by other joint venture and licensing agreements with other world-class suppliers. These partnerships gave the company a strong manufacturing and technological background.
Since the acquisition by LiuGong, Dressta has been steadily innovating and building its product offering along with its worldwide presence while being loyal to its mission of providing machines that deliver ultimate power, performance and productivity & placing emphasis on individual customers’ needs to deliver the products they need to manage any given job.
Though known for its crawler dozers, Liugong Dressta Machinery currently has four product lines under the Dressta brand: crawler dozers, pipe layers, wheel loaders and conveyor belt shifters.
In the ever evolving market, Dressta is investing heavily in R&D and listening to the customer to keep its products at the cutting edge of the latest technologies. This year, Dressta is introducing no less than five new machines to the market, alongside its proven existing product line: the new S-Series Hydrostatic compact crawler dozers (TD-8S and TD-9S), the SB-85 pipe layer, the TD-20 landfill dozer and the TD-25 mining dozers.
Those product lines represent Dressta’s mission to provide the best, tailored machinery for every segment, whether it mining, construction, landfill, forestry or pipe-laying, or for use in extreme ambient temperatures, and even arctic or foundry environments.
Dressta’s manufacturing experience together with adaptable product configurations allow the company to focus on special feature requests from customers, which enable individual end users to tailor Dressta products to meet their exact requirements, whatever the application, so that they can achieve more on the job site.
MAN Truck & Bus ME
Franz Von Redwitz, Managing Director
Since 2006, MAN Truck & Bus Middle East has been the regional representative of MAN Truck & Bus, the largest company in the MAN Group.
In the region, MAN Truck & Bus Middle East operates through a network of 35 locations operated by its importers in 14 countries across the Levant, Gulf, and through to Pakistan.
In 2015, MAN Truck & Bus celebrated 100 years of commercial vehicle manufacturing. It also marked the 30-year anniversary of its association with importer in Saudi Arabia, Haji Husein Alireza (HHA), and officials from both companies gathered at events throughout the country to mark the occasion.
HHA also owns MAN’s assembly plant in Saudi Arabia, which began operations in early 2009. Operated by Saudi Automotive Manufacturing Company (SAMCO) in Jeddah Saudi Arabia, the plant also celebrated the production of its 10,000th truck in November 2015.
The Jeddah workshop of HHA also won MAN’s Service Quality Award for 2015, recognising it as the best service centre in Middle East and Africa, beating 54 other workshops from the region. The Jeddah workshop was also ranked in the 10 best workshops worldwide, out of some 799.
The year has also seen MAN take significant steps towards re-entering the Iranian market and the renewal of its former partnerships with East Yavaran Khodro and Shiran Diesel following the lifting of sanctions.
Franz von Redwitz was appointed MD of MAN Truck & Bus Middle East and Africa in March 2015. He has been working with MAN for the last 17 years, handling a variety of International Bus and Coach sales management roles.
He has worked in the Middle East in the past, especially in UAE — where he played a leading role in the delivering 400 buses to RTA in 2008.
He was previously head of product marketing for Bus and Coach with MAN Truck & Bus at MAN’s headquarters in Munich.
He also managed the development of the MAN Lion’s City GL CNG bus, which was later named ‘Bus of the Year’ 2015.
Manitowoc Crane Group ME
David Semple, Vice President, Mobile Cranes – ME
Individual Manitowoc crane brands have been present in the region since as far back as the 1960s through a broad distributor network. However, the company incorporated a fully-owned subsidiary to support its business operations back to 2007.
Staffed by approximately 35 employees, Manitowoc Crane Group ME is registered in the Jebel Ali Free Zone, and equipped with offices, a training center, warehouse, workshop, and outdoor yard — all within a 11,000m2 plot. The main purpose of this facility is to support the Manitowoc distribution network in the Middle-East.
Manitowoc underwent significant changes in 2016 with the separation of the company’s legacy “Foodservice” business segment into an independent company. The resulting $1.9bn US-listed company is now solely focussed on cranes, and owns some of the best known brands in the industry, like Manitowoc, Potain, and Grove.
Manitowoc’s Saudi Arabian distributor, YBA Kanoo, recently showcased almost the entire range of Grove Rough Terrain cranes during a spectacular open-day event. Held in Dammam, capital of the Eastern Saudi province, the event saw over 70 customers in attendance together with senior executives from Manitowoc.
David Semple graduated from business school in Bordeaux, France having spent a year of his studies in the UK where he also received an MBA from Aston University. After graduation he served his National Service at the French Embassy in Damascus, Syria. He joined Potain in 1998 as export sales manager for the Middle East and following Manitowoc’s acquisition of Potain and Grove, was closely involved in the development of its Dubai office.
PMV Power List 2016 — Part one: A-C
