AL RAJHI BANK

For the seventh consecutive month, Al-Rajhi Bank has re-launched “Car Express” festival joining 18 car brands in 11 main cities of the Kingdom. The bank welcomes all individuals and families, locals and expatriates in Madinah, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Al-Hassa, Qassim, Tabuk, Abha, Hafr Al-Batin, Jizan and Najran to visit its showrooms featuring the biggest car agents under one roof over a period of six days starting from Aug. 11. Aimed at increasingly facilitating car ownership, the festival returns after a significant success last month with even further benefits and more attractive offers including free of charge car insurance and free road service membership plus free extended warranty from all car agents. Al Rajhi Bank’s Executive Vice-President Saeed Al-Ghamdi said: “This proactive step is a continuation of what was started six months ago. The bank focuses on meeting rising needs for facilitating car purchases with more ease and comfort, month-after-month.”

CMCS

Collaboration Management and Control Solutions (CMCS), a major provider of project and portfolio information management in the Middle East, will organize the Bahrain leg of its roadshow on “Project and risk management” at he InterContinental Regency on Aug. 19. The roadshow aims to share best practices with senior and mid-level executives on how to achieve project success with key knowledge areas of Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). PMBOK is an internationally recognized standard that provides the fundamentals of project management that are applicable to a wide range of projects that go beyond IT including construction, software, engineering and automotive. Syed Hassan, a project management consultant, will give his presentation on “How to handle business constraints.” CMCS, with Bassam Samman as its founder and CEO, is Primavera’s partner in the Middle East. It follows Primavera’s global training methodology and also adopts the PMBOK standard.

ELIXIR

Elixir, a business consultancy firm, celebrated the successful launch of a new fashion brand ‘Rethobe’ in the Kingdom recently. The launch was heralded as a successful start to launching a local product globally and an example of professional brand creation. “Globalization is the merging of economies worldwide through free trade in goods and services,” Sami Alzuhaibi, Elixir business consultant and partner, said. “The global economy has allowed businesses to develop partnerships throughout the globe, which has become essential for success in today’s business. It has also highlighted the lack of business creativity and weakness exhibited by growing markets in their bid to compete on a global scale. Our vision at Elixir is to provide assistance to local companies to help them compete globally through strategic solutions. Our partners rely on us for strategic planning and execution based on extensive research to ensure quality, performance and profit.”

BATTERJEE/INDUS PHARMA

Pakistan’s Indus Pharma Group of Industries, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company, on Monday signed an agreement with the Batterjee Group for joint production and marketing of pharmaceutical items across the Kingdom and other Gulf states. According to Jamil Khan, consul press, Consulate General of Pakistan, the deal followed a two-year discussion between the two companies in the Kingdom and Pakistan. The agreement marks the beginning of a new era, opening the doors for Pakistani pharmaceutical companies to enter the Gulf market. With its vast potential in drug manufacturing including antibiotics, multivitamins, anti-tuberculosis as well as serums, vaccines and life saving drugs for human and veterinary consumption, Pakistan is also known for manufacturing surgical and dental equipment of international standard.

HERFY/BUPA

Herfy Food Service Company Ltd., one of Saudi Arabia’s fastfood restaurant chains, has renewed its contract with BUPA Middle East for the second year. Herfy claims to be the largest fastfood restaurant chain in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East, surpassing major international corporations in terms of size. It has over 130 branches and 2,500 employees throughout Saudi Arabia. It also has many subsidiaries including Herfy Bakery and meat processing plants. Herfy Food Service is described as an entirely Saudi-owned company since its inception in 1981. “We have a large workforce of employees including their families located at all our company facilities nationwide. Even with this challenge, BUPA Middle East has delivered on the required health and care attention. Our employees are satisfied with the quality of medical care they received during our first year,” said Ahmed Al-Saeed, GM, Herfy Food Service Company Ltd.

ORAL-B/CREST

Oral-B and Crest Arabian Peninsula have announced the launch of a consumer campaign which will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest number of smiles. In celebration of healthy smiles, Oral-B and Crest are calling on GCC residents to submit photographs of themselves smiling or the toothy grins of their family members to help break the record. Oral-B and Crest are also committed to donating to the Disabled Children’s Association in the Kingdom and Rashid Pediatric Therapy Center in Dubai SR75,000 and AED50,000 respectively as part of the campaign. Once the record is successfully broken, Oral-B and Crest will go on to donate an additional SR/AED1 per smile collected to the charity partners. ‘’Oral-B and Crest are committed to elevating oral hygiene awareness and rewarding good oral hygiene practices and healthy smiles in the communities in which they operate,’’ Mohamed Sultan, marketing director, health and personal beauty care, Procter & Gamble, said.

SHOWTIME

With the launch of the ‘Show on demand’ service from this month, Showtime customers with a Showbox (digital video recorder) will be among the first in the world to access a video on demand service via satellite. The launch of the new service enables viewers to access up to 40 hours of the best movies, sport and series automatically downloaded and refreshed every week to their Showbox. This “Unique innovation” will enable Showtime customers to access a selection of its very best programming, when they want to watch it, with the play, pause, forward and rewind functionality. Show on demand features movie premieres, shows without commercial breaks and a chance to catch up on missed programs and all of this at no additional cost to Showtime’s platinum and premier customers. “The red button on our remote control has taken convenience to a new high. Simply pressing it gives immediate access to the Show on Demand selection,” said Azhar Malik, VP Marketing at Showtime.

BWTC

The Bahrain World Trade Center (BWTC), set to launch as the country’s leading mixed-use commercial development, recently announced the signing of a Bahraini investment company, Capital Management House (CMH), who will join existing flagship tenants and take occupancy of one of the largest individual office floor spaces at 783 square meters. Located at the heart of Manama’s business and commercial district, BWTC offers a world-class address in the region’s financial hub, and tenants will benefit from a network of global business contacts through the centers’ membership of the World Trade Centers Association. Khalid Najibi, MD, CMH, said: “We chose to relocate our offices to BWTC due to the immediate benefits it offers.” Claire Hughes, associate director of DTZ Bahrain, BWTC’s leasing and managing agent, said: “The BWTC has a role to play in Bahrain’s continued economic success by providing the infrastructure for companies to operate.”

SAMSUNG

Samsung Gulf Electronics yesterday announced the launch of the Samsung F500, also known as The Ultra Video, the latest in Samsung’s slim Ultra Edition Series II. The Ultra Video provides the ultimate experience for users who like to push the envelope in both design and technology. Steve Han, general manager of the hand-held phones division at Samsung Gulf Electronics, said: “The handset has a unique and stylish design which allows the user to use the double sided controls to suit their operating needs. The reversible controls can be used as phone controls on one side and high quality video feature on the other.” The new video is a multimedia focused 3G mobile phone which comes with entertaining functions and all in a user-friendly handset. The handset comes in a sleek black color which adds style and sophistication to the look of the Samsung F500. The device also features a large 2.4-inch color display providing a clear 240x320 pixel screen resolution. The screen can be swiveled from the control pad.