IF you've become aware that the top managers at your company have been out of the office for the past three months attending a never ending merry-go-round of ICT conferences, exhibitions and forums, you're not alone in noting this behavior. Each year in the Spring and Fall, Saudi Arabia's managers circulate from one ICT conference to the next; sleeping through boring presentations and focusing their attention on the venue's entertainment options. While the myth is that attending these events is a painful duty for every "decision maker," in truth, ICT vendors often sponsor airfare and hotels at these conferences as the bonus for a productive relationship.
All the organizers of the conferences put out glowing reports of how many attendees come to their "premier" events and how much business gets done thanks to these "networking opportunities." There is nary a word of dissent heard about the insanity of holding multiple conferences on topics such as e-government, communications, security, data storage, integration, and God only knows what else, in cities around the Middle East, and the conferences are duplicated in geographies worldwide. Every year, the managers of many Saudi companies and organizations travel to several of these "essential" events, all expenses paid.
A few executives will claim that they are different. "We are not among the slackers in the audience," they'll say. "We are the ones delivering presentations on our company's latest projects to raise the profile of the Kingdom." Those presentations were of course created through the talents of others in the company and the executive making the presentation will be gone from the office for at least three days to deliver a twenty-minute speech that he hopes will raise his profile. I am most skeptical about so-called "CIO Summits" where dozens of executives who make upwards of SR35,000 monthly, camp out in five-star luxury and gossip. Those summits are normally hosted by vendors who pay for the privilege of having access to these CIOs. What's happening back at the company while its CIO is eating shrimp cocktail and complaining about the shortage of IT staff? What's happening is that the technical staff, many of them expatriates, are doing their best to keep network resources up and running despite staff shortages and a lack of management support.
Three years back, I decided to stop traveling to any event unless overwhelming justification could be provided as to why my physical presence was required there. I could be politically correct and claim that I made such a move as part of the fight against global warming, but that would be a lie. I simply chose as an ICT journalist to use the same technology to do my job that I was aggressively promoting to everyone as the modern way to do business. I embraced Web 2.0 in reality. Now, more than ever, I firmly believe that most conferences and forums are relics of a pre-Internet age. However, I must admit that still do have a fondness for international road shows on targeted themes that stop off in Saudi Arabia. They require only a minor investment of my time and resources to visit.
It must be pointed out that my policy of avoiding irrelevant conferences and forums is not the norm. Saudi Arabia is experiencing a boom in terms of ICT spending and trips to conferences abroad are part of the business of doing business. In May, despite all expenses paid invitations, I refused to attend ICT events in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Sharm El-Sheikh because they didn't offer value. I understand however that there was good attendance from Saudi Arabia at all these events. A company that sponsored a large "private" seminar in Sharm El-Sheikh even chartered planes from major cities in the Middle East to accommodate attendees. When I asked the company to see the agenda of the seminar, the details about the speakers were nonexistent. They did happily tell me though that the event would feature "Surprise entertainment from the USA — lots of fun — and a gala dinner."
The Sharm El-Sheikh seminar included executives from both the Kingdom's business community and the government sector. If a local businessman, who owns his own company, wants to accept an invitation to a "vacation" seminar, I have no objection. But when executives from Saudi government organizations and public companies are essentially bribed with these free or subsidized trips — that's a problem. And it can get really disgusting at higher levels. An executive at a public Saudi company related that an IT vendor's representative came and asked him where he would like to travel on the vendor's expense. The trip would be a gift for the last year's business and would be combined with a meeting or conference to make the trip seem legitimate. Offended, the Saudi CIO declined. He was then told that a certain amount had been allocated in the vendor's marketing budget for this purpose.
Furious that such an expense had been incorporated in the overhead for the signed contract, the executive was in a quandary on how to proceed. He didn't want the company to lose the value and taking a trip was out of the question. Instead, he insisted that the vendor do training sessions in several locations around the Kingdom, so that all the company's employees would become experts in operating the new equipment. The hope was that that would encourage them to start using such hardware at home and spread greater knowledge about the technology through Saudi society.
It should be noted that vendors are not evil. They make offers such as paid conference trips because regulations allow it. The vendor perceives it as the way to win and keep corporate accounts. A few organizations in the Kingdom have made it illegal for their staff to attend "sponsored" conferences, even if the employees use vacation days to cover the work absence. Saudi organizations need not only to set out strict codes of conduct for staff in regards to their relationships withvendors, but also to enforce these regulations. Detailed reports should be required when employees attend IT events abroad so the intelligence gained from the event can be transferred to others. All Saudi entities, government and private, should reconsider how having executives away from the office at conferences and forums furthers organizational goals.
With the global economy facing difficulties, international ICT vendors are only too delighted to pay personal visits to decision makers located almost anywhere in the Kingdom. If a vendor wants to close deals in Saudi Arabia, local executives should see if he'll really work for the business. That means choosing not to meet him at a conference in London or Dubai. Instead, let that vendor make the presentation about his product, service or solution during a sheep barbecue in Riyadh, in July. Think of it as Saudi sweat equity.
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