Sofrecom has been helping operators, governments and international institutions to achieve success for more than 50 years. In an interview with Wadih Cordahi, sales director, KSA, Sofrecom, Telecom Review highlighted the role of Orange Group subsidiary in Saudi Arabia.
How would you describe the role of Sofrecom in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
The role of Sofrecom in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is strategic for achieving Saudi Vision 2030 objectives. We are a subsidiary of Orange Group, the leading telecom operator in the world, and we are specialized in the telecommunications sector since more than 50 years. We support the development and transformation of telecom operators, governments and international institutions needed nowadays in Saudi Arabia to succeed the Saudi Vision 2030. Our team of senior consultants is transferring the values and scarce expertise available within Orange Group to the Saudi youth. Hence, we are present in Saudi Arabia to bridge the cultural gaps, help Saudi people build bonds with the outside world and share the best practices and experience gained through our missions across the world.
What kind of projects is Sofrecom handling in KSA?
Sofrecom has been doing business in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for more than 10 years. We have recently established a legal entity in response to the announcement of the Saudi Vision 2030 by His Highness King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Today we have several strategic projects under implementation; I will name few of them.
In 2017, Integrated Telecom Company (ITC) signed an agreement with the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) to implement the high-speed fiber optic broadband across the Kingdom and ITC selected Sofrecom to design and supervise the implementation and transfer its expertise to Saudi youth and Saudi engineers in the field of fiber deployment. The broadband implementation project was equivalent to 121,500 residential units in urban areas with a high density and 519, 000 in urban areas, at a cost of about 3.5 billion riyals. For that, Sofrecom has mobilized around 80 resources for the delivery phase, introduced the automation for the network design along with new processes and procedures to make sure the project is adhering to the international standards. As a result, we succeeded to optimize the design between 30% and 35% that was reflected in CAPEX savings on the overall project. We supervised the fiber civil work totaling more than 6,000 km which is equivalent to the radius of the planet earth as well as designing and supervising the Fiber cable work of more than 22,000 km which is more than half of the earth circumference while total asphalting exceeded 3,7 million m2 that is equivalent to asphalting a new road of 1,200 Km with 3 meters width between Amsterdam and Marseille.
In addition to that, Sofrecom has built the B2B strategy for a major telecom operator in the Kingdom as well as supported the network assessment and data center audits for our customers.
We have also signed a strategic alliance MoU between Orange group and STC Group which allows STC to benefit from Orange corporate and affiliates assets, know-how and expertise on selected domains such as technology, innovation, procurement, mobile financial services, healthcare, energy, iot, digitalization, digital care and many other as important.
How are you contributing to Vision 2030?
Sofrecom slogan is to build tomorrow’s digital world which is mandatory to achieve the Saudi Vision 2030. Our ambition is to contribute to the creation of a connected world and we are committed through our digital transformation programs to make an impact into the Saudi economic, social and economic environment. The ongoing broadband implementation project using fiber technology will link every household starting with the central region moving into the eastern and western regions of the country. The target is to contribute in one of the strategic objectives of the Saudi Vision 2030 for having three Saudi cities recognized in the top-ranked 100 cities in the world.
On the other hand, we started our journey three years ago by transferring our technical know-how in fiber design and deployment to Saudi people through trainings and workshops therefore supporting another strategic objective of the Saudi Vision 2030 in lowering the rate of unemployment from 11.6% to 7%. And since then, we have partnered with several SMEs in the Kingdom to deliver our projects while empowering the Saudi youth and contributing in the Saudi Vision 2030 third objective for increasing the SME contribution to GDP from 20% to 35%.
