Bringing your business into the new decade

Over the past few years the Middle East energy project market has experienced unprecedented levels of award activity.  Is this set to continue?

Filippo Fantechi. Between 2005 and 2008 the market saw an average annual Capex award value of just under US$70 billion. In 2009, this value increased to an unprecedented level of US$95 billion, largely driven by the region's strategic energy production targets to ensure a solid position for the future upturns in demand, the relaxation in the contracting market after the crunch period and increased gas demand from the industrial, power and petrochemical sectors. Further to announced government investment plans, it is evident that the Middle East energy market will continue to be the land of opportunity for the coming years, with US$650-700 billion worth of projects having already been announced for award between 2010 and 2014, an 85 percent increase over the previous five year total. Around US$100bn of these new announcements have actually been made within the past few months, thus giving further encouragement that the levels of activity and opportunity will remain high within this market for the near future.

Given this market situation and the number of opportunities that are on the table, how can companies enhance their business development efforts to heighten their success?

FF. The key is to ensure that one's business development process is robust yet flexible and effective at identifying, prioritising, targeting and securing the right opportunities.  A company's long-term success strongly resides on this process. As seasoned business developers, our World Class Business Development Methodology focuses strongly on a four-step opportunity pipeline management process; stock, qualify, prioritise and target. Proactively identifying all opportunities; passing them through a qualification process to assess whether they are suitable and a good fit for the company early on; and prioritising the opportunities in line with the key pre-identified criteria will help one to determine the target projects. Once this has been achieved, the development of a unique and compelling value proposition that can deliver both value to the customer as well as maximise the company's profitability is critical.

What would you say are the key success factors that a company should consider when trying to identify and target the right opportunities?  How can they ensure that they are best positioned for them?

FF. Continuously 'grazing' and collecting trusted market intelligence on your opportunities, customers and competitors throughout the pre-award lifecycle is paramount to not only supporting you in your qualification process but also provides you with further reassurance that the opportunities you are targeting are in fact the right ones and have a likelihood of realisation.  Customer orientation around these opportunities is also critical.  Identifying and understanding your customer's real need and then creating an aligned and differentiated value proposition that your organisation can uniquely deliver will stand your company in good stead.  Undertaking due diligence prior and post award to ensure that your customers, contractors, suppliers and/or partners have the capability to deliver is essential to developing and maintaining your reputation going forward.

How does Contax Partners support companies with the development and realisation of their growth strategies in the region?

FF. For over 25 years, the Contax Partners team has developed deep market and sector knowledge and trusted advisor networks that enable us to access key decision makers to test and validate our hypotheses.  Coupled with this, we have developed our own unique proprietary database regarding the Middle East energy projects that provide us with the ability to produce fact based analysis, insights and advise to enable our customers to make better and more informed decisions. Our robust business development and advisory methodologies, which have integrity and our customers' needs at the core, further enable us to make the defined strategy a realisation.  This has enabled us to work with and support a large number of leading project owners, contractors, suppliers and service providers operating across the energy value chain to enter, establish, grow and be successful in the Middle East. As testament to this, by 2009, we had supported our customers in winning more than UK£35bn of work and therefore we are proud to say that we are often regarded by our customers as being their 'trusted advisors' and 'consultants of choice'.

Based in Bahrain, Filippo Fantechi is Contax Partners' Chief Executive Officer.  He has over 15 years of business development, project management, sales management, establishing business operations and market strategy experience within the Middle East, Europe and Russia.  Fantechi has a strong background in the energy, utility and construction sectors.