Gaining Ground in the Middle East

After having established presence in UAE, Oman, USA, UK, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka, Ma Foi Management Consultants, India’s largest HR services company is now establishing its presence in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in a Joint venture with Riyada Consulting WLL. Mr. K. Pandiarajan, Managing Director of the Ma Foi group signed a Joint Venture agreement with HE Shaikha Dheya bint Ebrahim Al Khalifa, President of Riyada Consulting on December 4th in Manama.

Commenting on the new foray, Mr. Pandiarajan, said that the organisation was keenly interested in increasing the employability of the region, specially in the organised sector, and would leverage its solid expertise and experience of 14 years, within and outside India, to ensure that specialist and skilled employees found jobs best suited to them, helping to buoy the overall employment scenario in the region.

Ma Foi Management Consultants (now a part of the Euro 7 Bn. Vedior Group) was incorporated in India in 1992 by K.Pandiarajan. Today after 14 years, Ma Foi is run by a team of 1350 people spread over 93 offices across nine countries and services 194 Fortune 500 companies. One of the very few companies in its domain to be certified ISO 9000: 2001 by DNV Norway, Ma Foi offers services in Management Training & Development; Compensation & Benefits – Structuring & Surveys, HR Outsourcing; HR Systems Building; Organisation Structuring & Restructuring; HR Automation – IT infrastructure for HR systems; Performance Management Systems; Change Management Solutions; Payroll Outsourcing; Retention Management; Executive Search for Senior and Middle Level positions; Manpower planning and Recruitment of Junior level staff functions; Staff Outsourcing and Career Skills Training.

Riyada Consulting, under the able leadership of Her Excellency Shaikha Dheya bint Ebrahim Al Khalifa, offers a wide range of performance enhancing services to private and public organisations operating in different sectors. Its distinctive team with diverse expertise enables Riyada to excel in many fields such as: Corporate Finance, Marketing Consulting, Business Advisory, Telecom Consulting, oil and gas and HR consulting. HE Shaikha Dheya, President of Riyada Consulting stated the new venture will launch a brand new set of services in Bahrain and KSA which will participate to increase the efficiency of the local employment market and provide more options to both employers and employees. Corporations can now benefit from the comprehensive range of services offered by the new venture to improve the effectiveness of the HR functions and departments in their companies. Through its partnership with one of the HR consulting leaders, Riyada Consulting took a further step toward fulfilling the requirements of clients more comprehensively and qualitatively.

Mr. Pandiarajan stated that in the emerging geopolitical and socio-economic the world, corporations in the Middle East have felt the need to reinvent themselves from the point of view of strategy, structure, systems and processes. “Ma Foi Riyada will facilitate this reconfiguration in the HR, Finance, and overall business policy domains,” he said.

Vishal Saboo, who has been associated with Excel Midas - Ma Foi Chennai for two years as a Senior Consultant – Business Development, handling the specific area of acquiring new business in the space of IT, ITES, Automobile & Telecom sectors in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, has moved to Bahrain as Country Manager of Ma Foi Riyada. An alumni of the National Institute of Sales, Chennai, Vishal has significant experience in developing Greenfield & Volume Business for Recruitment, Contract Staffing, Training and HR Consulting businesses.

According to Sanjay Ghosh, Regional Director of Ma Foi’s Middle East Operations, the new venture will help pivot Ma Foi to prime position in the Middle East market. Ma Foi has a joint venture company in UAE with an office in Abu Dhabi and a Joint venture in the Sultanate of Oman, with offices in Muscat and Sohar. The Bahrain entry would enable Ma Foi to be closely associated with one of the largest BFSI markets in the Middle East. Apart from BFSI, this joint venture named Ma Foi Riyada Consulting WLL will service the Energy & Infrastructure and IT sectors in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

About Ma Foi:
Ma Foi is a 14-year-old public limited company. Having started in 1992 at Chennai with a focus on recruitment services, Ma Foi has grown to become the largest HR services provider in India. Ma Foi is committed to offer people and people related services, enhancing the net worth of human capital. Currently Ma Foi has a presence worldwide including 80 offices in India, and 10 offices across 9 overseas locations in the UAE, UK, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Oman and the US, and over 1334 clients including 164 Fortune 500 Companies. Ma Foi had posted revenue of Rs.213 Crores for the year ending December 2005.

For further details on Ma Foi, visit www.mafoi.com

About Vedior:
Vedior NV, Ma Foi’s Global partner, is the world’s leading specialist staffing major, and the third largest staffing company with annual 2005 sales of Euro 6.85 billion. Vedior has a diversified portfolio of brands targeting a broad range of sectors, and from its global network of offices spanning Europe, America, Australasia, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, offers temporary and permanent recruitment as well as a number of complementary employment-related services, such as outplacement, HR Outsourcing, payrolling and training. Vedior offers temporary staffing in traditional administrative, light industrial and specialist sectors, such as information technology, healthcare, accounting, engineering and education, under different brand names. Vedior is listed on the pan European Euronext Stock Exchange.

For further details on Vedior, visit www.vedior.com