Delay Causes in Saudi Arabian Construction Projects

Introduction

It can well be stated that a strategic location to create linkages with other countries, modern Saudi Arabia is a rich place to invest since it’s an oil-producing country and dominated its economy through petroleum industry. The location of Saudi Arabia is to be found in a position that can be regarded as an important strategic point in terms of economy. Saudi Arabia can be enumerated as a vital linkage between the states of Europe and the countries of the Far East. At the same time Saudi Arabia is situated in the interim position between the Middle East and the continent of Africa.

These two advantages in terms of location make Saudi Arabia a real spot for the investments and marketable consumptions thus exhale a potential to circulate billions of dollars. It is served by many shipping lines counting to 170 and 86 airlines that could be easily accessed by over 100 cities worldwide. Most of the labour force is comprised of Asians coming into the island since there are many businesses and working opportunities.

With regards to Saudi Arabia’s business environment, companies that are entering the industry will not be deducted by any corporate or personal taxes but exceptions to this are for oil producing companies and branches of foreign banks. However, foreign companies are not permitted to own or acquire their own land, they only have to rent or lease for business purposes.

It can be stated that the Road & Transportation Authority of Saudi Arabia is based on a well formulated management structure. The Traffic & Roads Agency comes directly under the parameters of the Chairman and CEO who takes the responsibility of this department along with three other principal agencies. The Traffic & Roads Agency is divided into six department of which the Maintenance department being a very important office.

The Maintenance department is instrumental in developing a well structured communication system with the other five departments, Road, Fees and Parking, Traffic, Licensing and Right of way services. This is an important aspect of this department because it ensures the smooth working condition for the entire Traffic & Roads Agency. Apart from this the Maintenance department regularly checks the details of each aspect that are linked with the Traffic & Roads Agency thereby keeping the authority updated about the present situation and need of the agency.

It can be stated that the present world class condition of the Road & Transportation Authority in Saudi Arabia is not only due to the fact that it spends a substantial amount on its projects but the success is very much due to the fact that department like the Maintenance department is constantly updating itself in term of information and its communication system. However, it should be noted that the police department is not as flawless as the Road & Transportation Authority in Saudi Arabia.

It should be stated that at the moment there are several problems related to the issue and it is needed to overcome those in order to gain more mileage in the long run. The main aspect of this problem lies in the traditional form of police and investigation procedures that are taken into account and executed with comparatively lesser efficiency.

This could also be sated that the functionality of the Saudi Arabia police department is more ancient in approach and there is an essential need for the department to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of technology implementation and efficiency evaluation. Furthermore, it is also essential to look into the aspects of administrative reconstruction as the department is unable to work up to its true potential with the administrative structure located at a medieval scenario. Thus it can well be stated that the problem with Saudi Arabia police is not only with it’s below the par utility and efficiency but also is related to the ill formulation of the administrative system.

Quite logically, the department is in extreme necessity of finding solutions for negating these problems. It should be stated that at the moment there is a five step remedy to this malady. Firstly, it is essential to understand the present management of Saudi Arabia police department and identify the key areas of improvement. Similarly, it is important in the aspect of researching the past to get an understanding about Saudi Arabia Police department’s status and importantly eliminating the risk of following the old mistakes.

Then, it should be noted that a wide study is incorporated with a variety of methods of change management practices and their applicability in Saudi Arabia Police department. Furthermore, it is important to investigate the potential of alternative methods of change management and the most advantageous will be launched.

Thus, it is clear that Saudi Arabia is a very important region for business and construction business is an extremely important investment. However, there is a serious problem in this sector in Saudi Arabia. In construction, delay could be defined as the time overrun either beyond completion date specified in a contract, or beyond the date that the parties agreed upon for delivery of a project. It is a project slipping over its planned schedule and is considered as common problem in construction projects. Completing projects on time is an indicator of efficiency, but the construction process is subject to many variables and unpredictable factors, which result from many sources.

These sources include the performance of parties, resources availability, environmental conditions, involvement of other parties, and contractual relations. However, it is rarely happen that a project is completed within the specified time. (Al-hejji and Assaf, 2006) In Saudi Arabia, Zain Al-Abedien found that delayed projects accounted for 70% of projects undertaken by the Ministry of Housing and Public Works.

Al-Sultan surveyed time performance of different types of public projects and concluded that 70% of public projects experienced time overrun (Al-khalil and Al-Ghafly,1999). The evidence seems to indicate that the delay is a serious problem in Saudi construction industry. Therefore, this dissertation will undertake a research in Saudi construction industry to find out the main causes of these delays in projects in Saudi construction industry and it will go through the ranking of frequent rising of these causes.

Rationale of the research

• Saudi Construction Industry faces delay in its process, which in turn results in huge loss.
• This happens because of labour shortage. As the Industry faces workforce shortage, this in turn seeks migrant to provide labour
• With overseas labour, there are various problems like communication, culture differences, also training (if any) and industrial set up differences.
• The workers are seen as low class and hence are poorly paid and are employed mainly for arduous work, often in a poor working environment.

Aim of the Research

This dissertation is aimed at evaluating Saudi construction delay and its possible cause in lack of workforce and skill shortage and its impacts of expatriate labour on the construction industry. Furthermore, it is aimed at evaluating the extent of overseas workforce in the Saudi Construction Industry, their contribution and problems associated with external work force.

Objective of the research

• To identify and evaluate the delay and labour requirement for Saudi Construction Industry
• To identify and assess problems associated with overseas work force and their contribution to Saudi Construction Industry.
• To assess any obstacles, which might be associated with communication, difference in training, culture and industrial set up.
• To study labour trend and propose viable future solution.
• To identify the purpose individual, organizational and overall cultural changes or modification that will be affordable and desirable for the better of the Saudi Construction Industry.
• To know the delay or shortage will slow down, the development and affect the economy on a long term.
• To verify the shortage will ramify the objectives of the investors in Saudi or divert the development process to a new location.

Hypothesis

• Local resources (work force) cannot fulfil Saudi Construction Industry workforce requirement, hence, the need for migrant workers as the local gap results in huge delay and thus the industry acquire loss. However, those workers encounter various problems; among them is communication and cultural difficulties, which affect efficiency:
• The skill shortage in Saudi construction industry would slow down the development however, it would be on a short term. Thus, it can be assumed that it would not affect long termed goals. Additionally, it is assumed that as the crisis is short termed the objectives of the investors would not change and they would not shift their business to a newer economic zone.

Literature review

The Construction Industry is one of the largest employers within SAUDI ARABIA with growing demand of new requirement. In recent times, the construction industry in the SAUDI ARABIA has been facing the risk of rising labour cost and labour shortages, which in turn is squeezing up the smaller contractors. It has primarily been driven by an elevated liquidity environment because of high petroleum revenue, the government’s idea of diversifying the nation’s economy from gas and oil, and negative rates of real interest.

Private and public investments have been introduced in the construction industry in order to build houses for their growing population, airports and hotels for the tourists and large and modern business centres to attract multinational companies. Thus, construction being at the heart of all these ideas is absolutely at its height (Stern, 2001).

To date skills shortages problems have left the SAUDI ARABIA Construction Industry with hardly any option but to depend on migrant labour to fill the gap. It can be learned that there are some fields in the construction industry, which are more affected than others are, hence are, requiring closer attention. Such areas are masonry, carpentry, steel and pipe fitters, heavy equipment operators that have been found to have high levels of skill shortage in SAUDI ARABIA. However, the case of overseas labour in any economy has been the usual trend not only in the construction industry.

The main risk of such an environment is the shortage of skilled labour and high material costs, which has pushed the construction industry in a complete turmoil in the past few months. As the Middle East construction division has developed in a private and confined manner, future expansion of this division is a huge challenge. Until now, the main constructors have been able to pass the extra labour and material costs on to the developers. However, if this condition prolongs, it could hamper the expansion plans of some important companies, like Arabtec and the Arabian Construction, both inside and outside of the Middle East and have a huge impact on their share prices. (Grant, 2007)

During the mid 70’s of the last century, many foreign workers migrated to the Middle East expecting higher salaries and a better life, which they did not have in their home countries. Now a number of Asian countries have had a rapid economic growth resulting in larger career opportunities and increased wages, slowly but steadily closing the wage gap between the Middle East and Asian countries. In addition, international and regional competition is making it very difficult for these construction companies to find skilled and unskilled labour at low prices. (Nagy, 1998)

Earlier due to contraction and negative growth of the construction companies, many people had to switch their careers as their companies either downsized or closed down. However, as projects increased, the need for skilled work force and experienced labour force increased. With this increase in the market players, the supply of managerial and engineering talent is unable to keep up with the demand, leading to shortages in the workforce. This recurring nature of the construction industry has contributed to the acute shortage of skilled personnel. (Athukorala, 2002) Thus, it is important to understand and evaluate the conditions in SAUDI ARABIA with proper methods.

Structure and management

The fast economic growth in Saudi Arabia has prompted infrastructure development fuelling boom in construction industry. Infrastructure development is happening in the most unprecedented manner in all across in the SAUDI ARABIA, with most of the investment in development for tourism, hospitality, retail and healthcare industry. With SAUDI ARABIA’s effort not just to stick to Oil and Gas business but also other sector namely the construction business.

SAUDI ARABIA has been diverting funds from oil-based income to Infrastructure development. Even in event in global slowdown SAUDI ARABIA going full ahead with its Infrastructure projects mostly in housing, tourism, industrial and commercial facilities, education and healthcare amenities, transportation, utilities, communications, ports and airports. SAUDI ARABIA is going all out to change the face of landscape; an excellent example will be Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira.

Construction industry work force

In construction, industry in SAUDI ARABIA, as in any other industry, has a structure and management. Few of the processes involved are the process of planning, designing, financing, constructing and operating physical facilities. The process management is very important and exact knowledge, of which process fits where, is also essential or else waste, excessive cost and delays can cause poor management and communication.

Since starting a construction project involves major capital investment, commitment such resources are dependent on market demands, facility expectation. It makes sure that few of the factors like quality, timeliness, cost of the completed facility and penalty for project delay are in complete control of the company. The project life cycle involves understanding market needs subsequently defining project objectives and scope, conceptual planning and feasibility study subsequently preliminary design, design and engineering subsequently construction plans and specifications, procurement and construction subsequently completion and construction, startup of occupancy subsequently acceptance of facility, operation and maintenance subsequently fulfillment of useful life and at the end disposal of facility.

Few of the major construction types are Residential Housing Construction, Institutional and Commercial Building Construction, Specialized Industrial Construction and Infrastructure and Heavy Construction. The construction or the owner also requires hiring professional services like Financial Planning Consultants, Architectural and Engineering Firms, Design/Construct Firms, Professional Construction Managers, Operation and Maintenance Managers and Facilities Management.

There are also requirement for Construction Contractors who include General Contractors, Specialty Contractors and Material and Equipment Suppliers. For financing these activities they also need expertise from these fields namely Construction Financing and Facility Financing.

For Legal and Regulatory Requirements they require experts to handle Legal Responsibilities, Mitigation of Conflicts and Government Regulation. With the changing face of construction industry it also needs to analyze New Technologies, Labour Productivity, Public Scrutiny, International Competition, Contractor Financed Projects and Lean Construction. In the process, they require specialists like planners, architects, engineering designers, constructors, fabricators, material suppliers, financial analysts and of course labour. (Grant, 2007)

In good project management in construction as in SAUDI ARABIA or any part of the world, there is need for effective utilization of labour, material and equipment. For cost control of infrastructural facilities any improvement in of labour productivity should be a major are of concern, which is defined as output per labour hour.

As labour comprises a huge element of the construction cost, so the quantity and quality of labour hours used in doing a scheduled task in construction is more vulnerable to the influence of management, rather than are materials or capital used. Here labour productivity is the effectiveness of the company to utilize its labour, equipment and capital to effective or meaningful output. For example if unskilled labour is used in high technical place then all the effort will be waste which will be waste of capital.

Workforce management

Factors effecting job-site productivity in SAUDI ARABIA can be divided into labour characteristics, project work conditions and some non-productive activities. Labour characteristics include age, skill and experience of workforce and leadership and motivation of workforce. Project work conditions in SAUDI ARABIA include Job size and complexity, Job site accessibility, Labour availability, Equipment utilization, Contractual agreements, Local climate and Local cultural characteristics in foreign operations or expatriate labour in local operations.

Non-productive activities in SAUDI ARABIA include use of indirect labour to continue the advancement of the project, amendment for correcting substandard work done, work stoppage due to stormy or rainy weather or material shortage, occasional off for union activities, absentee, delayed start ups or premature exits, non-working days or holidays and strikes.

Communication and culture

SAUDI ARABIA as a country has many languages like Arabic, which is official, Persian, English, Hindi, Urdu etc. Emiri constitutes of 19% of the population, Arab and Iranian 23%, South Asian 50% and other emigrants around 8%. These emigrants include Westerners and East Asians. As per religion is concerned Islam is followed by 96% with Sunni 80% and Shiite 16%, and other religions are Christian, Hindu, and other which constitute only 4%. (Grant, 2007)

With the above statistics, it is well understood that cross-cultural construction projects are quite common. Construction companies in SAUDI ARABIA have to understand that most of the projects happening in SAUDI ARABIA, due to globalization of workforce, methods employed have considerably changed. The very fact being that it is not unnatural that the design team comes from France or Italy, labors from India, Sri-Lanka and Bangladesh, and Company owners from Dubai.

In this multitude of a project, project leaders need analyze the multicultural environment. Taking a cue from an incident from Palm Jumeirah where designers had to resort to hand sign to facilitate work, which is a gross example of communication problems due to culture. Another fact that Indian Hindus start with prayers with their respective gods and Muslims offer Namaz, that construction project managers have to understand these religious sentiments of the migrants labors, and also the fact that they are far away from home.

Skill requirement

In SAUDI ARABIA, work force requirement in construction industry is of major importance. In SAUDI ARABIA, over 160 construction projects at present are going on with worth $160 billion in Dubai alone. In Dubai alone around one million laborers are engaged in construction industry. Among them, due to labour shortage 95 percent of the workforces are foreigners. SAUDI ARABIA has nearly 500,000 migrant construction workers, who mostly come from South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, while to total migrant population being around 2,738,000. (Schuster, 2008)

SAUDI ARABIA citizens under employment job agreement employ expatriate labors, for one to three years, which may renewed subject to conditions. As when the work permit expires, the expatriate worker must leave the country and gets no benefit for staying in the nation and his/her contribution to the state. Most of the migrants are males with vast majority employed in a single company are than 20 numbers or less.

These are typically recruited from the rural areas from the native countries and are mostly illiterate. To obtain or secure job in SAUDI ARABIA they typically pay fees in range of $2000-$3000. On securing job they get average salary of $175 per month which in contrast with SAUDI ARABIA per capita income per month is $2106. They are given living spaces closely to the employers. They are given dormitory style living places outside the cities commonly known as labour camps.

They either have to buy their own food or sometimes they are given subsidized food or food coupons. Employers are required to provide health and emergency health care by the government. Some of the living conditions have been to be dismal, with room given as small as 12X9 feet and as many as eight living in there. They do not even have the right to strike. News of captive workers fleeing or death of construction worker, workers protesting of due for many years or dismal condition of abandoned worker are common now. (Schuster, 2008)

Availability of required workforce

Workforce management in construction industry in SAUDI ARABIA includes all responsibilities for maintaining workforce productive and organizing for effective utilization. It includes workforce management at both at enterprise level and projects level. SAUDI ARABIA construction firm needs to ensure workplace health and safety, training and skill development along with good industrial relations. All these are to be integrated into an organization’s day to day procedures and practices along with high performance standards.

It would help to create and maintain a hazard free working environment. Company needs to stress on training and skill development and treat it as an integral component of their business strategy as every day there are changes in technology keeping updated will only help in reducing costs. It also needs to give support for cooperative industrial relations i.e. relations between management and workers. Also regard for compliance standards along with awards are to be maintained. Also laws and legislation of SAUDI ARABIA need to be maintained. (Grant, 2007)

Skill shortage

Basic skill set required in SAUDI ARABIA for most of the construction labour jobs need little or no job experience or training, related to construction. However some amount of training through apprenticeships along with basic education is always desired. Ability to work indoor in closed spaces to working outdoors on roof tops is required. Elementary education is needed for reading signs, label and instructions for material use and read warning for hazardous places.

Most of the skills are learnt on the job from more experienced workers and typically requires 2-3 years to learn the most of the skill set. Some of the basic construction skills include blueprint reading and understanding, correct use of tools and equipment, and basic knowledge of safety and health. Other skills require knowledge of building construction, heavy/highway construction and environmental cleanup.

Basic knowledge for handling toxic chemicals along with basic procedure for working in hazardous environment is required. It is required for the laborers to have good manual dexterity, good hand-eye coordination, balance and no fear for heights. However, SAUDI ARABIA construction companies take labors that are mostly unskilled and uneducated from Southeast Asian countries. (Grant, 2007)

Migrant workforce

As discussed earlier availability of required workforce is obtained from countries like India, Sri-Lanka and Bangladesh. As per rules in SAUDI ARABIA, only SAUDI ARABIA citizens can give employment to expatriate labors for job agreement. SAUDI ARABIA relies mostly on temporary foreign workers from labour-exporting nations which are increasing due to construction boom. During the period of 2006 and 2007, the SAUDI ARABIA in need to feed the requirement of increasing need of construction industry, followed persuasive bilateral cooperation with labour exporting nations by signing Memorandum of Understanding with several South Asian countries like India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China, Thailand and the Philippines. This was done to solve the problem of illegal immigrants.

With the boom in the construction, industry there is severe shortage of skilled workers as well as labors. As per study conducted by University of Wollongong, Dubai (UOWD) that serious shortage in qualified construction professionals is threatening SAUDI ARABIA’s booming construction and real estate business. This is happening even after offering higher salaries. As per recruitment consultancy Macdonald & Company, salaries and additional perks rose by 22 percent in real estate in the year 2007. (Schuster, 2008)

Contribution of migrant workers

Also with the introduction of Greener Building standards in Saudi Arabia, construction companies are needed more labors and skilled staff. The new regulation gives the guidelines specifying that all the buildings should meet the international green building standards. So in order to meet the demands the construction companies need to increase their recruitment activities. As the regulations are implemented the construction companies will struggle to meet the delivery deadlines. As the current labour and the sub-contractors employed are not skilled enough to meet the regulations, it will not be advisable to continue construction. (Grant, 2007)

Strategies and source to fill up

Therefore, for construction companies need strategies to fill the ever-increasing gaps in recruitment. There are many reasons for this lack of skilled workers. One of them is poor regard for human right or absolutely no human right, by the authorities. Also construction booming in countries like India, Philippines and Malaysia is also put skilled staff from going to SAUDI ARABIA as it is natural expatriates to live in their native countries.

More over countries like SAUDI ARABIA has been dependent long on cheap labors some even resorting to system like bonded labors or slavery like practices. It is only recently that few laws have been enacted to look into the causes of plight of expatriate workers but by then most of the damage is done. One of the right steps taken by SAUDI ARABIA is by signing MOU’s with nations like India, Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

China could me new market from where laborers can be sought. SAUDI ARABIA should also look after the proposal for making basic minimum wages for expatriate labors in construction. Construction companies should go for training themselves and get construction professionals of their desired standard as training existing staff will far easier than recruit new employees and train them. This will help them execute projects to global standards. They also need to recruit employs with basic education at least 10+2 and provide training and skill development. In addition, disadvantaged or unemployed can be put back to work.

Performance in migrant workers

As discussed earlier, migrant workforce consists for about shortage 95 percent of the workforces working in SAUDI ARABIA from nearly 202 countries. Most of the migrant workers are taken only to be subcontracted to other companies for short term or long term assignments. The SAUDI ARABIA’s Labour Law No. 8 of 1980 permits only SAUDI ARABIA citizens under license by the Ministry of Labour to sponsor or hire expatriate workers. Companies pay a request fee of 200 dirhams (AED) ($55) and an employment visa issuance fee of 1,000 AED ($273). Alongside, they are required to give air tickets to return home, but forbid them to take employment fee from them. (Schuster, 2008)

In 2005 production of crude oil accounted for 35.4 percent GDP, growing at 21 percent while other sectors mostly expatriate labour dependent grew at 11 percent. So the growth of SAUDI ARABIA is closely related to contribution of migrant workers. Construction industry is the most boom industry in SAUDI ARABIA, leading in economic growth with 10 percent. Construction industry accounts 8 percent of GDP. If considered migrant workers as a single community, it would not be incorrect to say that it is one the most contributing factor in SAUDI ARABIA’s economy. Even after these staggering figures, expatriates are the most neglected ones in the country. (Grant, 2007)

Migrant workers problem

Even after few enacted labour laws by there is large-scale exploitation. Few of them are being already discussed. Labour laws of SAUDI ARABIA are flouted at will. Take an example law forbids employers collecting any fees, but instead they ask migrants to pay their visa and travel fees. Another most common complaint is the withholding of wages or salaries by employers. These have a serious impact as they are unable to buy food and ration, done for the purpose so that the worker doesn’t run away. Famous incident of September 19, 2005, when workers of Al Hamed Development and Construction staged protests in the SAUDI ARABIA, is well known. Low wages and with holding of passport by employers is also common. (Grant, 2007)

SAUDI ARABIA and labour exporting countries should meet and so something for the plight of the migrant workers in Construction Industry. Starting they can reduce fees which will help agent charging labour exorbitant amounts and friendlier visa laws. Perhaps some migrant specific laws to help them and good monitoring policy would help both the migrants as well as solve the problem of skill shortage. (Grant, 2007)

Literature Discussion

It can well be stated that corporate strategy and marketing in the context of the impact of labour force and it effects on economy in today’s world are an extremely important factor for any individual or business establishment. This is where industry like corporate strategy and marketing comes into play. These companies offer various modes of international commerce and it effects on supply chain management based primarily on the developments of technological advances.

They negotiate the technological developments well enough to formulate systems that would help the client to monitor the needful areas. The basic concept of the company regarding their market structure is to become the leading supplier of commerce, it affects, impact of SAUDI ARABIA construction workforce and skills shortages and the impacts of expatriate labour & construction industry.

Alongside, it is the mission to become the best possible that would be responsible to employ every arrangements of security that would be at par with the satisfaction limit of the most demanding customer. Similarly, corporate strategy and marketing holds its belief to become the most developed sector in the perimeter of financial design. Alongside, the industry wants to become the leader in the area of installation and support of integrated systems with a commitment to total customer/supporter satisfaction. Broadly speaking the industry’s concept of business is based on these firmly stated principals.

Furthermore, it can well be said that the purpose of this literature review is to provide evidence of prior research managed in regard to sales and management strategy relating to the movement of commerce and it effects on management market segment amidst consumers. This is to assist the researcher in informative matters for understanding positive and negative aspects to the use of international finance and business from the perspective of the potential consumers.

It also provides aspects of SAUDI ARABIA construction workforce and skills shortages and the impacts of expatriate labour & construction industry and its use including probable charges, installation, maintenance and up gradations whether in the hands of manufacturers, retailers or wholesalers. This exploration of literature provides a broader examination of each of the aspects that concern impact of SAUDI ARABIA construction workforce and skills shortages and the impacts of expatriate labour & construction industry and it effects on economy.

The SAUDI ARABIA strategic location in the Gulf of Persia in the west and Strait of Hormuz on the east had made it a splendid trading centre since ancient times. The culturally rich and great Persian Empire has had a great influence in SAUDI ARABIA. The SAUDI ARABIA is surrounded by Two very rich countries The Bahrain & the Oman.

The first oil well in well in the Middle East was explored in 1908 in the foothills of Zargos at Masjid Sole yam in Iran. It was a great break through for the Gulf region.SAUDI ARABIA falls in the Gulf region, thus it also enjoyed the exploration of Oil in this region. The foot hills of Zargos in Iran and the Persian Gulf coastline with some deposits off shore, where all the thick caps of salt or shale and marl have trapped oil and gas underground.

The Oil boom came in the late seventies, and trading in Gold made SAUDI ARABIA a rich and prosperous nation.

Abu Dubai, Dubai and Sharjah became expanding in infrastructure development. The construction industry also started to grow very fast. The growth in the eighties and nineties were extremely fast and many skilled and unskilled labourers entered SAUDI ARABIA. The unskilled expatriate work force from Asian countries came in hordes to work there. The pay for unskilled labourers in SAUDI ARABIA was lucrative for Asian workers, due to the foreign exchange earnings are four to five times what they earn in their home country.

The labour force with multilingual, religion, ethnic and diversified cultures has made the SAUDI ARABIA their working capital and the SAUDI ARABIA became cosmopolitan in nature with large foreign workers presence. The SAUDI ARABIA government had to handle a large labour force present in their country. The labour import from foreign lands has a big chain of organized people consisting of labour contractors , medium and large size recruitment agencies and organized gangsters who control the large number of people working at the sites of construction sites The large companies from overseas and SAUDI ARABIA based companies, along with SAUDI ARABIA government agencies give construction jobs tenders.

Most of the contracts are time bound and has to be completed within specified time. The labour work force from overseas consists of people from age groups of twenties to forties.These expatriate work force may or may not carry their families with them, where they are working , due to space and expenditure issues. The demand for space to stay, eat, sleep, relax may be provided by their employers There may be other human needs such as sexual demand.

So the flesh trade may be provided by brothels from countries where these overseas workers originate. The flesh trade may be operational in large scale to carter to the large work force. This may partly affect the SAUDI ARABIA government agencies to take protective measures. To check the health of overseas workers, there may or may not be schemes to check healthy workers performing effective duties. The SAUDI ARABIA government agencies must also check healthy brothels running the flesh trade. There must be license given to the brothels to sell sex, to workers who are from overseas. Healthy workers mean better performance and better output.

The Islamic laws prevailing in SAUDI ARABIA may or may not permit such practice as legal identity to prostitution. Due to this illegal sex, trade may be thriving in SAUDI ARABIA controlled by organized gangsters. This is an unhealthy sign for a small country, where organized gangsters control labour work force, and illegal sex trade. The

Another problem with the overseas labour work force working in the construction sites is the labour laws of the country may or may not be strictly followed strictly.

The organized gangsters help is used by the labour contractors to smuggle illegal work force with illegal documents. The overseas work force may be exploited beyond limits. The fantastic landscape, which we see today in SAUDI ARABIA, which we see today, is due to the major contribution of this large overseas work force The SAUDI ARABIA local population is not sufficient – physically, mentally and technically to produce the enormous technical marvels created in SAUDI ARABIA.

With the wealth of Oil the SAUDI ARABIA, government has wisely invested in infrastructure development. The developed infrastructure needs to be maintained in perfect conditions. This area is to be addressed in a typical long-term functional goal. To address this problem the companies who had built these mechanical marvels must also be involved in a long-term maintenance contracts.

To access any obstacles which is associated with communication, differences in training, culture and industrial set up, SAUDI ARABIA government must have a mandatory obligation with all large companies and organizations, who are registered ETP contractors operating in SAUDI ARABIA territory. To run an industrial training camps, with the following agenda.

All overseas expatriate workers must compulsorily attend two weeks training program.

1. Communication – to learn the local and English workable language.
2. Culture — to learn basic local culture and hygiene and local basic laws.
3. Industrial labour laws – basic labour of the country with vigilance procedures.

The overseas expatriate workers would like to come back to work in SAUDI ARABIA again, if they find their labour is respected by not only paying for their labour, but also train them up for better performance and mixing with the local culture , language and human development attitude induced by the government of the country. The strong vigilance set up to stop exploiting by gangsters and organized labour contractors syndicate. The SAUDI ARABIA government along with all infrastructure construction related business community need to focus on the overseas expatriate work force problems. They can be divided into two folds, primarily as the local work force cannot fulfil SAUDI ARABIA construction industry work force requirements, hence the overseas migrant workers is a compulsion.

First fold action is to strictly regulate labour laws as per International Standards and strictly adhere to it by implementing them. The local & overseas community of business people should also be brought to confidence to follow strictly laws of the country. The mafia and gangsters , labour brokers gangster syndicate should be taken to task or rather they must be indirectly used to counter labour law implementation to work in co-operation with labour law implementation agencies The flesh trade legislation law to cater to the human needs of the with health check up facilities to all prostitutes operating in SAUDI ARABIA.

Second fold action is to regulate and implement Training centres with sponsorships from infrastructure development civil construction companies operating in SAUDI ARABIA. All overseas expatriate workers as soon as they enter into SAUDI ARABIA with the job permit, they must undergo training on local & English workable languages for approximately two weeks. They must also study basic hygiene, local culture and customs, Laws based on labour law of SAUDI ARABIA and vigilance back up laws for protection of overseas labourers working in construction industry.

In this very training centre, these overseas expatriate workers must be taught to respect their work, the local culture and language, so that they will be reciprocated with respect to work with their head high in SAUDI ARABIA. The overseas expatriate workers are never motivated, induced respect of labour, human touch to say that we thank you for your contribution not only by money, but also by love and respect. If this training programme is adopted in large scale, there may be a continuous flow of overseas work force with the trust, respect and love.

The absolute commercial exploitation of overseas work force by organised crime syndicate.

Instigated by labour contractors and brokers needs to be checked in large scale.All mafia crime syndicates based in Dubai must be given ultimatum or thrown out of the country, confiscating their ill gotten wealth by means of human trade sales similar to slaves trade ,drugs sales , illegal arms trade sales, terror funding, man slaughter through contract killings. These notorious people must be treated as per law of the country or they need to be eliminated. SAUDI ARABIA may be sheltering such people to control labour work force by showing barrel of a gun, and force overseas workers to work out of fear with lesser wages or pay.

This will effect the development of SAUDI ARABIA on long term basis because labour can be bought vide wealth, but fear created in the minds of the overseas expatriate workers force will damage the good will of the nation as a whole. As if we are going back to the dark ages when small groups of war mongering Arabs were among themselves and destroying the heritage and culture of the Arab society as a whole.We need to look fast forward for the betterment of SAUDI ARABIA nation as a healthy , wealthy and prosperous nation of SAUDI ARABIA.

The skill shortage may slow down the development of SAUDI ARABIA; however, we have to study, whether it is a long term or short term. The SAUDI ARABIA government should strictly analyse this prospect to cater the already built up infrastructure.The sophisticated or simple structures, it needs to run on permanent basis, so that the country prosper.We have identified the purpose of changes.

In the individual capacity of the overseas work force, the proper training facilities imparted by jointly SAUDI ARABIA government with the sponsorship of the infrastructure development private companies from overseas and local is of prime importance. The individual overseas work force is motivated and brought into confidence by the local government as well as respective companies, who are employing them. The funding of these training programmes should be shared fifty-fifty between SAUDI ARABIA government and the employing companies.

The increase in oil prices has a greater effect on inflation.The consumer prices have increased considerably. The inflation has further weakened the American dollar , thus the gulf currencies are also effected in turn.The prices increased of international commodities , had indirectly hit the gulf economy, SAUDI ARABIA is no exception. Due to this rise in prices, the economy of SAUDI ARABIA had been grossly affected. The building materials, as well as skilled and unskilled labour, are in short supply. The construction costs in the SAUDI ARABIA have risen by around thirty per cent in the recent years.

The SAUDI ARABIA government rose to this effect by lifting duties of cement and steel duties in order to reduce price increase trend.The price increase and dollar weakening directly hit the value of the SAUDI ARABIA expatriate workers income , that they were able to remit funds to their home countries less amount. The construction labour force becomes de-motivated by this payment pattern. The specific advantage to the expatriate labour force already in the SAUDI ARABIA or those who intend to work there become less attractive.A construction worker from India expects four times their pay which they earn in India , provided they are employed in SAUDI ARABIA.

This trend is now reduced to forty percent. The expatriate workers from sub continent of Asia and India specially remit a sizeable proportion of their salaries income back to their native countries. This is the special reason they take up jobs in SAUDI ARABIA construction industries, so that significant part of their income or salary can be, remitted back home to their respective countries.The recipient home countries in flow of foreign direct investment largely depends on the remittances from abroad. For example, India earns approximately USD thirty billions of foreign exchange remittances from non-resident Indians around round the globe.

Asian labour force will discontinue to enter SAUDI ARABIA, because major Asian labour to head for:

SAUDI ARABIA is from India. India is in for an economic growth, and the India own home demand for labour to work in construction industry increased in leaps and bounds. The Indian Government forecasts an expenditure of USD FIVE HUNDRED BILLION on infrastructure projects in the next five years. The increase in demand for labour will push up wages for the labour.It becomes more sensible to work in the home turf than leave overseas.

It is more attractive to stay at home and work with higher wages.

The Asian Governments like Bangladesh, India and Philippines have demanded from the SAUDI ARABIA government for fair wages to be given to their citizens as per laws of the country. Minimum wages for its unskilled workers in the Gulf region, the law prohibits unskilled workers to labour to work in the gulf region, if the minimum wages fixed by the government is not followed to strictly. Due to inflation, there is a pressure to fix minimum wages, especially at the lower end of the pay scale. The minimum wages system will add to the cost of the construction, thus it will have an adverse effect on the construction business at SAUDI ARABIA.

If the gulf construction companies governments are serious about diversifying their economies away from oil , it is to be done on the back of the of the indigenous labour.There must be an equal pay structure for overseas expatriate worker and locals , there should not be any discrepancy whatsoever it may be. There is a growing labour scarcity. The local workers opt to work in public sector where pay and benefits are good and the environment is not as tough as private sector. But the gulf construction companies are aware that their local structure of their economies are not sustainable , the states cannot pay to employ the increasing number of local job seekers , when the private sector cannot rely on expatriate labour work force forever.

The crisis is short termed , the objectives of the investors would not change , and they would not shift their business to a newer economic zones.The SAUDI ARABIA government will have to set up long term and short term goals to set things right. To shift the development to a new location would also demand the labour, whether it is affordable or not and commercially feasible proposition or not is to be studied in depth.

The population growth , education , health , countries development in health , energy , industrial growth , food , agriculture and essential development work needs to be focused. There is a growing concern from the investors as well as gulf Construction Company’s future. There is an urgent need to explore deep-sea oceanography research to find out whether underneath the seabed food and energy recourses are exportable. A scientific exploration is of utmost importance to begin the search from now on wards.

Given the situation of SAUDI ARABIA, it is better to control the existing problem with proper labour maintenance and motivational skills. According to Deborah King, collaborative adult learning is important to help institutions in designing and implementing professional development procedures to support learning and progress of the administrators. She says that the principles and supers of the institutions have realized a need for developing a wider knowledge base of the curriculum to achieve their goals.

Their instructional leadership capabilities need to be developed and professional learning groups must be encouraged. For the improvement of institutions, the leaders have to develop skills for collecting and using data from various sources. As she mentions, “Instructional leaders make creative use of all resources – people, time, and money – to support school improvements.” (King, 2002)

According to Ben Bissell, educational institutions must create an environment so that continual changes are viewed as a positive step for creating success and improving learning among the students. He says that a distinctive character of our successful leaders will be their capabilities of managing change on the educational front. Until and unless these educational leaders expose themselves to the changes that are going on, they will ultimately become irrelevant.

Bissell says that the speed of change is a relatively new thing for us and we no longer have enough time to think before a certain new change requires our attention. He says, “First, it is vital to realize that change is not new. The world has always been changing. What’s new is the speed of change.” (Bissell, 2002)

If the leaders are reluctant and display lack of enthusiasm to present changes it will take away success achieved by the students through their formal education. Bissell also says that there is always a resistance to a new change as they produce unexpected and unknown fear among the people. One way of overcoming this is that the leaders need to properly hear out, understand the staff members, and listen to them.

The resistance change is better since it realizes that there is nothing new about changes and only those people who can accept change will be the ultimate winner. It emphasizes that other than the things that are taught in the schools, there is also the need to understand how change can be managed and form guidelines for the success of its students and staff members. According to this theory, change is better if it is exercised and accepted slowly and gradually. It is also better since it is consistent with the changing ways of our present millennium.

This is a better model since unlike the older models, which believed that if people had to know something they would be informed about it. According to this model, the people in the organization should be responsible for their needs. This model also does not expect the staff to do according to the leaders but expects them to help the leaders understand what changes need to be done.

The first and foremost effect of change among the individuals of an institution is that they become fearful of the change, as they do not know what to expect of it. The implementation of the change is in a way shut down due to this fear. Sometimes there are misunderstandings among the leaders and staff members, which need to be clarified. Thus, this affects the leaders who in the process of understanding the staff themselves become learners, making them powerful leaders. However, dealing with change is not easy. It requires sustainable relations. “Sustainable improvement requires investment in building long-term capacity for improvement”. This proves to be most beneficial during the event of changes. (Hargreaves, 2003)

Nevertheless, sometimes the leaders themselves become angry. Unresolved anger also creates low morale among the staff and this becomes an overhead cost for the institution. Changes are always followed by stress thus, requiring everyone to take care of their need, both emotionally and physically. If we neglect them then we may get depressed for working too long and too hard. (Wilson, 2002)

To implement any new change and reduce its negative effects on the people, the leaders must first increase the flow of information among them so that the people are informed and do not resist to the change. If people have no information about a certain change, rumours will be created which can sometimes be harmful. They also should not withhold any information from the staff as it may make them feel incompetent. The staff members should also take individual responsibility to learn about the changes. When changes take place, people’s perceptions become vague, thus the leaders should make sure that the staffs properly understands the tasks and goals.

The leaders should clearly listen to the staff and set limits to the time they can give them. This will make them stick to the important points and not blabber around. Both the leaders and staff members should not bottle up their feelings and speak out so that no one gets hurt and problems are solved. As changes bring about weariness and tired people are not able to express, listen or learn self-care becomes a priority for all. Leaders and staff members should also maintain a social life outside their workplaces. (Hiatt, 2004)

In order to monitor the trends affecting our institutions and prepare the people to accept changes, the leaders should increase flow of information so that harmful rumours are not created. In order to do so new models must be developed and the leaders should make it clear to the staff that it is their responsibility to ask questions regarding things they want to learn. The leaders should frequently check that the staff members are on the same track as them and clarify any misunderstandings.

The leaders themselves need to keep their cool and not get angry as this may hamper their communication with their staff members. Everyone must practice anger management and rules should be established to stop conflicts from taking place. The leaders should make sure that the staff and students engage themselves in sports activities, reading and, if possible, travelling so that their demanding schedules do not make them boring. (Cameron, 2004)

To motivate the staff members of an institution the leader should always encourage, share information with the staff members, and never tell them that they are not responsible or mature enough to handle situations. They should be treated like adults if the leaders want them to behave like adults. In order to clearly listen to the staff, the leaders should set a time limit for them as this keeps them on track and they get to the important points within the limit. However, they should not be sarcastic when doing so. People should learn from each other how to handle conflicts and not from theoretical models.

Methodology

The research will comprise of two parts. One a survey of the Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry will be conducted. This will include studying various literatures that abounds in this area. The usage of labour is carefully analyzed. The primary purpose will be to reach the objectives of the research using theoretical means. Two, a company will be taken up and the gain the company enjoyed by employing the labour force is studied. This is carried out using a survey of the company. A short questionnaire is designed so that the managers of the company are not averse to filling it up. The data from the questionnaire is used for the purpose for real time analysis. These two together will be able to help us understand and prove the various points that rose in our objectives and reach the aim of the research undertaken.

In order to conduct a survey of the benefits of the merger and acquisition, a questionnaire has been designed. This questionnaire is given to 50 different users of the merger and acquisition. They are selected from varying companies. The answers provided to the questionnaire are then used for analysis. The questionnaire is framed adapting to the Likert’s scale and this will ensure that the answers are quantitatively converted making it easy to use statistical tools and software for the purpose. Appropriate feedback on the values is then deduced and the same is presented in the report. The survey questionnaire will also consist of two components. One, the quantitative one, which is close to, the Likert scale and the other, is the qualitative one which is more a methodology to gather the thought process of the people involved from the user side.

Literature Analysis

Various researches and reports have been studied that are connected to the area of work. These reports that are supportive and contrary to the hypothesis of the research are taken for consideration. These literatures are analyzed and the results of these analyses are recorded. Every objective listed is thus ratified with the earlier reports.

Literatures that identify appropriate metrics are also identified and these metrics are checked for their validity in the current situation. If they are valid they are identified and used for further analysis. This will also help in realizing objective listed above. Similarly, every one of the objectives is realized.

Further research is then done to check with the real time data whether these theoretical conclusions that are arrived at using the literatures are valid and right. This is tallied with the results obtained during the survey carried out in the specimen industry.

Qualitative Analysis

In order to conduct the qualitative analysis, two questions are included in the questionnaire, which would provide the required fuzzy area for the respondents to put in their thoughts. These qualitative questions need to be analysed using the qualitative methods. The responses from the people will be evaluated based on the qualitative analysis techniques that has been identified and researched upon.

The methods that are normally adopted would include analysing the generic responses, the psychological and preferential responses of the respondents. In addition to this, the qualitative analysis will also bring forward the various suggestions that originate from the respondents. These suggestions would also bring out the problems that they faced using the Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry in their day-to-day life and the ones that make it uncomfortable to work with. This will help in identifying the possible causes that could bring about a failure of the issue as well as the possible cause for the success of it.

The data collected under this process is all narrative in nature and there is no visual data that is obtained during the survey. In order to analyse the data thus collected, a thematic framework as suggested by Miles & Huberman (2002) has been employed.

Quantitative Analysis

The data collected out of the questionnaire comes in from the Likert’s scale. Using the scale the answers to the questionnaire are given an equivalent quantitative reference. After conducting the survey on the 50 selected respondents for the survey, the information is converted into quantitative information for most part of the questionnaire except the qualitative part. From this section, quantitative analysis is conducted.

This is initially done using the descriptive statistics method where the mean, median and the mode of the results are used to identify the behaviour of the group. Standard deviation and range is also used to study the overall variability of the data collected and the respondent’s attitude towards the Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry and its impact in their daily life. However, since the overall group who are using the merger and acquisition for their daily work and pleasure seem to be too high a number, it becomes imperative that a selection is made in the population.

A random sampling was done of the population that make up the users of the merger and acquisition. In order to ensure that there is an appropriate sample of the population is selected and is used for the purpose, the selection is done based on the following criteria:

1. The respondents were selected from varying age groups. The entire age group of the users was divided into four. Less than 20, 20 to 35, 35 to 50 and finally, 50 and above. The spread of the sample was ensured to be equal across this cross section of people. This was done because it was also found that there are a larger number of teenage girls and boys who make use of the merger and acquisition for their day-to-day work and entertainment. Since this appears to be a large number of people, the same was included in the sample.
2. The second classification of the people was done using their profession and business. It was found that the people who are using merger and acquisition varied with their profession and business. This was classified into two categories. One, professionals and two, non-professionals. Professionals included engineers, medical professionals, lawyers and teachers. The rest of them were considered non-professionals.

The selection of the sample from the population using the merger and acquisition was based on these criteria. A total of fifty-five respondents were selected for the purpose. Out of these fifty-five respondents, only forty-eight people responded to the questionnaires that were sent over the email to them. The responses where then scientifically analysed and the results saved in an excel spreadsheet.

In addition to this, one of the companies that are employing merger and acquisition is chosen. The impact and the experience of the people when the new technology was introduced in the company are studied. The results in terms of both gains to the company and the ease of operation are checked out. This will help the research deduce whether the technology really helped the company to gain out of the usage of merger and acquisition. These points are then put together to form the conclusion of the report, trying to reach the final decision whether the merger and acquisition content delivery models help corporate bodies to gain an edge over others when they use this technology.

This has been made use of to a great extent by the businesses. The major usage area of Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry will continue to be marketing and marketing support activity in the corporate arena.

The next major area of usage in businesses is in product support. Clients would like to know what is happening in their specific interest area. They would like to subscribe to magazines that would carry this information to them. They would only be pleased to receive information connected to their business and equipment that they are using, on a regular basis. There is a continuous and ongoing need for technology updates when the developments do take place. This is also looked at as a part of the after sales support though this might really result in further sale for the company.

The literature indicates that the businesses are interested in information that is of direct link to their business rather than spend time on some thing that might not be of consequence to them or have a remote connectivity to their business. The immediate priority will be to the problems at hand in their business and any news on the escalation or on the ebbing of the problem (Seung-Hwa Chung, 2008). RSS feeds get subscribed to these news sites. The same way, businesses indicate a strong inclination to adopt push technologies for the purpose of important information sharing.

In all these three cases, it is important to note that the information shared across the businesses or users are in the related area. The adopted technology for pushing could very well be Peer to Peer for effective information passing. Merger and acquisition is important in these cases and P2P would make it less cumbersome for the servers to handle. This would also make it faster and more reliable.

The existing research indicates these major areas of usage for Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry for the purpose is more comfortable and economical too. However, in this context, it should be clarified that in order to obtain error free results it data was evaluated and analyzed keeping in mind the shortage of labour and the availability of migrant labour force. Thus, it was observed that the development of construction industry depended on the availability of migrant labour forces.

Areas of Growth

According to the survey carried out by Forrester Corporation, the growth in the usage of Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry has been exponential. Particularly, with the introduction of Black Berry series of personal data assistants, the growth has been remarkable. Pushing the emails on to the Blackberries has made it all the more attractive. A mobile executive finds in comfortable to keep in touch with what ever is happening in his or her company even while on the move. Important messages and requests get pushed into her inbox.

Rate of growth noticed in these areas, according to the research, is as shown in the figure below. There is continuous growth with other major players in the PDA market entering into the market. Today apart from Blackberry, HP and O2 are the major players in the mobile merger and acquisition platforms (Tom Reidal, 2004). The sale volume of these products is an indicator of the nature of growth that is happening in the mobile platforms.

The second major area of growth for Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry is in technology sharing and in developing communities of practice for large knowledge sharing environments. Typically, in companies that have multiple locations of operations or large multinational corporations, the problems with knowledge sharing and information passing is acute.

This is resolved by ensuring that all relevant information is pushed to the end users inbox. For instance, standards adopted by the company could get altered due to certain issues at one location or at the head office. This information has to percolate down to all the users of the standards in all the locations. Such information needs to be pushed either through a server or over a peer-to-peer network. This will ensure swift and in time transfer of information.

The third major area of work where Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry is employed is with reference to the top management. The top management is in need of all important information and statistics of the company. It is quite common that they never make use of most of the information but when they do need one, they would like to have it. Not having this information could turn out to be quite costly for the company. That is possibly the reason, why many companies ensure that the statistics and corporate information is passed on to the top management as and when it happens. This is achieved through Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry.

Gains to the corporate establishments

Every corporate body that implements a new technology does try to identify the nature of gain that the company has obtained through it. It is only common that the corporate body uses certain Key performance indexes to identify the extent of gain that has resulted out of the implementation of any new system. In the case of the implementation of P2P push technologies for marketing, service, knowledge and standards sharing in addition to top management push service, similar gains can be worked out.

Some of the KPI’s that are identified for the purpose include measures of time in related areas and financial gain in the same areas. For instance, in a company that had implemented push in customer relationship management, it is only right to check the following relevant KPI’s. Time taken for responding to a client request for quote, time taken for responding to a general query, time taken for confirming an order, number of customers handled by a sales persons, total outstanding receivables, receivables collected every week could all be some of the common and measurable KPI’s to know the performance of the implemented project.

Stages in Implementation

Implementing the Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry should ideally go through the following stages to gain maximum out of the technology and the project.

1. A process for implementation of the project is first finalised. This would help in going through the entire work more professionally. The process can be a simple waterfall or a little complex agile or any other that suits the company. It has been repeatedly proved that agile has its advantages in areas were there is an understanding by the users of the implementation process and on the information technology that is going to be implemented. They need not know how the technology works or how it has to be implemented; awareness would ensure that the agile process is successful. This is so because most of the users are well versed in their own sphere of work. To have them in the implementation team would ensure not only ownership of the project but also share their knowledge to ensure success of the entire work.
2. The current status of the processes and the values of the monitored KPI’s are identified at this stage. This will give the pre-implementation KPI values, which can be compared with the values post implementation to study the performance of the project.
3. Once the process is finalised, the process is taken forward. The project is fit into the requirements of the company after doing a complete requirement analysis. This can be carried out by an analyst who would identify all the needs of the company and then ensure that the process is adhered to. He will also ensure that the product and technology understanding is equally good.
4. Implementing the system is done after this clear understanding of the requirements of the company is done.
5. The operational staffs that are involved in the process are adequately trained to ensure that the company gains out of the entire project. Every one of the users should know how to make use of the product to its maximum. Educating the user is a very important aspect of the entire process.
6. Review of the performance has to be done soon afterwards to identify whether the targets for the project have been met. This would also identify whether the company’s money has been spent worthily.

Metrics For Performance Monitoring

Depending upon the module where the Merger and acquisition has been implemented, the metrics may be identified. Typical metrics should be on the time consumption, resources used including people and money should form the major metrics. This will directly measure the gain that the company has reaped in the work that has been carried out.

Pilot Survey

1. Based on our discussions, the following points were brought up by the user as the major requirements from his or her point of view. These points are incorporated in the questionnaire when the same is being formulated. In order to identify the essential points that make up the requirements and perceived satisfaction of the customer, both the customer perception as well as the insurance company’s needs have to be checked. Therefore, the opinion on the information has been obtained from both the insurance company staff as well as from some of the customers before formulating the questionnaire.
2. This was taken up as a prototype of the actual survey that has to be carried out later. This is primarily to identify the needs and what is to be included in the survey. The sample survey will be carried out with a select group of people (Thomas R Black 1999). The pilot survey will be conducted on a random sampling of customers and their feedback will be obtained on the survey questionnaire designed. An analysis will be carried out on the pilot survey results.
3. This will help in identifying whether the survey questionnaire will deliver the results that are sought after. Any changes required in the questionnaire will be subsequently made so that the final survey is up to the expectations and any gap in the questionnaire is also closed. For our purpose, a pilot was conducted with five people to ensure that the questionnaire elicits the right response from the people and it does not affect the sentiments of the people nor does it go out of target.

Survey Methodology

1. The survey will cover only a sample number of people of the total population of the customers for the merger and acquisition. The probable customers and target audience who might be interested in buying such technologies were not specifically covered. This would mean that the entire population has to be included in the survey. Therefore, these were eliminated and only those people who already own and using merger and acquisition based devices alone were used and they were included in the selection process.
2. The population in the interested location who are of the required age should be target for the survey (Robert Groves, Floyd Fowler, et al. 2004). Since the population is large, a small sample should be taken for the purpose of the survey. The sample should be a clear representation of the population on which the survey is to be conducted. Since a random sampling might not fully provide the complete picture of the population, a carefully planned selection has to be done on the population.
3. A stratified random sampling survey has to be conducted. This would mean that the entire population is broken down into different groups. The groups are broken down in the same manners as was explained earlier. They are broken down based on their age and profession. Along with this, a universal separator the gender is also a major grouping factor. Every one of these variables has been used for categorising the groups (Roger Sapsford & Victor Jupp 2006). With in these groups, the sample group is randomly selected for administering the instrument.
4. In this case, the sample size is decided based on the large population that has to be addressed. In this case, the sample size will be less than 1% of the total population that are already customers or about 5% of the total customer base any of the merger and acquisition companies might have. The small percentage is forced because of the large size of the target population. This sample size itself will cover over 50 respondents for the entire survey, which is of reasonable size taking into consideration the nature of survey that is being conducted. However, for the validity of the survey such a large respondent base is taken for the research work.
5. In order to take the survey with such a large respondent base effectively, an email-based survey has been planned. According to this, a sample lot of emails of the respondents will be collected. This will comprise of all the groups equally divided among them and their email addresses will also be collected. They will be sent a purpose email explaining to them what is the purpose of the survey and in which way their response will help the service providing company to provide a better service to them.
6. This is explained in a letter and their confirmation for participating in the survey will be sought. Such emails were sent to 40% more respondents so that any dropouts will be taken care of. This implies that the total number of people who will be sent the initial screening mailer will be 75 people. Confirmation mails will be taken from them and then the actual questionnaire will be mailed to them.
7. From the pilot survey the questionnaire’s validity was adjudged. From the sample lot of 75 people a final sampling group consisting of 48 people were chosen and the questionnaire was administered. The questionnaire is planned to ensure that the respondent marks it intelligently. The following standard practices were adopted while framing the questionnaire.

Data collection and Analysis Review

1. Data collected during the survey will be quantitative in nature for most part of the questions since the questions though are fuzzy, make use of the Likert’s scale to convert the values into fixed numbers. The primary data that is obtained from the survey will be compared with the secondary data that various other researchers have collected and statistical information that is available with other societies. During analysis both these sets of data will be optimally employed for the purpose.
2. However, from the questionnaire there will be both qualitative answers and quantitative answers to the questions. The qualitative analysis will be performed on the question that would bring about a qualitative answer (Andrea Milinki 1999) from the respondent. The eight quantitative questions will be taken up for quantitative analysis (Peter M Nardi 2002). These will be grouped according to their system of questionnaire framing and the same will be used to plot graphs.

This will help in analysing the overall response of the respondents. In order to avoid bias among the respondents and to ensure that there is truthfulness in their response, the questions have been framed in such a way that every group of questions is really spread across the questionnaire in a random manner. This will ensure that the respondent does not over-react to his recent experiences but provides at the same time a comprehensive picture of his overall experience.

Methodology of Data Collection

The questionnaire was distributed to the respondents and was then collected back from them after getting their unbiased opinion. There was no specific influencing done to fill the forms from the surveying team. This would ensure that the neutrality would be maintained. A random selection of respondents was done but with clear stratums fixed to add stress to every one of the specific groups. The choice of people was uniformly distributed across all types of stakeholders.

The stake holders were divided into owners who were the people who own the entire implementation of the project in their company or department, end users who were using it and do not have any specific motive for or against the project and finally the management which was investing the money into the project and expected the returns out of it. The choice of the respondents was equally distributed across these three groups of people and they were then asked to respond to the questionnaire. This ensured that the skew if it existed would get adequately neutralized.

Data Presentation

The data collected using the Likert’s scale was subjected to a quantitative analysis. The usage of Merger and acquisition in the day-to-day affairs of the respondents and the effectiveness of the usage are taken into consideration. The responses were tabulated and the data was subjected to analysis. A trend analysis of the data for each group has been analyzed. The complete analysis is done in line with the standard quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques.

Analysis of the study

Quantitative Analysis

The first eight questions in the questionnaire elicited a quantitative response from the respondents. The Likert Scale had converted the thoughts of the respondents into quantitative figures that will help in subjecting the survey to a statistical analysis.

The quantitative values obtained in the survey have been listed in the annexure II. The results are then plotted into graphs for easier analysis. The grouping of the questions has been carried out. And every group of questions has been separately plotted. A trend diagram for the entire group of questions is also plotted. This indicates the way the people are responding is noted.

The graph below indicates the response obtained for performance questions.

The trend line indicates that there is an overall above mean response from the respondents indicating favourable response. Here, 7.5 is the neutral response point.

The overall response for these questions is clearly over the nominal level. This indicates the users, the project managers and the management feel that the performance of the Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry is certainly good. They have realized the benefit of the technology and that there are a certain gain employing it in the company.

However, the graph also indicates that the project managers are not feeling as high about its performance as the management does! This could be because the project managers generally have higher expectations. Also the project managers since they are close to the implementation exercise are also knowledgeable about the lacunas in the performance or in the product. This will make them rate the performance more clearly. But the management point of view could be more financial and on the overall gain in the company. This is reflected in the improving KPI’s. Naturally, if these appear satisfactory, management might feel comfortable. They may not be really aware of what is happening behind the screens in the project implementation.

Similarly, the end user also shows a larger satisfaction level when compared to the project managers and even the management. For them, if it optimizes their work, they should be feeling happy about the whole project. This is also clearly reflected in the next graph, which shows the personal gain that the respondents have obtained due its implementation.

As the graph indicates, the end users have gained a lot in terms of time and ease of work with Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry. They were getting prompts and messages on the move and that ensured they had the right kind of information to do their job quickly and seamlessly. This could be the reason why they had responded positively in both the cases and this has resulted in a better support to the merger and acquisition from this set of people, the end users.

However, as to personal gains by the project owners or by the management seems pretty moderated though not very supportive. It is not expected that their work will be unduly affected. It is the people at the shop floor or in the market place who will be greatly advantaged by implementing the system. However, the rest of the team, the project owners and the management will realize the benefit because of the more efficient work that the field personnel produce.

As to the opinion questions, every one of the groups have responded positively and have supported the success of their Merger and acquisition implementation. There is no difference of opinion here. The difference is only in the depth of their satisfaction. It is interesting to note that the management has supported the cause much more than the rest of the group and so are the project owners. They have also more commitment to the project and the technology and seem to carry the torch further.

This could happen because of the fact that one, the project owners are the people who have brought it into the company and they are influenced by their own success. It is therefore, important for the owners to be known as successful. This is so the case with the management too. This factor could have also influenced the response of the respondents to the questionnaire. This skew in the responses cannot be offset by the quantitative figures. However, this needs to be kept in mind. The real response in this case is that of the end users who have clearly indicated their support to the technology and its implementation.

The overall result of the quantitative analysis is a pointer to the thinking that is happening in the market place. The implementation team comprising of the project owners and the end users do feel strongly about the disadvantages of Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry implementation in their content delivery and customer service areas. The management also sees a push to this extent. However, in all of their cases, it is not an overpowering decision, but one that is close to neutral stand. The people are indicating that they are inclined to say yes to it more and there is hardly anyone who says no to the ills of Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry implementations. The benefits reaped out of the new technology are also positive.

Qualitative Analysis

The response to the qualitative section of the questionnaire is very similar for all types of respondents. Most of them have implemented the merger and acquisition in their customer relationship management systems. This is possibly one of the areas where the customers are able to realize an immediate problem from the implementation of the Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry.

This also explains why most of the sales persons are the people who are carrying the Black berries and not the rest of the professionals. This also implies that the data available with the users decide on a double-quick basis in case of customer relationship management. Most of the companies are also interested in ensuring that the customer relationship is more closely maintained than the rest of the departments. While nearly 70% of the respondents indicated that they are using the system for customer relationship management and that they find it more helpful there, the rest of them indicate using the same for content management. Customer complaints and responding to the customer complaints seem to be the major job that these people are attacking.

In either of the case it is clear that the customer centric approach is what the companies are taking and it might be the immediate priority for the management. Realizing an ongoing and similar advantage in other departments of the company is also possible though not visualized by most of the managements or by their managers.

The second question has elicited almost one hundred percent of positive answers though the degree did vary in as much as 30% of the respondents. Most of them felt that the aspect of Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry is a differentiator and a positive differentiator at that. This would help according to them to strengthen ‘ties’ with ones client. Therefore, it is only important that the companies adapt to this system for their betterment and future growth and not for any other purpose. Thirty percent of the people said that they also feel the same way but not with as much force as the rest of them did. They are not against it but only the degree up to which they are for it is different.

Conclusion & Recommendation

Presently there is a huge shortage of structural and civil engineers, project managers, safety managers, on-site supervisors and tradesman, like welders and fitters. More effort must be made in order to plan better work force and various human resource needs of the construction companies. The industry should also engage their retired tradesman to train and instruct imparting real life experiences to both the skilled and unskilled labour.

Shortages of labour and rising material cost are responsible for major construction delays and project cancellation in the Middle East. Until and unless the contractors increase their capacity and resources, they will not be able to attract large project, hampering their own growth and their economy’s expansion plans. Therefore, there might be an outside chance, though unlikely, that the development would suffer due to this crisis and the investors may loose interest in the region and shift to a newer economic region nearby. However, these appear inconclusive to prove now. (Schuster, 2008)

At the same context, it is obvious that to counter the present problems in the context of Causes of delay in Construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on construction industry it is recommended to gear up the solution process with the help of organisational skills and leadership motivation strategies. However, there are ample scopes for further researches on the said areas.

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