Al-Falak envisions real estate boom in Saudi Arabia

The programme, held at the company's corporate headquarters in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, sought to leverage the advantages of the software in maximising efficiencies and productivity gains for real estate organisations in the Middle East.

"The property development sector in Saudi Arabia is thriving and bigger construction projects are on the drawing board. This has raised the expectations of both owners and tenants. But the interaction between the two; the management and maintenance of the properties; and detailed accounting procedures are exceedingly complex and time consuming. Many organizations face the challenge of processing transactions and reporting across their real estate portfolios in an efficient and timely manner. Basic tasks - such as tenant billings - that have traditionally been processed in a decentralized environment can be extremely time-consuming. This decentralized processing can also lead to communication barriers between corporate offices and property sites," explained Ahmed Ali Ashadawi, President and CEO, Al-Falak.

"Such delays can increase operational costs, as well as dull the competitive edge of an organisation. While, the choice to implement EnterpriseOne Real Estate Module would be the first step to ameliorating the situation; optimum benefits can only be derived from effective implementation. This is where training plays such an important role. Al-Falak's decision to organise this training programme is part of the company's commitment to its large client base in the Middle East real estate sector. The objective is to maximise benefits for existing clients, as well as deliver information to potential clients in search for the right solution for their real estate management," said Ashadawi.

PeopleSoft's EnterpriseOne Real Estate Module offers a highly scalable, web-based processing engine with a high degree of functionality that can be used to enhance productivity and promote collaboration among employees, tenants, and owners. Using any web browser, from any location in the world, at any time of day or night, the software enables real estate professionals and owners to access critical real estate information in real time from a single database in a centralized environment.

Al-Falak's training programme sought to detail the processes in the software that would economically resolve operational inefficiencies in diverse activities such as advanced retail CAM (Client assistance Memo) billings, retail sales forecasts, occupancy reporting, FASB 13 (Accounting for lease) entries, late fees and processing cash receipts. The training highlighted processes involved in automation of all tenant CAM, percentage rent, CPI or late fee billings, as well as ensuring accuracy of calculations.

The training also detailed procedures for absorption of massive growth in portfolio size while incurring minimal increases in overhead costs; deployment of roles-based portals and web applications to encourage remote processing in a single database and centralized environment; and reduction in processing time for transactional processing and real estate reporting.

Besides Al-Falak's existing and potential clients, the staff of the company also attended the training programme, which served as a skill enhancement session for the employees. The company will be implementing the EnterpriseOne Real Estate Module within its corporate structure, thus complimenting the existing PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne Enterprise Resource Planning module in use.

"With over ten years in partnership with JD Edwards-PeopleSoft, Al-Falak has the in-depth experience to help clients implement the EnterpriseOne Real Estate Module. This training is part of a detailed programme that the company has put into place to enable maximum return on investment for its clients," said Ashadawi.