Construction Boom in Gulf Augurs Well for IT Solutions

JEDDAH, 16 December 2007 -- As construction industry in the Gulf goes full swing with billions of dollars being pumped, engineering companies are seeking the best IT solutions to help keep track of all paperwork involved in the process, the company said in a statement recently.

In Saudi Arabia alone, it is estimated that the size of the construction market Size will exceed SR500 billion by 2010. The architectural consulting market in the Kingdom is valued around SR200 million annually. Experts estimate the growth rate to reach 150 percent over the next three years.

The construction sector in Dubai is considered one of the key sources of employment, income and growth for Dubai. The sector contributed 12.2 percent to Dubai's non-oil GDP in 2004. The construction sector GDP increased by 166 percent in the 2000-2004 period and has grown with an annual average growth rate of 27.7 percent during the same period, reflecting the construction boom being witnessed in the emirate. The construction sector's GDP is expected to reach AED15,985 million in 2005.

In the past few years, Laserfiche software for document management has been sought out by many in the building industry who use it for archiving, retrieving and distributing documents and digital assets.

One of the most popular examples is Saudi OgerSaudi OgerLoading..., which is considered as one of the GCC's largest organizations for construction and engineering. Many contracts related to buildings and royal construction sare handled by Saudi OgerSaudi OgerLoading..., with some 30,000 employees in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi OgerSaudi OgerLoading... initiated a DMS request in 2000 and began to analyze various products. By the end of their analysis, they chose Laserfiche to be implemented in their company. All the different departments of Saudi OgerSaudi OgerLoading... had large amounts of physical and electronic documents that were taking too much time to access.

Integrated solutions for business drew the DMS design to run smarter, according to organization structure. All departments have their own Laserfiche database and their own data volumes. For that reason, they selected Laserfiche Enterprise with the integration between their ERP and form workflow system to Laserfiche. This Integration is also done by ISB to automate the whole process.

In general, Laserfiche helps builders replace bulky file cabinets with servers that hold entire project files in a fraction of the space. WebLink, Laserfiche's secure web-publishing tool distributes information while keeping it safe, securely delivering documents to the people who need them via intranet or the internet. One installation on the customer's web server delivers easy rollout. WebLink is highly customizable to provide document access that is consistent with the look and feel of your website. Therefore, everything from the first planning and zoning approvals to the deed transfers, construction contracts and regulatory paperwork are available at the click of a mouse from any computer with Internet access.

Real Estate Designers offers totally innovative solutions for your software development, Internet programming, real estate web design and hosting needs. Our service includes domain name registration and real estate web design. Real Estate Designers provides the complete solution including design, application development and marketing.

source: zawya.com