Business

Saudi Arabia among top 10 globally in business skills: Coursera report 2022

Saudi Arabia ranks among the world’s top 10 nations for its workforce’s overall business skills, according to US-based massive open online course provider Coursera’s latest Global Skills Report.
The Global Skills Report draws data from 100 million learners in more than 100 countries who have used Coursera to develop a new skill during the past year.
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While the Kingdom has improved its overall business skills proficiency ranking one spot from 11th to the 10th position globally, proficiency in technology and data science can be further improved, the report points out, especially to meet the goals of the digital transformation outlined in the Saudi Vision 2030.
Learners in the Kingdom demonstrated 91 percent business skills proficiency, with strengths in accounting, human resources, and strategy and operations.
The report urges the country’s workforce leaders to find ways to build on this advantage and expand into additional business skills, such as finance, business analytics, and digital marketing.

Most in-demand skill areas

The report benchmarks three of the most in-demand skill areas driving employment in the digital economy — business, technology, and data science, with rankings of 75 percent or above as cutting-edge, 50 percent to 75 percent as competitive, 25 percent to 50 percent as emerging, and 25 percent or below as lagging.
According to the report, Saudi Arabia has 682,000 Coursera learners with a median age of 34 years and about one-third of all being women. More than half (58 percent) pursue their learning on mobile devices.

Saudi learners showed cutting edge proficiency levels in human resources (97 percent) followed by accounting, and strategy and operations (93 percent each), sales (89 percent), leadership and management (88 percent), and communication (84 percent).
Saudi Arabia, however, ranks 62nd globally in technology skills proficiency and 88th in data science skills. And while learners have cutting-edge technology skills in security engineering (96 percent), computer networking (87 percent) and operating systems (76 percent), the skills are competitive in software engineering (62 percent).
Their skills come in the emerging category across databases (44 percent) and mobile development (40 percent), and as lagging in computer programming and cloud computing (each 21 percent), and web development (11 percent).
In data science skills, the Kingdom’s learners showed emerging skills in mathematics (38 percent), but were seen as lagging in machine learning (19 percent), data analytics (16 percent), and data management (12 percent).

Coursera’s Global Skills Report 2022 states that as the Kingdom transitions to a more sustainable economy, leaders across industry, workforce development, and higher education should reinforce its workforce strengths with the World Economic Forum reporting that Saudi Arabia was among the top 10 countries globally for digital literacy.

Two global trends

Anthony Tattersall, Vice-President for EMEA at Coursera, said: “Saudi Arabia has embarked on an ambitious journey towards digital transformation, and a strong focus on enhancing the skills of its youthful workforce. The Kingdom is already preparing for its future through the Human Capability Development Program, a part of the Saudi Vision 2030. As more impactful strategies are implemented to usher in the digital economy, building a competitive and skilled workforce, especially in areas such as technology and data science, will bring long-term returns.”
As Vice President of Europe, Middle East & Africa for Coursera, Tattersall brings more than 20 years’ experience in the Learning industry and has worked in multiple areas of HR and education solutions, with a significant focus on Learning and Development.
“Following the pandemic, we have seen two trends gain traction globally – the Great Resignation and increased automation of work processes. These have also underlined the need for more investment in nurturing human capital, with priority placed on enhancing digital and human skills required for a competitive workplace. Our data shows that students and employees need fast-tracked training pathways to prepare them for digital jobs today and for the future, and in turn support the national development goals,” Tattersall added.
With over 100 million learners, 7,000+ institutions, and more than 5,000 courses from 250 of the world’s leading universities and industry educators, Coursera has one of the largest data sets for identifying and measuring skill trends.

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Business

Almarai signs multiple agreements to localize jobs through training and recruitment programs

Almarai signed a cooperation memorandum with the Food Industries Polytechnic, the
Transport General Authority, and the Saudi Logistics Academy to localize jobs in the
food and beverages sector through training and rehabilitation programs ending in
employment. This came within the first international conference on the labor market,
organized by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development on 13 – 14
December 2023 at the King Abdulaziz Convention Center in Riyadh.

‘These agreements are part of Almarai’s corporate program for the social responsibility
to achieve localization in the food industry sector, which is one of the top priorities of the
comprehensive strategic plans in Almarai, especially since the company is one of the
largest working environments in the kingdom, with more than 9,000 Saudi employees,
including more than 900 Saudi female employees.”Fahad Aldrees, Chief Human
Resources Officer of Almarai, said.

He added that the agreements signed to train and qualify young people are part of the
integrated initiatives and training and rehabilitation programs for national human
resources in Almarai. He pointed out that the company provided about half a million
employee training hours during 2022, raising its retention rate to 90% during 2022.

It is worth mentioning that Almarai is the world’s largest vertically integrated dairy
company, and the largest food and beverage producer and distributor in the Middle
East. Almarai was ranked among LinkedIn’s top 15 Saudi companies for professional
career development for 2022.

Business

SEBA Bank rebrands to AMINA Bank and continues to write its success story

a fully licensed Swiss crypto bank, announced today its new brand identity: AMINA Bank AG. The group operates
globally from its regulated hubs in Zug, Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong, offering its clients traditional and crypto banking services.
SEBA Bank made history in 2019 by becoming one of the first FINMA-regulated institutions to provide crypto banking services. This rebrand marks a new chapter for the company, which has proudly been in operation for more than four years. AMINA Bank is inspired by the same trailblazing ambition to lead the way for its clients and to write its own future as a Swiss-
regulated crypto bank offering services to its traditional and crypto savvy clients around the globe. The name ‘AMINA’ stems from the term ‘transAMINAtion’, meaning transference of one compound to another. AMINA is a brand driven by perpetual change, bringing together the various ‘compounds’ of traditional, digital, and crypto banking to unlock new potential and
growth for our clients. This vision of change represents the transformation of our clients’ financial future. Franz Bergmueller, CEO of AMINA, said: “We are delighted to introduce the world to our new brand identity. While we say goodbye to the SEBA name, we remain forever proud of the achievements made by the group under the former brand. “Our brand signifies a new era in the company’s growth and strategy; we are a key player in crypto banking and are here to define the future of finance. With our client-focused approach, our years of traversing traditional and crypto finance, we offer a platform for investors to build
wealth safely and under the highest regulatory standards.” “We are grateful to be encouraged by our supportive and committed investors who have been very helpful, supporting the growth of the company. We thank our employees in all the regions
for their dedication and client focus. As we look forward to 2024, our ambition is to accelerate the growth of our strategic hubs in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, and to continue our global expansion, building on all the successes we have laid down over the past years.” Current clients of AMINA Bank (formerly SEBA Bank) will be unaffected by the rebrand other than encountering the new name; all operations will be business as usual across the board. The branch office based in Abu Dhabi and the subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Singapore will subsequently apply for a name change to align with the head office in Zug.

Business

Uptime Appoints Mustapha Louni Chief Business Officer

Uptime Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Mustapha Louni to the position of Chief Business Officer, a role specifically created to drive strategic leadership and client success. In this new role, Mr. Louni will assume responsibility for the global Uptime sales and marketing organizations and drive overall business value for all Uptime clients. He will retain his existing responsibilities overseeing operations in the Middle East, India, Africa, and the Asia Pacific regions. In this elevated capacity, Mr. Louni is poised to play a pivotal role in driving Uptime’s next phase of global expansion through strategic initiatives to enhance market awareness of the dramatically expanding global service lines and delivery capabilities of Uptime that uniquely support the global data center industry in its pursuit of ever higher performance through elevated availability, resiliency, sustainability, and cyber-security of digital infrastructure. Louni’s appointment renews and expands Uptime

Institute 39;s 30-year commitment to advancing excellence in the data center sector on a global scale. “Today we are experiencing the next phase of the one-time, planetary transformation from analog to digital. This unprecedented, once-in-a-generation growth in data center demand is primarily driven by continuing cloud adoption, the new promise of AI, and the demonstrable fact
that hybrid digital infrastructure is here to stay for the foreseeable future,” said Martin McCarthy, CEO, Uptime Institute. “These complex and nuanced market demands require a visionary talent like Mustapha Louni. He is someone who cannot only deftly manage specific aspects of the business but also remain ahead of accelerating changes and trends. He continues to earn client
trust and respect by timely delivery on demanding commitments while he also inspires and energizes colleagues and clients alike. I am delighted to announce Mr. Louni’s new position and know that he will continue to expand the impact that he has already brought to Uptime since his arrival.” In 2014, Mr. Louni joined the Uptime organization in the United Arab Emirates, leveraging his extensive experience from roles at Panduit and Schneider Electric in Paris and Dubai. As the company’s first commercial resource in the Middle East and Africa region, Mr. Louni played a pivotal role in expanding Uptime’s presence. Within a year, he successfully established what became and remains Uptime’s fastest growing regional office. Under his leadership, Uptime has
extended his impressive trajectory of growth in MEA to the Asia-Pacific regions, augmenting the Uptime workforce with dedicated team members spanning more than a dozen countries across these regions. A new Uptime office has been inaugurated in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) this year, further fortifying the company’s ability to meet its commitment to sustained
growth and excellence and serve clients in critical, accelerating markets for digital infrastructure.

Uptime Institute began development of its proprietary and now globally recognized Tier Standards and its Tier Certifications 30 years ago to ensure that the mission critical computing needs of all organizations could be met with confidence and understood by executive management. Since that time, Uptime Tier Certification as well as other Uptime offerings including assessments and awards in digital infrastructure for ensuring business performance in areas of management and operations, risk and resilience, sustainability, and more recently cyber- security have gained global adoption. Uptime’s expanding success is based on delivering a
unique business service that is based upon unparalleled engineering excellence and technical mastery, while remaining vendor independent and technology agnostic.