World of System and Software, a Saudi company, limiting its work to one sector, found that this hindered the reach of its products, in comparison to its competitors. But this is changing.

Chambers of commerce throughout Saudi Arabia have been the company’s main customers for over 20 years. Five years ago, the company changed its structure from a family business to a more institutionalized one with stakeholders and partners. Nowadays, it is looking to diversify its products.

They started as a computer store in Al-Qassim mid-90s. Three years after, they started to develop management and financial systems and programs. Their products targeted Saudi chambers of commerce at first, then went on to include NGOs and Holy Quran memorization societies (services that help practicing Muslims memorize the Quran).

Seeing Saudi as a large market that is witnessing a digital boom, and as a destination many Arab startups are eyeing, World of SS is here to stay.

Word of SS is now working with 26 chambers throughout Saudi Arabia. The management programs allow for the managing of assets, expenses and stock, in addition to managing human resources, organizing KPIs and logging meeting records within the program, while keeping track of what was done and what needs more work. The program for example, provides management services for online licensing of registered companies.

Towards a broader business model

According to vice president of operations Mohamed Al Nasiri, working with governmental entities entails some difficulties, especially when it comes to the apparent disregard for the importance of protecting such softwares from hackers. “This blinds these entities from the time, tools, and cost requirements for developing and running the program,” he told Wamda.

To solve this issue, the team meets with customers and raises awareness about the importance of data protection. According to Al Naisri, World of SS’s team sits with the customer multiple times to ‘explain how the program works’ and how to protect it.

The company started to expand its customers’ base by targeting different companies and institutions.

This led to an increase in its staff to 25 employees including developers, managers, and employees from Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

It is now working with Holy Quran memorization societies providing management solutions to measure participation, results, and to send them to their legal guardians. The company also provides a program for foreign labor recruitment companies, allowing them to create files for each worker and follow up with paperwork, “from issuing the visa to arriving to work in Saudi Arabia,” explained Al Nasiri.

To develop this software with cloud technologies, World of SS signed a partnership with Microsoft to benefit from their Azure service.

This way, customers would be able to access their files anywhere, making reporting easier, said Al Nasiri. They would also be able to link their branches (and the chambers of commerce) together. This would also lower the costs and increase the customers’ trust in the security of the program and their data.

In addition to that, the Saudi company is working on independent financial and HR management add-on softwares that could be added to existing softwares and points of sales.

Currently, World of SS is not looking to scale out of Saudi Arabia. Vision 2030 is enforcing regulations such as declaring the value-added tax, which “create a big opportunity for us to help companies in managing these operations,” said Al Nasiri.