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FEATURE

getting hired

by joseph logan

there may be no keener index of egypt's social and economic transformation during the course of this century than the shape of its professions. from an expansion of secondary and higher education that began in the 1920s and has yet to finish, the career - be it in government, commerce, law, medicine, or elsewhere - has emerged as the concept around which most egyptians structure their education and frame their ambitions. put simply, nearly anyone who attends university and doesn't work with his or her hands is perforce a professional of some sort. what differs from case to case is their fortunes in prevailing economic conditions. this month, business monthly talks to three professionals who have turned their education and work experience into assets in careers which didn't exist a decade ago and which look set to boom in the economic climate that holds now and is likely to carry over into the years to come.

egypt, with its struggling postal system and outings-oriented shopping habits, isn't the first place many investors would decide to put their money into catalog shopping. "everyone said it's too american," said ayman shaikhun, who's done just that. "well, that's simply wrong. we've never had any problem convincing people to deal with a catalog, because there are guarantees about the quality of the products. they're not going to be defective or knockoffs. the same goes for the prices, since there aren't going to be any hidden charges. when you can make those guarantees, the rest is simple."

slightly more than two years after its launch, mega mart seems to be proving shaikhun right. offering consumer goods such as home furnishings, electronics and cosmetics, as well as services like flower delivery, the catalog appears to provide what shaikhun describes as "the experience of mall shopping at home." with membership bonuses including rewards for recruiting new subscribers and gifts scaled according to accumulated purchases, the catalog resembles what u.s. retailers like dayton-hudson and nordstrom mail to thousands of consumers. that is, with a few crucial differences: there's no corresponding store, and no house brand.

mega mart draws on the established name appeal of brands like braun and hugo boss and promises customers delivery within 48 hours of receiving an order, sooner for flower delivery in cairo. and, with a distribution pattern designed to reach consumers with access to credit cards (and commensurate disposable incomes), the catalog makes up part of a marketing service that turns producers of consumer goods into yet another customer pool. it's the fruit of a marketing sensibility that saw gaps and infrastructure difficulties in egypt's retail goods market and sought to exploit them with minimal capital outlay and an emphasis on customer service.

the idea, said shaikhun, is rooted in his background in sales and marketing in egypt and internationally. after graduating from cairo university's business department, he worked in local publishing outlets before accepting a sales position with procter & gamble that took him to the gulf. eight years later, with marketing experience gained in the multinational's operations in the region and globally, he decided to return to egypt, bringing with him "an idea of what other markets look like and what opportunities are there."

"the basis of the service is to provide consumer goods with the utmost convenience," shaikhun said. "there were models, in a way: shopping malls and warehouse retail outlets. but i didn't want a publication or a business with a lot of stock. i don't think of myself as a retailer. it's a service fitted to our market and a certain level of investment." eliminating the hassle of going to a retailer, parking and bringing merchandise home, he added, makes the service attractive to consumers, just as providing delivery service and market research fills a niche with the producers of the catalog's offerings. in the end, he's able to devote his resources to delivery and customer service. so far, the formula seems to work. orders have jumped from 700 out of the catalog's first issue to 3,000 from the most recent offering, he said.

and there's plenty of room for entrepreneurs to expand the service. "there's tremendous room for growth in specialty fields like medical supplies or hardware," said shaikhun. and indeed, mega mart has spurred others to follow in its footsteps. at least two firms are marketing office supplies by catalog.

the key to maintaining the dual clientele of consumers and manufacturers of retail goods, explained shaikhun, is to focus on service. "if you get cheap with customer service in either case, it's going to cost you," he said. "above and beyond that, you have to make a sustained effort to improve the logistical side of the project: more and better phone ordering access, delivery services and so forth." in the absence of this emphasis, shaikhun suggested, a venture like his, situated halfway between retailing and market research, is destined to be short-lived. but with a customer base that seems likely to keep growing, and an urban physical environment that has yet to resemble anything like the idea of mall shopping, the potential for such services remains largely untapped.

highway jobs

when hisham abdel fattah shopped his cv around after graduating from city university with a degree in business administration, the response was less than overwhelming: "almost no one called me back," he recalled. despite having studied computer science at the american university in cairo be-fore transferring to city university, software firms like microsoft, ibm and kolali were offering packages he described as pitiful. "they really wanted to pay almost nothing," he said, "monthly salaries of £e 500 to £e 600, with a sales commission that would not go beyond £e 1,000 per month."

on the recommendation of a relative, he contacted the largest local internet service provider, internet egypt, and 14 months later he holds a position which, he said, has taught him a lot by requiring him to do a little of everything.

before assuming his role as internet egypt's marketing manager, abdel fattah said, he wore nearly every conceivable hat in the organization. "i spent two months in technical support and then sold advertising, but you still wind up covering all aspects of the operation, even in marketing," he said. "getting a new client hooked up, especially an institutional subscriber, means dealing with compatibility problems in his equipment and explaining the technical specifications of the service. and it's an ongoing process. customers are going to run into technical problems, and if you got someone started up, they'll probably come back to you when they need help."

the experience gained on the job, he added, has been far more of an education than his undergraduate career. "i hate to say it, but the only really useful part of it was the proficiency i got in english and in writing business correspondence. that's really about it. the rest of it, even the accounting and statistics courses i did in the business administration program, hasn't been that helpful," said abdel fattah.

if abdel fattah's path to the industry isn't one that can readily be prescribed for others (the largesse of well-placed relatives being an asset unequally distributed throughout egypt's population), the shape of internet service suggests that the opportunities for technically skilled university graduates will be numerous in the coming years. though pinpointing the number of internet users in egypt remains difficult, some estimates range as high as 120,000, a figure which, from abdel fattah's perspective, is bound to increase dramatically in the short term. "we've got approximately 4,500 subscribers and open about 10 accounts a day," he said. "if all the infrastructure work that's needed is completed or even gets started, we can expand our backbone and we'll be growing much faster than we are already." and with present staff already pressed to meet the demands of customers, the need for technically trained employees is likely to grow further. "we need more people in every aspect of the organization, and programmers and engineers are in demand generally," abdel fattah said.

despite the personnel crunch that internet egypt and the country's other isps expect to accompany expansion of service capacity, there seems to be little in the way of formal coordination between the industry and the country's educational institutions that would as-sure a supply of skilled and marketable graduates. though internet egypt vice president mona kaddah is also head of academic computing services at auc, there is as yet no firm link with the university or any other that might serve to outline the company's specific demands and match them with curricula. instead, personnel services proceed almost as an afterthought.

"we don't have to recruit," said abdel fattah. "cvs pour in every day. we certainly don't advertise for openings, since we'd be swamped if we did. we go through the ones we receive, examine the academic re-cord and look for the right people in the interview."

while the absence of institutional ties with universities represents an impediment to drawing new talent to the industry, demand is nonetheless strong. abdel fattah described a two-tiered market, in which graduates from auc or foreign universities won't take less than a starting salary of £e 2,000 to £e 3,000 per month, while others from cairo university and sixth of october draw less, even though they're often more capable and better qualified. skilled graduates whose understanding of local industry and its needs may have the ability to overcome the underdeveloped ties to educational institutions; and if the industry expands at the pace envisioned by even the most conservative estiates, personnel needs will rapidly become overwhelming.

making a market

in hindsight, amr el-kadi's education and professional trajectory might convey the impression that he was being groomed all along for his present position as head of research at efg-hermes. in actuality, it was an assessment of the nature of the changes afoot in banking that led him to the field of financial analysis. "it was the new and in thing at the time," he said. "commercial banking everywhere seemed to be giving way to stock market centered opportunities, and it was a chance to enter a new field and grow with it rather than letting it pass me by."

after finishing a degree in economics at auc, el-kadi joined the egyptian american bank, the first in a series of positions in which he evaluated the financial viability of applicants for credit. the experience has translated very well to the nature of his work as an analyst. "in many ways, it's an extension of the same thing from a different perspective," he said. "previously, i did financial analysis to make a decision about whether or not to extend credit. now it's to determine whether or not to invest and whether a company will repay a bet on it with rising equity."

in both cases, he added, the skills acquired as an undergraduate and while completing his master's degree continue to be applicable, albeit in different contexts. "even though the subject matter was a bit macroeconomically centered, it's proved valuable be-cause that's the context in which the market and these companies exist," el-kadi said. "skills such as financial modeling i learned either on the job or through training courses at banks have rounded out the picture, but the degrees laid a foundation."

apart from the sense that he was entering a field whose importance was destined to grow, considerations of temperament led el-kadi to recast himself as an analyst. "for one thing, as long as you're with a bank, regardless of your position, you're an employee," he said. "when i joined hermes in 1995, it was a very different situation. i came as a partner. in some ways, it feels as if i'm self-employed."

disposition also played a role in choosing analysis over brokerage, even though, as el-kadi pointed out, the expansion of brokerage services led to the demand for in-house research units. "prior to 1994, being a broker just wasn't on the radar screen for me. no one on the outside really knew exactly what a broker was. when you said the word, everyone thought of a guy who rents apartments," he said. "but once the privatization program began to revitalize the market, i be-came much more aware of it, and the distinction between them and analysts has faded a little, since most brokers have rapidly developed good financial analysis skills."

still, el-kadi maintained, "it's a separate group of skills and even a different type of personality. as an analyst, you're in the kitchen preparing a gourmet meal, but at some point comes the role of the well-dressed guy who sweet-talks the customers."

the renaissance of the egyptian market that has accompanied the privatization program proceeded hand in hand with the growth of financial analysis as a field, explained el-kadi. with the emergence of organizations like the egyptian capital market association and certification via the cfa, the profession has become self-conscious, and el-kadi speculated that the 200- some analysts working in the country are increasingly aware of themselves as a group. "it's crystallizing," he said. "it's now a full-time job in itself, and more companies are establishing research divisions. i'd say with-in two or three years it'll be widely recognized as a specialization." and the trend of growth, in his view, is going to continue: "it's recognized now that re-search units are becoming a necessity. in the first wave of privatization, it was relatively easy to make money, since the government structured offers to attract people. now you have to do your homework."

the prospects for newcomers, added el-kadi, are largely determined by the scale of the investment firms make in training an analyst. "for someone starting fresh out of college, you could be looking at £e 1,000 to £e 1,500 monthly, since you're adding no immediate value to an employer," he said. "there's a year to 18 months of training in which you're not really contributing much. if it's someone with the right kinds of experience, who knows the stuff already, you could probably double that."

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