The shift to a completely digitised system in several government transactions in the region, particularly in Qatar, is accelerating due to their keenness to become more efficient and accessible amid the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, an industry expert has said.

“We are seeing that (digital) transformation is moving at a faster rate within specific countries in the region,” said Zein Al Abedin Fares, international business professional at Bayt.com, at a recently-held webinar themed ‘Sourcing and Hiring Talent Remotely’.

A programme under Qatar’s Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC), the Digital Transformation of Small and Medium Business Enterprises webinar details the digitisation of the entire recruitment process.

Citing Qatar as an example, Fares noted that a number of initiatives on digital transformation in both public and private sectors are being adopted to better serve individuals and businesses.

The Qatar government has been in the forefront of digital transformation, making its transactions and operations “more efficient, effective, accessible and customer-centric”. Fares underlined the importance of adopting digitalisation in various processes saying it significantly increases efficiency, saving more time and resources in a sustainable way.

According to Fares, the government itself (conventionally) entails more paperwork than having systems to digitise its processes.

“We have to embrace it sooner or later, but sooner is better than later,” said Fares, who also discussed how the internet helps human resource professionals, recruiters, and hiring managers do their jobs more efficiently: from sourcing to onboarding candidates amid a global public health crisis.

Bayt.com, he noted, also deals with multiple government entities and ministries across the region in helping them digitise their recruitment processes. Fares expressed confidence that recruitment processes in both public and private sectors will end up completely digitised in the future “whether we like it or not, whether we do it or not it’s gonna move to being fully digitised”.

Citing an example, he said the percentage of the use of mobile devices barely moved before the year 2000 but witnessed a surge in demand in the years after. “People they want to do the shift because it is easier for them, it’s much convenient for them and it’s even more cost-effective to do things in a digital system, you can reach to the whole world online and the benefit is huge and everyone is recognising and seeing this benefit and moving towards it,” Fares pointed out.

MoTC is set to hold another webinar on ‘Empowering Small and Medium Enterprises with Cloud’ on August 25, which will present the concept of cloud computing and the benefits it brings to organisations. In addition, SMEs will learn how to overcome common business challenges by adopting cloud services.


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