Mosanada is responsible for all facilities-management services on the main venues owned and operated by the Ministry of Culture and Sports. Those services include planned and reactive maintenance activities, operation of equipment, minor new works, landscaping and events support, among others. Our projects and venue support includes international football events, the Open Qatar tennis tournament and the 2015 World Men's Handball Championship, which was held at the three new purpose-built multipurpose stadiums. Mosanada has significant experience in managing sports venues in Qatar and this knowledge will be invaluable during the lead up to the 2022 Football World Cup and beyond. Aligned with the Qatar National Vision 2030, sport is a major pillar of investment in Qatar and it is our aim to promote it by having world class facilities, managed to international standards, by the region's leading provider in sports facilities management. At Mosanada we are creating something unique and are trying to capitalize on this opportunity.
Mosanada has worked with Qatar's Ministry of Culture and Sports on several projects. What are some of these projects, and how has Mosanada contributed?
Currently Mosanada manages 16 venues for the Ministry of Culture and Sports. The facilities within the Ministry of Culture & Sports portfolio require a special type of facilities management. Operating several large-scale complex venues dispersed throughout the State of Qatar with multiple events taking place at any one time presents a significant challenge. Quite often events will have substantial footfall and be very much in the spotlight, both nationally and internationally. This requires Mosanada to have a professional site-focused team with the broader business supporting from a corporate perspective with event management and health and safety support, to name but a few.
What are some of Mosanada's key projects and facilities that it manages outside of the sporting sphere?
We are also responsible for facilities management at Katara Cultural Village. Katara is the cultural hub for Qatar and routinely has events focussed on culture heritage. The site is an iconic location near the West Bay and is popular with families and visitors to Doha. This location has a selection of restaurants and retail units as well as a large amphitheatre, car parking, and a beach. Mosanada also recently secured a four-year contract with Lusail Real Estate and Development Company for managing agent services at Lusail City. This demonstrates the diversity of our offering, from a cultural hub with outdoor leisure facilities to the complexity of the infrastructure at the municipal areas of a brand new city.
What opportunities exist in sports facility management in the future?
Mosanada is also responsible for the management of Aspire Zone, the biggest and most extensive sports venue in the Middle East. This location is experiencing significant organic growth as new facilities are constructed to deliver the Zone's strategic objectives including refurbishment of the Khalifa Stadium, which will be one of several stadiums that will be used to support the 2022 World Cup. Over the next couple of years we envisage that Sports FM will transition into a new vein of delivery where the FM provider not only operates and maintains the facilities, but they provide venue and event management as well. This will require specialist teams with skills ranging from FM Design Consultancy, Operational FM Delivery through to event organization and hospitality. At Mosanada, we have a longer-term aspiration to expand across the region, but for the time being our priority is to concentrate on the local market, with a primary focus on the sports sector, where we have an overwhelming number of projects coming up.
How is Mosanada nurturing local talent to make Qatar an FM hub in the world?
All our projects are supported with teams of professional facilities managers and engineers. Having these high-quality specialists within our teams provides opportunity to mentor and coach new staff joining our business. Training programs allow us to develop our staff to be FM experts. In this sense, Mosanada has developed its own behavioral safety training program, and we are the only FM business in the region that is a British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM)-recognized training center. This enables us to train our own employees against a globally accredited professional standard. As soon as the Khalifa International Stadium project is completed, we will coordinate with BIFM and Qatar University to create a program to develop local talent in the FM sector. We also support our clients in non-FM related activities such as the development of an environmental education program for the Aspire Academy and hosting undergraduate and postgraduate students.
What is your outlook for the year ahead?
There are two reasons why 2017 will be an interesting year for Mosanada. Our main focus is to support major sports projects in Qatar as the FM strategic client. In addition, although there is continued pressure to reduce costs across all sectors in the region, we are supporting customers to streamline their services whilst maintaining the same high levels of service. Our outlook for the next 12 months includes a continued pursuit of growth in collaboration with our existing customers and searching out new opportunities to extend our service offering. We remain positive about our position in Qatar as the Sports Venue FM of choice. At Mosanada we are committed to quality in delivery and will continue to provide our customers with excellent service as we grow.