What brought you to ADIPEC this year?
Honeywell is here at ADIPEC, as we have in previous years, representing a number of our businesses. This year, we also brought Elster, which is a company we acquired earlier this year in the gas metering technology. We are also offering some of our historical products previously launched that are very much appropriate for the region.
Where are you present in the region?
Everywhere. We have been in the region for over 40 years. In some areas, we have been present for 50 years or more. We have nearly 2000 people spread across the region, with over 800 of them here in the UAE, 500 in Saudi Arabia, and several hundred in Kuwait. We also have a presence in Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Oman, and Jordan. There is probably no place in the Middle East where we are not present.
Some of the places you mentioned are quite high risk areas, how does Honeywell deal with the situation there?
There are two aspects of risk management. First, we are in the business of helping our customers manage their risks, providing them with all sorts of technologies to help them protect their assets. When it comes to our own employees, we have a security organisation that looks over all countries across the world, providing us with the required level of security to be able to enter these countries. We work very hard to protect our people.
When it comes to the current market conditions and the low oil prices, in what way did Honeywell get impacted?
Honeywell is a technology provider that helps the industry be more productive, more efficient and safe. For us, in an environment where the price of oil is down reducing capital spending, there is still a tremendous need by our customers to be wise with how they spend their capital but also to improve their operational excellence. We are actually very busy right now helping our customers get through this period because we are their enablers.
Do you think this move towards automation will cause more workforce layoffs?
In this industry, I don’t think that automation has gone to the point where it is having any significant effect on the number of people working. Meanwhile, it does enable people to be a lot smarter, safer and more productive. But we are not necessarily eliminating jobs in doing that. In fact, some 15% of the oil wells today are unmanned and are not getting monitored. Technology now enables you to monitor them, report back what’s going on. This is all without putting someone out there, but when someone returns for maintenance, that person knows what to do and what are the right tools and the right parts to bring.
How does the Middle East compare with the rest of the world in the adoption of the technology that you offer?
I would say that the Middle East is faster adopters than many other regions in the world for a couple of reasons. First, the region has newer technology with that it is able to adapt. Take the US where I come from as an example, the wells are 80-90 years old, making it is hard to implement the latest technology. Second, people here in the region are much more into mobility, connectivity and software. They are much more adapted to these things because they are younger in the labour pool, making them very interested and motivated to integrate technology into their work. I would say that this region as well as some parts of South East Asia are the fastest in adopters of technology.
