Could you introduce Al Hoty Analytical Services to our readers in your own words?

We provide services ranging from lab analysis to site testing. We operate several fully equipped labs, some of which are ranked among the best in Bahrain. Both our chemical and microbiology labs accept a wide range of industrial and domestic samples for analysis. Al Hoty also operates a Material Testing Laboratory conforming to both BS & ASTM standards. We provide geotechnical services for small to large scale civil and architectural projects of all types, as well as environmental testing to international standards. Equipment calibration and both traditional and advanced non-destructive testing also list among Al Hoty’s offered services. We have also begun to offer water well drilling.

How much of the market share does Al Hoty hold?

Al Hoty was established in the early 80s of the last century with a small chemical lab to meet both governmental and industrial demands, especially in the then-booming oil and gas industry. It has since grown vertically in the field of chemical analysis. Al Hoty later began expanding horizontally by responding to other demands related to testing industrial and construction materials; hence the material lab was established to the highest international standards. We moved on to bridge the gaps between industrial clients and their needs, which resulted in investment in other functions such as NDT [non-destructive testing], geotechnical, calibration, and water well drilling. Each of these services has its own share of the market. The NDT MENA market size was estimated in 2014 by Trade Arabia Business News and Information to amount to US$1.3bn. Other functions within Al Hoty have their own market value despite being under the Al Hoty roof. To return to your question, once we are done unleashing each of Al Hoty’s services vertically, only then will we be able to accurately estimate its collective market share.

What do you mean by “unleashing Al Hoty’s services vertically”? Could you elaborate?

Our strategy is now focused on ascending vertically in each of our business functions. What I mean is that we are focusing on investing and growing each function within its own specialised domain. In fact, we are currently working on setting separate growth strategies for each function to set each free to grow vertically beyond the Al Hoty roof, and we have already begun this process with NDT services. This new strategy has opened the gate wide for us to consider setting up new NDT related services. These new added services are not expansion horizontally, but rather growth vertically within the NDT specialisations. This way we would unleash NDT to grow to unparalleled capacity and meet all of our customers’ ever-increasing requirements. The same strategy will be adopted for all of our services.

What made you opt for the “unleashing” strategy at Al Hoty?

The first is that it is the natural thing to do. If you successfully managed to establish and stabilise a service, then you need to intensify your efforts and focus on strengthening and growing it to its potential limits. Secondly, Al Hoty has, over the years, accumulated many interrelated strength factors under its belt.

It is only wise to invest in moving these services on to a new level of growth.

Becoming an NDT consultancy in the region, providing all types of top edged NDT solutions for the industries, is the next step. We are not thinking of only providing traditional NDT services, but rather of becoming the master of this art in the region, and we have the resources and access to expertise to do this.

What are projects have you been involved in and what are you looking at next?

We are involved in everything. We are involved in oil and gas construction, as well as various industrial services. In the case of Alba, we were on of the first contractors to enter the site where Al Hoty provided geo-technical investigations. One of our divisions does geo-technical investigation, where we drill, take samples, analyse it and produce reports for construction purposes. That’s one of the projects we were involved in at Alba.

What sector are you focused on?

The type of foundations that we build are normally associated with medium to large sized buildings. In that sense we don’t only focus on any specific sector, we serve anybody who walks in the door. As far as the real estate development that we do, I have personally brainstormed by looking at the market and we have realised a gap in low-income housing. We are currently working on that; we began our first low-income housing project about a year ago, and it should be completed within 3 to 6 months.