Founded in 2005, its focus being to provide clients with management consulting and IT solutions, CONCIEL has expanded over the subsequent years to become a business tasked with solving its customers’ mission-critical problems through the innovative application of technology and expertise.
Driven forward by a team of people, who together are empowered to go the extra mile for its clients by delivering outstanding value and productivity, CONCIEL has always believed that its success has been built upon the fact that it creates fundamental and tangible results in all of its competence areas, as opposed to quick fixes.
“The last year has been one of exponential growth for the company as we have expanded into new areas of business and new countries,” explains Managing Director, Michel Maalouf. The expansion that he speaks of has seen CONCIEL spread its wings in recent years into telecommunication services and more recently data centres. “Up until 2013, I was working for another business in parallel to CONCIEL which specialised in the telecommunications side of the business. Since that company was sold we have brought all of core services, both old and new, under one umbrella, that being CONCIEL.”
The work that CONCIEL in its new, consolidated form carries out can be broadly separated into two categories, one being solutions and the other services. “The products and solutions that we sell and implement for our clients themselves fall under three headings, software, data centres and telecommunications,” Maalouf continues. “Particular software products that we see continue to see strong demand for include Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS), Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) and Risk Business Inspection (RBI) tools. However, as some will know, software on its own is of little or no use without data, which is why we work to provide a full turnkey service that encompasses all of our solutions.”
Turning to the types of service CONCIEL is able to provide, these fall into the categories of consulting, training and engineering. “Our consulting services are primarily targeted towards management consulting and are often tied to a client's desire to attain certain certifications, typically ISO:9001,” Maalouf explains. “From a training perspective our efforts tend to centre on management and IT support, while our engineering services are very much focused towards the telecommunications and data centre aspects of our business. When it comes to the latter we are able to design data centres from the ground up, from the building of the structure to the installation of electronic and electrical requirements, through the supply of relevant products and equipment and their implementation. It is essentially a case of starting with a blank sheet of paper and an idea, and ending with a tailor made solution.”
Across the markets that CONCIEL operates in, which today include Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana and the Congo, a number of clients from a variety of different industries seek out its expertise and its ability to provide a one-stop-shop for their needs. In addition to those from the telecommunications sector CONCIEL also lists clients from the oil and gas, facility management, food and beverage, manufacturing, logistics and water industries.
A diverse mix indeed, but they all share the fact that they identify CONCIEL as the best provider for their needs. “I would say our greatest strength is that we believe in creativity and that we never look to impose an idea or a particular product upon a client,” Maalouf enthuses. “If a particular solution doesn’t fit the specification of the client we will work to find one that does. It all comes back to delivering tailored solutions that are individually relevant to each client. We are not the type of business looking to sell the same product to hundreds of clients; rather we are driven by the desire to sell them exactly what they need, which in turn provides them with the best end result.”
This is an exciting time for CONCIEL, one that sees the company continue to build on the growth experience in 2013. In doing so it has brought to market several new solutions and services that the market has begun demanding. The first of these comes in the form of hosted application outsourcing.
“This is where we actually outsource a particular application and instead of the client having to then support that by setting up the servers and infrastructure needed to house the application we offer to host it ourselves on our own servers, providing access to the client in question,” Maalouf says. “The first thing this means is that months do not have to be spent implementing a top to bottom solution for certain clients, rather what we can implement the application remotely. It also means that the support service we provide can be delivered faster as our team can gain immediate access to the server in question. So any client, based anywhere in the world, is able to gain easy access to our solutions without us having to travel miles to set them up.”
Another area of excitement for Maalouf and his staff has been the introduction of the company’s Data Centre Information Management (DCIM) solution. “In the last decade the concept of data centres has picked up considerable steam and as such there is an increasing demand for related software and solutions,” he says. “What we have developed here is a solution that is very new for the industry and is a one that we look forward to being able to provide as an added value offering to both our existing and new data centre clients.”
For the time being Maalouf has a clear strategy that he intends to follow through with in the months ahead, one which revolves around continuing to service CONCIEL’s existing clientele, while at the same time seeking out potential new customers.
“The other thing we want to improve upon is the way we utilise remote application tools, so things like Cloud technology,” he concludes. “I want to get our business to the point where even management consulting is something we can provide remotely. This would allow us to provide a more efficient and less time consuming service to our clients. We have at our disposal vast experience and a range of services and solutions, and we want to be able to offer them remotely to anyone who wants them. This is something that is all the more vital considering our own location, that of our clients and of course their ever-evolving needs.”
Written by Will Daynes, research by Vincent Kielty and James Boyle
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