Kuwait International Industry Partners, Mezzan Holding

What is the industry outlook and do you see consumer behavior changing in their preference?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: The advantage of co-operative societies is that they are next door to you, whereas Hyper Markets  require you to travel to the shopping malls.  You will not go to the malls everyday, the co-operative societies now have most of the services within closer proximity to the consumers. 

How do you see the future?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: The limitation of the private sector and retail growing are there.  The private industry will need land to build the facilities and this is limited in Kuwait due to a lack of space.   On the other hand, cooperative societies are backed by the government and allotted space immediately when a new residential area is announced. 

How would you define Kuwaiti Customers in terms of their wants and needs? How different are they from other GCC countries and Europe and the US?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: The  love of  shopping  and consumption in Kuwait has become a  habit. Customers  are always looking  for new brands and good quality products. Mezzan Holding always has to strive to provide new brands and high quality products.  It is a very demanding market in this respect.

How are you coping with the challenges?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: We always look for new ideas and people know us and our reputation in the market as well as our products and they appreciate these and go for it after we advertise.  We see Mezzan Holding Co.as very stable and powerful in the market as well as able to face any challenges.

In terms of branding/marketing campaigns do you tend to put forward Al Wazzan Group or are you mostly product oriented?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: We are a discreet  company.  We are trying to push branded products more than Al Wazzan because we are associated with international companies.  We look at basic business co-operations with   AlWazzan in order to promote the brands. 

Who are a few of your international partners/brands?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: Johnson and Johnson, Kimberly Clark, Sara Lee, General Mills, Reckitt & Benckiser etc.  We have other portfolio of products representing  many well known and highly reputed international companies and brands.

How do you find these brands?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: Each sector is keen to look for new brands and seize opportunities where they arise.  Our message to potential brand owners  is that they should look at our history and portfolios of our international brands.  Some of our brands have been with us for fifty years and there is a reason that they stay with us.  Our doors are open for discussion for the new brands.

Can you brief us on your history?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: My late father founded this group at the age of fifteen , starting  with a small grocery store.  His basic education helped him communicate in 1945 with certain companies to bring their products to the country.  They usually were found through missionaries traveling through Kuwait to other countries and that’s how the items were initially obtained.  It was a very primitive market at that time but there were some expatriates who needed certain items and that’s how it started and here we are today.  He passed away in 1989 and we morphed into the entity that we are today.  It’s been quite a long  journey.  We are now in Kuwait mainly but over the last twenty years we expanded in the Gulf starting with the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and now we are in Saudi Arabia.  We are expanding and trying to have a strong  presence in these countries.  In Sharjah we also expanded our meat processing industry and made a factory recently and also set-up  potato chips factory.  Further, we started bottling water in Kuwait and it has been very successful so we have expanded to Qatar.

Are you looking into any new industries?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: We are always looking into new industries and we are not afraid to move out of our traditional scope.  For example, in 1996 we bought a company involved with the recycling of lube oil and today it is doing very well.

Is there any strategy to your investments or is it Ad-hoc?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: If we see a good opportunity we jump on it to take advantage of the market situation.  Our strength is our management and the system that we have.  We always look for new opportunities to enhance our manufacturing or trading products.

What is your long term vision for the company?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: We see ourselves as playing a major role in industries.  This is where we are looking and it is a very long term vision that will come about as a result of strong investments.  We are looking for international partners.  For example in Bahrain we are looking into the napkin industry on the consumer end.  We want to grow our product lines into the industry and we would be willing to cooperate with major companies.  We plan to stay in the GCC region in terms of our expansion because there is a lot of opportunity for growth.

What is your major challenge?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: My major challenge is to enhance our employees training and to hand the business over to the third generation.  We are very concerned with the third generation who will take over this industry and expand Mezzan Holding Co.  External challenges exist too.  Financially there are certain areas that have been hit and we need to wait and see how it will turn out.  However, it will bounce back even if the industry is affected because we are a manufacturing group and have not been hit so  hard.  The stability of the area is a very important factor for us to consider while we attempt to grow.  In particular, we are looking towards Iraq and even though we are already there now we need to keep an eye out on the stability to see how the political scene develops  over the coming period.

You manage over 30 companies and 7000 employees.  How do you do this and what is your managerial experience?

Kuwait Retail, Chairman of Mezzan Holding, one of the largest diversified conglomerates in Kuwait, Mohammed Jassim Alwazzan: I have to give each manager  freedom to express himself and a free hand to manage his sector.  At the same time I require that he keeps me informed and on target.  If we achieve the target that is very good.  I am very patient with the managers and I evaluate their progress regularly.  Each sector is segregated from the other and each manager works independently from the other.  We are, however, unified in certain areas like administration, IT and public relations.  

What is your final message to our audience about Kuwait and Mezzan Holding?