Bayt.com

Infobox dotcom company
company_name = Bayt.com, Inc. (Bayt)
company_type = Private
foundation = 2000
location = Dubai, United Arab Emirates
language = English, Arabic, French
key_people = Rabea Ataya; Chairman, & CEO
industry = Job Search Engine
num_employees= 250+
url = [http://www.bayt.com/ www.bayt.com]
slogan = The Middle East's #1 Job Site

Bayt.com is an employment website or job search engine. Bayt is the largest job site in the Middle East – North Africa (MENA) region with over 1.3 million unique visitors each month (May 2008). Bayt provides online recruitment services to over 2 million jobseekers and is the most-visited job site in the MENA region according to [http://www.alexa.com Alexa.com] (May 2008). [ [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/bayt.com bayt.com - Traffic Details from Alexa ] ]

The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates with additional offices in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Bahrain, Khobar, Riyadh, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Amman, Jordan; Casablanca, Morocco; and Karachi, Pakistan.

History

Origin

In 1999, Rabea Ataya contacted fellow Dubai resident Dany Farha to discuss starting a job site in the fledgling internet climate of the Middle East. In 2000, there were only 2 million internet users in the Middle East [ [http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats5.htm#me Middle East Internet Usage and Population Statistics ] ] .

Ataya was motivated by his observation that there was no globally admired and respected Middle Eastern company. [http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080520/BUSINESS/504589623/0/SPORT Click and find a job at ‘home’ - The National Newspaper ] ] Furthermore, anticipating significant growth in internet usage and sensing a gap in the available job-matching services, Ataya proposed starting a Middle Eastern job site built on the learning gained from studying job sites in more technologically-savvy regions. Ataya and Farha recruited Ataya’s sister Mona and technologist Akram Assaf. This founding group then collectively launched Bayt as a job site in November 2000.

Founders

Rabea Ataya, the CEO of Bayt, heads the overall vision, strategy and financial growth of Bayt. After graduating from Stanford University with a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering, Rabea returned to the Middle East where he founded a successful data storage company.

In his role as Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ataya has recruited the executive team, has raised several rounds of venture capital and private funding and has led strategy, direction and implementation. Mr. Ataya is also the recipient of Middle Eastern E-Entrepreneur Award given by His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, for his outstanding contributions to the region’s “knowledge economy.” [http://www.mygetex.com/dubai/cgprofile.php?profileid=1025&PHPSESSID=1172b91de7ac5d996cb2cbfd7260489b MyGetex.com - Dubai - Career Gurus ] ]

In 1997, prior to founding Bayt.com, Mr. Ataya founded InfoFort, a records management company. InfoFort provides data storage facilities services to hundreds of organizations in the Middle East from the UAE to Egypt. Mr. Ataya led InfoFort as Chairman and CEO, deliberating strategy, setting tactics and executing plans. The company has been profitable from its first year of operation.

Prior to InfoFort, Mr. Ataya was Deputy General Manager of Ranya Contracting Company, a leading contracting company, and was responsible for the $30 million electro-mechanical division focused on HVAC. From 1994 to 1995, Mr. Ataya worked in the Technology Group of Alex Brown and Sons in San Francisco. In this capacity, he conducted analysis and opinions on mergers and acquisitions and helped raise both debt and equity financing for corporations exceeding $1 billion in aggregate. [ [http://www.arabbusinessplan.com/rabea.htm Arab Business Challenge ] ]

Dany Farha serves as Chief Operations Officer of Bayt.com, Inc. Mr. Farha is responsible for managing revenue generation at Bayt.com. Most recently, he co-founded Butlers – the leading drycleaner in the UAE. Prior to, Mr. Farha founded Intercat – the second largest contract catering company in the UAE. He started his career in London at Lehman Brothers in fixed income sales. Farha is a graduate of University College London with a BSc in Statistics, Computing, Operations Research and Economics. [http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=30180149&privcapId=13529425&previousCapId=13529425&previousTitle=Bayt.com,%20Inc.]

Akram Assaf serves as Chief Technology Officer of Bayt.com. Assaf is responsible for directing technology strategy, software development, and product delivery at Bayt. He comes to Bayt.com from Oracle where he was responsible for implementation of Oracle applications and databases to large institutional customers. He started his career in Andersen Consulting where he consulted Middle Eastern governments and leading corporations on technology implementation ranging from finance to HR systems. Assaf is a graduate of Jordan University with a BSc in Computer Science. [http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=30180159&privcapId=13529425&previousCapId=13529425&previousTitle=Bayt.com,%20Inc.]

Mona Ataya serves as Vice President of Marketing of Bayt.com. Ataya is responsible for brand building, driving traffic, and the user experience at Bayt.com. She joined Bayt.com from Johnson & Johnson where, she served as Global Skin Care Franchise Manager based in Switzerland and was responsible for the re-launch of Johnson's Suncare and Piz Buin brands. Prior to J&J, she was employed at BBDO Worldwide handling Middle Eastern advertising strategy and execution for the brands of global companies including J&J and Pepsi. Ataya started her career at Procter & Gamble's global headquarters where she worked on leading brands including Tide, Era, and Ivory Snow. She has managed leading global brands for more than a decade. Ataya is a graduate with a BS in Marketing from Boston University. [http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=30180157&privcapId=13529425&previousCapId=13529425&previousTitle=Bayt.com,%20Inc.]

Services

Bayt offers a core group of services similar to many other global employment websites. Bayt lists jobs in Dubai, jobs in Abu Dhabi, jobs in Saudi Arabia, jobs in Qatar, jobs in Kuwait, jobs in Bahrain, jobs in Jordan, jobs in Morocco, jobs in Lebanon, and jobs in Egypt, primarily.

Employers pay to post vacancies and to search the Bayt.com database of registered jobseekers. Jobseekers post their personal profiles for free. Once they are registered, jobseekers can remain passive and wait to be contacted by employers searching the database or they can actively apply to posted vacancies.

By virtue of having customer service staff in each of their offices, Bayt provides paid assistance filtering job applicants and searching CVs on behalf of their clients. Bayt has also extended the technology outside of their own website. They license their technology to companies to power their corporate career sites. This is a web-hosted service in the Software as a Service (SaaS) model.

Bayt licenses their technology to serve as the corporate career site for regional corporates. The Bayt technology is branded with the look and feel of the client site. This is a web-based SaaS.

Bayt also offers display advertisements for recruitment purposes and non-recruitment product and service marketing. The website also offers a number of auxiliary services like professionally penned and personalized CVs and cover letters. There is also a small executive search team.

Challenges

Internet penetration in the Middle East remains very limited. While internet usage and penetration is growing significantly in terms of percentage, the real number of users is still very low. According to [http://www.internetworldstats.com/middle.htm Internet World Stats] , there are only 30 million internet users in the Middle East. [ [http://www.budde.com.au/reports/listReports.aspx?webreport=y&techid=&locid=11&typeid=5 Reports - BuddeComm ] ] According to [http://www.arabadvisors.com/ Arab Advisors Group] , the Jordan-based research firm, only seven or eight per cent of people in the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain have fixed-line broadband; in most of the Middle East it is fewer than two per cent.

Increasing internet usage has brought more competitors into the region. As usage continues to grow the number of competitors will grow and the industry may experience some consolidation. However, Bayt CEO Rabea Ataya recently confirmed that company is being successful despite these challenges. Although Ataya would not disclose the company’s revenue, he said it was “double digit, millions of dollars, growing 100 per cent per annum”.

Innovation

Bayt.com is hosting the Middle East’s first virtual career fair ( [http://virtualjobfair.bayt.com/ virtual job fair] )using technology provided by [http://www.icongolive.com/ iCongoLive] . This is intended to be the first in a series of such events. [ [http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20080521/bs_prweb/prweb959364 Bayt.com, the Largest Jobboard in the Middle East Selects iCongo Live to Power its Online Jobs Fairs - Yahoo! News ] ]

Partnerships

Bayt.com is part of The Network. [http://www.the-network.com The Network] , founded in 2002 by StepStone and Totaljobs, is a strategic alliance amongst market-leading job boards across 34 countries throughout Europe, and more than 60 countries worldwide. One of the recent new joiners is Yahoo Hotjobs.

Awards

2006 Red Herring 100 Europe. The award honors cutting-edge private technology companies from across the continent. [ [http://www.redherring.com/Home/16775 RH 100 Europe: Internet ] ]

Rabea Ataya receives the Middle Eastern E-Entrepreneur Award given by His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, for his outstanding contributions to the region’s “knowledge economy.”

UAE Web Awards: Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Website of the Year, Golden Award in the Service Category, Special Award for the Best Strategy Website [ [http://www.uaewebawards.org/winner06.shtml :: UAE WebAwards :: ] ]

Leading E-Commerce Website in the Pan Arab Region at the 2007 Pan Arab Web Awards [ [http://www.panarabwebawards.org/winner07.shtml :: Pan Arab WebAwards :: ] ]

External links

* [http://www.bayt.com Bayt.com]
* [http://www.the-network.com/ The Network]

References