2022 marks another year of continued growth for Orienteed.
In the first half of the year, the company launched its new office in India, formed an HCL-powered alliance with Adiacent and Var Group, and released two new products to the ecommerce market: Crowlify, una solución de despliegue de HCL Commerce stack y LongBoard, una herramienta de visualización en tiempo real para las pruebas de rendimiento de QA. Estos productos refuerzan aún más la propuesta de valor global de Orienteed, que se suma a Valido, its visual validation solution for online businesses.
While supporting its staff through a successful transition into a global team, Orienteed has also recently finalized the appointment of Fathi Hindi as the Chief Executive Officer of its newly launched office in the Middle East. Fathi has an extensive relationship with the company, going back to 2018 when he began his involvement in various development projects as an external consultant.
His list of accomplishments speaks for itself, with over 8 years of leading successful ecommerce projects for major brands such as Timberland, Vans, and The North Face.
In this article, we share our conversation with Fathi, where we discuss his new role at Orienteed and his vision of the company’s growth.
A chat with Fathi Hindi, CEO of Orienteed Middle East
We have both known each other for a long time now, so it is great news to welcome you onboard in your new role as the CEO of Orienteed in the Middle East. We have seen your many accomplishments first-hand. So for those who are not familiar with your background, would you be able to tell us a bit about yourself?
Fathi: As 2022 draws to a close, I want to take the opportunity to look back on a year that turned out much differently than anyone could have imagined. It showed how strong the relationship we have together – even in the most challenging of times.
Of course, I am quite familiar with Orienteed, our colleagues, customers, and partners. Nevertheless, I’m approaching my new role with great anticipation, and also with great respect. The CEO role marks a new beginning for me and I am excited with what comes next.
Over the past years, I’ve had close interactions with many different international companies to grow their ecommerce businesses. I have a firm conviction that with the continuation of my journey with Orienteed – we can and we will make a difference together!
Now that you have plenty of experience working with us, what are the benefits that you see in being part of Orienteed?
Fathi: From the beginning, Orienteed has been racing ahead in its ecommerce development and consulting expertises. Even during the pandemic, Orienteed closed ranks, took care of each other, and each assumed greater responsibility.
It is because of this that I believe that Orienteed is the ideal environment for growth and success in the ecommerce sector – judging from the persistence I’ve witnessed and the company’s continuous pursuit of innovation.
Could you tell us more about your vision of the team in the Middle East, and how do you see it contributing towards Orienteed’s current and future projects?
Fathi: As I always say, “Rather than make yesterday last, Orienteed is committed to building for tomorrow.” That tomorrow relies on us all to develop the next level of scalable ecommerce solutions for current business models such as B2C, B2B and B2B2C, as well as for future ones that emerge.
I also think it is important to build all-round competence across the major ecommerce platforms to have a strong, productive, and efficient team.
Our goal will be to stretch Orienteed’s development and consulting to its furthest edge to reveal the wonders of what is possible, and achieve success with the latest technologies.
What do you think are the biggest challenges the ecommerce industry will face in the next 2-3 years?
Fathi: The ecommerce industry is booming significantly, and so are the challenges associated with it. With rapid digitalization, the ways in which retailers operate have transformed multi-fold. Online shopping has become simpler than ever, but at the same time, there are problems both marketers and customers face that influence the overall experience.
I see the capitalization of data and the expansion of ecommerce operations, including integration with other platforms such as payment gateways, as some of the major challenges. Often, the ecommerce side ends up becoming a side hustle rather than a fully integrated part of the business. To make ecommerce blend in with other business operations, businesses have to work hard towards deploying solutions that are synced with each other via data.
At the same time, rising customer expectations and competition from the big tech giants are also massive headwinds for retailers.
As you already know, Orienteed has its primary expertise and is an official technology partner of HCL Commerce, but the company’s development services are varied across various ecommerce platforms, such as its B2B store solution using Magento and being a certified BigCommerce partner. How would you assess the competition in the ecommerce platform industry at the moment?
The ecommerce platform industry is a highly competitive one. The ability to deliver high website performance and speed plays a major role. The user experience that businesses can offer through these platforms is also an important factor. Attractive pricing and product selections alone are not sufficient in getting ahead of the competition.
As the ecommerce industry is on the rise and is continuously growing, Orienteed is continually keeping its eyes open for the most viable platform solutions, as well as to grow its experience and team in order to achieve success for its customers' business.
We always ask this final question in our interviews: tell us your life motto!
Fathi: You can do anything, but not everything. Let's lead the success together.
