Ten years ago, when Zayd Kuba was working at a used machinery and appliance dealership in Florida, he remembers a revolving door for consumers in and out, some of whom had traveled as far as Saudi Arabia. In the age of virtual transformation, he discovered that they had so far arrived only to buy machines.
A remained in his mind: why hadn’t they checked online?
But he learned a few things in this internship. First, he learned that there was no online market for the structure industry in some parts of the world. He also found that heavy appliances can be marketed anywhere in the world because, unlike automobiles, they are not subject to local environmental specifications and regulations.
The education about the construction equipment industry continued well after Kuba completed the internship and graduated from Northeastern in 2014 with a dual degree in economics and history. Having made important connections with friends from around the world, he moved to Saudi Arabia where he spent two-and-a-half years working for his family’s contracting business in Riyadh. There, too, he saw there was no centralized location to buy construction equipment. Supplied by the manufacturing giant Caterpillar Inc., a combination of new and used machines were coming from the United States.
“At that time, I thought, “Where can we locate locally structured corporations? “He laughs. “Where are those machines?” I asked our purchasing manager, “Where did it happen to buy the machines?” He said, “We move on to this domain and there are many machines. You pass each corridor one at a time.” I’m thinking, “Is this all online?” It’s like “nothing. We just have to move on to the user and see what’s available”.
To work in the oil and fuel industry, Kuba enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland for postgraduate studies in energy finance. Soon after, Shell arrived at the door with a job offer. Kuba had to decide whether the career he had chosen for him was still the right one. He still could not help think about the great desires faced by buyers and distributors in the structures sector in Africa and the Middle East.
“I called my brother and told him I think we should do something about it,” he said.
Founded in 2018, Plant Equipment is the Kuba family’s solution to a persistent challenge in the regional structure industry. Surprisingly, or so surprisingly, depending on how you see it, the online market for structure equipment, advertising cars and spare parts flourished in the middle of COVID-19. Since March, site listings have almost doubled to more than 50,000 for approximately 700 distributors.
Much of the inquiries the company receives come from Egypt, Kuba says. The country is climbing through the New Cairo district of the Egyptian capital and the structure projects already underway are underway, as in neighboring Oman and Iraq.
For the Kubas, if the pandemic forced them to close their offices in Dubai, send their two dozen workers home and suspend face-to-face meetings with consumers, it is also a boon to the company. Sales have increased as distributors, once resistant to digitization, now due to blocking measures that keep consumers away, do not yet have the option of adopting technologies that allow them to stay in the business.
“Since COVID-19, they’ve learned that buyers probably wouldn’t come and shake hands,” says Kuba.
“I’ve been looking to build anything here,” he says. “I think there’s a lot of potential, whereas the United States is a very mature market.”
“Everyone on our team appreciates what they do,” he says. “That’s what’s vital to all of us. I think we have a very bright future.”
Kuba is a member of Northeastern’s Young Global Leaders program, which includes more than a hundred graduates who advise college leaders and attend Northeastern’s network of foreign alumni. As a member of the program, Kuba is one of many alumni around the world who help mobilize opportunities to share their stories to help motivate and shape the Northeast business ecosystem.
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