US-headquartered APM software firm to open office at Smart City in November

Meridium, the Virginia-headquartered asset performance management (APM) software provider, is to base a four-member team at Smart City Malta around November, Maher Maamari, managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told The Sunday Times.

The privately-held group, which has offices in Roanoke, Houston, Dubai, Perth and Walldorf, is the first international name to publicly confirm its tenancy at the €208 million knowledge and IT cluster at Ricasoli.

Smart City Malta is scheduled for inauguration on October 10.

Meridium has so far recruited one Maltese technical consultant. Mr Maamari said the company was seeking more staff in future as the local team had the potential to grow to 30 members through a combination of Maltese and Meridium personnel transferred from across its network.

Under a ‘step by step’ approach, Meridium EMEA will first occupy a service office at Smart City before eventually relocating to a suite within the new blocks.

Established in the US in 1993 by Bonz Hart, Meridium’s mission is to assist the world’s most asset-intensive businesses from oil and gas companies to petro-chemicals improve their reliability, increase availability, and optimise their operations by managing their equipment more efficiently to maximise production.

Meridium is a software engineering services company offering a full enterprise solution: its client portfolio includes such names as Chevron, LyondellBasell, Marat­hon Oil and Anglo Platinum. It is now seeking to add global players in food packaging and airlines to its customer base.

Meridium’s solutions have been applied to over 800 plants operated by corporate clients in more than 70 countries. The group’s software development operations are mostly based in Virginia.

“Meridium examines a client’s operations and plants and identifies ways to improve practices by applying our established standards and methodologies,” Mr Maamari explained, adding that technology was kept current through a list of alliances and partnerships with leading software and technology providers.

“We share our knowledge with clients so that they reap operational and financial benefits, by making the most out of their assets, particularly in the current economic climate,” he added.

Mr Maamari, who worked for Meridium in Houston for 20 years before moving to his Dubai base in 2004 to spearhead the company’s internationalisation efforts, will now take on the added responsibility of managing the Malta office.

He explained Meridium’s original move to Dubai Media City was influenced by his company’s attraction to the “Tecom story”. Smart City Malta and all the business parks in the Smart City family fall wholly under Tecom Investments, the major investor in the Malta project.

In 2004, Meridium sought to be closer to its clients in the Middle East and saw the advantages of establishing with Tecom, particularly, he said, the Free Zone, the government service, the removal of much red tape, and speed.

The Dubai office proved a success and grew to 30 employees with a healthy pipeline of clients. Meridium hopes to replicate the success it has had in the Middle East in Europe and north Africa through Meridium EMEA based in Malta.

“Tecom announced the Smart City Malta concept three years ago and caught my attention,” Mr Maamari recalled. “The Smart City executive team did a great job presenting the concept and the market to us and showing us what Malta has to offer. The location is beautiful and the work environment is almost a campus.”

Mr Maamari said Meridium was impressed with the talent pool in Malta and the language and technical skills available here scored very high. Mr Maamari has held meetings with the University of Malta and was pleased with education standards.

The company intends to recruit more Maltese in future, mainly technical consultants who are “client-facing”, who need to speak both the clients’ and Meridium’s language.

“Technical consultants need to be software-savvy and willing to travel. We will also need project managers with similar skills,” Mr Maamari explained. “We will also look at recruiting for technical support teams, and there is also an element of software development, particularly software localisation, that we are examining.”

The Malta office’s target client list includes the oil, gas, petrochemical and power companies operating in the region; Meridium is also interested in the airline and ship maintenance industry on the island.

In Malta, Mr Maamari said Meridium will also study the extent of support needed for the local market.

Meridium’s representation network is set to grow in other regions. The company opened its office in Perth in 2005 to cover the Asia Pacific, supported by representation in Thailand, China, and India. It also has small teams in South Africa and Brazil. It is currently working to establish a larger Meridium India while it is seeking to cover Central and Latin America better.