Where the plan meets the warehouse.
Basel Hegazi is an independent supply chain consultant in Riyadh, working with manufacturers, healthcare groups and consumer businesses across Saudi Arabia — inventory and planning, sourcing, logistics cost and network design. Twenty years of running these functions, now spent fixing them.
Start here
Pick the sentence that sounds most like your business right now.
Choose one above and I will tell you where the problem usually sits.
What I do
Engagements run from a two-week diagnostic to a full transformation programme. Common starting points:
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Network and footprint
Where plants, warehouses and stock should sit, what it costs to move between them, and what changes when you enter a new market.
Cost-to-serve modelling · site selection · make-versus-buy · distribution strategy
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Planning and inventory
Demand planning and S&OP that the commercial team actually attends. Releasing working capital from stock without starving service levels.
Forecast accuracy · safety stock policy · SKU rationalisation · S&OP design
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Sourcing and suppliers
Category strategy, negotiation, and supplier performance management that holds up after the contract is signed.
Spend analysis · tendering · contract terms · supplier scorecards
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Logistics and 3PL
Tendering, contracting and governing warehousing and transport partners — including the service levels and penalties that make a contract work.
3PL selection · warehouse layout and flow · fleet versus outsourced · customs and import flow
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Team and capability
Structure, hiring and coaching, so the improvement stays in place after the engagement ends.
Organisation design · role definition · planner training · KPI and reporting rhythm
In detail: Supply chain consulting in Riyadh S&OP in Saudi Arabia 3PL tenders across the GCC
Typical engagements
Three shapes of work that come up most often. Client names withheld.
A distributor carrying eleven weeks of stock and still short on the fast movers
Situation
Inventory grew faster than sales for three years. Buying was done by feel, and the fast-moving lines were the ones going out of stock.
Work
Segmented the range by volume and variability, set a safety stock policy per segment, and rebuilt the replenishment calendar around real lead times rather than assumed ones.
Result
[Weeks of cover reduced from X to Y, service level up from A% to B%, cash released $Z.]
A manufacturer whose logistics spend rose 30% with flat volume
Situation
Three warehouses, two 3PLs, and no cost-to-serve view. Freight was booked ad hoc and rush shipments had become routine.
Work
Built the cost-to-serve model, consolidated the network, and ran a competitive 3PL tender with service levels and penalties written into the contract.
Result
[Logistics cost per unit down X%, on-time delivery up to Y%, annualised saving $Z.]
A healthcare group with no shared forecast between commercial and operations
Situation
Two sets of numbers, monthly firefighting, and expiry write-offs on short-dated product.
Work
Stood up a monthly S&OP cycle with one agreed plan, a forecast accuracy measure with an owner, and an escalation path for gaps between demand and supply.
Result
[Forecast accuracy from X% to Y%, write-offs down Z%, planning cycle cut from N days to M.]
Background
Twenty years leading supply chain functions across the Middle East, in businesses where service failures are expensive and inventory is the largest item on the balance sheet.
- General Manager, Supply Chain Abunayyan Holding — industrial and energy group, Riyadh Group-wide procurement, logistics and inventory across operating companies
- Head of Supply Chain, Middle East & Levant The Estée Lauder Companies Demand planning, operations, 3PL contracts and regional improvement programmes through a period of double-digit growth
- Education The American University in Cairo
- Healthcare
- Manufacturing
- FMCG
- Industrial distribution
- Riyadh, Eastern Province, Western Region
- Arabic and English
What people say
Basel was launching significant technical improvements — reducing inventory, shortening lead time, reducing handling cost — and was also instrumental in improving the soft factors: client relationship, staff satisfaction, relationship towards service provider. A well rounded leader, with a partnership approach. Pleasant personality, but capable of taking hard decisions if required.
Service partner while Basel led supply chain for Estée Lauder Middle East and Levant, 2008–2011.
Basel reported to me as Supply Chain Manager, Middle East. He supported a business that had double digit growth. He managed demand planning, operations management, 3PL contracts and business improvement projects for the region. During his time in the job he led improvements of our customer relations and improved our operations service and quality.
Basel's manager at The Estée Lauder Companies.
I worked with Basel to develop tools and processes supporting supply chain demand planning. He has in-depth knowledge of distributor replenishment planning, and is thoughtful of the most subtle details. He is hard working and determined, and aims to win.
Worked alongside Basel at Johnson & Johnson.
How an engagement runs
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Look at it
Two to three weeks on site and in the data. You get a written view of where cost and service are actually being lost, ranked by what it is worth to fix.
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Design the fix
A plan your team can run: process, structure, systems and the numbers behind each change. Costed, sequenced, and argued through with the people who will own it.
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Stay until it holds
Implementation support for as long as it takes the new way of working to survive without me — usually three to six months.
Practical questions
How do you charge?
A fixed fee for the diagnostic, quoted before it starts, so you know the cost of finding out. After that it is either a project fee against an agreed scope or a monthly retainer for a set number of days. No hourly billing, and no fee tied to a share of the savings — that arrangement rewards the consultant for claiming credit rather than for the change lasting.
Do you work remotely?
The diagnostic needs time on site — warehouses tell you things the data does not. After that, most of the work can run remotely with regular visits at agreed points.
How small is too small?
The test is not headcount, it is whether the numbers are big enough that a few percent matters. If inventory or logistics spend runs into the millions, or you are operating across more than one site or country, there is usually enough at stake to pay for the work several times over. Below that, an honest answer is that a few days of advice will serve you better than a project — and I will say so on the first call.
Which markets do you cover?
Saudi Arabia — Riyadh, the Eastern Province and the Western Region — with selected work across the wider Gulf. Delivered in Arabic or English.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, before any data changes hands. Client names are never used without written permission.
Writing
Longer answers to the questions that come up most.
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Why you can hold too much stock and still run out
Both problems usually have one cause: a single replenishment rule applied across a range that behaves in four different ways. How to segment it, what actually drives safety stock, and why the lead time in your ERP is probably wrong.
6 minute read
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Why logistics cost rises while volume stays flat
Rush freight covering planning gaps, a network that grew rather than being designed, accessorial charges nobody owns, and a quiet mix shift toward customers who are expensive to serve. How to build the cost-to-serve view that turns it into commercial decisions.
6 minute read
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Planning for Ramadan: the peak that breaks annual forecasts
The Hijri calendar moves eleven days earlier each year, which breaks year-on-year comparison and most seasonality models. Realigning the history, planning three phases rather than one, and why the buy commitment lands months earlier than it feels like it should.
6 minute read
Start a conversation
Tell me what is going wrong and how you are measuring it. First call is thirty minutes and costs nothing.