IWA is now 10 years old! Today we’re an established software development company based in Helsinki, Thailand, Vietnam and the UAE, operating in Saudi Arabia together with NXme, a close partner specialised in cyber security. We design and implement web services and mobile applications with over 60 experts. What’s interesting for IWA on our 10th birthday is that up to 37 percent of our net sales of EUR 2.7 million last year came from the Middle East!

“In ten years, IWA has grown into a company of 60 experts in four different locations, with experts from ten different countries,” says IWA CEO Rami Korhonen. “Our business started to thrive in the Middle East a few years ago due to our property and construction expertise and with the help of NXme. Now we collaborate locally with major governmental actors.”

We’ve designed and implemented a number of digitalization projects in real estate and building industry, especially in Saudi Arabia. A multi-year development project with a large governmental actor will promote swift renewal of the housing market in Saudi Arabia. It is also one of the main priorities of the country’s government, as the state wants to significantly increase the amount of owner-occupied housing. In Saudi Arabia, approximately EUR 20 billion of investment in the real estate sector is expected this year.

This will significantly improve citizens’ quality of life and reduce inequality. Saudi Arabia is rapidly developing its way into a modern and western center of construction and business.

One example of the country’s housing market reform is to permit the sale of residential properties in the planning and construction phase in 2017. In order to ensure citizens’ confidence in construction companies and the completion of new sites on schedule, the sale of the so called off-plan units began centrally. Among other things, we implemented the IT systems required to implement this project. Soon to be released new website will make the whole buying process for new homes easy for consumers from finding an interesting home to getting a bank loan and all the way to buying the apartment.