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The Middle East has long been recognised as a wealthy business hub for global conglomerates looking to expand their operations, which in recent years has led to a plethora of music, media and live events companies emerging in the region.

While the commercial nature of such businesses has brought tremendous scope for growth across many business sectors, this development has also brought to light some key infrastructure requirements needed to support the expansion of such industries, in particular sufficient numbers of skilled staff.

S&S speaks to industry leaders and investigates what companies are doing to ensure the industry is equipped with skilled personnel to cope with the current and future staffing needs of the burgeoning music, media and live events scene in the Middle East.

According to Giorgio Ungania, corporate training and marketing manager for SAE International Institute in Dubai, in years gone by the Middle East has suffered with a deficiency of locally skilled music/media industry personnel, but he says educators like SAE are helping to change that.

With 52 campuses worldwide, SAE Institute has established itself as the world's largest audio, film, animation and multimedia training provider and offers recognised degree, diploma and certificate qualifications.

In 2006 SAE opened its doors in the Middle East, with its first campus in Dubai.

Since that time SAE has expanded its presence in the region with additional institutes in Jordan and Kuwait, in 2007. It also has plans to open more campuses in Cairo and Beirut, and to expand its presence in Dubai with an additional campus in Studio City, by the end of 2009.

More than 850 students are currently enrolled with SAE throughout the region, which is a good sign the local industry is equipping itself to cater for the growing demand from businesses, according to Ungania.

"The problem with the Middle East market is that for years, there has been a lack of properly trained and skilled people in these fields, which has resulted in much of the industry's work being outsourced to overseas companies," he says.

Additionally, he claims this did nothing to improve the reputation of the Middle East industry, nor did it facilitate the creation of new jobs or local revenue streams.

With the growing emergence of these conglomerates in the region it quickly became evident to educators that adequate training infrastructure needed to be implemented if the Middle East wanted to ensure the continued growth of the booming industry in this part of the world.

"SAE and other training companies in the region recognised the growing need to produce locally trained staff. Now that we have been here a few years we are seeing the fruits of our work, which is generating a solid amount of skilled graduates that are fully equipped to meet the growing demands of the industry," Ungania says.

"One of the benefits of studying with a specialised trainer like SAE, is that from day one our students begin simulating the real workplace. Although all of the theory components are covered in the course, what is really important, especially for broadcasters and creative departments, is that our students can produce some genuine output."

Ungania says unfortunately it is commonplace for companies, regardless of the nature of their business, to try and save money by internally training their own staff, especially in the broadcasting and live events sectors.

He says this problem is further escalated when companies employ inexperienced people and provide them with very basic training, which means not only are they ill-equipped to carry out their specific job, but fail to understand how the industry works as a whole.

"This is something that has been happening for a long time, but many companies are now realising that instead of saving money by employing someone less skilled, it is costing them money," Ungania claims.

"Because the amount of time senior staff have to spend training juniors is very unproductive to the business and actually ends up costing the company more in lost production than it would to send the individual to a specialised training centre."

To meet the changing needs of the industry SAE employs regularly updated curriculum that is driven by industry demand and to ensure students are kept up-to-date with the latest technologies, SAE installs the latest equipment in its campuses.

"Our job is to ensure that when our students graduate they are able to adapt to and utilise the ever changing technology and demands the industry requires and this is an important asset that future employers look for," Ungania says.

"Around 85% of our graduates land jobs within the media field, including TV broadcasting, professional recording studios, video production and radio - this will only continue to grow."

To get students "job-ready" and help them integrate from a study into a work environment, all students who undertake a degree with SAE complete a 120 hour internship whereby they are sent to work with companies to gain a "real hands-on experience".

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