Mohammad Rumzi Tausif

Financial performance is the fundamental aspect to test the performance of the companies. The performance of insurance sector, like any other service industry, is supposed to depend significantly on customers. When it comes to customers, it is an established fact that customer satisfaction would be an important element. Customer satisfaction primarily depends on the quality of service it gets. It can be safely hypothesized that better service quality would lead to higher satisfaction, which would ultimately lead to higher profits for the company. Studies on this relationship in the insurance sector for Saudi Arabia are missing. Hence, this study aims at studying both the profitability of companies and quality of service and tries to relate it to customer satisfaction. The results are quite surprising, as the study establishes that although the qualities of services are found wanting in many areas, companies are earning good profits. A probable reason could be the statutory nature of the services. Nevertheless, this study recommends improving the quality of services and differentiating services between age groups for further improvement.

As the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia focuses on Vision 2030, there is an immediate need to establish some big manufacturing industries to create jobs and to generate revenue from non-oil sectors. Automobile is one such sector where demand is very high in the Kingdom. Local manufacturing can create a lot of jobs and revenue. This study tries to analyze the scope of automobile sector in the Kingdom. The objective here is to identify the functional value of cars, which can be useful for potential automobile manufacturers. A sample of population is asked about their satisfaction from cars based on five broad factors, namely safety, comfort, aesthetic, instrumentation and engine, through a recent primary survey conducted in 2018. Using structural equation modeling, the study finds that consumers in the Kingdom give maximum importance to the engine of the car. This finding would be helpful for designing the features of a local brand as per the preferences of the local market. Market dynamics indicates a strong consumer base. Future prospects are also promising, as there is strong domestic demand. This can be tapped if production is localized, leading to a development of an entire new manufacturing sector. Finally, the study discusses some feasible options for automobile manufacturing in the Kingdom.

Two different types of banking systems, Islamic and conventional, dominate the banking structure in Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing debate as to which of the two is better. Using data for the period 2014–2018, the study compares Islamic and conventional banks. It combines traditional financial ratios, Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE), with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to perform a comprehensive analysis. In terms of ROA, the performance of conventional banks is better than that of Islamic banks, but in terms of ROE, vice versa. DEA results show that conventional banks are more efficient than Islamic banks. In fact, in terms of ROA and ROE, Al Rajhi Bank, an Islamic bank, is the best performer. But in terms of efficiency scores from DEA, Al Rajhi ranks seventh among all banks, while NCB, a conventional bank, ranks first. Issuing shares and utilizing funds in profitable options, such as loans and advances to increase net income, are the policy recommendations for Islamic banks to further improve. In addition, as the study finds no correlation between the ratio and efficiency scores, it proposes to use a combined measure of ratio analysis and efficiency analysis for a comprehensive assessment of bank performance.