About TAF
"Working smarter takes you further than working harder ever can"
This is what it means;
Heading in the right direction is more important than how fast you’re going; that taking the right actions takes your further than simply doing “more.”
Our History: Assalam Alykum / Welcome,
I'm Nabhan Al Qarn, used to work in one of the biggest Energy Company in Oman. While I was engaged in this great company for quite long time, I’ve been assigned work in different positions within the company, some of them were at leading roles. It has always been at the back of my mind to start something useful post my retirement, an activity that can offer the opportunity to live the way we all want and the whole community can benefit from. So, after my early retirement I decided to build and develop a Web based digital platform - The Alqarn Freelancing (TAF) that can offer the community, including but not limited to, companies, organizations, sectors, enterprises, business owners, clients and service providers a more flexible system that can offer the services and the support they need and at their convenience.
The platform aims to enhancing the acquisition process (lean) of hiring a group of experienced and knowledgeable "ordinary people" - group of multi disciplines specialist's, Subject Matters Experts (SMEs) and Consultants (Service Providers - SPs) who can help and support sectors / organizations and companies (Clients) to solve some of their business challenges and achieve a greater success. I lead this initiative to connect these "ordinary people" with customers / clients in order to support each other in a professional, systematic and easy way. TAF is the right platform that can be trusted to providing the community with Talented Professionals, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and Consultants (Service Providers - SP) in a cost effective, fit for purpose - stay focus and can quit guessing and start growing.
The Process: The processes that TAF adopt is leaned and clearly structured to achieve low transaction costs and thus low fees for the users. Studies from different sources revealed that a huge time is spent by the client and the service provider on service acquisition time. Therefore, our aim is to reduce the acquisition time to maintain optimum costs of the process value chain. This can be achieved through a transparent and neutral marketplace in conjunction with a suitable system of incentives, hence encourages the market participants to act responsibly. TAF has streamed line "lean" the process for the service provision (process of registration/booking) and gone into simplification mode of acquiring service providers (SMEs/consultants). This is illustrated below. TAF has streamed line "lean" the process for the service provision (process of registration/booking) and gone into simplification mode of acquiring service providers (SMEs/consultants). This is illustrated below;
Our Values:
“We don't need to do more or work harder, we need to work smarter and focus on doing the right things at the right time. because one step in the right direction takes you infinitely closer to your goals than 1,000 steps in the wrong”..
TAF is a self-financed market place with its main objectives of knowledge sharing, exchanging ideas and building a sustainable relationship with all customers that can lead to creating social benefits and successes to the society. Financial success can be considered as a secondary objective and monetization is not an issue to us for the services that do not create benefits for our customers and community. In case of uncertainty, we prefer to donate our business income to an act of charity instead of enrich us in a doubtful or unjustified way.
Building or developing a business doesn't have to be complicated and only for profitable purpose but it can also be to connecting with people, exchange ideas, share knowledge and develop young people and their talents and as one TEAM we all can do it.
Our Vision / Mission:
In line with Oman Vision 2040, we want to grow both within our local market and targeted groups and hopefully can expand our services regionally / globally.
Establish and maintain a long-term relationship with our clients and the ability to support and give them the confidence, loyalty and commitment in their business success by connecting them with Experienced Professionals (Service Providers - SPs) through the introduction of compelling services.
What is TAF?
The Alqarn Freelancing (TAF) - Is an ideal digital platform that can offer conventional and niche services to clients and business organizations who wish to utilize vast experience and resources to enhance their growing business which will be provided by a pool / elite of knowledgeable & experienced professionals, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and Consultants. TAF is committed to contributing to the In-Country Value (ICV) by maximizing the use of our local services hence improving the capability of Omani individuals and businesses by using our vast knowledge and expertise and get assurance of the value for work done. We strongly believe that this will enhance the skill level of our local workforce and secure sustainable commercial benefits to the Sultanate and its people.
"As a Client, TAF is the right platform to help and support you and As a Service Provider, Work smarter, enjoyable and more flexible".
Why TAF?
As business grows, different problems and opportunities demand different solutions - what worked a year ago might now be not the best approach. In 2020 when the COVID pandemic had invaded the world, most of the organizations and sectors went into implementing the online business strategy, this has massively changed the way people work all around the world. Also, due to economic collapse many organizations started considering and implementing a short/medium term service provision strategy instead of a permeant employment. So, the number of service providers (SMEs/consultants) is growing up dramatically due to high demand of freelancing and still more and more people keep joining the world of freelancing. This had led to more and more organizations / sectors looking for service providers who have a vast experience and already know how to work in a combination fashion (remotely/physical). As an estimate, there is approximately over 1 billion around the world who offer freelancing services and for that reason, TAF strongly believes that the online business and freelancing will still keep on increasing in the years to come.
"Hiring a experienced professional, Subject Matter Expert (SME) or a Consultant - Service Provider (SP) is your solution to support your organization / company business to overcome the potential challenges and can help your business to improve performance, add the expertise / skills that is needed to address particular problems at particular times and make necessary changes to achieve success".
Business organizations and companies especially Small & Medium Enterprises need to review their recruitment strategy and implement the optimum employment strategy when it comes to whether employing temporary or permanent workers due to the following reasons;
- Hiring a temporary employee with the proper skills set to get the work done and meet deadlines. Then, when the project is finished, the employee's job is complete.
- One of the advantages of using temporary workers is the flexibility it offers. It enables business sectors to quickly adjust to changes in workload, especially during seasonal bumps in demand, or if there is an unexpected demand surge, temporary workers will help you quickly get up to speed on production.
- Scrutinizing through resumes and conducting interviews takes time and effort. Temporary placements are often fast, as well, giving the company an opportunity to fill roles on short notice. This is especially significant when hiring for a project with strict deadlines
- Temporary workers usually are less expensive than full-time employees. Business sectors and companies will be saving the costs involved in advertising, recruiting, hiring, screening, training and providing full time benefits including unemployment compensation insurance and taxes to permanent employees.
- An organization with headcount restrictions or payroll restrictions imposed on it may consider a short term temporary worker as a work around solution to their business needs rather than seeking line approval for permanent headcount increases.
- Many studies revealed that the productive man-hours vary between 60%-80% of total man-hours considering diversity and inclusiveness.
"Flexibility perhaps is the key reason why employers should choose to hire temporary staff, in that it offers them an unrivalled level of flexibility for their business and its requirements and the ability to tap into a pool of skilled labour at short notice to meet business objectives. Long term Illness, maternity leave or sudden departure maybe other more common reasons which enable a business to continue to operate effectively in the short term whilst they consider a longer term plan. At the same time short term cover is also available in this regard".