Abstract:

Employing the appropriate strategy was critical in building successful software industry in many
developing countries. Through innovative strategies a number of developing nations were able to create unique software industry models that emerged as strong software exporters at the global level. The main similarity among these strategies was the market orientation; almost all of these strategies were export oriented, software products were produced in the developing countries to satisfy external market demands in the developed world. The need for newer innovative strategies remains a critical success factor for new entrants to the software industry. One of the suggested strategies by the literature was the inward strategy or the focus on the domestic market needs. This paper employs a quantitative approach to identify a possible strategy that Arab countries may adopt to build their own software industry when industry success factors exist in these countries. An analysis of data from published reports and from public databases was used to examine the situation in Saudi Arabia. The goals of this study were, first to pin point the possible strategy that Saudi Arabia may adopt to build its own software industry, second to examine the existence of the software industry success factors in Saudi Arabia. The most significant finding from this study suggested that Saudi Arabia can adopt the inward strategy to build a new software industry model to serve the country’s oil and gas industry needs of software. Additionally, this study revealed that Saudi Arabia acquire a number of the software industry success factors like the software demand, the financial resources, and the IT infrastructure while other factors like the quantity of science and technology graduates and the intellectual property and copy right laws are weak and need improvements.