There is no denying that the climate in Egypt is one of hot days and warm nights. Though it has a mild winter from November to April, the country is known to have long, hot summers from May to October. In all seasons, Egypt is extremely sunny, and thus the need for home awnings and simple shade from the hot sun is always present and can be provided by one of the finest family businesses in Egypt: Daghash.

Daghash Group is a family business started in 1981 by Mr. Aly Daghash. The company specializes in the field of home awnings and simple shades. The Daghash company has become distinguished through the years by sharing milestones with Egyptian society through feats of construction and events. The company has worked on events for government, corporations, and individuals. The company’s slogan “we cover it all” truly exemplifies that organization’s commitment to providing the best services and products to any celebration, inauguration, or other event.

Engineer Mohamed Daghash, owner of the leading company in the field, has opened up and talked to he Homeon how it all started for the family and himself in this industry.

“In 1984, we constructed our first steel structure tent in Concorde Heliopolis Hotel, now Le Passage. By June 1995, we established the company EVENTA for tent and structure rentals, and in November 1999, we signed the famous Jean Michel Jarre millennium event at the Pyramids plateau for which we received a letter from the Guinness Book of Records for being the second largest marquis stand in the world,” Mohamed Daghash said.

“As a graduate of the construction engineering department at the American University in Cairo, I joined the company formally in the summer of 1995 after working as a part timer for the previous four years. Since then, I decided to segment the company into four business units: awnings, umbrellas, tent structures, and the renting line of business,” he added.

Dividing the company into four business units has been so challenging as Daghash explains, “The difference comes from the production lines and engineering. The most challenging issue is that in every single product we have several variables like different designs, different addresses, different scopes of work, and different delivery times since each product is different from another and involves a lot of details.”

“One of the most difficult challenges is that there is no design criteria in the Egyptian engineering construction code for tents and fabric structures; therefore, we have to reinvent the wheel in every big project. We have to use a mix of the international codes and adapt it to the local conditions in every big project,” he added.

Daghash finds his business and work pleasant and agreeable and is proud of all the work they have done. “The enjoyable part of our business is that we are always sharing with our customers their development milestones, whether corporate, governmental, or individual. We have executed the most extravagant weddings with many decent Egyptian families. We have inaugurated mega projects with several governmental authorities, and we have celebrated many successful corporate events with companies,” Daghash revealed.

The leading businessperson in the field, Daghash, shared the largest and most challenging projects they have executed throughout the years since the founding of their company. “Challenge is always the key word in our industry and these projects were carried out as follows:

• The 1999 Millennium event, 16,900 square meters, was executed in only 26 days. This achievement is the second largest in the world.
• In the summer of 2007, the Emaar – Marassi Beach Club was constructed in only 24 days.
• In August 2015, the inauguration of the New Suez Canal was constructed in less than 30 days in coordination with the French partner.
• In Summer 2019, after the withdrawal of Cameroon to host the African Football Championship, we had to construct and deliver three stadium covers, Suez, Ismailia, and Alexandria, in 35 days.
• The most difficult operation was the roof covering of the Canal Sugar Factory in Menia, where we had to assemble the whole roof (1,700 square meters) on the ground. We had to perform a ‘big lift’, as it’s called in the business, in the midst of the severe weather conditions in the desert.”

Just as all other businesses in Egypt and around the world, the Daghash Company has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. “In 2020, the coronavirus has considerably affected our sales. The hospitality industry was completely stopped, the event business was totally frozen, and we had to think out of the box to overcome this situation. Therefore, our design and engineering department started to study field hospitals. Luckily, we were awarded many field hospitals in addition to some drive through test centers, then business started to move a bit within this line,” he explained.

Daghash said that despite the challenges, the company is always keen on developing their industry, and he shares how they plan to do so. “As for the industrial development, the following step is to increase local components in our imported products, attack the retail market, which only imports from cheap markets, and introduce a new line of stronger and more durable products. Meanwhile, we are reinforcing our design team to achieve a higher level of technical features in our products,” Daghash revealed.

Achievements come when you maintain having new visions for the future every now and then and this is what Daghash foresees. “Our vision for the coming decade is to establish a stronger and more efficient product line that matches European quality with a competent price range. Our clients can sense the more reasonable price range that is already established in some fields, and the rest will follow in 2021,” he said.

As successful as he is, Daghash is so grateful and appreciative to his father. “My gratitude goes to my mentor and first teacher Aly Daghash who established this industry in Egypt, in which many others are involved today,” he shared, adding, “Finally I would like to go back to our slogan ‘we cover it all’ promising the market new and surprising developments.”