Contract award
Versatile International appointed stone consultant at Qiddiya City
By Staff Writer | 12 August 2026
Versatile International has begun providing stone project management consultancy to Qiddiya Investment Company, covering the natural stone works at Qiddiya City in Saudi Arabia.
On-site advisory services have started. The appointment runs across the full lifecycle of the project's stone requirements, from material sourcing and design review through to quality control and installation.
Qiddiya City is located around 40 minutes from Riyadh and is being developed as a destination combining entertainment, sport and culture. No fee has been published.
The scope is a supply chain and procurement appointment rather than a design one: reviewing concepts, advising on sourcing, overseeing quality control and supporting installation on site.
Our role is to ensure every phase of the stone process from sourcing to installation is executed with accountability, consistency and world-class standards.
Wajdi Marroun, Managing Director, Versatile International
Why natural stone attracts a dedicated consultant
Natural stone is one of the few materials on a large development where the specification cannot be met by manufacture to a tolerance. It is quarried, so colour, veining and structural soundness vary within a single block, let alone between deliveries separated by months. A specification written against a sample and a supply that varies against it is the origin of most stone disputes.
That variability produces a recurring pattern. Material is approved against a control sample, delivered in quantity months later, and rejected on site for a variation the quarry regards as inherent to the stone. The consequences follow the contract: whether the delivered material complies turns on how the specification defines the permitted range, and where it defines it only by reference to a sample, the argument is about what the sample represented.
Lead time compounds it. Quarrying, blocking, sawing, finishing and shipping a large stone order is measured in months, and a rejection late in that sequence cannot be remedied by reordering without a delay that the programme has no capacity to absorb. That is why approval and quality control at source, rather than on delivery, is the substance of an appointment of this kind.
Where the appointment sits in the delivery chain
The consultancy sits alongside the employer rather than within the contracting chain, which places it at the point where the specification is set and where material is approved. On a destination-scale development with stone across many packages and several contractors, consistency between packages is not something any single trade contractor is positioned to deliver.
The company states it was established six years ago to support developers with natural stone procurement, supply chain management and project risk mitigation on developments of this scale, and that its appointment reflects growing demand for that expertise in the Kingdom. It also describes its work as supporting the Kingdom's objectives on infrastructure, economic diversification and sustainable growth.
For practitioners, the point of interest is that a material historically treated as a finishes item is now attracting a dedicated procurement discipline of its own, with the risk managed at the quarry rather than at the site gate.