ISSUE 302 | MARCH 2017 WWW.CNMEONLINE.COM
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Emirates NBD World Government Summit 2017 UAE visa changes & the tech industry Mashreq Bank Digital twins
THE NUMBERS GAME Financial tech acumen drives UAE Exchange CIO Surendra Shetty
PUBLICATION LICENSED BY DUBAI PRODUCTION CITY, DCCA
EDITORIAL Our events
Beyond borders It’s an incredibly exciting time for the UAE. The last month has seen a number of political and technological announcements that could create waves in the local IT industry. Firstly, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced that visa laws would be changed to accommodate individuals with exceptional technology skills, as well as those in other important fields. I think this initiative has huge potential. The UAE already has plenty of draws for would-be residents, but if its Last month doors are opened to those who saw several can significantly boost R&D in the country, then that could be vital in political and the government’s efforts to build a technological announcements nation of innovation. A week after that announcement, that could at the World Government Summit, create waves in the RTA said that it would launch regional IT. driverless flying cars in Dubai by July. That sentence requires a double take, but that’s the plan. Also at the Summit, tech mastermind Elon Musk announced that two of his Tesla Models are now available to order online in the UAE. Both the visa laws and Summit are explored in this issue. This month, we also had the pleasure of catching up with the Mashreq Bank’s CTO, the CIOs of Emirates NBD and UAE Exchange, as well as fitting in some analysis on how digital twins could be the pillar of the fourth industrial revolution. Talk to us:
E-mail: james.dartnell@ cpimediagroup.com
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Contents
Our Strategic Partners Strategic ICT Partner
Strategic Technology Partner
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ISSUE 302 | MARCH 2017
30
UAE EXCHANGE CIO SURENDRA SHETTY
20
UAE VISA LAW CHANGES & TECH
12
Mobile World Congress 2017
14
Just the two of us
16
On the move
18
The world under one roof
26
MILLENNIAL BANKING: EMIRATES NBD
Jeevan Thankappan reports from the trade show and explores how network function virtualisation will transform telecoms.
34
MASHREQ BANK'S 'DIGITAL INSIDE & OUT' STRATEGY
Pivot Engineering & General Contracting transforms its communications with its 5,000 employees.
40 Seeing double
Glesni Holland reports from the launch of GE's Digital Smelter Centre of Excellence in Dubai, which coincided with an exciting partnership launch.
How can IoT-enabled digital copies - digital twins - of physical objects benefit the enterrpise across industries, and what examples of success are on the market?
44 The hype dissected
Etisalat hosted its transport and logistics customer event and explained how the industry could benefit from various solutions.
36 One-stop shop
James Dartnell reports from the World Government Summit, where leaders from across the world hailed the power of technology.
62
While it may be gaining vast popularity in the consumer world, how has virtual reality benefited the enterprise?
Digital Dynamics
Microsoft Gulf's Karim Talhouk explains what the firm's new launch, Dynamics 365, can bring to the Middle East.
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TECHNOLOGY VISION 2017
TECHNOLOGY FOR PEOPLE
THE ERA OF THE INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE
ECOSYSTEM
POWER PLAYS
AI
UI of executives agree that AI will revolutionise the way they gain information from and interact with customers.
79%
The digital revolution today is an age of human empowerment: rapid advances have created a people-centric environment where the power lies with people to shape technology as they see it.
85
%
of executives report they will invest extensively in AI-related technologies over the next three years.
79 %
27 % SOURCE: ACCENTURE
agree that AI will help accelerate technology adoption throughout their organisations.
believe AI will completely transform their organisations over the next three years.
27% of executives surveyed report that digital ecosystems are transforming the way their organisations deliver value.
75
%
agree competitive advantage will not be determined by your organisation alone, but by the strength of the partners and ecosystems you choose.
DESIGN MARKET UNCHARTED PLACE HUMANS 65
%
76
%
agree organisations are under extreme competitive pressure to extend innovation into their workforce and corporate structure.
of IT and business executives believe that government regulations in their industry have not kept up with the pace of technology advancement.
80
%
of executives surveyed agree that organisations need to understand not only where people are today, but also where they want to be.
79
%
85
%
of executives plan to increase their organisation’s use of independent freelance workers over the next year.
73 %
report that corporate bureaucracies are stifling productivity and innovation.
of executives agree that their organisation feels it has a duty to be proactive in writing the rules for emerging industries.
31% plan to use human behaviour extensively to guide the development of new customer experiences and relationships in the next three years.
74 %
of executives agree that their organisation is entering entirely new digital industires that have yet to be defined.
SHORT TAKES
Month in view
HUAWEI, ZAIN SAUDI ARABIA FORGE MANAGED SERVICES DEAL Zain Saudi Arabia and Huawei Tech Investment Saudi Arabia have signed a five-year managed services agreement that will enable the Saudi operator to "enhance its customer experience" through voice and data services across the Kingdom. Huawei highlighted that it will provide end-toend technology operations management through the multivendor managed services deal. “Competition to deliver high-quality voice and data services has become increasingly important to operators in their strive towards market leadership and success,” said Sultan Abdulaziz AlDeghaither, chief technology officer, Zain Saudi Arabia. “By partnering with a global ICT solutions provider like Huawei, Zain Saudi Arabia can ensure that its critical infrastructure and operations management is taken care of while we are creating innovative products to achieve customer expectations.” Huawei will work on delivering the second phase of virtualisation of Operation Support System (OSS) to enhance Zain Saudi Arabia’s disaster recovery communications to increase the efficiency of the operator’s networks during the Hajj season.
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VERIZON CUTS YAHOO DEAL PRICE BY $350 MILLION Verizon Communications will pay $350 million less for Yahoo after two major data breaches reported by the struggling Internet pioneer. The telecommunications company will pay about $4.48 billion for Yahoo’s operating business, and the two companies will share any potential legal and regulatory liabilities arising from two major data breaches announced in late 2016. Back in October, one news report had Verizon seeking a $1 billion discount after the first breach was announced. The new terms “provide a fair and favourable outcome for shareholders,” Marni Walden, EVP and president of product innovation and new businesses, Verizon, said in a press release. The deal brings “Yahoo’s tremendous talent and assets into our expanding portfolio in the digital advertising space,” she added. Yahoo continues to deal with the fallout from the two breaches, one affecting 500 million user accounts and the second affecting one billion. Just last week, Yahoo sent out warning letters to users saying their accounts may have been compromised through a forged cookie scheme apparently
related to the 500 million account breach announced last September. Verizon first announced plans to buy most of Yahoo’s assets for $4.8 billion last July. Under the new terms, Yahoo will be responsible for half of any liabilities related to the breach from thirdparty lawsuits and from government investigations, outside of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Liabilities arising from shareholder lawsuits and SEC investigations will continue to be Yahoo’s responsibility. The companies expect the deal to close in the second quarter of 2017.
MENA GOVERNMENT IT SPENDING TO REACH
$11.6 BILLION IN 2017.
Source: Gartner www.cnmeonline.com
OOREDOO ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF 10GBPS FIBRE SPEEDS Ooredoo has announced the VIP launch of its new 10Gbps Fibre-to-theHome (FTTH) service at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The telco company’s 10Gpbs fibre speed has been made available for selected VIP customers in Doha, as the company works to deliver a seamless service ahead of a wider commercial roll-out planned for later in the year. According to Ooredoo, its Fibre 10Gbps service provides the fastest Internet speeds ever made available for homes in Qatar and puts the county on the map as one of the first in the region and the world to offer 10Gbps fibre speeds to consumers.
Waleed Al Sayed, CEO, Ooredoo Qatar, said, “We’re delighted to be officially launching our 10Gpbs Fibre service for Qatar at MWC. The event was all about demonstrating Ooredoo’s data experience leadership, and we continue to set new milestones by expanding and enhancing the Ooredoo Supernet for mobile and fibre customers.” Currently, the 10Gpbs package, which costs QAR 7,500 per month, is only available for select customers in Doha. As well as high speeds, the 10 Gbps package includes the award-winning Ooredoo tv service.
NOKIA BRINGS BACK THE 3310 MOBILE PHONE
Nokia has unveiled a revamped version of the iconic 3310 phone, more than 10 years after it was phased out. The retooled 3310, according to the company, is a modernised version of the rugged candy bar handset that was made obsolete by the iPhone. While it’s not an Android phone, Nokia’s parent company HMD Global believes that it will appeal to smartphone users as a secondary phone free of distractions. It’s not quite an exact copy of the original, but it keeps most of its charm - and hopefully, its indestructible body. www.cnmeonline.com
For around $50, consumers will get a 2.4-inch screen, voice and text messaging, limited Internet browsing via an Opera Mini browser, a 2MP camera, and a 22-hour battery. It also features the iconic mobile game, Snake. It will be available in black, silver, red, and yellow. HMD is also adding a pair of budget phones to its fledgling lineup of Android Nokia phones: the Nokia 5 and Nokia 3. The five features a 5.2-inch 720p display, Snapdragon 430 processor, microUSB port, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 12MP camera. It features an aluminum design in four colors, blue, silver, matte black, and copper, and will cost approximately $200. The Nokia 3 slides further down the scale, with a plastic, $150 frame. The screen is just five-inches and it includes a MTK 6737 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 8MP camera, and 16GB of storage. HMD said that the pair will be available in the second quarter of 2017.
MBRSC HAS ANNOUNCED THAT THE NANOSATELLITE, NAYIF-1, HAS TRANSMITTED ITS FIRST MESSAGE IN ARABIC FROM SPACE – A QUOTE BY HH SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN RASHID AL MAKTOUM, VICE PRESIDENT AND PRIME MINISTER OF THE UAE AND RULER OF DUBAI.
MICROSOFT NAMES NEW PRESIDENT FOR MEA REGION Microsoft has announced the appointment of Samer Abu Ltaif as the president of its operations in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. Abu Ltaif joined Microsoft in 2004 and was most recently the regional general manager of Microsoft Gulf. “MEA has tremendous potential," he said. "The rich diversity across the region, combined with the fast-growing youth population and innovative spirit, opens up enormous opportunity. Microsoft has an important role to play, not only through the innovative technology that we bring to market, but also through our presence across the region, our focus on developing local talent, and our deep commitment to the communities in which we operate”. The company has highlighted that a key part of Abu Ltaif’s new role will be to drive the digital transformation agenda of the region across governments, enterprises, developers and small and medium businesses.
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CD-ROM
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EVENT
Mobile World Congress 2017
Function Junction The 2017 edition of Mobile World Congress saw the relaunch of the iconic Nokia 3310, concrete signs of 5G progress and the vast promise of network function virtualisation. Jeevan Thankappan reports from Barcelona. specification based on LTE elements that will allow for 5G-like deployments as early as 2019. At the show, some of the major carriers including NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone and Telstra announced 5G trials, with a focus on enterprise use cases. According to a GSMA report published at MWC, commercial 5G networks will begin to be deployed at the start of the next decade and, by 2025, will provide coverage to a third of the world’s population. 5G connections are forecast to reach 1.1 billion by 2025, accounting for approximately one in eight mobile connections worldwide.
H
eld under the theme ‘Mobile: the next element’, the 2017 edition of the world-renowned Mobile World Congress hosted more than 2,300 exhibitors and attracted visitors from 208 countries, reflecting the increasingly ubiquitous role of mobile in the lives of people around the world. 12
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5 Alive Though 5G is still in the oven, carriers and vendors offered a sneak preview at MWC of what the next generation of wireless systems will do for users, as well as announcing new partnerships and trials. Intel, Qualcomm and Ericsson announced that they will create an early version of 5G radio
New devices Some new Android smartphones also made their debut at MWC. However, the cynosure of all eyes was the throwback Nokia 3310 phone from HMD Global. The no-frills phone, with a curvier figure than earlier models, Opera mini browser and updated version of the iconic game Snake, www.cnmeonline.com
By 2025, 5G will provide coverage to a third of the world’s population.
costs around $50. Other notable launches were the new BlackBerry KeyOne smartphone from TCL Communications and LG G6, which is equipped with Dolby Vision technology. Function junction Along with the vision of a 5G-based future, a major highlight of the event was network function virtualisation (NFV), with many vendors stressing the need for virtualised networks as a prerequisite for 5G. A case in point www.cnmeonline.com
was VMware, which jumped into the NFV fray with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualised applications from different vendors. Built from production-proven software-defined infrastructure and management solutions, VMWare says its new vCloud NFV platform can improve economics through accelerated service delivery, operational excellence and lower infrastructure costs. In addition, it promises to advance three critical areas for service providers – service automation, secure multi-tenancy and operations management while dramatically improving carriergrade availability. “NFV is a nascent market, but is growing rapidly," VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said. "We have 80-plus NFV deployments with 45 service providers worldwide. Our platform enables the transformation of carrier network architectures, services delivery, operations and economics
through a more dynamic, agile network built on software,” said. VMware believes open standards and open source will play a major role in defining the future architectures upon which service providers deliver services. With VMware Integrated OpenStack, the vCloud NFV platform supports an open architecture for integration and interoperability. VMware has recently joined AT&T, China Mobile and some other major carriers as a founding member of the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) project. “In the rapidly evolving technology landscape, success and growth for service providers hinges on transforming from connectivity providers to innovators in delivering rich services, content and personalised experiences,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive VP and GM of VMware's Telco Group. “Softwaredefined, virtualised architectures are the catalysts helping service providers modernise their networks, making them 5G-ready, and opening their businesses to new possibilities.” At MWC, VMware has also announced a partnership with HARMAN to deliver simplified and specialised IoT solutions for enterprise customers in industrial, retail, building management, automotive and energy industries. By integrating HARMAN’s portfolio of over-the-air software updates, sensors, gateways and analytics services into the VMware IoT solution, the partnership will help deploy, secure, manage and monitor IOT infrastructure at enterprise scale to streamline industry-specific IoT use cases. MARCH 2017
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EVENT
GE Digital Smelter Centre of Excellence
Just the two of us Last month, GE launched its first global Digital Smelter Centre of Excellence in Dubai, as well as signing a 10-year agreement with Aluminium of Greece to implement the world’s first digital smelter solution. Glesni Holland reports.
Joseph Anis, president and CEO, MEA, GE Power Services & Dimitris Stefanidis, CEO of Aluminium of Greece
T
he evolution of digital twins is one that we are beginning to see providing valuable business benefits to a range of industries across the globe. The concept of creating a digitised copy of an asset opens endless opportunities for businesses to have around-theclock monitoring capabilities across a variety of factors, that would otherwise require staff to carry out routine checks throughout the working day. Multinational conglomerate GE, along with Aluminium of Greece 14
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(AOG, a Mytilineos Group subsidiary, signed a 10-year agreement in Dubai to implement the world’s "first-oftheir-kind" digital smelter solutions. The project will be executed by a team of engineers and developers based at GE Power’s Digital Smelter Centre of Excellence (COE) in Dubai, while the solutions will be implemented at the AOG site located in Agios Nikolaos, Viotia, Greece. The aim of the partnership is to enhance AOG’s smelting process by lowering raw materials’ consumption, decreasing energy consumption, and
reducing pot leakages. By creating a digital twin of the aluminium plant, the company can consistently monitor a variety of factors in order to maximise productivity, while utilising the solution's predictive analytics to predict potential issues and reduce downtime. GE claims that a one percent increase in efficiency of aluminium smelter operations can contribute to annual global savings of $970 million across the total cost of production, US$936 million in output increase, and US$464 million in operations and maintenance costs. In the GCC region alone, the same one percent increase translates into $28 million in savings on operations and maintenance. Today, the region’s aluminium smelting industry accounts for up to ten percent of the world’s total production. “A significant part of the world’s aluminium smelters are located in the Gulf GCC region,” said Bhanu Shekhar, chief digital officer, GE Power, Middle East and Africa. “Almost every country in the GCC has invested in smelters, and the sector is a very important part of their industrial strategy - despite the fact that the raw material required for the sector isn’t found in the region, unlike in countries such as China and India. The growth of the industry in the GCC has been facilitated largely by the availability of fuel supplies.” He continued, “When the aluminium smelting industry faced www.cnmeonline.com
cost pressures due to the falling global prices of the commodity, different countries responded in different ways. Here in the GCC, our customers focused on energy efficiency and process optimisation. The smelters here are also very advanced and forward-looking, always on the lookout to adopt the latest innovations, including digital industrial solutions.” It was for these reasons that GE saw it appropriate to develop the COE here in the UAE. The centre is the first of its kind for GE globally, and is taking on projects with worldwide customers. “By bringing together the strengths of our multi-locational teams and GE Power’s Digital Smelter COE in Dubai, we will collaborate with AOG to create a new chapter in the history of smelting operations,” said Joseph Anis, president and CEO of GE’s Power Services business in the Middle East and Africa. “As the largest vertically integrated bauxite, alumina and aluminium production and trading unit in the European Union, we are constantly looking at innovative technologies to enhance our performance standards,” said Dimitris Stefanidis, CEO of Aluminium of Greece. “With GE’s digital smelter solutions, we are www.cnmeonline.com
setting a global first for the aluminium industry that will contribute to our operational efficiency and set new benchmarks in the sector.” GE has supported AOG’s growth and development over a period of decades, having supplied it with advanced technologies and signing multi-year agreements to cover the maintenance of gas turbines and associated generators. “Our partnership with AOG dates back to the 1990s, but the company understands the need to digitise if they are to set themselves apart from others in the industry,” said Dr Lana
Today, the GCC region's aluminium smelting industry accounts for up to ten percent of the world’s total production.
El Chaar, general manager, Middle East and Africa, professional services, GE Power. “When we first decided to move forward with this agreement, we sat with AOG representatives and identified specific KPIs to determine the level of efficiency that we could help them with, and how much downtime we could save them. Predictive analytics have a heavy involvement in this solution, which allows us to notify the company of any potential problems in advance.” The digital solutions will operate on GE’s cloud platform, ‘Predix’. Virtual sensors will facilitate the ongoing evaluation of parameters such as temperature and chemistry that are not ordinarily monitored continuously. This, in turn, will help to anticipate the health and condition of the pot, providing timely monitoring reports on the operations of the plant. “We will be able to recreate an actual smelter using artificial intelligence and physics-based models,” Shekhar said. “This is a living digital model that will continuously generate smelter data, and will be a game changer in helping to address the challenges of power usage and the consumption of raw materials in the smelting industry.” MARCH 2017
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EVENT
Etisalat: On the move
On the move Last month, Etisalat hosted an industry focused conference which saw a number of their customers come together to understand how digitisation is redefining the transport and logistics sectors.
N
ext-generation technology is already playing a crucial role in so many aspects of the transport and logistics sectors’ growth and change. The movement of goods and people is something which our globalised economy depends on, and is an 16
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industry which is increasingly bringing this region to the fore of the world’s gaze. However, without the right technology solutions that can provide unique advantages, companies stand to lose out to overseas competitors. Cameron Thomas, director of enterprise sales for aviation and logistics, Etisalat, reiterated this in his welcome note, and pinpointed a collection of considerations that companies must bear in mind in their adoption of new technologies. “In this age of digitisation, a reduction in costs is something most businesses look for today in the struggle to keep cogs turning,” he said. Jose Sanchez, senior vice president of presales and customer service delivery, discussed why customer experience has to be at the heart of all digital transformation initiatives. Etisalat are currently undergoing an end-to-end transformation of their own operational model. “It is imperative that organisations maintain business continuity while undergoing digital transformation,” he said. In a bid to enable this to happen within Etisalat’s own transformation process, Sanchez discussed how they first needed to “fix some basics.” As a result, a dedicated team of solution architects has been established, alongside a new project management office in order to take charge of complex telecom and digital engagement to maintain business continuity for customers during this migration. A dedicated service recovery team has also been set up, which is solely committed to handling billing issues reported by business customers. “Etisalat promises that 90 percent of billing issues will be solved within one week, except complex issues that require further internal investigations,” said Sanchez. Next on stage was Kamran Ahsan, senior director of security solutions, who highlighted the primary threat www.cnmeonline.com
Etisalat promises that 90 percent of billing issues will be solved within one week. Jose Sanchez, senior vice president, presales and customer service delivery. vectors that the transport and logistics industry needed to watch out for. “In the UAE, DDoS attacks have been the most prevalent security issue that businesses have faced,” he said. “Companies now have to cope with a higher cost of solution implementation, combined with increased sophistication of attacks and a shortage of security skills in the market, yet still defend themselves against these prevalent attacks. The UAE is particularly vulnerable because of its high-level business profile across the globe.” Ahsan also highlighted Etisalat’s fourpoint mantra in its approach to business security: prevent, detect, respond, and predict, and encouraged customers to map their security needs against these four quadrants going forward. Murat Ethem Eldem, senior director of M2M and IoT, was next up to showcase the company’s value proposition – ‘S.A.V.E’ - to encourage customers to ‘go intelligent.’ “We can provide a one-stop-shop to help customers optimise their data and make better business decisions,” said Eldem. Etisalat’s site surveillance offerings enable customers to transform their sites into being more energy efficient
and secure. By utilising surveillanceas-a-service, logistics players can effectively monitor shipments and deliveries. Remote asset monitoring also allows customers to track any asset in a warehouse on a real-time basis, which can be particularly useful for a logistics company. Eldem also highlighted how Etisalat are the only company to have established connected vehicles in partnership with Nissan and Toyota in the UAE, and have recently powered Dubai’s first taxi drones following the Tesla announcement via the telecoms connected cars app. Finally, the ‘connected worker’ can be equipped with ruggedised devices to enable vital, 24/7 monitoring throughout a site, and also ensure the safety of workers. Oosman Kader, senior manager, business marketing, discussed how the company’s managed services offerings can benefit players in the transport industry. “Boosting ROI and cost savings are among the top priorities for businesses in the region,” said Kader. “Our managed services offering can help to encourage companies to focus 100 percent on their core business. It’s not a ‘one size fits all’ solution either; it can be customised to suit individual networks.” Concluding the array of speakers was Juan Campillo, senior director of cloud services. “The evolution of cloud is defining new digital technologies, such as blockchain and Big Data,” he said. “The key drivers behind cloud adoption include a reduction in costs, improved speed and time to market, and converting from CAPEX to OPEX models of spending.” Campillo then put the spotlight on Etisalat’s cloud offering, OneCloud. “It is a strong governance model for a good customer experience, structured into three different services: infrastructureas-a-service, DR and back-up-as-aservice, and object storage,” he said. MARCH 2017
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FEATURE
World Government Summit 2017
The world under one roof James Dartnell reports from day two of the World Government Summit 2017 in Dubai, which played host to a selection of influential global figures and saw the launch of driverless car pioneer Tesla’s online ordering in the UAE.
F
or the fifth time, some of the world’s most influential people adorned Dubai’s World Government Summit, sharing their visions and expectations for the important issues that our planet faces. Throughout the course of the Summit’s second day – attended by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai – the theme of technology and innovation was always top of mind for those speaking at the event. President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, explained how the pillars of ‘Stempathy’ – ‘stem’ standing for science, technology, engineering and mathematics – were essential in building an educated and innovative society. He also called on the government and 18
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private businesses to support one another in order to get the best from technology. “Dubai has become a global hub of innovation,” Kim said. “The public benefits of innovation and entrepreneurship outweigh private gain. It’s the job of governments to spread and encourage this private gain. Governments around the world are leveraging technology to listen to their people.” He went on to add that the technological resources at our disposal allow an unprecedented ability to break down borders. “Libraries and search engines allow us to find out information at lightning speed,” he said. “With 6.5 billion smartphones in the world, everyone knows how everyone else lives.” Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick made an appearance, and
discussed the company’s huge expansion across San Francisco over the last few years, and how it is transforming urban transport usage through its expanding fleet and ridesharing capabilities. He shared his vision for a society which chose to rent rather than buy cars, and said he would be considering partnerships with self-driving car firms in years to come to reduce carbon emissions and urban congestion. “As much as 20 percent of land in cities is devoted to car parks, which are largely underutilised,” he said. “Vehicles and roads become incredibly efficient when an entire city is sharing them.” United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres addressed the audience, and discussed the effects of globalisation, issuing a warning of its negative effects. “Globalisation has www.cnmeonline.com
Clockwise from top: Uber CEO & founder Travis Kalanick, UN secretarygeneral Antonio Guterres, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, Tesla co-founder & CEO Elon Musk, Bhutan prime minister Tshering Tobgay.
brought people together from around the world, but, along with technology, it has also contributed to huge inequality,” he said. Even the prime minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay, speaking on a panel discussion on the impact of climate change on food security, put the spotlight on how technology can have far-reaching impacts on less developed economies. “The world has never been this rich and so interconnected,” he said. “We’ve never had the sophistication in technology that we have now. We need to do more with these assets to help the poor.” I’ll take you there At a Summit press conference, global technology pioneer Elon Musk – also a speaker at the event – announced that self-driving and electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla is now accepting online orders for its Model S and X vehicles in the UAE. The firm’s CEO said that first orders of its Model S and Model X vehicles are expected to be delivered in Dubai this www.cnmeonline.com
summer. The auto manufacturer has equipped its vehicles with software that enables them to be self-driven, at a safety level “substantially greater” than that of a human. Musk highlighted his ambitions for Tesla to play a huge role in helping the UAE reduce its carbon emissions in the near future through the use of electric cars. “The UAE has a target of producing 25 percent of its energy from solar sources by 2030,” he said. “The government is aiming to make the country a beacon for sustainable energy. They’re making a $160 billion investment to support that goal, and I really believe the country will look back and say that was a smart move, and will serve as an example to countries around the world.” Musk also discussed the firm’s plans to build a “gigascale” factory in the near future, which would be the “by far the biggest building on earth” and with a volume great enough to house “eight Burj Khalifas”, with the site set to be housed in Nevada. He also conceded that the company had a long way to go on its
journey. “Although Tesla gets a lot of press, we’re ultimately tiny,” he says. “Our fleet only covers 0.01 percent of the vehicles on earth, and electric vehicles only make up 0.2 percent of the world’s total.” The launch of the UAE’s dedicated online platform is supported by a pop-up store in The Dubai Mall, Tesla Ranger service and a service centre now under construction near Interchange Two of Sheikh Zayed Road which will open in July. In addition to Dubai, Tesla will open a store and service centre in Abu Dhabi next year. Tesla has opened two Supercharging locations at The Last Exit in Jebel Ali and in Masdar City, and has plans to open five more by the end of 2017, as well as introduced locations in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The UAE is already home to 26 of Tesla’s Destination chargers, which are largely located at hotels and shopping malls. Tesla will add more than 50 additional Destination charging locations by the end of the year. MARCH 2017
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FEATURE
UAE visa laws & tech
Come on in
Following the UAE government’s announcement that it would change laws to provide residence visas for top IT talent, how will the country’s technology industry be affected? James Dartnell asks regional and national heads of some of the world’s biggest tech firms if they think this could be a turning point for innovation in the nation, and other opportunities it spells for the country.
O
n 27th January, United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily barring people from 20
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seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US, and halting all refugee admissions. Nine days later, and HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President
and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced a new visa scheme to attract skilled individuals to the country, including those with ICT expertise. www.cnmeonline.com
Coincidence? While we can second-guess the government’s motives, on the face of it this seems to be a timely move designed to turn what will be America’s loss into the UAE’s gain. Sheikh Mohammed said the scheme would be carried out in phases, starting with tourism, health and education visas. The IT industry would be next to benefit, he said, along with medicine, science and research. “The new system aims to attract entrepreneurs, pioneers and talented minds in the medical, scientific, research, IT and intellectual sectors,” he tweeted after the cabinet meeting at which the changes were agreed. “The UAE is a country of vast opportunity. We aim to provide a tolerant environment that can nurture potential and support outstanding talent,” he said. Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, senior vice president, Middle East and Africa, Oracle, believes the changes to the law will accelerate the groundwork that has already been laid for the country to be a technology leader not only in the region, but in the world. “The UAE’s visionary leadership has committed to establish the country as a key global hub for innovation, and the new visa law initiative is a great step towards achieving this objective,” he says. “It will certainly help the country further strengthen its global position as a key driver of innovation.” Chris Johnson, managing director, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, believes that the UAE has the potential to evolve its technology industry in the same way it has developed as a country in its short history. “Great innovators and great companies see a space that others do not,” he says. “They don’t just listen to what people tell them; www.cnmeonline.com
The UAE’s visionary leadership has committed to establish the country as a global hub for innovation, and the new visa law initiative is a great step towards achieving this objective. Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, senior vice president, Middle East and Africa, Oracle
they actually invent something new. They also re-imagine things that already are. For me, this is what the UAE has been doing to re-imagine the country with new business sectors, tourism, financial services, and technology, moving away from a reliance on oil. In years to come, the UAE will have to keep reinventing itself as it has done, with its sights set on Mars.” In the UAE’s short history, it has made huge progress in building its technology infrastructure and usage. A 45-year-old country boasting the world’s highest smartphone penetration is evidence of a techsavvy population, which is sure to be a knowledge-based economy in years to come. What’s more, in the United Nations’ 2016 Global Innovation Index, the UAE ranked an impressive 20th for ICT usage. Progress in recent years has been vindicated, too. In August
2016, the country improved its overall position in the Index, ranking first among Arab countries and 41st worldwide, up from second in the Arab world and 47th globally in 2015. The country also achieved strong scores in several other areas: 24th for business sophistication and 41st for human capital and research, among others. However, there remains a clear disconnect: the UAE was ranked 86th for knowledge and technology output, proving it has some way to go in terms of homegrown innovation before it can be ranked among the world’s best. It begs the question: if the floodgates are opened to welcome more talented individuals from the tech industry, can the UAE accelerate its pace of development in technology innovation and education? Johnson believes that in relative terms, the UAE has already been a MARCH 2017
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FEATURE
UAE visa laws & tech
success in those respects, and has the right approach in continuing to better itself. “The UAE currently sits in 38th place in terms of R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP, which if you consider the size of the nation, as well as it being a relatively new country, it is quite an achievement,” he says. “To execute the ambitious plans that they have, I truly believe that the UAE understands what is needed and is planning for this, and the attraction of top talent to the region is the first step in that plan.” Tayfun Topkoc, managing director, UAE, SAP, believes the country is already taking a number of steps that will complement an influx of new talent. “With major innovative ideas and projects underway in the UAE, organisations here must continue to attract the best-of-the-best talent, and establish co-innovation hubs to attract and build the dreams of the future locally,” he says. “The UAE is already establishing best practices in public-private partnerships in new innovative technology applications, such as the Future of Banking and Internet of things apps in smart metering for the utilities industry.” Al Thehaiban points out that the UAE has already deployed innovative, ambitious uses of some of the most modern technologies on the market. “From encouraging the use of 3D printing technology by creating the world’s first 3D printed office building, to investments in futuristic technologies like driverless cars and drones to improve the state of traffic and provide better emergency services, the list of innovations being explored in the UAE is long,” he says. There are sure to be a whole host of potential homes for new recruits. As well as global technology vendors 22
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In years to come, the UAE will have to keep reinventing itself as it already has done. Chris Johnson, managing director, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the UAE’s burgeoning local businesses, who will both want to snap up top talent, a series of other schemes are likely to benefit from their presence. In 2015, the government announced plans to boost spending on research and development until 2021 to increase knowledge economy employment from 22 percent of the country’s workforce to 40 percent. Institutions like the ICT Fund, meanwhile provide grants to R&D projects in the UAE, in partnership with universities and research organisations. The ICT fund also supports the commercialisation of applied R&D, leading to the establishment of start-ups in the ICT sector. Fady Richmany, senior director and general manager, UAE, Dell EMC, believes that there are already a range of schemes that would provide welcome homes for incoming talent. “The UAE’s leadership has realised that research and innovation are the guarantors of the country’s future, with corresponding investments being made in science, research,
and collaboration between universities and leading MNCs,” he says. “Training in engineering and technical programmes is being prioritised at a greater level than ever before, and the spurt in technology start-ups has reached all-new levels. Initiatives such as the National Innovation Strategy also attest to the government’s focus on innovation-centred transformation, backed by expertise, technology, leadership and creativity.” There are a number of obvious reasons why the UAE’s population has soared from 2.4 million in 1995 to 9.5 million today. A strong business climate, tolerant culture and high quality of life have collectively drawn expatriates in their masses. Al Thehaiban believes the UAE provides an environment that is sure to draw top talent. “The UAE has seamless global connectivity, top infrastructure and is a peaceful and tolerant society,” he says. “Along with the government’s relentless focus on driving innovation across all sectors, they are reasons for the UAE to be recognised as a preferred hub for innovation.” www.cnmeonline.com
“Once you install the system and implement the solution, it‘s ON and that‘s it.” - Mr. Ramesh Ramakrishnan, Head of IT, Middle East Zurich International Life
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INTERVIEW
Emirates NBD
Young at heart Following its announcement to invest AED 500 million in digital transformation over the next three years, Emirates NBD has recently launched the UAE’s first millennial-focused digital banking application, Liv.. Ali Sajwani, the bank’s Group CIO, explains what makes Liv. stand out from the crowd.
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ccording to the World Economic Forum, approximately half of the GCC’s population falls into the under-25 bracket, and by 2050, 54 percent are expected to be below 36 years of age. In a bid to remain one step ahead of incessant competition and consistently place its customers as its central focus, Emirates NBD has capitalised on this generation Y overhaul, and recently launched the UAE’s first millennial-focused digital banking app. “Emirates NBD has invested a lot into digital innovations, but we realised that in order for this concept to work, we needed to step away from our traditional approach,” says Ali Sajwani, Group CIO, Emirates NBD. “We did a survey to identify what millennials wanted from a bank, and a recurring theme was that they didn’t want to have to attend a branch to access its services. Today, you no longer have to go to your electricity authority to pay a subscription; it’s a utility service that has moved completely online. This is what the 24
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younger generation now expect from their banking experience.” Liv. is a mobile-only application that aims to combine both lifestyle and banking capabilities into one unified solution. Upon opening the app, users are presented with a multicoloured scheme, which is aimed to appeal to younger users and retract from the corporate and official colours associated with the firm’s traditional consumer banking app. Users have the option to register for Liv. using their social media login or email address, before they have to upload images of their Emirates ID and create a password of their choice. “Upon registering your account with Liv., you will be asked a few questions to gauge your interests,” Sajwani says. “Using the smart artificial intelligence capabilities embedded in the app, it can then recommend certain promotional offers - suited to you - that are available to Liv. Users.” The app, which was created by a team of millennials, has
adopted colloquial language in its communications with customers in an attempt to make it more suited to its younger target audience. Users can subscribe to the service and take advantage of the lifestyle offers from partners such as Burger King, Costa Coffee and TGI Fridays before they opt for the Liv. bank account. The Liv. account, although still an Emirates NBD account, is separate from customers’ existing current accounts with the bank, and those who subscribe to the bank account will receive a Liv. debit card. In this era of constant digital transformation within the banking sector, Sajwani says that while there is widespread competition in the market, his main focus remains on meeting customer needs through consistently improving the bank’s products. “Our aim for Liv. is to release app updates much more frequently than we do currently with our conventional apps,” he says. “Users look forward to updates, but I think there is more value in seeing smaller and more frequent www.cnmeonline.com
Ideas that are futuristic today, will become present tomorrow.
Ali Sajwani, Group CIO, Emirates NBD
updates, rather than waiting six months before releasing an update that completely changes everything within the app. We are aiming to release an update for Liv. once a month, and we will look to increase this further in 2018.” In alignment with Emirates NBD’s aim to digitise its products to meet increasingly high customer demands, the bank has recently opened a ‘Branch of the Future,’ in Dubai’s Emirates Towers. Both Liv. and the Branch of the Future align with last year’s announcement for Emirates NBD to invest AED 500 million in digital transformation initiatives over the next three years. “We are now in the process of further identifying the right initiatives and use cases to spend the investment,” says Sajwani. “Within the digital journey, we plan to re-architect our systems to become www.cnmeonline.com
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INTERVIEW
Emirates NBD
We are now in the process of further identifying the right initiatives and use cases to spend the AED 500 million investment.
futuristic in the way we approach coinnovations with peers and clients.” The new branch, meanwhile, showcases five digital banking methods at a time, and Sajwani says that the bank has committed to refreshing these ideas up to twice a year to demonstrate to customers how they envisage the future development of banking. “Ideas that are futuristic today, will become present tomorrow,” says Sajwani. “The mechanism feeding this Branch of the Future comes from 26
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our Future Lab, which is a research development platform currently based in our technology department at Emirates NBD's IT centre in Al Barsha. Here, we encourage our internal users and technology partners to co-innovate with ourselves on new ideas, and then present them either directly to end users in an offering, or if they are too futuristic for the time being, we will present them at the Branch of the Future.” He continues, “There was also notable significance to launching this branch in Emirates Towers, because
the government has selected this location to run its Future Accelerator Programme. This is hosted on the ground floor of the tower, just one floor below our branch. The government is also setting up the Museum of the Future just outside Emirates Towers, so it is a very innovative and consistently changing environment to be a part of.” While the question mark surrounding the long-term need for physical branches persists, Sajwani believes that there is still an enduring demand for their presence. “We’re focusing on providing customers with alternative channels – via our digital offerings or call centres - to deal with tasks such as depositing cash or cheques, so that there isn’t a need for them to make the journey to the branch,” he says. “But there is absolutely still a need for customers to come in for face-to-face conversations with an adviser to get a better understanding of our offerings or discuss a major financial decision. Even if we can provide these services through our chat features online, we are still encouraging our customers to come in and talk to our staff on these occasions. This means that the branches will become more focused on housing advisory roles for making strategic decisions.” www.cnmeonline.com
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CIO
Spotlight
From scratch
Throughout his career, 'startup specialist' Surendra Shetty has had a knack for building technology from the ground up. The UAE Exchange CIO cut his teeth at a range of financial organisations across India, and is now relishing the challenge of sitting in the company’s IT hotseat.
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www.cnmeonline.com
urendra Shetty has built a career on fresh ideas. If his track record is anything to go by, UAE Exchange should have high hopes - a selection of the startups that Shetty has worked for have developed a vast, global reach, much like his current employer. Shetty completed his higher education at The University of Mumbai – the city where he was born and raised – studying for a Bachelor’s degree in commerce. He concurrently completed a course in IT, his studies covering basic COBOL, system analysis and design, Unix and C language. Graduating in 1990, Shetty began his professional career in the same year with Mumbai-based software firm Patni Computer Systems as a trainee engineer. “I wasn’t from an engineering background, but relished the challenge,” he says. Undertaking an 18-month training programme, Shetty was set to earn 600 rupees per month, working across three main technologies. However, his Patni tenure was short-lived. After two months, Shetty received an offer that would earn him a salary six times greater than what Patni were paying. French bank Crédit Lyonnais recruited him as an assistant in their electronic data processing team, and the move would get Shetty off to a great start in his career. He describes his role as being “techno-functional” due to the strong understanding of banking processes and business requirements
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that he acquired. “I got fantastic exposure to a centralised core banking solution,” he says. “I was one of two members of staff who were supporting 90 people. We also set up a LAN, as well as localising software that had come from head office. We successfully developed reporting, payroll and local learning software in-house.” He would go on to spend five years at the company, and towards the end of his tenure, he got his first major taste of technology transformation, running a year-long project to upgrade Crédit Lyonnais’ core banking system. In 1995, Shetty joined Mumbaibased startup HDFC Bank, which “only had three branches” at the time, where he would be tasked with all data centre and application support for core banking. The firm has since blossomed into a 90,000-employee powerhouse, and Shetty was to play a crucial part in the HDFC’s early development. After cementing his reputation in his first two years at the company, Shetty was tasked with managing the business solutions group for core banking. In the run up to the turn of the millennium, Shetty was tasked with running extensive tests on 27 of the company’s applications to mitigate any problems that could result from the Y2K bug. Months later, Shetty would move to Pune to join CashTech Solutions as head of implementations and consulting. He played a crucial role in implementing CashTech’s
I’m a perfectionist. I always hold myself personally accountable and I’ve never regretted the decisions I’ve taken.”
www.cnmeonline.com
products in Centurion Bank, BNP Paribas, HSBC – across banks in four countries – and Thai Farmers’ Bank in Bangkok. However, the change in city brought with it a personal upheaval for Shetty that meant he was “living out of a suitcase” and could not see his newborn daughter as often as he wanted. The new lifestyle prompted Shetty to seek a change, and after a year-anda-half he returned to Mumbai, joining Flexcel International, a joint venture between HDFC and Indian firm Iflex Solutions, as chief technology officer and head of implementations, a “Big step up” in his words. “I was the first employee of the new company,” Shetty says. “That meant that I was tasked with setting up a new data centre and a new team, as well as setting up the office. In my previous roles, groundwork like that was already in place, and my domain expertise had always got me through.” Shetty’s first client at Flexcel would be Keralite firm Lord Krishna Bank, who were shifting to a centralised core banking system. “It was great experience to work on a true greenfield IT implementation,” he says. After spending three-and-a-half years at Flexcel, Shetty embarked on “another greenfield opportunity”, joining Yes Bank as the company’s first IT employee in May 2004. In the initial stages of his new role, Shetty was tasked with managing corporate applications, as well as evaluating software and data centre options for the company. After 18 months, Shetty began to make progress in terms of building a new team, including the hire of a new infrastructure head, and gradually delegated duties as more people joined the company. In 2008, Yes’s business solutions group merged with its IT department, MARCH 2017
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CIO
Spotlight and he was named applications head for the technology and solutions group. “By this time I had become something of a startup specialist,” Shetty quips. By 2012, he had ascended to the role of deputy CIO, following the departure of the company’s former IT head. Although the change in title represented a step forward for him, he felt that his track record within the company merited its most senior IT position. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed at not being appointed CIO in 2012,” Shetty says. In early 2013, however, and in his ninth year at the company, Shetty fulfilled a career-long dream as he was named Yes Bank’s chief information officer. “When I was finally promoted to the position, I was incredibly excited that I had achieved my ambition,” he says. “It was undoubtedly a career highlight for me.” Almost two years later, in December 2014, Shetty received a lifechanging offer, to work in the United Arab Emirates as chief technology officer for BRS Ventures and Holdings Limited, a diversified holding company. Yet again, his strength in starting from scratch was called upon, his first major task to successfully integrate the technology infrastructures and processes of his future employer, UAE Exchange, and Travelex, who the company had acquired. While certain aspects of the vast project are still ongoing, February 2016 saw the go-live of UAE Exchange’s point of sale systems in Qatar. That launch also coincided with Shetty’s appointment to being the firm’s CIO, replacing a figure who had been in the position for 17 years.
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Since ascending to the role, Shetty has set about putting his own stamp on the firm’s IT operations. While he was determined to keep the existing team intact, he also made it a priority to hire staff for a selection of new roles, including business analysts, project managers and relationship managers. “I made it a priority to introduce more concepts around project management,” Shetty says. “We’ve done a lot of work around IT risk, procurement and sourcing, and I’ve recruited for those roles.” In January, UAE Exchange also completed the process of migrating two of its data centre sites into one tier 3 facility, which has reduced IT complexity for the company. “I’m very pleased with the way my first year has gone, all in all,” Shetty says. Although Shetty confesses to missing Mumbai, he is nonetheless delighted at the expansive travel opportunities that have been afforded to him at UAE Exchange. “It’s such good experience,” he says. “In the last few months alone I’ve been to London, Paris, Malaysia, China and South Africa. My role means that I’m the face of the company for travel and IT.” A married father of two daughters, Shetty believes the pressure he continually exerts on himself allows him to achieve his full potential. “I’m a perfectionist,” he says. “I always hold myself personally accountable and I’ve never regretted the decisions I’ve taken.” He adds that his former boss at HDFC, H Srikrishnan, was a driving force in his career. “He was a true mentor, someone you could always bounce ideas with,” he says.
My role means that I’m the face of UAE Exchange for travel and IT.”
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TIMELINE 1990
Joins HDFC Bank
2004
Moves to UAE
2016
Graduates from The University of Mumbai
1995
Moves to Yes Bank
2014
Named UAE Exchange CIO
www.cnmeonline.com
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CASE STUDY
Mashreq Bank
‘Digital in and out’ Nitin Bhargava has overseen 1,612 business changes in his 18 months at Mashreq Bank. Since being named chief technology officer in September 2015, Bhargava has made huge inroads in accelerating business processes and sharpening the customer experience through a variety of innovative means.
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www.cnmeonline.com
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oining Mashreq in September 2015, Nitin Bhargava knew that fresh change was needed if the bank was to appeal to a new generation of customers while sharpening its internal processes. Vast changes in strategy and technology were a must. “The biggest challenge I initially faced was what I call ‘fit-for-purpose IT,” he says. “The systems had issues with reoccurring incidents, and the turnaround time of fixing them was too high. This also included transparency around informing and engaging with business users to manage change, which was lacking. We needed to create a structure on mean times to respond and fix, and communicate with the business so that they got what they asked for in a timely manner.” Bhargava took on responsibility for technology across Mashreq’s retail, corporate, treasury and capital markets and international business divisions, centrally supporting offices in New York, London, Hong Kong and India – which also has plans for a corporate bank there – from its UAE base. Bhargava recalls the exertion that was needed from him and his team to ensure that things ran smoothly. “We would have to work weekends and nights,” he says. “If I got a call at 3am I would have to come in and help resolve an issue.” www.cnmeonline.com
He adds that more precision was needed around KPIs, which would in turn reduce errors. “IT needed to move from being a back office function to one that had a seat at the decision making table,” he says. “We needed to track the use and business case of each investment that we’ve made, its ROI and value proposition.” In the months following his arrival, Bhargava and his team began to examine how Mashreq could enhance a series of the company’s service pieces. He decided that the philosophy ‘digital inside and out’ was the only way that Mashreq could really deliver value on all fronts. “Digital inside is about automating our operations processes,” he says. “We had some tools for business process management that had been paid for but were unused. We wanted to reduce the number of touchpoints and encourage straight-through processing.” Take the lead A standout enhancement in Mashreq’s transformation has been the automation of its sales process for retail banking. While the firm is looking to migrate its CRM system to the cloud in the coming months, it has already made huge time savings through the changes that Bhargava has instigated. Sales staff previously received paper leads from a call centre
We needed to track the use and business case of each investment that we’ve made - its ROI and value proposition.
or list, and would then arrange appointments. These meetings would result in more paper forms, which invariably included missing details, demanding engagement with several touchpoints before forms would be completed. Completed forms would then be scanned and included in daily sales reports. In all, the process would take at least 72 hours before customer details had been verified. Leads are now received over the phone, with the customer’s mobile number and details swiftly verified in Mashreq’s back end. These changes have enabled Mashreq’s 480 sales staff to spend more time on the sales process, instead of completing admin tasks. “This will allow us to do 2-3 times more business than we were previously able to,” he says. Bhargava has also introduced e-statements across Mashreq, meaning customers must now pay a fee if they want to receive paper updates. MARCH 2017
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CASE STUDY
Mashreq Bank
Transact and track On the corporate side of the business, Bhargava has introduced transaction tracking, which allows premium corporate customers to examine the status of a variety of their dealings, including ledgers of credit and trade transactions. A two-hour transaction completion guarantee has been introduced for premium corporate customers, an “industry benchmark” according to Bhargava. The reconciliation process for customers’ staff salary payments has also been automated. “A customer’s ERP app can talk to our backend system,” he says. “Their HR systems send files to the bank’s system. This processes salary payments, reconciles records and sends sheets back to their system. This has caused a reduction in back office staff in our client’s offices, and payment accuracy has increased to close to 100 percent, with turnaround time reduced to seconds rather than days.” Office anywhere Playing an important part within Mashreq’s mobility strategy is its “office anywhere” concept, which allows employees to access their desktop from any device, via the use of virtual desktop infrastructure. “The problem we had in India was the differing weekend times, but we’ve been able to introduce flexi-time with this,” Bhargava says. “We’ve also been able to stop issuing mobile phones and reduce cost as a result.” Mobile apps Developing Mashreq’s consumerfacing apps has been another initiative that Bhargava has prioritised in his tenure. “We’ve really taken positive strides across mobility,” he says. “The first phase in our strategy 34
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Technology has definitely earned more of a seat at the table with the business.
is to become truly multichannel – using the same app across multiple devices effectively. Omnichannel is the next step, where you pick up where you left off across devices in a seamless fashion.” Mashreq has taken strides in enhancing the user experience in its retail banking application, Snapp. Last year, Apple’s Siri integration was added, allowing transactions to be completed via voice, while a chatbot has also been added, which is all channeled through Facebook messenger. In the last month, meanwhile, Mashreq has gone live with its deployment of mobile payment service Samsung Pay. “We’re one of the first banks in the market to have launched this,” Bhargava says. Jobs well done Bhargava draws immense pride from the selection of changes that have been introduced, and says that they have made a huge difference to Mashreq’s operations, as well as providing a smoother customer experience. The changes have resulted in huge cost and efficiency savings for Mashreq, both for the IT department and across the business. Bhargava has overseen a 30 percent reduction in business operations costs, while
the cost of IT operations has come down by 31 percent, and staffing costs down by 30 percent. “This is a direct measure of productivity, as we are doing more with less,” Bhargava says. “We now have tools in place to measure processes,” he adds. “Technology has definitely earned more of a seat at the table with business, and I haven’t had a call at midnight in six or seven months. That’s a result of the progress we’ve made in terms of reducing incidents and instilling the right processes.” Looking ahead Mashreq’s technology team have a series of plans in the pipeline for the coming 12 months. While Bhargava says that Blockchain is “Absolutely on our radar”, he adds that gamification and social marketing will be means of directly engaging with customers. He also believes that the introduction of VAT will pose a challenge for IT. “I think VAT will have an impact on technology,” he says. “System-wise, we may not have much of a problem, but the reconciliation process may be affected. Each transaction has to be identified for VAT, and reporting from the bank’s side needs to be accounted for.” www.cnmeonline.com
CASE STUDY
Pivot Engineering & General Contracting
ONE-STOP SHOP
For more than 35 years, Pivot Engineering has served the UAE with a growing portfolio of engineering and contracting services. To enhance its IT efficiency and create a one-stop centralised communication platform for employees, the company opted to implement an array of fresh products at its head office in Abu Dhabi.
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stablished in 1978, Pivot Engineering and General Contracting has been helping customers across the UAE transform ideas on paper into tangible assets of real value for the last 35 years. Pivot’s portfolio of completed and current projects demonstrates a wide range of construction, including villa compounds, high-rise towers, hotels, malls and even oil and gas installations. Among some of the company’s most notable completed projects are The Diwan of His Highness the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and the Lulu Hypermarket in Al Barsha, Dubai, while the company are currently working on the AKOYA villas by DAMAC Properties. The foundation of each project, according to the company vision, is based upon reliability, certainty 36
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and excellence from the entire Pivot team, comprising 5,000 employees including civil engineers, quantity surveyors and quality engineers. In order to enhance the relationship between these various company departments, which in turn would increase the efficiency of operations and completion of projects, Pivot sought to implement a centralised IT platform at its Abu Dhabi head office. IT holds particular importance in the construction sector, says the company’s IT manager, Aytek Adogan. “It’s a major aspect of our day-to-day operations," he says. "Prior to the implementation of the any new products, our tracking capabilities of project completions and asset management were limited to Excel spreadsheets. This was not beneficial to myself as a manger or for
my technicians, as we were unable to detect reports and analyse data on a real-time basis.” A major limitation with the previous method of operation was that an Excel sheet could be centralised, and therefore could not be opened by more than one person at a time. This caused several challenges for the company when trying to control the opening and closing of construction sites, and track the availability of resources. Since Adogan joined Pivot in 2015, various changes have been implemented in order to tackle these issues. “I needed to understand how my team was performing, by measuring and monitoring what they were doing from a manager’s point of view,” he says. The company adopted ManageEngine’s Service Desk Plus www.cnmeonline.com
I needed to understand how my team was performing, by measuring and monitoring what they were doing from a manager’s point of view.
www.cnmeonline.com
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CASE STUDY
Pivot Engineering & General Contracting
- an ITIL ready service desk with a configuration management database (CMDB), which has given Adogan great visibility and central control over the company’s IT infrastructure. “Service Desk Plus allows us to now receive all incidents from individual users into one centralised base. We have established a centralised help desk at our Abu Dhabi office that serves our users, and if someone in the company has an issue that requires the help of the IT team, they can now access our assistance through Service Desk Plus,” says Adogan. The software’s request and incident management capabilities have been the most beneficial to Adogan and his team. “The service means that we are now very accountable as an IT team, as each response to an incident is reported and logged, meaning I can effectively monitor the progress of each request and detect any delay in responses,” he says. “We also do not have IP phones at all of our sites, but this is no longer an issue as the team can communicate via this centralised platform.” The software relays information from asset management, service requests and problem solving in order for Adogan to get a complete understanding of IT operations
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within the company. It has also enabled Adogan to oversee employee availability through the software’s calendar feature. “This feature has been particularly useful, as it helps me focus on how many people I should assign to each resource. It has meant my people accountability has been enhanced, which is very beneficial for me as a manager,” he says. In addition to Service Desk Plus, Pivot is in the process of completing the installation of ManageEngine’s Desktop Central, which is a web-based server equipped with desktop and mobile device management software. This also operates from a centralised location, and enables Adogan to extend the IT department's reach to various locations via the software’s remote desktop support. “For example, if an employee was at a site in Al Ain, this application helps us reach out to them, and allows my help desk engineer to assist them with any issues they may have,” he says. “Desktop Central also provides us with remote installation capabilities, so not only can we control and monitor our users’ PCs, but we can also remotely control and deploy applications, patch systems and efficiently maintain our environment.”
The deployment of both applications – which took place at the beginning of 2017 – was successful and stress-free, according to Adogan. “My experience with ManageEngine has been great,” he says. “We have had fantastic support from Elitser, their distributor here in the region. Both applications were deployed within a week, and the process was both seamless and fast-moving, with no issues at all.” Since Adogan’s posting in 2015, he has led various changes within Pivot’s IT department, including the virtualisation of 25 servers to four individual blade servers, as well as implementing an ERP project that is now successfully up and running. Looking ahead to the coming twelve months, Pivot’s next steps include implementing a business intelligence reporting solution for the benefit of the board and managerial departments. “This installation would be part of the management systems rather than the IT department, but it will create a centralised platform for the board to have clearer visibility when making managerial level decisions,” he says. “We hope to have this implemented by the end of 2017, before we begin to look at disaster recovery and cloud computing as the next steps.”
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FEATURE
Digital twins
SEEING DOUBLE Virtual replications of products, people and processes are beginning to make significant headway in a number of industries. With Gartner predicting that billions of things will be represented by digital twins within three to five years, how can enterprises look to leverage their capabilities to create business value?
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digital twin is essentially a software model that uses sensor data to mirror a machine or series of processes within a business, in order to reveal which adjustments are needed to result in further business value. By implementing this throughout the concept to production process, businesses can reap a whole host of benefits, from saving time and costs, to bringing products to market quicker and at a higher quality. It can be used in product design, simulation, monitoring, optimisation and servicing, and is an important concept in the industrial Internet of Things (IoT). This description may sound like heightened version of CAD technology, but a digital twin brings much more to the table than its counterpart. Until very recently, their usage has mainly been constrained to high-value assets, such as jet engines. But since being named in Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends for 2017, the concept is currently on the brink of explosion in more lowend applications, like autonomous vehicles and manufacturing. Digital twins provide companies with the ability to model and manage the complexities that are so inherent in many products today. A product's embedded software creates customisable processing capabilities, which require complex manufacturing processes, supply chains and extended value chains to design, develop, produce and service. “Take the example of a car,” says Assem Khalaili, executive www.cnmeonline.com
Digital representations of devices, systems and processes break down the boundaries of the physical world, and make it possible to use the power of cloud computing, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence for gathering deeper insights into collected data. Necip Ozyucel, cloud and enterprise business solutions lead, Microsoft Gulf vice president, Industry Consumer Services, Siemens Middle East. “We can use software to design how a car will look, of course, but we would then use the digital twin to virtually test how individual parts – and the final product – will operate under real-world conditions.” Citing this technology, Khalaili highlights how Siemens’ work in partnership with Maserati, using the digital twin to design and build the new Ghibli, enabled the company to bring the car to market in just 16 months, while simultaneously reducing development time by 30 percent and tripling production output. The automotive industry is just one example of how this technology is beginning to impact
manufacturing processes today. Aviation companies are also getting on board and adopting variations of the sort in a bid to reduce costs and enhance asset management capabilities. “For training purposes of jet engines in Japan Airlines, instead of buying the actual jet engines for different locations, Microsoft’s HoloLens is being used to create a virtual replica of the engine, taking full advantage of this mixed reality concept,” says Necip Ozyucel, cloud and enterprise business solutions lead, Microsoft Gulf. This highlights the fact that a digital twin doesn’t have borders; two people working on the same project can be in two completely different locations, and still expect MARCH 2017
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the model to operate seamlessly. The software operates on a cloud-based platform, making it easily accessible for international companies with various bases. “The beauty of the digital twin is that it is virtual, which allows us to position it anywhere in the world,” adds Khalaili. When looking at the adoption of digital twin software in the Middle East, General Electric (GE) is heavily invested in developing the industrial IoT, and recently rolled out the first digital smelter solution in collaboration with Aluminium of Greece (see page 14) – demonstrating another valuable industry for the use of digitised companions. While the smelter base will not be situated in the Middle East, the execution of the solution will be carried out in Dubai at GE’s Centre of Excellence. The company is hopeful that once they have achieved tangible results from the project, they will be able to implement similar smelter solutions in the region. “The Middle East is on the verge of a massive digital disruption,” says Ozyucel. “By 2019, projections estimate that the MEA region will have the world’s highest cloud traffic growth rate at 41 percent, and by 2020 it is thought that there will be 2 zettabytes of data in the Middle East – greater than the estimated number of grains of sand covering the entire Arabian Desert.” This collaboration of cloud computing, data explosion and enhanced intelligence is enabling organisations to achieve more through the creation of these ‘device shadows.’ Ozyucel adds, “Digital representations of devices, systems and processes break down 42
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The beauty of the digital twin is that it is virtual, which allows us to position it anywhere in the world. Assem Khalaili, executive vice president, Industry Consumer Services, Siemens Middle East the boundaries of the physical world, and make it possible to use the power of cloud computing, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence for gathering deeper insights into collected data.” But where do we draw the line? Is it necessary for all physical things or systems to be represented by a digital identity? The answer in short, is no – for the time being at least. However, as IoT grows year after year, it is becoming easier than ever to connect a whole range of devices to the Internet and collate such data. “In 2020, there will be one million new online devices per hour,” says Ozyucel. “This clearly reveals the power of the IoT network, which will aid enterprises in resource and
process optimisation, and increase situational awareness through collected data.” “Looking ahead, it’s also possible to use the data from digital twins for additional services, such as predictive maintenance,” says Khalaili. “This is evolving technology, and I would expect to see that it begins with complex industries with high technology dependence, and in time it will trickle down to less complex industries.” Before too long, we will surely soon be seeing digital replications of ourselves. In an interview with Business Insider back in 2014, John Smart – futurist and founder of the Accelerations Studies Foundation – said, “When you and I die, our kids aren’t going to go to our tombstones, they’re going to fire up our digital twins and talk to them.” It’s not actually such a farfetched idea when you think about it. Thousands of Facebook profiles are kept alive by family members after a loved one has passed. People are already forming relationships with online presences, in the same way they do with Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri. In the short term at least, IDC predicts that by 2018, companies investing in IoT-based operational sensing and cognitive-based situational awareness will see a 30 percent improvement in the cycle times of impacted critical processes. And, while the concept of digital twins has already made waves in automotive and high-tech manufacturing industries, its ability to provide value in almost any industrial environment is quickly being realised. www.cnmeonline.com
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FEATURE
Virtual reality hype
The hype dissected
Some believed that last year was set to be virtual reality’s time to shine, yet its adoption with consumers and enterprises alike only took tentative steps. CNME looks beyond the hype, and explores how this technology could create business value for enterprises in the Middle East.
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T
he term 'virtual reality' may seem an oxymoron to some; a phenomenon with promise that has yet to materialise into its full potential. While the technology has been making waves in the gaming and science fiction space, it hasn't yet found its place in the enterprise just yet, at least not in the Middle East. In the region, this could be down to the fact that VR applications require a strong 5G infrastructure, which is not set to debut in the UAE until 2020. “In the long term, virtual reality will be the biggest game-changer, but it is still in its infancy in the Middle East,” says Hichem Maya, head of industries, SAP MENA. “This is due in part to the 5G infrastructure needed, combined with the levels of staff and customer training. Still, we are already seeing a growing number of organisations using virtual reality to train employees in complex environments, such as warehouses and logistics, which will be essential as the UAE continues to be a global ports and logistics hub.” Although it is far from ubiquitous, VR has still impacted a variety of industries in numerous ways. Healthcare A recent study by the Medical Research Council at the University of Oxford tested the effectiveness of using VR technology to combat schizophrenia. Patients were encouraged to drop their defences and try to fully learn that they were www.cnmeonline.com
safe by approaching the computer characters shown in the VR, and holding long stares or standing toeto-toe with the avatars. The patients who fully lowered their defences showed substantial reductions in their paranoid delusions, with over 50 percent of the group no longer having severe paranoia at the end of the testing day. This positive response has planted the seed for VR technology to be used to treat a variety of anxiety issues, including post-traumatic stress. In addition to treating mental illnesses, VR has also been adopted for training purposes to tackle physical ailments. ‘The Virtual Surgeon’ by UK-based company Medical Realities, combines a 360-degree video with 3D and interactive content, and puts you inside the operating theatre, overseeing an operation through the eyes of the surgeon. The learning programme was developed for head mounted displays, such as the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR. Similarly, a team of researchers in the Human Interface Technology (HIT) department of the UK’s University of Birmingham have created an augmented reality scenario which recreates the experience of a military medic carrying out a resuscitation aboard a helicopter — complete with background machine gun fire and turbulence for the trainee to battle with.
Banking With advancements in mobile technology and mobile payments continuing to evolve at a rapid pace, banks and fintech companies looking to drive efficiency are letting go of the branch model to deliver a focused and effective virtual bank. While there are certain financial issues that many would prefer to discuss with a face-to-face in a branch scenario, rather than via a chatbot on a virtual banking app, research by the Collinson Group suggests that views are changing. The 2016 study found that affluent middle class customers in the UAE are more likely to interact with their bank using digital channels than ever before. 83 percent of the surveyed customers use banking and finance apps – up from 36 percent in 2014, and just 26 percent prefer to go into a branch. As demonstrated by the latest Emirates NBD release of a millennial focused digital banking app (see page 24) – with no branch attached to it – the younger generation are pushing companies to innovate faster, and are redefining traditional customer expectations. Pokémon gone While it may have used augmented reality (AR) as opposed to VR, there was no hype quite like that of the global phenomenon, Pokémon Go. But since launching in July and soaring in popularity, it had lost at MARCH 2017
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least a third of its daily users by midAugust. By mid-September, daily revenues had fallen from $16m per day to $2m, and daily downloads had declined from a peak of 27 million to 700,000. In a nutshell, the reason for this was because developers did not introduce new elements quickly enough to prevent players from getting bored. The launch version of the app contained simplistic mechanisms that made the battle feature between Pokémons seem basic, and it did not contain strong enough mechanisms to enable players to interact with others in real-time.
However, while this form of AR may have witnessed a worldwide craze quickly followed by a steep slump in appeal, Maya believes that AR over VR adoption may in fact be the way forward for businesses at this stage. “In the short term, augmented reality will provide the real business value, especially in retail,” he says. “For example, customers can use augmented reality apps or glasses to try out new furniture in their own homes. Demonstrating the retail potential, one recent industry report predicts that 100 million customers will shop in augmented reality by 2020.”
Both VR and AR fiddle with our reality; AR enhances it, but VR diverts us from it, by completely immersing the consumer in an alternative world inside their headset. As demonstrated by the examples of its uses in healthcare, it can be particularly useful for training purposes when the employee needs complete focus. However, sometimes this ability to fully switch off from the outside world can also act as VR's main weakness, as that is not a real life situation, and being unaware of your surroundings in a workplace on a day-to-day basis would simply not allow you to succeed. VR is undoubtedly a powerful way to experience content, but is not yet practical for interacting in the real world.
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INTERVIEW
Karim Talhouk, business solutions leads, Microsoft Gulf
Digital dynamics Glesni Holland caught up with Karim Talhouk, business solutions leads, Microsoft Gulf, at the UAE launch of Dynamics 365, to get a deeper insight into how the service aims to encourage businesses in the region to capitalise on digital transformation opportunities.
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an you summarise today’s event and give a short description of Dynamics 365? We have more than 500 customers here today from the Gulf region, and we had on stage with us two key transformational customers - Majid Al Futtaim Ventures and Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) - who have already begun their digital transformation journey with Dynamics 365. It could be argued that the pace of digital transformation within the enterprise is lagging behind in the Middle East compared with other regions. What are the reasons for this? Everyone is talking about digital transformation, but what we often find is that customers lack clarity of what it really means. A major part of it is cloud, and it’s not because companies like Microsoft, SAP and
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Oracle are pushing cloud, but because success in business is increasingly becoming centred around knowing your customers. That capability was not available before, but it is today through our smartphones. We spend a lot of time using our phones to browse our interests. If I can capture this data, then I can be more relevant to you and address you with a personalised message that will more likely end up with a business transaction between the two of us. Companies that fail to deliver this level of customer service will soon realise that someone else will. Years ago, everyone was saying “your company needs to have a website,” and many companies resisted and said that they didn’t – but can you name one company today that doesn’t have one? No. Ultimately, everyone will soon realise the value and get on board with this transformational journey. How can businesses drive transformational impact using Dynamics 365? Dynamics 365 comes tightly integrated with Office 365 – the productivity tool from Microsoft – as well as Azure, which is the whole infrastructure behind the application. Customers don’t need to worry about integration, or about procuring multiple solutions to achieve what they want to do. We are able to provide them with an end-to-end solution which can be seamlessly integrated; this is the key. How smooth can customers expect the integration of Dynamics 365 to be with existing applications? When it comes to the world of business applications, vendors are still using technology that dates back 10 or 12 years. What we did with Dynamics 365 is reinvent the whole product as a common data model. This is really what is making this uniqueness of Dynamics 365, as it allows you to integrate easily with any Microsoft www.cnmeonline.com
application, as well as any external or legacy applications that you may have. How will this solution benefit businesses from a cost perspective? Dynamics 365 is a 100 percent SaaS model – I buy exactly what I want, and I pay for exactly what I consume. I can start really small, and implement it one step at a time. I can identify the benefits from the system and then add as I grow. I think this is another key competitive advantage for Dynamics 365. With other vendors, you have to buy bits and pieces and integrate them separately. Here, you’re buying one application and then using modules within that. Dynamics 365 operates on the basis of ‘pay for what you need.’ Which applications would you advise customers to initially prioritise to create the most business value? It’s very much up to the customer. The main two advantages of the solution include the customer engagement platform, which allows me to get to know my customer and engage with them. We also have the social listening capability. If I have an amazing reach, but lack on the sales aspect, I would deploy the sales module. Similarly, if I wanted an omni-channel experience with my customers regarding customer service, then I would look to deploy a
Companies that fail to deliver this level of customer service will soon realise that someone else will.
customer service model, so it really depends on the customer and their needs. Of course, we have the back office modules as well and if I was a start-up, I would definitely look to build my back office first. What are the benefits of having ERP and CRM combined into one cloud solution, compared with the Dynamics 365 on-premise solution? The beauty of this hybrid model architecture is that we give customers the option to keep whatever information they want to on-premise, and use the other application in the cloud. For example, CBD keep all their customer’s information on-premise, but they are able to leverage the social listening capabilities and know the activities of their customers from the cloud. This hybrid model allows Microsoft to stand in a very strong position compared to competitors. What support can customers adopting this solution expect to receive from Microsoft? We have two ways to implement our solutions; one is through our partners, who are very well established in the region. Another way is through the Microsoft Consulting Service. This service can implement the full project, and if Microsoft Consulting Service is involved, we guarantee the success of the project, because it’s us that is implementing the technology. Are there any additional applications you are looking to integrate into the solution in the future? Technology is an on-going evolution; it doesn’t stop. But what I can tell you is that Dynamics 365 is fully integrated with all of the Office suites and Azure, leveraging the full power of Microsoft. To put things into perspective, BI comes baked within every application in 365. Today, we have the best tool in the market – Power BI – which is already integrated within 365. MARCH 2017
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ADVERTORIAL
LEAD A WORKPLACE REVOLUTION
Abraham Mammen, Head of VC - Middle East & North Africa, Logitech Middle East, explains why a digitally empowered generation now demands slicker communication solutions in the workplace.
A
revolution is occurring in today’s workplace. Every business is fast becoming a digital, connected business. Democratisation and the impact of consumer technology are rapidly changing when, where and how people work. Organisations today need to satisfy the new digitally savvy workforce and, in the process, to accelerate employee engagement, productivity and Abraham Mammen business agility to stay ahead. Head of VC - Middle East & North Africa Many CEO’s are investing in digital workplace initiatives as a key priority and driver of competitive advantage for the years ahead. The era of the digital workplace is already taking shape driven by three key trends. Physical changes in the workplace Companies today are proactively redesigning their office space to suit the dynamics of a next-generation workplace, and the move to open workspaces is dramatically changing the ways in which employees work and collaborate. On the
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flip side, difficulty concentrating and ongoing distractions are one of the biggest complaints employees make about working in open office spaces. It’s no wonder then that as companies shift to more open workspaces, the need for informal meeting spaces and quiet zones is skyrocketing. Wainhouse Research has reported that the rise of huddle rooms and small meeting spaces will play a critical role in enabling collaboration among teams. Wainhouse partner and senior analyst Andrew Davis believes there are somewhere between 30-50 million of these spaces around the world, and most lack support for collaborative technologies. Zig Serafin, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Skype Business Services, claims that 97 percent of meeting rooms in the world are not equipped for modern video conferencing. Millennials reshape the workplace The changes happening in office design are fuelled by another trend – changing workforce demographics. By 2020, millennials will form 50% of the global labour force, and in the last year, millennials surpassed Gen Xer’s as the largest generation in the U.S workforce. One of the defining characteristics of the millennial generation and Gen Z, the newest entrants to the workplace
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born since the mid-90’s, is that they have grown up as digital natives. Always connected, their use of technology sets them apart. For millennials, voicemail is considered an outdated technology, and email, seen as a formal way of communicating, is rapidly going that same route. These workers expect the work environment to adapt to the way they communicate, and to be able to use the familiar social media applications they already use in their personal lives in a work setting. Technology adapts to the digital workplace Tech is playing a key role in shaping how we collaborate. The deployment of cloud-based applications has accelerated, enabling new and more effective ways of working. Video Conferencing as a Service (VCaaS) is having a massive impact on the market, making it affordable for companies to scale the deployment of collaborative technologies. Rich, visual communication is essential to building trust among increasingly task-oriented, distributed workgroups. Humans are wired for face-to-face communication, and today’s employees expect to be able to collaborate with video. Increasingly, video is becoming pervasive in the workplace. No longer just a stand-alone technology, such as video conferencing, video is now embedded in
workflow productivity applications like Slack, or the recently announced Microsoft Teams. Latest data from Wainhouse Research indicates that video usage in business is becoming mainstream, with more than half of web conferences now video-based, and 60% of those video calls involving content sharing. The good news is that there are alternatives to the traditional video room systems which easily cost $5,000 and can quickly reach $25,000 when special features and support services are required. A wave of affordable highquality, USB-based video end-points, such as Logitech’s ConferenceCam range, have finally made broad-based deployment of video a realistic option for businesses. Conclusion To succeed in the 21st century, businesses need to embrace new technologies and plan for the next generation of their digital workplace. The good news is that collaborative technologies are more affordable than ever. As prices continues to drop, and the ease of use continues to increase, it is interesting to see that we appear to be right on the cusp of the tipping point of mass deployment. The digital workplace will be a most interesting space to watch over the next few years.
For further information, visit: www.logitech.com/group www.cnmeonline.com
MARCH 2017
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PRODUCTS
PRODUCT OF THE MONTH
Launches and releases
Brand: Nokia Product: 3310 (2017) Brand: Toshiba Product: Canvio Toshiba Gulf has launched its latest innovations in storage solutions, debuting three new products in the market, which cater to photo and technology enthusiasts alike. The ‘Canvio for Smartphone’ is a portable storage device for backing up and charging Android phones in a single operation, saving personal data such as photos, videos, music, documents, and contacts. Backups are automatically created each time the smartphone connects without the need for user intervention and after activating this function in the intuitive Android app. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: For PC users, the Canvio for smartphone can still be used as a conventional external hard drive, backing up data via USB Type-A and USB Type-C interfaces. The Canvio for smartphone comes in a circular white casing and has a storage capacity of 500 GB. The device is supplied with an AC adapter, a USB 2.0 Micro-B cable, a USB 2.0 Type-C cable and a USB Micro-B – Type-A adapter.
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HMD Global, Nokia’s parent company, has unveiled a revamped version of the iconic 3310 phone, more than 10 years after it was phased out. The retooled 3310 is a modernised version of the rugged candy bar handset that was made obsolete by the iPhone. The device is equipped with a 2.4-inch screen, voice and text messaging, limited Internet browsing via an Opera Mini browser, a 2MP camera, and a 22-hour battery. It also features the iconic mobile game, Snake. It will be available in four colours – black, silver, red, and yellow. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: The phone packs 16MB of internal storage
Brand: HP Product: HP Pro x2 612 G2
HP Pro x2 612 G2 is the company’s new commercial 2-in-1 detachable device. According to the company, the new Pro x2 612 G2 is designed for today’s mobile professionals who want a stylish device that is easy to use. The Pro x2 features multiple modes ideal for commercial use, including presentation mode, inking mode for taking notes,
that can be expanded up to 32GB via a microSD card. It packs a 2MP primary camera on the rear, runs Series 30, and is powered by a 1200mAh removable battery. It is a dual SIM (GSM and GSM) mobile that accepts MicroSIM. Connectivity options include Bluetooth and FM.
tablet mode for data collection, and notebook mode. The Pro x2 can be configured with a choice of the latest 7th generation Intel processors, providing reliable performance to meet a variety of end users’ needs. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: The device, according to HP, includes WLAN and optional WWAN, with a fast-charging battery that offers up to 11 hours of battery life. The device’s magnetically attached collaboration keyboard features dedicated keys to directly manage voice and video conference calls. For drawing and taking notes, the HP Active Wacom Pen with App Launch, combined with the extended 165-degree kickstand, “make it easy” to present and share. The Pro x2 comes with a USB-C connection for quick charging and data transfers and USB-A for accessing traditional legacy peripherals. www.cnmeonline.com
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Glesni Holland, Deputy Editor, CNME
Back to the future I
f the idea of self-driving cars wasn’t futuristic enough, then Dubai just took it one step further in this latest RTA revelation. In collaboration with Chinese manufacturer EHANG, the pair have announced that the operation of an Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) in Dubai could begin as early as July. Simply put: we could be seeing flying cars whizzing around the city’s skies before the summer's up. And that’s not all. These EHANG184 vehicles, which were recently displayed at the World Government Summit in Dubai, are driverless. Passengers do not even require a licence to travel in one. They are fitted with a touchscreen which displays a map of all pre-set routes, and passengers are to simply select the intended destination, then sit back and relax while the vehicle begins its automatic take off. They operate on 100 percent green 54
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technology, using no fuel, powered completely by electricity. The vehicles are designed to fly for a maximum of 30 minutes at an average rate of 100km per hour. Upon learning this, I was initially struck with horror; what if you run into air traffic mid-trip and have nowhere safe to land? However, my fears were allayed. According to EHANG, the vehicle has a ‘fail safe’ system that prompts it to land in a nearby designated spot, should anything malfunction or disconnect. The launch replicates Dubai’s self-driving transport strategy which aims to transform 25 per cent of total individual trips into self-driving journeys, using various modes of transport by 2030. While my first reaction was that this was a farfetched suggestion, the rate at which technology is developing prompts me to reconsider and accept that these futuristic concepts are very quickly becoming today's reality.
However, what fills me with some confidence is that I don’t appear to be the only one with reservations. A technology pioneer who most would expect to back this kind of initiative is the mastermind of self-driving cars, Elon Musk. Yet it appears in a recent Bloomberg interview, he did not hold back in voicing his concerns, and confirmed that he’s out on flying cars, because even a manned mission to Mars, a planet 54.6 million kilometres away at its closest, is a far more feasible suggestion. Ironic, when you consider that the UAE already has plans in place to land on Mars by 2021. In the meantime, I will sit tight and wait for July to come around before I make any sweeping statement. And while this presents us with a classic ‘watch this space’ moment, I think I’ll be sticking to grounded modes of transport for the time being. www.cnmeonline.com