Computer News Middle East February 2019

ISSUE 324 | FEBRUARY 2019 WWW.TAHAWULTECH.COM

SAUDI ARABIA'S MISSING LINK? PREVIEW GARTNER SYMPOSIUM 2019

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY DUBAI PRODUCTION CITY, DCCA

HOW BLOCKCHAIN CAN DEFINE VISION 2030 TRANSPARENCY

SMART DUBAI CEO WESAM LOOTAH MICRO FOCUS INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT VMWARE EMEA SVP

Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019 Intelligent #1

Digital #2

#3

Autonomous Things

#4

Digital Twins

#5

AI-Driven Development

Blockchain

#6

Empowered Edge

Augmented Analytics

#7

Mesh

#8

Smart Spaces

#9

Immersive Technologies

Ethics & Privacy

#10 Join us at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2019 to learn about Gartner’s technology trends, if they will work for you and how to implement them.

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2019 Dubai, UAE / 4 - 6 March gartner.com/me/symposium / #GartnerSYM

© 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner and ITxpo are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates.

For more information, email info@gartner.com or visit gartner.com.

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EDITORIAL

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

Talk to us: E-mail: james.dartnell@ cpimediagroup.com

FUTURE NETWORK AWARDS 2019

T

his month’s cover feature looks at how the region’s largest economy will be using blockchain. I sat with Dr Hesham bin Abbas, head of blockchain for Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, who was pretty candid about the whole thing - they’re still learning, but the technology is certain to play a big part in Vision 2030. More on page 14.

Smart Dubai CEO Wesam Lootah knows that the emirate has much to live up to if it wants to match those relentless Stateside techies, who have blown everyone else out of the water when it comes to customer experience. Dubai has one trick up its sleeve though - the public sector rules the roost when it comes to innovation. Wesam discusses the new services Dubai residents can soon expect on page 20.

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One of their customers is taking 10 years to move to the cloud, but who cares?”

I chatted with Jorge Dinares, president of international markets for software giant Micro Focus, who shared his thoughts on why organisations shouldn’t give in to vendor pressure.

One of his customers - a European bank - is taking 10 years to move to the cloud, but who cares? Not Jorge. Find out why on page 26.

Happy reading.

James Dartnell Editor

27th March, 2019

Habtoor Grand Resort, Autograph Collection, Dubai Marina

Recognising excellence in security Security Advisor Middle East CISO 50 Awards recognise 50 top organisations and the people within them that have delivered groundbreaking business value through the innovative application of risk & security concepts and technologies.

Winners will be announced at the CISO 50 awards and conference taking place in Dubai. To submit a nomination, please follow the instructions below and send: • Name of project, brief description including objective • Detailed narrative describing the project • Empirical facts & metrics that demonstrate the initiative’s value • Additionally, you will also be asked to provide details about key contacts in the nominated organisation.

Award nominations may be submitted by an organisation, PR agency or a solutions provider.

Submission Deadline: 7 March 2019

#CISO50

www.tahawultech.com/ciso50/2019 DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PARTNER

HOSTED BY

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CONTENTS

Cloud and Managed Services Partner

Transformation and Technology Specialist Partner

Advance Computing Partner

ISSUE 324 | FEBRUARY 2019

20 Smart Dubai CEO Wesam Lootah

14 28 Gartner Symposium

38 The new network

2019

26

MICRO FOCUS INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT

Falcon Eye Drones managing director Rabih Bou Rashid believes that emergency services teams need to adopt drone technology if smart cities are to fulfill their potential.

36 Schneider CIO top tips

30

VMWARE EMEA SVP

FOUNDER, CPI MEDIA GROUP Dominic De Sousa (1959-2015)

Gartner has forecast IT spending to grow in 2019 despite a recession, and the research firm will discuss its findings at the Symposium/ITxpo from 4th-6th March in Dubai.

32 Eye in the sky

Schneider Electric CIO Elizabeth Hackenson gives her take on the most effectives ways CIOs can inspire their organisations to instigate digital change.

Cisco’s vice president for the Middle East and Africa David Meads gives his take on the ways that technology consumption and shifting enterprise demands will raise the bar for networking infrastructure over the coming year.

42 The data-driven ecosystem

Dell EMC’s senior vice president for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa Mohammed Amin gives his take on what the IT industry can expect from the year ahead.

46 How to AI

Booz Allen Hamilton’s senior vice-president for the Middle East and North Africa, Fady Kassatly, offers practical tips for how organisations can take their firsts with artificial intelligence.

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SAUDI ARABIA'S BLOCKCHAIN BID

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NEWS

DUBAI CRIMINAL TRIALS CAN NOW BE CONDUCTED VIA VIDEO-CONFERENCING

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Dubai Police has launched virtual courtrooms or “remote trials,” the General Department of Criminal Investigation has announced.

Virtual courtrooms will allow defendants to appear for hearing

sessions while at correctional facilities via video-conferencing.

Launched in accordance with the directions of Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri, commander-in-chief of Dubai Police, the new system is reportedly

aimed at embracing digital services in the judicial system and to speed up trials.

Colonel Saeed Al Ayali, director of the Wanted Department of the General Department of Criminal Investigation, has explained that the virtual courtrooms seek to improve legal services for defendants and enhance the efficiency in the judicial system.

The remote trial has reportedly contributed to decreasing the number of the judicial procedures from 7 to 3 steps, as well as reducing the time and effort of employees in achieving the judicial process. The new smart system also allows prosecutors to carry out investigations through conference calls instead of having using paper files.

ZUCKERBERG TO MERGE INSTAGRAM, WHATSAPP AND MESSENGER Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to unify the underlying messaging infrastructure of the WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger services, according to the New York Times.

According to the report, the move is to enhance end-to-end encryption into these apps.

The three services will, however, continue as stand-alone apps, the report said, citing four people involved in the effort.

Facebook said it is working on adding end-to-end encryption, which protects messages from being viewed by anyone except the participants in a conversation, to more of its messaging products, and considering ways to make it FEBRUARY 2019

easier for users to connect across networks.

“There is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work,” a spokesperson said.

After the changes, a Facebook user, for instance, will be able send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account.

Some former Facebook security engineers and an outside encryption expert said the plan could be good news for user privacy, in particular by extending end-to-end encryption.

The work to merge elements of the three apps has already begun and is expected to be completed by the end of 2019 or early next year, said the New York Times.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

www.tahawultech.com

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DEWA, ARAMCO PARTNER FOR HIGH-TECH R&D Dubai Electricity and Water Authority has signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Aramco to foster collaboration on energy and smart grid innovations.

DEWA and Saudi Aramco will cooperate in exploring joint strategic ventures in the energy sector, collaborate on R&D in power generation, innovation and testing centres, water desalination and purification, smart grids and network integration, process automation, robotics, AI, blockchain, 3D printing and additive manufacturing and Big Data.

The MoU was signed by Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, CEO of DEWA, and Abdulkareem Al Ghamdi, vice president of power systems at Saudi Aramco.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA, and Abdulkareem Al Ghamdi, Vice President of Power Systems at Saudi Aramco.

They will also cooperate on the Energy Service Company (ESCO) business model to enhance energy efficiency and building retrofits, as well as training and capacity building. DEWA and Aramco will also work together on sustainability, environmental protection, carbon abatement and climate change adaptation management.

“Through this partnership, we’re pursuing an exchange of experiences

CHINA DELETES 7 MILLION PIECES OF ONLINE DATA

China’s cyber watchdog has reportedly deleted more than 7 million pieces of online information as well as 9,382 mobile apps, and it criticised tech giant Tencent’s news app for spreading “vulgar information”. www.tahawultech.com

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement on its website the action was part of a clean-up of unacceptable and harmful information that started this month, adding that it had also shut down 733

and best practices that will help both parties to leverage technology solutions and accelerate business growth and drive innovation in the energy sector,” Abdulkareem said.

“This MOU supports our vision to lead the digital transformation in the energy industry by applying effective technologies to enable operational efficiencies. The collaboration with DEWA will compliment our ongoing energy and technology initiatives.”

websites, said a Reuters report.

The administration singled out Tencent’s Tiantian Kuaibao news app, saying the platform had been ordered to make changes as it had been spreading “vulgar and low-brow information that was harmful and damaging to the internet ecosystem”.

Tencent did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

According to Reuters, the regulator also criticised Huaban, a photosharing social network, as having “serious ecosystem problems”.

Huaban said on its website its online service had been temporarily taken down for upgrades.

In November, the CAC scrubbed 9,800 social media accounts of independent news providers for violations that included spreading politically harmful information and falsifying the history of the Communist Party.

FEBRUARY 2019

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Sponsored by:

NEWS

SHEIKH HAMDAN INKS DEAL FOR 4IR CENTRE

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, WEF

The UAE has signed an agreement with the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos to establish the Emirates Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) in the country.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, crown prince of Dubai signed the MoU while attending

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the forty-ninth session of the World Economic Forum.

The agreement was signed by Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, minister of cabinet affairs and the future, and Professor Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.

The Emirates 4th Industrial Revolution Centre is the world’s first to get the Forum’s fellowship, and will be managed by the Dubai Future Foundation.

“Selection of the country to host the 4IR Centre goes in harmony with the UAE Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is aimed at establishing a competitive innovation and knowledge – based economy in line with the directives of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to utilise new technologies and the tools of the 4IR to develop efficient solutions to the significant challenges besetting key sectors like education, health, food security and renewable energy,” said Al Gergawi.

MAJID AL FUTTAIM TEAMS UP WITH WILL.I.AN TO DELIVER AI-POWERED INNOVATIONS

will.i.am

Dubai retailer Majid Al Futtaim has partnered with Los Angeles-based technology company I.AM+, founded by artist, will.i.am.

Under the partnership, I.AM+ will offer Majid Al Futtaim its Omega platform, an AI-powered conversational and contextual voice assistant.

FEBRUARY 2019

The technology delivers cross domain knowledge by passing and sharing common information across industries and services.

Alain Bejjani, CEO at Majid Al Futtaim Holding, said, “Majid Al Futtaim and I.AM+ share a common vision to enhance people’s lives and

everyday experiences using the latest technology. Our partnership helps us to tap into the true potential of AI, where Omega will allow us to better understand our customers and introduce the most personalised shopping experience. What you see now is merely a fraction of what is to come as we continue to pursue pathbreaking technologies that support our digital transformation agenda across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.”

“I.AM+ is honoured to be collaborating with Majid Al Futtaim, a prestigious lifestyle conglomerate that is one of the most important players in consumer retail and leisure experiences,” said will.i.am.

“We believe that both the retail and finance industries will be among the sectors that benefit most from Omega and the voice computing revolution.” www.tahawultech.com

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DUBAI-ABU DHABI HYPERLOOP TO COST “$20-40 MILLION PER KILOMETRE” The hyperloop system which is set to open in Abu Dhabi in 2020 will cost between $20 million to $40 million per kilometer, according to Hyperloop TT chairman Bibop Gresta.

Gresta announced that Abu Dhabi’s Hyperloop capsule has left the assembly facility in Spain to Toulouse, France, where it will be tested and optimised.

He added that the project “can recoup the investment in 8-15 years”.

The first phase of the project involves construction of 10km out of a 150km system between Abu Dhabi and Dubai and is set to be ready next year.

“It was a far-fetched dream, but we are all excited now that it’s a dream

coming true in the UAE in 2020,” Gresta said.

The cutting-edge technology uses electromagnetic levitation engineering to carry pods at 1,123 km/h. It is expected to reduce travel times between the emirates from hours to minutes.

“An average cost generically comes between US$20 million (AED73 million) to US $40 million (AED147 million) per kilometre,” Gresta said.

“When you build it in the desert, it is different from building it in Switzerland. However, the second question we need to ask is how long does it take to recoup the investment? This is a topical question

Bibop Gresta, chairman, Hyperloop TT

because no transportation system on the ground recoups its investments.

They always need subsidy.”

9

www.tahawultech.com

FEBRUARY 2019

FEATURE HPE

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“A new way to consume IT” HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE’S VICE PRESIDENT AND MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, DR FABIO FONTANA, AND KINDA BAYDOUN, MIDDLE EAST DIRECTOR OF CHANNELS AND ALLIANCES, EXPLAIN WHY HPE’S GREENLAKE FLEX CAPACITY MODEL CAN BENEFIT ENTERPRISES.

FEBRUARY 2019

www.tahawultech.com www.tahawultech.com

W

hy are customers so excited about on-premise consumption

models?

KB: Businesses are moving away from capital acquisitions and shifting to IT consumption.

Independent research shows that 40% of data centre IT infrastructure spending will be on pay-per-use basis by 2020. This reflects the strong growth in the cloud market, and IDC forecasts overall public cloud spending to grow 21.5% annually from 2015 until 2020.

With HPE GreenLake, customers get the benefits of on-premise IT control and security and also get the benefits of public cloud, flexibility and scalability at proven cost parity. HPE GreenLake really is the best of both worlds and that’s why customers are so excited about it.

How will HPE’s GreenLake solution benefit Middle East enterprises?

FF: With GreenLake, HPE introduced and is offering as-a-service IT

solutions, to give our customers public cloud advantages while retaining onpremises control.

With GreenLake’s consumption-based offering, customers can finely balance flexibility, cost and control in order to accelerate business outcomes.

Without costly overprovisioning, customers can be confident that business-critical workloads will avoid slow performance.

This is a fundamental innovation in IT economics.

The Middle East has a unique profile in terms of growing demand for digital innovation. New products and services are expected to grow fast to bring benefits to countries’ competitiveness and societal development.

KB: The GreenLake Flex Capacity model comes in the midst of a

GreenLake is a great alternative for customers who want to benefit from onpremise IT control and security and get the benefits of public cloud.” www.tahawultech.com

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Dr Fabio Fontana, vice president and managing director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Middle East

public cloud criticism sparked by soaring monthly bills and increased concerns around data governance and security.

With cloud 1.0, everyone wanted to move to public cloud. Customers thought that it was going to be cheaper. Then they discovered all the challenges (mainly related to security and hidden costs). We hear customers saying more and more that the public cloud isn’t the best place for their workloads, especially mission-critical and security sensitive data applications.

GreenLake is a great alternative for customers who want to benefit FEBRUARY 2019

FEATURE HPE

hyperconverged, composable, Microsoft Azure Stack, ERP with SAP-HANA, big data with Hadoop and backup with Commvault and VEEAM.

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Kinda Baydoun, director channels and alliances, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Middle East

from on-premise IT control and security and get the benefits of public cloud at the same time. It increases customers’ return on IT investment, speeds IT time to value, reduces the risk of IT not meeting business needs of the business and it scales to the cloud with simple and fast capacity growth.

What technology choices will GreenLake offer to customers?

KB: GreenLake Flex Capacity offers customers technology choices which include a wide range of HPE and our partner’s industry standard solutions, such as compute, storage, containers, HPC, SW-defined, FEBRUARY 2019

How will HPE GreenLake benefit HPE partners?

KB: The HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity channel model is unprecedented.

It’s a game-changer.

I believe that we have the best offer in the market today.

Other vendors have leasing and financing offers, but HPE GreenLake is different. This is truly consumption-as-a-service. No one else in the market is doing what HPE is doing with GreenLake today.

The new GreenLake channel model allows partners’ sales reps to be paid up front for the value of the total deal. The new economics of consumption mean that partners can earn a much higher margin than they would with similar capex deals, and the sticky nature of consumption services and high customer satisfaction means that HPE is experiencing nearly 100% renewal rates.

In addition to the upfront compensation, our new pay-per-use channel model provides a robust rebate incentive aimed directly at addressing cash flow issues that have stopped many partners

moving from a capital expenditure reseller model to a recurring revenue services model.

GreenLake gives our partners a unique offering for customers who want a consumption-based experience. When companies don’t have an offering like this, customers default to public cloud. Now, HPE partners have an alternative that they can offer so they can maintain their relationship with the customer, which promotes their value and keeps them attached to the customer.

How can HPE GreenLake help to manage multi-cloud environments?

FF: Hybrid cloud is the new normal in the digital age: it allows enterprises to define and adopt their own right mix of solutions on-premises and in the cloud.

GreenLake manages customers’ consumption experience across public and private clouds. With cloud-native controls and expertise, they get a unified view of usage and cost across their cloud estate.

It simplifies the whole cloud experience thanks to the best practices developed by HPE and reinforced by the acquisitions of companies such as Cloud Technology Partners, Cloud Cruiser and RedPixie. The Minimum Viable Cloud methodology is the proven way to demonstrate the value of hybrid cloud to organisations. The continuous compliance service monitors 1,500 controls about IT compliance, corporate governance and regulatory governance, to interpret regulatory controls www.tahawultech.com

and provide timely alerts. The continuous cost service provides visibility across all accounts and costs, aligning costs with business groups for financial accountability.

GreenLake Hybrid Cloud can deliver accelerated time to value, fewer risks, simplified operations while keeping proper control across multiple clouds with AWS, Azure and Azure Stack currently supported.

What is HPE’s competitive advantage and key differentiator from its rivals in the market?

KB: HPE has one of the most profitable channel programmes for partners in the industry, whether that is special pricing and deal registration programmes that excite partners’ sales teams because of the protection and margin opportunities, or market development funds and rebates that are unmatched in the industry. What’s more, the GreenLake model has put partners in a position to drive on-premises solutions that deliver a cloud-like experience onpremises, at a cost that is on par with public cloud. It also is designed to work in a multi-cloud environment, which provides an economic benefit to customers given the cost of an existing public cloud.

Why do enterprises now need on-demand backup services?

FF: Ensuring IT resilience and compliance are critical success factors for business in the digital age. At the same time, the risk of failure increases with cyberattacks, including the fast rise of ransomware that can impact, slow www.tahawultech.com

or even stop entire critical services, as happened in healthcare in 2017.

In this context, backup is extremely relevant in order to recover from issues as well as managing the size, distribution and speed of change of data. Securing data while ensuring compliance and security at an affordable price is a technical and economic challenge, requiring significant effort by IT. GreenLake Backup is ideal for customers looking for simple, cloudlike, pay-as-you-go backup in their own environment. Given the ubiquitous nature of regulatory compliance and data privacy concerns, many customers have the need for on-premises data backup and GreenLake offers a secure, scalable, worryfree solution. It integrates all the needed hardware and software components, also offering all the needed services, from the definition of policies to the migration of existing legacy environments.

Customers pay on the basis of a single simple metric - how many terabytes are backed up.

approach to data collection and analysis. It starts with having the right data. Data from infrastructure has always been limited to log files and graphs on obvious metrics and is stuck on-premises. InfoSight takes a much more comprehensive approach, collecting thousands of embedded sensors every second across the infrastructure stack. Its platform is cloud-based to expand the visibility to our whole installed base. Machine learning continuously learns from every single system in order to generate predictive analytics and automate recommendations.

This AI-driven management is not just about enhancing problem detection and resolution.

It proactively improves performances, optimises available resources and simplifies resource planning by combining learnings from real situations, best practices and policies. Guesswork is removed from managing infrastructure.

HPE Infosight is the result of the acquisition of Nimble Storage. It was expanded to 3PAR storage and recently to HPE Servers, aggressively extending across the portfolio and also leveraging products and technologies from our alliance partners. Its cloud-based SaaS portal allows rapid innovation for HPE and easy and fast adoption for our customers.

The HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity channel model is unprecedented.”

How is HPE embedding artificial intelligence in its new technologies?

FF: HPE’s vision of artificial intelligence is to transforming hybrid cloud operations. HPE InfoSight is built on a unique

FEBRUARY 2019

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BLOCKCHAIN: SAUDI ARABIA'S MISSING LINK? Dr Hesham bin Abbas, head of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology’s blockchain initiative

FEBRUARY 2019

www.tahawultech.com www.tahawultech.com

COVER FEATURE Saudi Arabia's blockchain bid

DR HESHAM BIN ABBAS, THE HEAD OF SAUDI ARABIA’S MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY’S BLOCKCHAIN INITIATIVE, TOLD JAMES DARTNELL AT THE UNLOCK BLOCKCHAIN FORUM WHY THE DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGY WILL FORM A KEY PART OF VISION 2030, WHY IT WON’T THREATEN LARGE ORGANISATIONS AND WHY IT IS NOT A PANACEA FOR TRUST ISSUES.

Most of our revenue growth will come from emerging technology.”

www.tahawultech.com

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n the face of it, blockchain has the potential to fulfill some of Saudi Arabia’s most important Vision 2030 goals. The strategy, announced in 2016, lays out a broad economic and social transformation plan, with technological development as one of its main strategic pillars. The Vision 2030 blueprint says the Kingdom will “expand the variety of digital services to reduce delays and cut tedious bureaucracy” and will “immediately adopt wide-ranging transparency and accountability reforms”.

Blockchain ticks both these boxes.

However, as many enterprises and governments in the Middle East are beginning to discover, introducing blockchain systems isn’t straightforward. A lack of developer expertise and suspicion from third party partners have been two of the biggest hurdles to widespread adoption so far. Saudi Arabia, like so many other nations and private sector enterprises, is still finding its feet, but is determined to put blockchain at the core of its operations.

Dr Hesham bin Abbas, head of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology’s blockchain initiative, concedes that Saudi Arabia is in the “exploratory” phase with blockchain, but believes the country is not alone in this regard. “That’s the same for almost everyone across the world,” he says. “Some use cases are under development in different areas and entities in Saudi Arabia. Some are in areas like telecoms and municipalities, where we’re piloting some projects but are working towards finding

the right use cases. It’s good to understand the benefits and drawbacks of blockchain at this stage.”

Bin Abbas, who obtained his doctorate in computer networks from the University of Pittsburgh, and also holds degrees from King Saud University and the University of Washington, believes that blockchain will be an ideal fit for the country, and an important strategic component of its development.

“Saudi Arabia is interested in the enablement of all emerging technologies, and this especially applies to blockchain, which is an important part of our economic diversification,” he says. “Most of our revenue growth will come from emerging technology. Traditional areas such as software, hardware, services and cloud are mature and saturated. Vision 2030’s main strategic objective is non-oil economy diversification. Digital transformation is one aspect of that, and we see major opportunities with emerging technologies.

“We believe we have a really good opportunity with blockchain. It has many advantages like transparency, speeding up processes, cutting costs and delivering a trusted environment for all stakeholders. All these features are aligned with our government and its goals.”

Experts have hailed the collapse in cryptocurrency prices in November 2017 as being the turning point for understanding their underlying technology, and this shift has served not only to give a less cynical interpretation of blockchain, but has also increased the understanding of the value it can provide. “When cryptocurrencies became very high-profile a few years ago, there FEBRUARY 2019

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COVER FEATURE Saudi Arabia's blockchain bid

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Sometimes, you won’t need to invest in blockchain, and a traditional application or database will be good enough.”

was a lot of confusion around blockchain,” bin Abbas says.

“Now, I think it’s become clear to everyone how to differentiate between the technology and its misuse. Any technology can be misused, and the perception of Bitcoin being associated with illegal activity definitely affected it.”

Unlike the Dubai government, which has given a mandate for 50% of government services to be blockchain-based by 2020, bin Abbas believes Saudi Arabia will evaluate whether to use blockchain on a case by case basis and does not believe it will be a bureaucratic panacea. “Blockchain doesn’t solve every problem,” he says. “There are certain conditions for which it will be the right solution, but they need FEBRUARY 2019

to be identified correctly.

Sometimes, you won’t need to invest in blockchain at all, and a traditional application or database will be good enough. You need to work with potential users to understand the right scenarios. The irrevocable nature of information within blockchain isn’t an advantage or disadvantage, it just depends on your application requirement. If your requirement is for information to be unchangeable then it’s the right option. It depends on your business requirement and the application itself.”

Identifying the appropriate use cases for blockchain is all well and good, but the world already faces a huge shortage of skilled developers that are able to meet

fast-growing demand. The world’s tech powerhouses are beginning to announce their play in the space, and some companies may even have to learn on the job in order to meet market needs. Saudi Arabia wants to make sure it is equipped with the right talent to build the necessary foundations for blockchain development.

“We’re committed to implementing all the right ecosystem components,” bin Abbas says. “MNCs are essential, and we’d like to develop a strategy which promotes them investing in Saudi Arabia and working with the government. We also want to develop local talent and startups. Some of the blue-chip tech companies are already here and have created a business line for blockchain, but we’re also targeting small international startups that have strong expertise.

We’re trying to find the best way to collaborate and create the best opportunities to do business. www.tahawultech.com

“One approach is to explore the demand and supply aspects of Blockchain in parallel. On the demand side we could hold sessions and workshops with different sectors to identify the right use cases, implement a high-level architecture then come up with clear demand for use cases. On the supply side, we could work with local entrepreneurs to engage in incubators and accelerators.

You can then match the supply with demand with the help of a regulatory framework.”

A key part of Saudi Arabia’s blockchain journey will be played out beyond the PC monitors of application developers and instead between regulatory committees that must decide upon the rules that will govern the technology’s usage.

Blockchain, by its nature, must have regulations that are compatible with a country’s international partners.

“Blockchain is borderless - it can’t have conflicts with international interests,” bin Abbas says.

“Regulatory frameworks and standards are not internationally developed yet, so we’re going through a journey of use cases, and are collaborating with international companies and delivering education and awareness sessions to understand the value of the technology. This will all help us to identify challenges and learn from experiences to understand how to design frameworks for standards and policies that align with international trends and help to develop local talent.”

Saudi Arabia also has plans to introduce broader changes around citizen information that relate to the use of blockchain. “We also want to deliver open data, data privacy and data security,” bin Abbas says. www.tahawultech.com

“These are strategic policies we’d like to align with blockchain.”

Paradoxically, although blockchain is intended to increase trust amongst concerned parties, one of its biggest obstacles to success is exactly that - trust. IBM’s highly publicised partnership with logistics giant Maersk is the world’s most renowned blockchain use case, but the deal has run into difficulty in terms of onboarding smaller partners to the platform. “There are definitely limitations, difficulties and technical obstacles around blockchain,” bin Abbas says. “You can already see some of the issues that the world’s biggest companies are facing with blockchain, but that’s natural. You have to expect some limitations and issues. They will be solved and resolved with the right R&D and protocols. Blockchain’s potential opportunities are bigger than its expected obstacles. Blockchain doesn’t appear all of a sudden as it’s an integration of existing technologies to develop new services.”

Bin Abbas does not believe that a decentralised ledger technology could pose a significant threat to traditional transaction custodians, such as banks. Central governments across the world have considered the threat to their existence, but bin Abbas believes the most essential institutions will not be affected by its introduction. “I don’t believe they’re under threat because it

ultimately depends on the application that you use,” he says. “I don’t want to call blockchain a threat, because I believe businesses will adapt to new technology.

However, sometimes, keeping control of everything is an overhead cost.

Maybe it’s better to release control of certain things, and blockchain can certainly assist with that. Businesses like banks and central governments will be needed, and that won’t change.

You can’t just move everything to a blockchain solution. If you need to get rid of a central authority then you could use blockchain, but if you do then maybe it should be a private, permission-based blockchain, which is similar to existing databases.”

However, bin Abbas acknowledges that smaller organisations that have historically been responsible for managing transactions could find themselves threatened by blockchain. “It’s true that smaller businesses such as currency exchange houses could be at risk,” he says. “Many banks themselves are investigating things such as currency remittances through blockchain. Globally, banks are trying out different solutions. Ripple has already signed agreements with more than 1,200 banks around the globe, so I think banks see blockchain as more of an opportunity than a threat.”

MNCs are essential in a blockchain ecosystem, and we’d like to develop a strategy which promotes them investing in Saudi Arabia and working with the government.”

FEBRUARY 2019

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18

AT YOUR SERVICE GBM’S VICE PRESIDENT OF SERVICES, JOHN R. PORTER, TELLS CNME WHAT THE IDEAL IT SERVICES PROVIDER NEEDS TO DELIVER AND HOW GBM’S EXPERTISE CAN HELP CUSTOMERS FOCUS EXCLUSIVELY ON THEIR BUSINESS.

John R. Porter, vice president, services, GBM

FEBRUARY 2019

www.tahawultech.com www.tahawultech.com

INTERVIEW GBM

H

OW ARE TODAY'S BIGGEST TECHNOLOGY TRENDS INFLUENCING THE IT SERVICES INDUSTRY? First of all you need to understand what’s trending in IT. If you look at IoT, that’s a huge one and all clients are looking at that in some shape or form. Then there’s something that’s ledger-based like blockchain, which is extremely important, and of course artificial intelligence, which goes along with IoT. Those are all trending and certainly aren’t fads. They’re here to stay, and as a technology provider, we have to make sure that we’re part of that ecosystem, and that when clients think about these new technologies, they’re thinking about GBM and how we can play in this arena. I think what we offer for clients is thinking ahead in terms of those technologies and what’s emerging, as well as how we can consult and provide roadmaps and education for clients. Even more important than that is providing the infrastructure for the clients so that they can worry about their business and not their IT. HOW IS GBM SHAPING ITS SERVICES TO SERVE CUSTOMERS THAT ARE DIGITALLY TRANSFORMING? We’re helping clients with digital transformation from a couple of angles. If you take a step back and look at what CIO’s would tell you, 40% of their spend will be on digital transformation. But then you have to ask what digital transformation is.

If you ask five people you’ll probably get five different answers. It’s not www.tahawultech.com

just about changing your process and your technology, it’s about dramatically changing how you use your technology.

Take the automotive industry for instance. They way you buy and sell cars to the way you did even 10 years ago is dramatically different.

Today I can put my car up for auction and sell it, have a cheque transferred to my account and I don’t have to set foot in a showroom. If you look at the application set, that’s what digital transformation is. At GBM, we’re looking at how we can help clients on the application and migration side, as well as the infrastructure side.

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST BENEFITS OF ENGAGING A TECHNOLOGY SERVICES PROVIDER? The biggest benefits of engaging a GBM are around our skillset and our consultative methodologies.

When clients come to us with a need, we want to make sure we can fill it. We certainly have out-tasking and those kinds of skills available, but we want to go further than that and provide a technology roadmap for clients. We want to implement, execute and migrate for a client but also run things for them. If you look at the full scheme, I believe we have what clients are looking for and I think we integrate well with clients so that they can focus on their business rather than their IT. WHAT ARE THE MAIN THINGS TO LOOK FOR WHEN CHOOSING AN IT SERVICES PROVIDER? Firstly, it goes back to the skill base and if the provider understands my business. Do they have the knowledge and the skills base to

Digital transformation is about dramatically changing how you use your technology.” support me? Do they know where my industry is going and understand my pain points? Can they build a roadmap that can take me to the next level? It’s how you take all of those answers and integrate it into a technology roadmap.

HOW IMPORTANT WILL HYBRID CLOUD SERVICES BE FOR THE REGION AND GBM GOING FORWARD? It will be extremely important for all businesses, and from a GBM perspective we’re right in the mix of all of this. If you look at private and public cloud, we’ve got resources that can consult with clients on both ends. What’s also important is from an IaaS or PaaS point of view it’s about moving from a capex to an opex model. Hybrid cloud gives clients that flexibility. They can do their testing and development in the cloud. A lot of clients want onshore and local cloud, and that will be important for them. The great thing about cloud is how we can consult for on and off premises to deliver that hybrid technology roadmap.

FEBRUARY 2019

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Wesam Lootah, CEO, Smart Dubai

FEBRUARY 2019

www.tahawultech.com www.tahawultech.com

FEATURE Smart Dubai

A SLICKER CITY JAMES DARTNELL SAT WITH SMART DUBAI CEO WESAM LOOTAH, WHO GAVE AN UPDATE ON THE CITY’S PROGRESS ON BECOMING A FULLY DIGITAL, PAPERLESS GOVERNMENT BY 2021, AND DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE BLOCKCHAIN USE CASES AND MEETING EVER-INCREASING CUSTOMER DEMANDS.

It’s important for us to see what’s working and what’s not.

We don’t always get it right so we need to see what we can enhance.” www.tahawultech.com

E

stablished in 2015, Smart Dubai’s goal is easier said than done - making the city the happiest in the world through technology.

“We do this through three main goals,” CEO Wesam Lootah says. “The first one is to do with governance and planning through the digital transformation of the city.

We work closely with all government entities to to set goals and KPIs. We then have to design seamless digital experiences for residents and visitors. This is where Smart Dubai provides services and enabling technologies that are used by the government and the private sector.

The third one is around ecosystem enablement. We believe that it’s not just about the government, but also the private sector – creating ecosystems.

One such example of "seamless" service that the Dubai government has prioritised is the national digital identity concept it announced at GITEX Technology Week 2018 - UAE Pass, which will be a “key focus” for Smart Dubai in 2019.

Dubai has previously launched the single sign-on service Dubai ID, but has since worked closely with the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority to manage existing infrastructures to create FEBRUARY 2019

21

FEATURE Smart Dubai

22

a national digital identity across the emirates. “It will allow citizens to access all local and federal government services and to digitally sign agreements, which is a very important part of digital transformation,” Lootah says. “This eliminates the need for people to be physically present to sign agreements. We’re working closely with banks to adopt UAE Pass for the opening of bank accounts, and we really hope citizens embrace this this year.”

Suffice to say, happiness is difficult to measure through traditional KPIs. However, Smart Dubai is constantly looking to advance its channels that can deliver real-time information on sentiments of the city. For the past two years, Smart Dubai has used its Happiness Meters, which are a “very simple” way of measuring happiness across digital and physical channels. The Meters delivers surveys that customers can complete at the end of each interaction with the government.

Smart Dubai has already collected over 20 million votes since the Meters were launched, and have delivered a happiness Index of 89%.

Smart Dubai previously measured customer satisfaction through surveys, which typically had a 3-4 month process of collecting and analysing and actioning information.

“With the Happiness Meter, we have a real-time stream of votes that are coming in, telling us what is and isn’t working,” Lootah says.

“This allows decision makers who are delivering services on the ground or through digital channels to make adjustments and to see how the changes affect the happiness of customers in real time. Our goal is FEBRUARY 2019

to reach 95% by 2020. We’ve always set happiness as our main compass.

It’s what guides our decisions and it’s the goal that we’re trying to achieve.

For us, technology is a means to an end, creating seamless and unique experiences that can allow us to put the customer first. It’s very important for us to see what’s working and what’s not. We don’t always get it right so this is a way for us to see what we need to enhance.”

Lootah is particularly conscious of the need for Dubai to keep pace with global technology technology

Creating an ecosystem and economy around emerging technologies is very important to us.” giants, who he believes have set the bar in terms of delivering the best possible customer experience. “We need to be more responsive to customer needs as a government, and it’s one of the biggest challenges that the public and private sectors face,” he says.

“We’re in the era of social media and immediate responses, and expectations have been set by

Internet giants like Apple, Google or Amazon. They’ve led the private sector in terms of customer experience. This is what Smart Dubai has been focusing on for the last three or four years. In the past, people were happy if they ordered a book online and it arrived two weeks later. Now, you expect it to come immediately with services like Amazon, where you download a digital copy instead. Expectations have grown year after year.”

With Dubai’s population growing approximately 6.5% every year, with this figure being driven almost entirely by new expatriates, Lootah knows that an smooth arrival process must be prioritised in order to deliver a stress-free experience for new residents. “If a person moves to Dubai for the first time, they need to move into a new house and get a car,” he says. “We give them a driver’s license or Ejari registration number, but this isn’t what that person wants. They want to drive a car and don’t care about the license. We’re working with our partners to deliver an end-to-end experience through one channel.

The same goes for finding the right home. Once a person has chosen where they want to live, they sign an agreement with the landlord and register the agreement through their Ejari number, as well as getting electricity, water and telecoms services. By 2021, we want to digitise all these journeys.”

In 2018, Smart Dubai launched the Dubai Paperless Strategy, which gave the government a mandate to focus on digitising government services and eliminating the use of paper within the government.

It also encompasses a focus on www.tahawultech.com

FEATURE Smart Dubai

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“end-to-end journeys” to make sure government and private sector services are integrated.

“We’re seeing people become more comfortable interacting with the government through online services,” Lootah says. “The aim of being paperless by 2021 and being fully digital isn’t just a technological challenge, it’s also about changing mindsets to ensure people have the trust to interact digitally. If you think about it, what we’re trying to achieve has never been done and has never been announced as an ambition by any government entity. We’re saying that we will not be issuing or requesting any papers. Everything will be 100% digital. Your tenancy or employment contract or birth certificate will all be digital. I think that takes a high level of trust in digital forms and that’s a challenge we’re working on.”

The Dubai Paperless Strategy aim also ties in with the Dubai Blockchain Strategy 2020, which aims to see 50% of government services run on blockchain platforms by next year.

Lootah says the government has already made significant progress in transforming processes through the distributed ledger technology. Smart Dubai has partnered with IBM to create a blockchain-as-a-service platform, FEBRUARY 2019

where government entities can avail the technology as a service so that government entities are free to focus on applicable use cases instead of managing the underlying technology.

“We embarked on our blockchain strategy back in 2016 with the aim of increasing the efficiency of government entities,” Lootah says. “We’ve worked with over 20 government entities on 13 use cases so far that have all been progressing well. Many of them have already gone live. The Dubai Land Department has put land registry on blockchain. Dubai Economy has put business registry on blockchain. We also have cases with the Department of Finance, DEWA, KHDA and many government entities, along with the banks, where they’ve eliminated the need for reconciliation and settlement, and have changed a process that used to take almost 45 days down to almost zero time. We’re seeing some traction with blockchain and government efficiency.”

Smart Dubai has also been working “very closely” with its partners to ensure that the city can attract investors, developers and startups, and Lootah knows that realising the city’s future economic ambitions will depend on its ability

We’ve worked with over 20 government entities on 13 blockchain use cases so far.” to attract and grow the right talent.

“We’ve seen many companies call Dubai their home and headquarters,” he says. “Creating an ecosystem and economy around emerging technologies is very important to us. We want people to test their blockchain innovations in Dubai. Whenever you’re working on something that’s new and hasn’t been done before, there is a scarcity of resources when it comes to these technologies. This is a challenge that comes with trying to be a pioneer and do something for the first time.

We want to attract the right talent to Dubai and that’s something we have to do in order to be successful.” www.tahawultech.com

A key part of that strategy is ensuring that the government works hand in hand with the private sector, which Lootah believes is an indispensable pillar of government strategy. “All of our initiatives depend on working closely with the private sector,” he says. “I think the perspective we see from countries like the United States is that the private sector always leads in terms of innovation and creativity, and the public sector tends to lag behind. In the UAE and Dubai the formula is a bit turned around, where the government leads in terms of innovation and delivering services.”

Looking ahead, Lootah is hugely optimistic that the country’s youth will be well positioned to take advantage of the digital economy.

The skills that will be required in the next 50 years will be “very different” from what’s been required over the last 50 years, he says. “That’s the nature of this evolution,” he says.

“People are now saying we’re in www.tahawultech.com

25

the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and this is being driven by things like artificial intelligence and robotics, and will have a big impact on the economy. We see scarcities in jobs like data analysts or scientists, and there’s more and more demand for people who have skills in coding and technology. We’re seeing steps towards helping the next generation for jobs of the future like One Million Arab Coders and the introduction of coding to school curriculums.”

FEBRUARY 2019

H Jorge Dinares, president for international markets, Micro Focus

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PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE: MICRO FOCUS MICRO FOCUS’S PRESIDENT FOR INTERNATIONAL MARKETS JORGE DINARES TOLD JAMES DARTNELL WHY VENDOR LOCK-IN HAS TO STOP, WHY TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION TAKES TIME AND WHY THE FIRM IS NOW STRONGER FOLLOWING ITS MERGER WITH HPE SOFTWARE.

FEBRUARY 2019

OW HAS MICRO FOCUS DEVELOPED ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST RECENTLY? We’re growing a lot here. We decided to invest and have confirmed our commitment to this market through our significant presence here. I was here a few months ago and back then we were transitioning from the situation of integrating HPE Software and Micro Focus. We’ve enforced that, and have invested, hired, and built a very strong team. We’ve also onboarded 15 partners over the last 10 months and we keep increasing our customer base. It’s a different situation to what we had in the past.

Our strategy and commitment with this market and with our customers is that we’re here to stay.

We want to have customers that can rely on us. Everything we do is focused on our customer needs, and delivering customer-centric innovation. We develop products in line with what they require.

WHAT'S MICRO FOCUS’S VALUE PROPOSITION? We’re one of the biggest software companies, and in my opinion the strongest. If you talk about delivering infrastructure software, I don’t see any other company that’s as strong as us. Hybrid IT is a bout helping customers to manage that infrastructure on-premise or in the cloud.

We can supply solutions to manage a hybrid IT environment, supporting both traditional methodologies and processes, as well as DevOps and agile. We’re also very strong in predictive analytics through our Vertica platform. I www.tahawultech.com www.tahawultech.com

INTERVIEW Micro Focus think by now, most businesses need predictive analytics and AI to help them take decisions. We’re seeing huge interest right now in those areas.

We’re one of the biggest software companies, and in my opinion the strongest.”

DO YOU THINK LOCKING CUSTOMERS IN TO PARTICULAR SOLUTIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST MISTAKES SOME OF YOUR COMPETITORS MAKE, AND SOMETHING YOU WON’T DO? I’ve seen a lot of that for many years in this market, which was more technology-driven rather than customer-centric. In my opinion, we were the first company to really put the customer first. This market is now mature enough. However, I don’t see the same commitment from other providers, who don’t have that same customer centricity.

We always support customer needs around continuity, and won’t ask them to throw away products or migrate to a new one based on our interest. We want to help them think about how will they can move to new technologies.

We’re currently working with a major European bank that has over 3,000 applications. Over time they’ve begun moving to the cloud, which they’re determined to do but not in a hurry. They want to do it so there’s no impact on their business and that they have the appropriate availability and response times.

They’ve set a 10-year timeline to do this, and are relying on us to build www.tahawultech.com

the infrastructure, test apps in cloud and give them the chance to move back to an on-premise environment if it isn’t not working.

MOST CIOS FACE HUGE PRESSURE TO DELIVER QUICK RESULTS. WHAT ARE REALISTIC TIMELINES FOR SUCH LARGE TRANSFORMATIONS? SHOULD MORE COMPANIES FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE SET BY YOUR BANKING CUSTOMER? Three years ago, everyone was saying that they had to move to cloud. If you’re a startup then that’s fine, but if you’re an enterprise you need to be careful. There have been some significant and not too well accepted results based on that attitude, and it’s important to know what kind of technology you should use and what kind of partner you should work with.

I was surprised with the bank’s 10year timeline but it works for them.

They accept that certain applications shouldn’t be in the cloud. We need to be sure that the negative impact on business is zero.

WHAT KIND OF TRACTION HAVE YOU SEEN IN EACH GCC MARKET? Oman has been one country where we’ve seen particular growth in cybersecurity. The ratio of cybersecurity dollars invested Oman is ranked number one, and it’s the most advanced in terms of cyber investments. We have agreements with several government entities there.

In Qatar, we’d naturally seen a slowdown over the last 18 months, but over the last 3-4 months things have started to move again. Kuwait hasn’t seen the traction we were expecting a year ago. Bahrain is a very tactical business for us. The market isn’t that big so we work through our partners.

We’ve put a big investment into Saudi Arabia and now have 15 people in our Riyadh office. We’re growing partnerships with relevant government entities, retail and utility firms across Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah. We’ve continued to grow and expand our footprint in the region.

WHERE IS MICRO FOCUS CONCENTRATING ITS R&D? There are a few main areas. DevOps is a main one. Companies need to have a way to develop apps faster and in shorter time frames. New competitors come in every day. It takes 9-12 months to develop an app, and that’s now a relatively old approach. We’re helping customers to develop apps faster, as well as delivering DevSecOps. We’re also looking at IT management, and how we can make sure can CIOs can consistently manage infrastructure and services.

We’re making big investments into security and are approaching it from different angles. It’s not just about having a system that understands and analyses, but one that also examines identity, data and application security. In my opinion, it’s critical to check points of vulnerability. What everyone is currently doing to protect data leakage won’t work as planned.

The only solution is to encrypt production data. You can't predict who will access it otherwise.

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NEWS Gartner

“IT SPENDING TO REACH $3.8 TRILLION IN 2019”: GARTNER

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John-David Lovelock, research vice president, Gartner

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orldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.76 trillion in 2019, an increase of 3.2% from 2018, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.

“Despite uncertainty fuelled by recession rumours, Brexit, and trade wars and tariffs, the FEBRUARY 2019

GARTNER HAS FORECAST IT SPENDING TO GROW IN 2019 DESPITE A RECESSION, AND THE RESEARCH FIRM WILL DISCUSS ITS FINDINGS AND THE YEAR’S TOP TECHNOLOGY TOPICS AT THE SYMPOSIUM/ITXPO FROM 4TH-6TH MARCH IN DUBAI.

likely scenario for IT spending in 2019 is growth,” said JohnDavid Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. “However, there are a lot of dynamic changes happening in regards to which segments will be driving growth in the future. Spending is moving from saturated segments such as mobile phones, PCs and on-premises data centre

infrastructure to cloud services and Internet of Things devices.

IoT devices, in particular, are starting to pick up the slack from devices. Where the devices segment is saturated, IoT is not.

“IT is no longer just a platform that enables organisations to run their business on. It is becoming the engine that moves the business,” added Lovelock. www.tahawultech.com www.tahawultech.com

“As digital business and digital business ecosystems move forward, IT will be the thing that binds the business together.”

With the shift to cloud, a key driver of IT spending, enterprise software will continue to exhibit strong growth, with worldwide software spending projected to grow 8.5% in 2019. It will grow another 8.2% in 2020 to total $466 billion (see Table 1).

Organisations are expected to increase spending on enterprise application software in 2019, with more of the budget shifting to software-as-a-service.

Despite a slowdown in the mobile phone market, the devices segment is expected to grow 1.6% in 2019. The largest and most highly saturated smartphone markets, such as China, the United States and Western Europe, are driven by replacement cycles. With Samsung facing challenges bringing well-differentiated premium smartphones to market and Apple’s high priceto-value benefits for its flagship smartphones, consumers kept their current phones and drove

the mobile phone market down 1.2 percent in 2018.

“In addition to buying behaviour changes, we are also seeing skills of internal staff beginning to lag as organisations adopt new technologies, such as IoT devices, to drive digital business,” Lovelock added. “Nearly half of the IT workforce is in urgent need of developing skills or competencies to support their digital business initiatives. Skill requirements to keep up, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, API and services platform design and data science, are changing faster than we’ve ever seen before.”

Gartner’s IT spending forecast methodology relies on rigorous analysis of sales by thousands of vendors across the entire range of IT products and services.

The Gartner quarterly IT spending forecast delivers a perspective on IT spending across the hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications segments.

The most recent IT spending forecast research is available to Gartner clients in “Gartner Market Databook, Q418 Update.” This

Despite uncertainty fuelled by recession rumours, Brexit, and trade wars and tariffs, the likely scenario for IT spending in 2019 is growth.” quarterly IT Spending Forecast page includes links to the latest IT spending reports, webinars, blog posts and press releases.

Gartner analysts will discuss the 2019 IT spending forecast for the Middle East and North Africa at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which will be held from 4th6th March in Dubai. Additional analysis on AI trends will be presented during the Symposium/ ITxpo 2019.

Table 1. Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (Billions of U.S. Dollars) 2018 Spending

2018 Growth (%)

2019 Spending

2019 Growth (%)

2020 Spending

2020 Growth (%)

Data Centre Systems

202

11.3

210

4.2

202

-3.9

Enterprise Software

397

9.3

431

8.5

466

8.2

Devices

669

0.5

679

1.6

689

1.4

IT Services

983

5.6

1,030

4.7

1,079

4.8

Communications Services

1,399

1.9

1,417

1.3

1,439

1.5

Overall IT

3,650

3.9

3,767

3.2

3,875

2.8

Source: Gartner (January 2019) www.tahawultech.com

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INTERVIEW VMware

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"LEAPFROG YEAR FOR GCC": VMWARE SVP VMWARE’S SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, JEAN-PIERRE BRULARD, TOLD CNME WHY CONTAINERS DON’T POSE A THREAT TO THE FIRM, WHY AMAZON’S NEW ONPREMISE COMPUTE SOLUTIONS ARE A BLESSING AND WHY EDGE COMPUTING IS COMING TO THE GCC.

Jean-Pierre Brulard, senior vice president, Europe, Middle East and Africa, VMware

FEBRUARY 2019

www.tahawultech.com www.tahawultech.com

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ow has the Middle East changed since your last visit?

I’ve seen the acceleration of the pace of digital transformation. Pat Gelsinger and I have been astonished by what is becoming a leapfrog year for innovation in this region. Dubai is far above a lot of western countries and US cities in that respect. Having a ministry of artificial intelligence is quite uncommon. It’s the only country worldwide to have one.

WHAT KIND OF INVESTMENT ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE IN THE REGION? The likes of Expo 2020 and Saudi Vision 2030 are hugely exciting, and we will continue to invest directly and indirectly. We now have close to 200 staff in the METNA region.

We’re investing in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which is a particularly important market as it produces a lot of engineers every year. One of the major roadblocks to change is not technology or a willingness to invest, but talent.

We’re seeing a lot of innovation coming out of the regional telcos.

Etisalat and du have been quick to adopt 5G. We’ve also had significant progress in Qatar in terms of NFV. Two of the main areas in which we will invest regionally will be IoT and edge computing.

HOW WILL YOU ACCELERATE THE INTEGRATION OF YOUR SOLUTIONS WITH DELL FOLLOWING ITS RETURN TO THE PUBLIC STOCK MARKET? We operate as two different www.tahawultech.com

Two of the main areas in which we will invest regionally will be IoT and edge computing.” entities but at the same time we’re encouraging a lot of synergies.

On the hyperconverged front, our VxRail and VxRack are particular areas where there are a lot of synergies and both are doing very well in the region. For Dell, hyperconverged infrastructure and digital workspaces are their main investment, and we’re working with Dell for go-to-market, but we’re also happy with our IBM, Lenovo and HPE partnerships.

We’ve developed a significant ecosystem of partners in the Middle East, and we’ll continue to expand our partnership network which is now close to 1,000 partners globally. We’re expanding our relationships with these partners by adding more depth, looking to enable their sellers and establishing a bigger network of delivery.

IS THERE AN INCREASING THREAT THAT VIRTUAL MACHINES WILL BE SUPERSEDED

BY A PREFERENCE FOR CONTAINERS? We love containers, so for us the opposite is true. This question mark

arose when Docker emerged, but today we’ve seen more containers and launched the notion of container-as-a-service, which is NSX-T in terms of networking.

We deliver more and more support on SaaS, and have more customer success engineers an customer success managers. We want to drive container adoption, starting with cloud and the end user. We’re working to build a comprehensive offering because we believe CaaS will help for cloud-native apps to build bridges between developers and the infrastructure.

DOES AMAZON WEB SERVICES’ ANNOUNCEMENT THAT IT WILL PROVIDE ON-PREMISE COMPUTE AND STORAGE SOLUTIONS POSE A THREAT TO YOU? On the contrary, it will affect us very positively. It validates the hybrid cloud strategies we’re putting in place. A lot of customers need to have a holistic view about workloads and cloud-native apps, and need the same platform regardless of if it’s legacy or not.

I engaged recently with a large European bank that had signed with AWS. What’s pretty obvious is without legacy workloads, they could not have signed that deal.

Cloud-native apps weren’t enough to have filled that commitment.

Amazon is a great way to solidify their multi-cloud strategy, and their Relational Database Service could be a killer application. SAP is another important stream for sure. The way they migrate to the cloud will be a significant driver.

FEBRUARY 2019

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INSIGHT Finastra

FINTECH: TOMORROW'S TOP TECH EMPLOYER? FINASTRA’S SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR INNOVATION, MITESH SONI, GIVES HIS TAKE ON WHY FINTECH OFFERS A HUGELY EXCITING OPPORTUNITY FOR TOMORROW'S BUDDING STARS OF TECHNOLOGY.

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I

n recent years, multiple factors have led to the boost in the profile of Fintech, an industry that has been present for five decades.

Governments and regulatory bodies in different parts of the world have fuelled this growth by issuing regulations that have opened the banking sector to increased competition, creating many opportunities for finance and technology professionals alike.

Furthermore, increasing customer demands have led to banks actively seeking to collaborate with more agile third parties – namely Fintech organisations and developers – to innovate the services offered.

A recent research report commissioned by the DIFC Authority estimates that Fintechs will contribute $20 billion in financial services revenue to the Middle East and Africa. So, what exactly are the opportunities available for developers in this ever growing sector?

FEBRAURY 2019

Today, the industry is receiving unprecedented backing from organisations and regulatory bodies. Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) recently aided a smart blockchain sukuk platform between Al Hilal Bank and startup Jibrel.

Fintech is gaining significant traction. In the second half of 2018, VC-backed Fintech companies reportedly raised more than $25 billion in funds. CB Insights’ data shows there are currently 29 Fintech unicorns worldwide, with an aggregate value of $84.4 billion — and this is expected to keep rising.

Globally, educational support is being offered to future-proof against skills shortages, with academia and financial firms collaborating to create Fintech-related graduate training schemes and degree courses.

For instance, Emirates Institute of Banking and Financial Studies (EIBFS), in association with leading UAE banks and insurance companies, has launched the EIBFS Fintech Training

Lab – seeking to enhance access to skills training in the latest digital technologies revolutionising the financial sector. Notably, at the World Economic Forum, the UAE’s minister for advanced sciences – Sarah Al Amiri – urged young Emiratis to consider careers in the technology field to reduce the country’s dependence on oil and generate other avenues for revenue.

OPEN BANKING Around the world, particularly in Europe and parts of Asia, governments and industry bodies are paving the way for a new approach to collaboration with Fintechs, banks and developers. In the Middle East, DIFC’s Fintech Hive – the largest financial technology accelerator, provides an environment that empowers innovative concepts in financial services, opening up the industry to third parties eager to enter the space.

These initiatives, and others like them, compel banks to share their www.tahawultech.com

precious data with third parties at the request of their customers – meaning they can better serve their customers – but they also need to think about how to compete and remain relevant in this new environment.

Here in the UAE, ADGM’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) is committed to operating a fair, efficient and responsive regulatory environment for its market participants and stakeholders locally and internationally, through a risk-based and outcome-focused regulatory philosophy. The ADGM Financial Services Regulator’s role and responsibility are underscored

by Abu Dhabi Law, which allows the regulatory framework to be responsive to market conditions and regulatory development.

COLLABORATION IS KEY When it comes to collaboration between Fintechs and banks, one might expect there to be a certain amount of resistance from both sides. Fintechs are traditionally disruptors, while financial institutions are held back by layers of legacy technology.

In this competitive industry, however, financial institutions are racing against each other to be ahead of the innovation curve.

They strive to create a digital transformation that delivers better and faster services through multiple channels, including mobile and social media. Simultaneously, agile startups are delivering online and mobile services across many verticals of finance – including payments, remittances, investment advisory and online trading.

As this scenario advances, a platform-as-a-service approach can help to enable collaboration that is beneficial for both sides. www.tahawultech.com

As banks wait with open arms (and APIs), now is the time to enter the burgeoning world of Fintech.”

The ability to collaborate through a common platform, hosted in the cloud, offers the potential for Fintechs to significantly reduce application development time, often from months to weeks. Users can bring innovation to market at pace using a low-code, cloud environment and sell applications to the banks without needing to build a global sales team or worry about a scalable infrastructure.

Pre-integrated developer tools, a sandbox environment and an API catalogue also speed application creation and level the innovation landscape. With these platforms, the Fintechs with the deepest pockets no longer dominate the market simply because they have the resources to snap up opportunities. In the platform sandbox, smaller firms, startups and independent developers can bring their own offerings to the table.

As the model for bank innovation changes, a platform approach also makes it easier for financial institutions to transform their businesses, extend product capabilities and access innovation.

Banks can leverage their own development capabilities to create

and deploy applications on top of their core systems and can collaborate with Fintechs to build and access new capabilities they need quickly through open APIs. A key part of the PaaS approach also gives developers the ability to make apps available to banks globally through a digital shop front.

So, not only are developers and Fintechs able to build and monetise their apps, banks can readily test and deploy them.

GET ON BOARD Financial institutions are starting to recognise that an open platform approach is the fastest way to onboard Fintechs to enhance their current business offerings. As this understanding deepens, so too will the demand for skilled professionals and new applications. Banks in the not-too-distant future will not only concern themselves with the services they want to deliver, much consideration will be given to the Fintechs most able to provide them in a timely manner.

It’s not just in retail banking that opportunities lie, but across all areas of financial services – from investment management to corporate banking, payments, trade finance and capital markets.

The coalescence of these two considerations is leading to a change in the industry zeitgeist, meaning the scope for innovation across all areas has widened significantly. The great earning potential for those with the ability to convert good ideas into innovative apps and services has never been more apparent.

So, developers, as banks wait with open arms (and APIs), now is the time to enter the burgeoning world of Fintech.

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OPINION Falcon Eye Drones

WHY SMART CITIES NEED DRONES Rabih Bou Rashid, managing director of Falcon Eye Drones

FALCON EYE DRONES MANAGING DIRECTOR RABIH BOU RASHID BELIEVES THAT EMERGENCY SERVICES TEAMS NEED TO ADOPT DRONE TECHNOLOGY IF SMART CITIES ARE TO FULFILL THEIR POTENTIAL.

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he idea of a smart city entails a blend of various technologies that can transform areas into more connected and safer environments to live and work.

Devices and sensors can optimise the performance of city operations and services, by monitoring what’s happening across the city, interacting with communities and generally improving the lives and safety of citizens.

Smart Dubai is the most successful smart city concept in the Middle East region to date.

While there are multiple elements to this concept, the main objective of Dubai’s government is to make the city the happiest place on earth.

Public safety is being constantly enhanced and Dubai is actively introducing new technologies and

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campaigns to enhance emergency response that can deliver the highest possible success rates.

Last year, Dubai Police launched the Android Emergency Location Service (ELS) which provides accurate location information to first responders during an emergency. According to brigadier Kamil Butti Al Suwaidi, Dubai Police’s director of operations, 95% of emergency calls come from mobile phones in the UAE. Locations can now be transmitted when an Android smartphone user contacts emergency numbers.

The Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services, meanwhile, launched its ESEFNI (‘help me’ in Arabic) application that is designed to reduce the response time for emergencies. The first of its kind across the Arab world, the app is

involving community members who are qualified to help patients and identify their locations to become first emergency responders. The world’s first rescue drone, the Flying Rescuer, entered UAE airspace in 2018, and is already helping Dubai beach-goers to feel safer.

Developed by Dubai Municipality, the drone can transport up to four life buoys at a time and can also be used to drop off a rescue raft that automatically inflates when it hits the water.

While the Dubai government is taking various steps to improve its emergency services, the further introduction of drones is paramount. According to the 2018 Center for Digital Government (CDG) survey conducted by DJI amongst 220 public sector leaders, 92% of respondents said drone technology www.tahawultech.com

would have a significant impact on state and local government in the USA. Public safety functions was another key driver cited by the CDG survey. A separate CDG analysis of requests for proposals involving drones found more than half (52%) come from public safety agencies, including law enforcement, corrections and fire departments.

There are several ways that drones can help save lives, and the sooner these options are explored by federal governments as well as private entities that operate within hazardous environments, the quicker cities like Dubai will reach their full maturity.

Search and rescue missions top the list of drones’ emergency service applications today. From lost hikers wondering in the heart of Hatta’s valleys to kayakers who have drifted due to the rough winter winds, drones can be deployed to speed up the process where helicopters and night vision goggles aren’t sufficient. Where people can’t help, thermal heat scans taken by drones can deliver unmatched rescue operation performance.

Drones can significantly improve the fire extinguishing process, as they are more effective than the

naked eye at detecting wildfires and high-rise flames, similar to ones we often experience in Dubai during windy periods. While drones are great tools for scene monitoring, rapid 360-degree assessment of burning structures and the ability to see through smoke with thermal imaging cameras, their active participation in the fire extinguishing process is what makes an enormous difference. By engaging drone technology during active fire extinguishing efforts, many lives can be saved, not just those of the fire victims but firefighters as well.

Ambulance drones can respond and deliver emergency

In 2017, Dubai Ambulance piloted its world-first cargo drone that will deliver an automated heart defibrillator to heart attack victims.”

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equipment faster than any ground modes of transportation. In 2017, Dubai Ambulance piloted its worldfirst cargo drone that will deliver an automated heart defibrillator to heart attack victims in Dubai parks, beaches or public areas at speeds of up to 155 kph. The delivery of defibrillators is just the first phase of the project and in the near future drones could carry other medical equipment to sites of road accidents and multiple injury events.

First responders, whether they are bystanders or law enforcement, could have access to more tools faster, which would allow them to help victims more effectively until official emergency service teams arrive on the scene.

Drones are great police buddies and can be actively engaged in police chases, but you’re more likely to witness these scenes in a cinema rather than on Dubai roads.

This city is getting smarter and safer every day and drone technology will remain just one element of its growing success.

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35

OPINION Schneider Electric

3 LESSONS FOR EVERY TRANSFORMATIONAL CIO SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC CIO ELIZABETH HACKENSON GIVES HER TAKE ON THE MOST EFFECTIVES WAYS CIOS CAN INSPIRE THEIR ORGANISATIONS TO INSTIGATE DIGITAL CHANGE.

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here’s no question about it. The role of today’s CIO in the digital world is changing faster than ever. As CIOs, we no longer just manage IT systems and services across an enterprise.

Instead, we’re key contributors to shaping and driving a company’s digital transformation strategy, and what an exciting role that is to take on. After all, digital inherently is a customer-centric value proposition, so we’re instrumental in ensuring that every level of an enterprise hinges around the customer.

Here are some of the concrete lessons at the forefront of this journey. www.tahawultech.com

Define evolutionary leaps: digitisation v digital Let’s start at square one. CIOs have been grappling with the terms ‘digitisation’ and ‘digital’ sometimes without pause to clarify any confusion or conflation of these very different concepts.

Jeanne Ross, principal research scientist for MIT’s Center for Information Systems Research offers a clear explanation. We may understand the strategic difference, but does the rest of your enterprise?

We can look to the airline industry for a strong example.

Remember a decade ago when we had to interact with a human ticket agent to get a boarding pass, waiting for the agent to feverishly type something in order to pop out the printed pass? Now, airlines have digitised the process; it’s automated. But they didn’t stop there. Most carriers have gone digital as well, meaning that they’ve created a user experience that gives customer value to digitisation, such as creating apps and providing customer-friendly kiosks that eliminate the mystery and complexity of getting a pass. Digital is a business imperative in most industries, and digitisation is an important enabler

of digital. Digitisation on its own, however, won’t make a business a digital company. It’s critical that we communicate what these terms mean to the teams driving these transformations behind the scenes.

Launch a digital strategy roadshow Communicating your overarching digital value proposition throughout your company is vital. Doing so empowers and inspires your employees, allowing a true digital journey to unfold. The moment you have a well-defined, strongly governed digital strategy and plan, connect the dots across your enterprise. And don’t be concerned about sharing the message multiple times in varied ways.

In my experience, regional visits are a priority to ensure that our enterprise IT organisation has the knowledge and tools to support end-to-end digital transformation, such as merging disparate applications and systems into a more seamless, unified experience.

During your own roadshow, take the time to engage your employees in order to: · Question business as usual · Go from global to local to learn from within · Simplify, simplify, simplify

Given the constant evolution of technology, continuous learning and training are critical.”

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Transform your people so your business can, too Every company is facing a unique digital maturity curve across operations. Make sure your enterprise IT organisation can lead the pack. Given the constant evolution of technology, continuous learning and training are critical. Upskilling keeps your IT professionals ahead of the curve — while sparking their curiosity to soak in the excitement around new tech such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, chatbots, virtual assistants, robotic process automation, and more.

Aligning training to your enterprise digital strategy will empower employees to carry the digital transformation torch.

With this approach, something amazing starts to happen: you drive people to think differently by respectfully challenging the ‘why?’ in a relevant way. In short, you’re cultivating a culture of empowerment to accelerate your company’s digital transformation, led by your group’s digital evangelists who are motivated to seize the art of possibility.

Writing the DX textbook For us, digital transformation isn’t just marketing jargon. In reality, we’re quickly writing the textbook of what digitising and going digital really mean — built around solving specific customer problems. As a CIO, I hope you are as enthusiastic as I am about both doing things differently (digitisation) and doing different things (digital).

More importantly, we hope your customers are, too.

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OPINION Cisco

WHY NETWORKS NEED TO CHANGE 38

Cisco’s vice president for the Middle East and Africa David Meads

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he last year has seen businesses taking increasingly affirmative action in the ways they harness the wealth of data within their organisations.

A key priority for many was the optimisation and management of multi-cloud environments, coupled with the need to embed security as a foundation. It will be crucial to operate within a secure and reliable ecosystem to aid safe and sustainable growth.

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CISCO’S VICE PRESIDENT FOR THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA DAVID MEADS GIVES HIS TAKE ON THE WAYS THAT TECHNOLOGY CONSUMPTION AND SHIFTING ENTERPRISE DEMANDS WILL RAISE THE BAR FOR NETWORKING INFRASTRUCTURE OVER THE COMING YEAR.

AI AND MACHINE LEARNING WILL BECOME ‘EVERYDAY’ Reports of driverless cars and ‘human-like’ robots have garnered widespread attention, but this will still be a year in which artificial intelligence and machine learning will assist human functions rather than replace them altogether.

In order to apply AI and ML, businesses must have the appropriate infrastructure and curation processes in place to house their data. Specialists can

facilitate the use of AI and ML to help people make rational decisions and work with greater efficiency.

At Cisco, we have been using AI and ML to analyse network data and create smoother workflows. AI and ML also enable us to identify and contain threats before they have chance to wreak havoc.

THE INTERNET EXPANDS BEYOND OUR IMAGINATION Year-on-year network growth has resulted in more IP traffic www.tahawultech.com

than ever before. As the Internet continues to develop, what is connected to it is also changing: wearable tech, home appliances and automated vehicles. Just as transformative will be the vast array of IoT sensors. Think intelligent harbours that can optimise shipping, or smart city parking sensors which reduce environmental impacts. The opportunities for both human and machine connectivity are constrained only by one’s imagination.

VISUAL MEDIA DRIVES BANDWIDTH DEMANDS We are seeing an increasing shift in interest from traditional broadcast to internet-based viewing. With the growing popularity of OTT services, internet bandwidth needs to be able to support a range of devices and applications to create a seamless viewing experience.

Similarly, VR and AR previously suffered at the hands of poor connectivity and lagging video content. We have reached a stage where corporate and consumer interest in high definition, immersive visual media is here.

People want their content displayed in real-time.

Now that advances are taking place to meet such demands, consumers and organisations are starting to use visual media content with more confidence in its ability. This year should see more applications of VR in businesses, from demonstrations and virtual ‘test drives’, to the assessment of products and real estate online. www.tahawultech.com

5G MOVES OFF THE STARTING BLOCKS Mobile connectivity is set to experience sweeping changes.

Increasing demand for speed and reliability is paving the way for 5G. Unlike 3G and 4G, the changes will not merely be incremental.

5G is set to revolutionise connectivity in terms of speed, feeding both corporate and consumer demand for efficiency.

Keen to stay ahead of the game, a select few mobile networks have already announced their intentions for introducing 5G capabilities.

We can expect 5G to take real shape from 2020 onwards. It’s only a matter of time before organisations will be able to connect instantly, viewing and share content in seconds.

This will be a year in which AI and machine learning will assist human functions rather than replace them altogether.”

BLOCKCHAIN BEYOND THE ENTERPRISE As Blockchain is becoming an essential element in the majority of AI and IoT offerings, we predict that all major cloud service providers will have deployed Blockchain commercially by the end of the year.

The application of Blockchain is already beginning to stem beyond the enterprise. From being used to validate minerals in products from conflict-free sources, to

operating virtual microgrids that enable residents to buy and sell green energy directly to and from their neighbours – the possibilities are truly endless.

RETHINKING NETWORKS They may well have served us greatly in the past, but today’s networks were not built to handle the technological advancements of today or tomorrow. Whether we consider 5G, VR, IoT or AI and ML, a strong and secure digital infrastructure is vital for today’s public and private networks.

With an increasing number of devices connected to the network, mounting bandwidth requirements and a greater likelihood of cyberattacks, businesses need to shift their mindset from being reactive to proactive if they are to grow.

Organisations now need to be able to enable any device, from anywhere, at any time, across multiple domains. Independent networks must now be united in a single multi-domain architecture.

Such architecture will need to be highly automated, anticipating actions and intent to selfoptimise, learn and self-heal. For businesses to succeed in the age of digitisation, security must be treated as foundational.

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OPINION Riverbed

"2019: THE YEAR OF DRASTIC CHANGE"

Cisco’s vice president for the Middle East and Africa David Meads

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He financial sector has had a tough time with its digital transformation. In 2018, financial institutions have been riddled with layers of legacy software, making changes to their infrastructure a delicate and costly operation that was rarely risk-free. Financial organisations need to move away from legacy and adopt a more agile infrastructure by partnering with financial technology startups.

In 2018, as banks and financial institutions double down on digital services, and try to make themselves more competitive with the use of highly agile Fintech, it will be crucial that they offer a satisfactory and seamless customer experience. In order to do so, better visibility and performance will be required — even on the edge of the network.

The financial services sector will

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RIVERBED’S REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY AND NORTH AFRICA ELIE DIB GIVES HIS TAKE ON THE TOP ISSUES THAT CIOS SHOULD EXPECT TO FACE OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS. have to adopt SD-WAN and visibility solutions to monitor performance, quickly bring products to market and adapt services to support the move from legacy to agility.

IOT The coming year will be one of massive change for IoT as manufacturers will continue to improve much-needed builtin security they had previously sacrificed to keep production costs low. As the general public is not yet fully aware of the security risks of IoT devices, there will be no massive dip in IoT adoption, even if the new security measures lift IoT prices up.

At the same time, very publicised data breaches and the implementation of GDPR will continue to create a shift in attitudes about IoT. This will take the form of a wake-up call and the realisation

that there is no quick fix to security breaches. As organisations realise that avoiding IoT breaches is a tall order, and that the burden of proof of GDPR compliance falls on them, most businesses will try to mitigate the number of possible fines.

On the positive side, the challenges IoT is facing require innovative solutions and may lead to further developments that will help to combat future threats and give other technologies such as machine learning a boost.

OUTAGES AND DIGITAL RESILIENCE Outages will continue to plague all industries, especially the financial and retail sectors. Businesses need to have more visibility. They will require a single source of truth over their software architecture.

Digital visibility tools can provide the equivalent of an MRI diagnosing www.tahawultech.com

the whole software architecture or parts of it and potentially finding vulnerabilities before incidents occur.

Once businesses have improved their overall visibility, they will be able to take more pertinent and relevant steps to proactively improve their resilience and ensure that customers will be less affected

by IT outages in the upcoming years than they were in 2018.

SKILLS GAP Data science talent will remain scarce in 2019, and the demand for data scientists and data analysts will continue to increase. As data lakes get larger and larger, the challenge of managing and leveraging huge amounts of data will become crucial to business operations, to the point of becoming the main point of focus of business development and planning.

In the upcoming year, organisations will become fully aware of the impact data has on overarching success and understanding customers.

Technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning will be able to provide actionable insights, while analytics will become key for organisations that are looking for an edge in a competitive market, and seeking to satisfy increasingly demanding digital customers. The talent to efficiently leverage these insights and to analyse the data will become invaluable.

These new technologies are bringing up another

challenge for managers: how to educate the business on data analytics. Beyond the technical skills needed, the business skills to understand the technology required to do the job and how to implement it to get maximum performance will be key. In order to obtain these skills, companies might try to upskill employees, but only if there is a likely return on investment. As it is easier for businesses to hire outside the organisation, the struggle for data analytics will very likely intensify in the upcoming year.

PERFORMANCE MONITORING Businesses are only now beginning to realise the importance of understanding their customers’ and their prospects’ digital footprint.

As such, in 2019, data science and predictive analytics will become the main drivers of customer success.

AI and ML applications will multiply, gathering a significant amount of data that will require a detailed understanding of these applications. The superficial understanding we are seeing at the moment prevents organisations from delivering a truly seamless and optimal customer experience. This will not be the case in the upcoming year: data science techniques and predictive analytics will become much more mainstream in order to take full advantage of blooming technologies like ML.

The financial services sector will have to adopt SD-WAN and visibility solutions.”

www.tahawultech.com

CUSTOMERCENTRIC BUSINESSES Digital transformation

was originally focused on the adoption of new technology solutions. However, in the coming year, this will start to evolve. As data science and data analytics capabilities expand, customers are beginning to demand and expect increasingly personalised services.

From the package a telecoms company is offering, to a mortgage, clothing or simple grocery shopping, digital consumers expect goods and services to be specifically tailored to their tastes and personal experiences.

In the coming year, businesses that are able to offer consumers a tailored experience through the use of advanced data analytics, ML and AI will reap great benefits. The use of new technologies like blockchain will also help increase the level of personalisation.

CFOS AND DIGITAL FINANCE TEAMS IN COLLABORATION: Financial teams will have to drastically change and adapt in the upcoming year. The increasing appeal of financial technology companies for both customers and talent will require traditional banks to adapt and become more agile.

As such, financial teams will need to develop better data analytics skills. Data scientists will become the key player of any financial team and predictive analytics, and AI and ML talent will become increasingly necessary in the financial world.

Furthermore, financial teams will continue to adapt in the upcoming year and CFOs in every company will rely more and more on data and analysts on their team.

Consequently, CIOs and CFOs will work more closely than ever and the most successful companies won’t have siloed data.

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41

OPINION Dell EMC

Dell EMC’s senior vice president for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa Mohammed Amin

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hile bold predictions were made in 2018 – some coming to fruition a bit faster than others – there’s still much to do in advancing artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

Autonomous systems are continuing to take shape as organisations build the digital backbone to support them.

So, what’s in store for 2019?

MORE IMMERSED THAN EVER BEFORE Virtual assistants continue to be pervasive in consumer technology – smart home technologies, ‘things’ and connected cars – learning your preferences and

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2019: THE YEAR OF THE DATA-DRIVEN ECOSYSTEM

DELL EMC’S SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY AND AFRICA MOHAMMED AMIN GIVES HIS TAKE ON WHAT THE IT INDUSTRY CAN EXPECT FROM THE YEAR AHEAD.

proactively serving up content and information based on previous interactions. We’ll see this machine intelligence merge with augmented and virtual reality in the home to create truly immersive experiences – like a virtual sous chef that can help you whip up an easy meal for the family. You’ll be more connected to your personal health with even more intelligent wellness tracking devices that can capture more information about the body, like heart rate variability (HRV), sleep patterns and more that you can easily share with healthcare providers for better care.

Immersive intelligence will also follow us to work. Our PCs and devices we use every day will continue to learn from our

habits and proactively boot up with the right apps and services at the right time. Advances in natural language processing and voice technologies will create a more productive dialogue with machines, while automation and robotics will create faster, more fluid collaboration with technology to get more done.

With augmented and virtual reality applications creating on and off-site immersive experiences, people will have access to the data they need to do work whenever, wherever they are.

THE NEXT ‘GOLD RUSH’ OF TECH INVESTMENTS Organisations have been stockpiling big data for years. In fact, it’s predicted that by 2020, www.tahawultech.com

the data volume will reach 44 trillion gigabytes, or 44 zettabytes.

As they derive more value from that data – with insights driving new innovations and more efficient business processes – more investments will be born out of the technology sector. New startups will emerge to tackle the bigger challenges that make AI a reality: data management and federated analytics where insights can be driven from virtually everywhere, and data compliance solutions for a safer, smarter way to deliver amazing outcomes.

5G WILL PUSH US TO THE EDGE The first 5G devices are slated to hit the market sometime next year with the much-anticipated next-generation network that promises to completely change the data game in terms of speed and accessibility. Low-latency, highbandwidth networks mean more connected things, cars and systems – and a boat-load of AI, machine learning and compute happening at the edge, because that’s where all the data will be generated.

It won’t be long before we begin to see micro-hubs lining our streets – mini data centres, if you will – that will also give rise to new ‘smart’ opportunities for real-time insights happening on the corner of your street. Cities and towns will become more connected than ever, paving the way for smart cities and digital infrastructure that we predict will be thriving in 2030. It’ll be a game changer for industries like healthcare or manufacturing, where data and information being generated out in the field can be quickly processed and analysed in real www.tahawultech.com

time – versus having to travel back and forth to a cloud – and then readily shared with those who need it.

DATA FORECASTS WILL CALL FOR MORE CLOUDS Last year, we predicted the arrival of the mega cloud – a variety of clouds that make up a powerhouse operating model as IT strategies require both public and private clouds. So far that’s holding true. The public versus private cloud debate will continue to wane as organisations realise that they need to effectively manage all the different types of data they’ll be processing.

A recent IDC survey pointed to more than 80% of respondents repatriating data back to onpremise private clouds – and we can expect that trend to continue, even with projections for public cloud growth.

Multi-cloud environments will drive automation, AI and ML processing into high gear because they give organisations the ability to manage, move and process data where and when they need to. In fact, we’ll see more clouds pop up as data becomes increasingly distributed – at the edge in autonomous car environments or

in smart factories, in cloud-native apps, in protected on-premise centres to meet a host of new compliance and privacy standards and of course, the public cloud for a variety of apps and services that we use every day.

MOVE OVER MILLENNIALS Millennials are going to have to make room for the next generation, with Gen Z (born after 1995) badging into the workplace over the next year – creating an increasingly diverse workforce spanning five generations!

This will create a rich range of experiences in life and technology.

98% of Gen Z will have used technology as part of their formal education.

Many already understand the basics of software coding and expect only the best technology to be a part of their work experience.

Gen Z will spark a new evolution in technology innovation for the workplace and create more opportunities for technology literacy and on-site learning for new skills with older generations of workers.

AR and VR will become increasingly commonplace and close the skills gap across an aging workforce – while giving Gen Z the speed and productivity they demand.

We’ll see more clouds pop up as data becomes increasingly distributed – at the edge in autonomous car environments or in smart factories.”

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43

OPINION Gartner

FOUR FACTORS THAT WILL TRANSFORM SUPPLY CHAINS 44

Steven Steutermann, managing vice president, supply chain, Gartner

GARTNER’S MANAGING VICE PRESIDENT OF SUPPLY CHAIN, STEVEN STEUTERMANN, PREDICTS THE KEY WAYS IN WHICH SUPPLY CHAINS WILL BE CHANGED BY TECHNOLOGY.

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upply chain leaders must invest to keep up with societal and technological changes.

In 10 years, fewer workers will be tasked to support a growing population of nonworkers, and labour supply will shift to undeveloped regions of the world that are less educated and less technically skilled.

Planning for this talent shift is just one area on which supply chain leaders will need to focus to build a successful future supply chain.

Supply chain leaders want to make the right business decisions and invest in the right technology

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to prepare their organisation for the future. However, there are so many factors to consider and so many unknown variables that getting things ‘right’ seems almost impossible.

Understanding trends and their impact is a challenging task for supply chain leaders that are responsible for identifying and putting in place strategies to build the right set of capabilities.

We expect the supply chain of the future to undergo a major transformation process. At the end of this process, supply chains will act ‘on their own’ with the ability to self-regulate and take appropriate action, and, as a www.tahawultech.com

result, will increase and augment the capabilities of humans well beyond what is known today.

Gartner predicts that four factors will converge as we move toward this transformation.

Supply chain leaders must be aware and take necessary action to capitalise on the opportunities that lie ahead.

SHRINKING LABOUR SUPPLY The world labour supply hit an inflection point in 2012 when the proportion of non-workingage population growth became greater than the working-age population. This trend will continue and will have a major impact on supply chain talent planning. Programs to attract and bind talent are a necessity.

One of the most important skills of the future supply chain workforce will be digital dexterity.

The ability to adapt to technology at a rapid pace and the readiness to use advanced analytics and artificial intelligence in decision making will be crucial in an increasingly automated environment. As a result, digital dexterity training will become an essential part of every supply chain talent program.

MACHINES ARE INTELLIGENT The full potential of AI has not yet arrived. This will rapidly change over the next couple of years, especially when it comes to supply chain use cases such as demand planning and order-tocash processes. www.tahawultech.com

Today, supply chain leaders are using machine learning to sense daily demand down to customer lanes and handle daily tasks. In the future, AI will thrive in supply chain environments because it removes complexity, automates daily decisions, predicts orders and reduces costs.

VIRTUAL IS THE NEW REALITY The carbonated beverage industry uses image technology to understand out-of-stocks and retail store conditions in near-real time. 3D digital products such as 3D printing enable on-demand production and personalisation.

These are two examples of virtual capabilities that will continue to emerge and impact the supply chain.

Supply chain leaders should watch out for digital twins, a technology that will redefine supply chain models. Digital twins create a digital representation of not just physical products or assets, but also process characteristics. As such, digital twins are perfect for

experimentation and modelling to test for critical variables.

CIRCULAR IS THE MAINSTREAM ECONOMY The traditional economy is linear. You take resources, make a product, use it, dispose of the waste. The future looks different, as avoidable waste production will be considered unacceptable by society.

This means that supply chain leaders have to embrace a circular economy in which a used product is returned, recycled and then reused in some way.

The goal is to deliver customer value with minimal waste. For such a system to be efficient, it must be automated, and this is where the previous factors come into play. Using technologies such as digital twins and AI in an automated fashion enables the supply chain to execute against circulareconomy principles by acting on its own and ultimately becoming its own ecosystem.

Supply chains will act ‘on their own’ with the ability to selfregulate and take appropriate action.”

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45

OPINION Booz Allen Hamilton

WHY AI NEEDS HUMAN INTELLIGENCE Fady Kassatly, senior vice-president, Booz Allen Hamilton, Middle East and North Africa

BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON’S SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT FOR THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA, FADY KASSATLY, OFFERS PRACTICAL TIPS FOR HOW ORGANISATIONS CAN TAKE THEIR FIRSTS WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

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s artificial intelligence becomes an increasingly pertinent topic of discussion in the public and private sector in the GCC, organisations that are best positioned to succeed will be those that combine human strengths with machine intelligence.

Countries in the MENA region are investing in AI to transform their economies over the next few years.

In the UAE, the launch of the UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in 2017 aims to promote government performance and create an innovative environment using machine intelligence. The strategy is the first of its kind in the region and was established to enhance government performance and efficiency in a number of fields, such

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as education, transportation, energy, space exploration and technology.

As governments look to fulfill their AI vision, they must also invest in a combination of human strengths, such as creativity, empathy, negotiation, along with those of machines, including the collection and processing of data and precision, to improve the lives of citizens.

Here are Booz Allen Hamilton’s top five strategies from for organisations to leverage the potential of AI. SUPPORT YOUR EMPLOYEES There is no question that as artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in business and society, some jobs as we know them today will eventually go away. But this should not cause a sense of doom

and gloom. In fact, studies show that it often takes 7-10 years after a technology is created for it to be fully integrated in organisations — particularly technology as complex as artificial intelligence.

Still, leaders must acknowledge this reality with their workforce, and begin to create strategies now on how to help affected employees develop the skills to transition to new roles. Ultimately, being honest and transparent about the future will help to build trust and buy-in with your employees, customers, and shareholders. In the UAE, the government has signed a number of agreements with global organisations to train its public sector employees on key skills needed in the AI age in addition to signing agreements to build www.tahawultech.com

labs where AI prototypes can be developed between the private and public sectors.

COMPLEMENT THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE The human mind absorbs and understands more detail than we consciously know. But biases, politics, and wishful thinking sometimes distort our views.

Coupling our instincts with insights produced by machines enables us to see surprising possibilities we may have otherwise ignored. This includes everything from taking a closer look at a job candidate whose university or school would have been discounted to identifying a revenue driver a company was unaware of.

As the UAE harnesses AI to drive growth, combining machine intelligence with human intelligence will help build a more stable framework for the future.

For example the banking sector is increasingly relying on the consumer-facing applications of AI, such as Emirates NBD’s virtual assistant EVA, to enhance offerings. Even with AI being used to improve customer service, human interaction will still be needed at various touchpoints. AI solutions can be leveraged to augment human interaction in banking and other sectors, but not fully replace it.

MACHINE MODELS AUGMENT MENTAL MODELS Machine models are outperforming mental models in a growing array of cognitive tasks. This was evident in the defeat of Ke Jie, the world champion in the extremely complex strategy game Go, at the hands of a machine learning programme created by Google. Machines’ www.tahawultech.com

increasing precision and capability means we can now confidently use machine models to ingest and interpret data for a variety of business purposes, while taking a ‘trust but verify’ approach. This is especially valuable in the healthcare sector, where AI is providing scalable and affordable disease screening solutions to help medical experts make accurate diagnoses in the UAE. START BY EXPERIMENTING WITH AI Many organisations are put off by AI technologies because they think the costs, talent, data requirements and risk of failure are too high.

The reality is that in this rapidly evolving space, even the biggest organisations are learning the ropes and making mistakes along the way.

One can be cautious, but not experimenting at all could be even more detrimental.

Identify one or a few narrow areas in your business where you can tolerate some risk and experiment before making a larger investment in AI. For example, AI is helping doctors accurately diagnose eye disease in 96% of cases at the Dubai Diabetes Centre, thanks to a pilot AI project that was launched earlier this year.

The trial AI programme helped identify retinal damage caused by diabetes and was so successful that it is now a permanent addition to

the centre and is helping doctors diagnose and treat more patients at an earlier stage.

WORK AND SHARE OPENLY WITH THE ECOSYSTEM The development of artificial intelligence is a global phenomenon, bringing together academics, business leaders, and policymakers from around the world. The value of artificial intelligence goes beyond short-term returns and cost savings.

This technology has the power to fundamentally change how our most important institutions make decisions. It also opens the possibility for us to address some of the world’s most pressing problems - from income inequality to disease and environmental crises. The biggest technology companies are working together and sharing openly to advance artificial intelligence through initiatives like OpenAI and The Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society.

Transparency, sharing, and openness will enable organisations to learn and benefit from artificial intelligence more quickly, and to take on an important role in the next technological revolution. The UAE has signed a Bilateral Artificial Intelligence Bridge agreement with India that seeks to create economic benefits worth $20 billion over the next decade.

Coupling our instincts with machine-produced insights lets us see surprising possibilities we’d otherwise ignore.”

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OPINION Salesforce

WHY TECH MUST KEEP EMPLOYEES ENGAGED

48 Linda Aiello, senior vice president, international employee success, Salesforce

T

he modern worker craves flexibility – and we all know that a happier workforce is a more productive one.

In fact, a recent PWC survey found that when employees are offered the ability to work from home, they are 48% more likely to rate their job satisfaction as 10/10.

I personally know that with a busy travel schedule, the ability to have my office wherever I am not only makes me more efficient, but also improves my working relationships. Overall, it makes me a more engaged and satisfied

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SALESFORCE’S SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYEE SUCCESS, LINDA AIELLO, BELIEVES THAT TOOLS AND APPS ARE USED PROPERLY TO MAKE SURE EMPLOYEES REMAIN ENGAGED.

employee. Whether working from home, based in different countries or always on the move, keeping remote staff engaged is a no-brainer for employers.

CREATE A SUPPORTIVE CULTURE Physical detachment can often lead to remote workers feeling disconnected from their colleagues. This can be at an emotional level – missing out on building friendships or team celebrations – but there’s also the intangible career benefits of being in an office; opportunities to prove yourself useful to your

boss and network, for example.

A culture that nurtures a team’s creativity and drive can go a long way towards mitigating these kinds of issues.

At Salesforce, our culture is based on Ohana, the Hawaiian concept that, like an extended family, we are all responsible for each other. Ohana underpins everything we do and means that we’re all working together to achieve something greater than ourselves. This strong culture, which everyone can recognise, keeps employees engaged whether they’re sitting www.tahawultech.com

remotely all the like they have on the tenth floor in the office time, while 54% opportunities or at their kitchen table. Ohana want flexible for progression is so clear and well defined, that schedules. This and learn new employees can feel like they’re means that all skills. Remotely part of the culture no matter businesses that working staff where they are. want to attract can easily One way we help bring this the best talent become culture to employees is through need to think disengaged communities and apps. These about putting if they feel online tools are where we bring the processes in they’re not our culture to life for both officeplace to enable being given the based and mobile workers. They flexible working. same access to not only help with employees’ It is not just training as their day-to-day work, but help them large corporates office-based collaborate and stay connected that need to colleagues. with their colleagues. In short be cognizant Employers they bring Ohana to life and help about keeping should employees have a great experience employees therefore at work, wherever they work. engaged – given adapt their

the changing training models, STOP EMAILS AND MEETINGS demands of the providing BECOMING ‘THE THING’ workforce, this is going to affect remote workers with the We’re all guilty of getting caught companies of all sizes. resources and guidance that’s up in seemingly endless emails The productivity and efficiency suitably adapted for their and meetings throughout the of your team is only as good as environment. This includes giving day, which can make us feel like your remote management skills. them the option of taking part we’re not actually getting anything Communication and collaboration in training sessions based on valuable done. For remote will remain the most important their individual needs, at their workers, there is greater risk aspect of streamlining remote preferred time, to fit their flexible that this process-driven method work, as well as the biggest lifestyle. Whether this is through can become more pronounced. challenge. However, with online training platforms, evening However, when used correctly, simple tools, you can empower seminars or company away days. technology can actually help us employees to take action from At Salesforce we have an online to be more productive and leave anywhere. I personally use apps training platform that ensures more time for creativity. to align my team on the go and employees’ skills are current Collaboration technology am able to stay current whether and relevant while opening up can now mimic natural human I’m over the Pacific or in the back new learning opportunities to interaction – and the feeling of of a cab. And while sometimes everyone, no matter where they being in an office, working face-toI do feel like my team and I are sit. Importantly, it provides a direct face with colleagues - more closely. here, there and everywhere, I path for anyone to start learning incan honestly say that it also feels demand skills free, from anywhere.

ACCESSIBLE TRAINING FOR like one tight-knit Ohana. We are

EVERYONE definitely engaged remotely and A MORE MOBILE FUTURE All employees, no matter if not remotely engaged - no matter According to a Deloitte report, 85% they’re working remotely or from where we are. of millennial workers want to work a shared office, need to feel

Our culture is based on Ohana, the Hawaiian concept that, like an extended family, we are all responsible for each other.”

www.tahawultech.com

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49

COLUMN Glesni Holland

WHAT’S MINE IS YOURS 50

M

ark Zuckerberg’s decision to merge his empire’s messaging services (Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram) to create a “single platform” for instant messaging poses many questions.

Firstly, what’s in it for Facebook?

According to The New York Times, who first reported the CEO’s plans, it was understood that this is Zuckerberg’s way of asserting his “control over the company’s divisions, at a time when his business has been battered by scandal.”

Scandal that has, ultimately, been caused by Facebook’s lack of transparency and an inability to keep user data under wraps on numerous occasions in the last 12 months.

So, next question - what does this latest announcement mean for data security?

Zuckerberg has stated that he wants the new all-inclusive platform to be end-to-end encrypted, which only WhatsApp currently supports

FEBRUARY 2019

Facebook’s only previous attempt GAUTAM KUMAR, CO-FOUNDER AND COO, FAREYE, to merge WhatsApp with its wider EXPLAINS WHY DIGITALLY-DRIVEN CAN business was shot LOGISTICS down by the EU TRANSFORM CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES. due to data protection concerns,

by default. Messenger users need to switch the ‘secret conversations’ feature on if they want to keep their private conversations exactly that, and Instagram users get no such option at all. Facebook can therefore mine data about messaging interactions and scan instant messages on Facebook and Instagram in a way that is off limits on WhatsApp. While the merger will mean that the three platforms remain as separate apps with their own brand identity, the plans to develop a common architecture beneath them, supporting end-to-end encryption is something that may cause issues.

Reports suggest that achieving the encryption itself may not be so difficult, but the results of such a move could be argued as giving Facebook far too much market power – something which regulators, including the EU, are already hot on Zuckerberg’s heels to discuss in an urgent meeting to assess his proposals.

after it was found to have inaccurately claimed during the 2014 takeover that it was technically impossible to combine user information from Facebook and WhatsApp automatically.

One of the provisions of General Data Protection Regulation is that data is used only for the purposes outlined to users when it is gathered; something which Facebook has ultimately failed to deliver in recent years, so many may ask - why would this be any different?

If nothing else, this plan is just the latest sign that Zuckerberg is tightening his control over the three services, which he had initially promised would remain independent from Facebook, in addition to reaffirming that the social network now seemingly depends on Instagram and WhatsApp for future growth. www.tahawultech.com