Channel Insights October 2022

RIDING THE WAVE

GITEX is back as the world’s largest tech event, featuring more than 4000 exhibitors. This year, the event spotlights some of the hottest tech trends in our industry –cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and 5G. Other than opportunities to forge business relationships, GITEX is a perfect platform for the channel community to explore and stay abreast of the latest developments and new technologies. All the major distributors will be at the event, showcasing the brands, and nowhere else will give you so many opportunities to learn about your industry.

AI tops the list among the trends that the channel should focus on. This disruptive technology is sweeping across a range of industries and presents a lucrative opportunity for the channel to offer AI services to businesses. IDC predicts that spending on AI will reach $77.6 billion this year. Channel partners should capitalize on this and become trusted advisors to provide consulting services to their customers in addition to deploying AI technologies.

Another trend is the red hot market for cybersecurity. This market is already huge and encompasses many areas, making it difficult for partners to understand where to start. With the alarming rise in ransomware attacks, the focus is now on datacentric security. Channel partners must take note and move beyond selling just vanilla security solutions such as firewalls or IDS/IPS systems. Given the skills gap in the region, there is also a robust demand for security as a service, which makes managed security business an attractive value proposition for partners looking to make a difference. In this issue, we have featured leading vendors for their take on the channel opportunities in the cybersecurity market and what sort of suppliers they should seek to partner with. We also have a couple of thought leadership articles about what it takes to create a successful MSSP business.

When you flip the pages, you’d also read about two of the leading VADs in the region that have cashed in on these new trends in the market – FVC and StarLink. Both these distributors have stayed on top of key tech trends to win in their markets. We hope you find stories of these successful distributors worth emulating.

Managing

Jeevan

Production

James

Sales

Merle Carrasco merlec@insightmediame.com +97155 - 1181730

Administration Manager Fahida Afaf Bangod fahidaa@insightmediame.com +97156 - 5741456

Operations Director

Rajeesh Nair rajeeshm@insightmediame.com +97155 - 9383094

Designer Anup Sathyan

Trellix Accelerates Channel Success Through Unified Partner Program

• Professional Services: featuring playbooks enabling partners to build managed services and incident response offerings, leveraging Trellix intellectual property, and apply threat intelligence from Trellix Advanced Research Centre.

New Members Join Security Innovation Alliance

Trellix expands the reach of its open platform with the addition of ten technology partners. These include an exciting partnership with Tenable, enabling a risk-based view of a customer’s entire attack surface. The Trellix XDR risk score of an asset is automatically updated when vulnerabilities are shared from Tenable.io. This allows security analysts to quickly determine if a threat corresponds to a high-risk asset and enables them to respond faster via curated playbooks and orchestration.

In addition to Tenable, Trellix welcomes Lineaje, Arista Networks, Keysight Ixia, Elevate Security, Sumo Logic, SecureX.ai, Okta, GreyNoise, and CPacketNetworks to the Trellix Security Innovation Alliance (SIA). These new additions bring the ecosystem to over 800 partners integrated with Trellix XDR.

Partner Testimonials

Trellix has announced Trellix Xtend, a new partner program designed to increase profitability, engagement, and growth across its global partner ecosystem. Trellix also announced new technology integrations to Trellix XDR through the Security Innovation Alliance, a program simplifying the development of inter-operable security products for complex customer environments.

“Our unified partner program, Xtend, continues to reinforce our priority as a channel-first business,” said Britt Norwood, SVP, Global Channels & Commercial, Trellix. “We co-developed the Xtend program with our partners to create the right business model for deploying Trellix XDR. Partners can count on Trellix to help drive profitability for our partners and reward partner value.”

Xtend Partner Program

Launching in early 2023, Trellix Xtend is designed to put the partner first. Able to be tailored to each partner’s business model and target market, the program delivers stronger customer outcomes. Key elements of the program include:

• Partner Enablement: delivering a training curriculum that supports partners from first-sale to first-install of the Trellix XDR platform.

• Demand Creation: using differentiated sales plays to accelerate customer engagement, increase deal registration, and build sales pipeline.

• Partner Support: providing a premium post-sale experience including 24/7 support and resources, enabling trusted advisor relationships with Trellix XDR customers.

“Many of the partner programs we evaluate are developed with good intention but have become bloated and ineffective over time as the market evolves,” said Ryan Morris, President, Blackwood. “Trellix’s partner program is built to enable a premium partner experience with margins allowing us to deliver outcomes beyond customer expectation. The program is centered around the idea that long-term customer success is best enabled through the channel, and we are appreciative of their commitment to collaboration in ways that directly benefit our customers.”

“No one security vendor can provide all of the technology needed in today’s ever-changing threat landscape,” said Matt McCormick, SVP, Business & Corporate Development, ThreatQuotient. “The open nature of Trellix XDR allows our joint customers to be resilient.”

Britt Norwood, SVP, Global Channels & Commercial, Trellix

AmiViz Partners With Evren To Offer Simplified IT & Security Solutions

supports all popular and widely used enterprise apps—from communication, development, to productivity—across sectors, thus avoiding the hassle of secondary solutions or workarounds.

With the Evren OS, enterprises will be able to bypass the hassle of managing a vast infrastructure and hiring skilled resources, making IT & Security management easier than ever before.

AmiViz today announced that the company has joined hands with Evren to introduce a highly secure desktop Operating System (OS) that is purpose-built for enterprises to streamline IT and enhance security.

Evren OS offers a unique solution that is deployed on the user’s endpoint devices but managed centrally from cloud or on-premises web portal, thereby ensuring better cost-efficiency, improved user experience, with no latency issues; and complete endpoint security.

Commenting on the new partnership, the COO of AmiViz, Ilyas Mohammed said, “We are glad to forge an alliance with Evren to provide an alternative to Windows and macOS that is not only secure, but also cost-effective, and user-friendly desktop solution for the regional enterprises.

With Evren OS, enterprises don’t need to upgrade their old desktop and laptops, resulting in big savings on license costs, hardware costs, and manpower costs. Apart from cost savings, Evren also protects devices

against Ransomware, Malicious Applications, Phishing, and other unknown threats. We see a big demand for such a solution in the region, and this also provides an excellent opportunity for the channel partners to find a new revenue stream from their existing customer base.”

Evren works on all laptops & PCs, using an automated installer, with a deployment time of only 30 minutes. The OS has a userfriendly interface and requires no end-user learning curve. The employees can switch swiftly and easily, and continue to focus on their actual work, instead of spending valuable time adapting to a new and daunting digital workspace.

By offering both on-premise and cloud-based management for the OS, Evren offers a smooth user experience, with no lag or latency issues even while running large files or heavier apps such as those for video streaming. Operating on Evren allows for easy handling of workload and traffic, with no dependence on a limited storage infrastructure. Moreover, Evren

Evren offers full disk encryption, to prevent misuse if a device is lost or stolen, as well as privilege access management, which allows only the IT administrator to have admin access through devicespecific passwords valid only for 24 hours. Other features such as URL filtering and application sandboxing are aimed at blocking out harmful and malicious content and isolating and restricting attacks if an application is infected. With this, Evren can minimise enduser negligence and secure the organisation’s valuable data and intellectual property.

Gaurav Nagar, CEO and CoFounder of Evren, said, “Our product helps customers improve their security posture while saving on IT costs, and this partnership with AmiViz will help us bring our solution to customers in the Middle East region. The AmiViz marketplace’s presence across the region will enable us to roll out our partner program quicker.”

Evren will be participating in the forthcoming GITEX, where the company will be showcasing its centrally managed Operating System (OS) for desktops and laptops. Visitors can meet the team of experts from Evren at AmiViz booth A1 in Hall No.1 at the Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai, UAE.

Ilyas Mohammed, COO at AmiViz

Gaurav Nagar, CEO and Co-Founder of Evren

TEXUB To Showcase Its B2B Marketplace At GITEX Global 2022

TEXUB announced its participation in GITEX Global 2022. The company will showcase its innovative global B2B marketplace – a safe, stable and seamless trade ecosystem for global IT trade, and demonstrate how it digitally connects verified B2B sellers and buyers from all around the world. TEXUB will also introduce its ‘DigiNOMICS’ program, which offers training for sales personnel to specialise in digital sales and help accelerate digital transformation.

“Since TEXUB was launched earlier this year, we have received tremendous response from both buyers and sellers from across the globe. GITEX Global 2022, being one of the biggest ICT exhibitions globally, is an ideal forum for us to create a better face-to-face awareness of TEXUB’s unique value proposition of pioneering the future of IT trade. Our participation in this mega exhibition helps us showcase our platform as a true IT and mobility marketplace, highlight our new training program – DigiNOMICS, and demonstrate to buyers and sellers how easy it is to onboard their products and transact. We look forward to amplifying our message to a wider audience visiting GITEX from across the world,” said Suchit Kumar, CEO of TEXUB.

“Beyond GITEX Global 2022, we will continue to provide the market with information on our progress as TEXUB aims to become a global operator in the IT trade sector,” he added.

Launched in Dubai earlier this year, TEXUB is a non-subscriptionbased business that provides verified buyers and sellers with unlimited access to commercial business and IT transactions. Sellers can easily upload products on the platform and sell them globally across multiple hubs, with the flexibility to set geographical limits if necessary.

Buyers can expand their supplier base by purchasing globally at competitive prices. The platform assists businesses, both large and small, in establishing themselves in worldwide marketplaces and provides prospects for expansion by diversifying their sources.

Headquartered in Dubai, TEXUB serves as an ideal channel facilitator as it overcomes the physical limitations of customer reach. A true B2B marketplace, TEXUB

is a convenient platform that facilitates distributors, buyers, resellers and brands within the industry. With a strong digital ecosystem and scalable cloud platform, TEXUB spotlights an unprecedented and compelling journey into the IT and mobility business economy.

TEXUB will be at Stand 32 in Hall 4. Senior executives and experts from the company will be available to meet with visitors.

Suchit Kumar, CEO of TEXUB

Kyndryl Introduces Kyndryl Bridge

Kyndryl, a new open integration platform giving business leaders, real-time insights into their complex IT estates, and unprecedented control over customising their mission-critical operations.

Kyndryl Bridge leverages Kyndryl’s core technology strengths. It marshals decades of expertise, operational data patterns and IP to generate actionable insights that redefine how enterprises improve and accelerate their AIpowered analytics and business objectives. In doing so, it creates an uninterrupted path between digital business and the tech that drives it. Kyndryl Bridge is designed to meet customers where they are today, enabling interoperability that maximises the value of tools they already know and trust.

“Dealing with complexity is what Kyndryl does best, and what customers need most. Kyndryl Bridge will be a way for our customers, and Kyndryl, to run their mission-critical infrastructure and digital transformation journeys better,” said Schroeter, Kyndryl’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Kyndryl is committed to transforming how IT services are delivered, and Kyndryl Bridge is core to our long-term strategic mission to grow our ecosystem of alliance partners, use tools and IP to create a robust advanced delivery system, and ultimately dedicate more expertise and focus to best serve customers at scale.”

Across the global economy, digital modernisation efforts sit at the top of today’s business agendas, with 60 percent of CIOs citing it as their most critical growth driver in 2022. However, business and technology complexity, along with a shortage of critical IT skills, has slowed progress for most enterprises. Kyndryl is accelerating its customers’ digital business journeys by innovating to

deliver solutions through platform-enabled services.

“Enterprise IT leaders today are responsible for the management of increasingly-complex IT estates that demand greater oversight, interoperability, and AI-powered analytics to avert challenges and downtime,” says David Tapper, program VP, Outsourcing and Managed Cloud Service at IDC.

“The ability of Kyndryl Bridge to connect the many tools, workflows, and processes in which enterprises have spent years investing, while delivering real-time, actionable insights and recommendations, is a powerful proposition for enterprises throughout the global economy.”

Kyndryl Bridge integrates and connects the complex management and process tools that enterprises throughout the global economy rely upon. Its capabilities have on average, reduced the number of incidents per server per month for enterprises by 74 percent.

“By enabling leaders to focus less on managing IT systems, they can build and support their digital business strategies while freeing up IT resources for higher-value work,” said Antoine Shagoury, Kyndryl’s Chief Technology Officer. “It provides greater access and control over critical tools, and Kyndryl experts in cloud, data and AI, security and resiliency, mainframe modernisation, and other important aspects of the IT estate.”

Designed with configurability in mind, Kyndryl Bridge is evolving to deploy ready-made, industrial scale solutions from Kyndryl and its broad and growing partner ecosystem. Its intelligent management tools,

powered by automation and AI, will provide technology leaders with real-time insights to prevent downtime and better forecast future needs and costs.

“As customers accelerate their digital transformation, Kyndryl’s new digital integration platform can help provide rich data insights, solutions automation, and services delivery expertise,” said Nick Holden, Vice President, Cisco Global Strategic Partners and Cosell. “Kyndryl Bridge is a big step forward to enable Kyndryl and Cisco to deliver business outcomes that our joint customers are demanding.”

For customers, the platform maximises the benefits of native multi-cloud capabilities and delivers an ‘as-a-service’ (aaS) operating environment. It is designed to be a strategic digital hub that will continue to expand and grow over time, connecting Kyndryl’s advanced technology and tooling with a deep bench of industry expertise and forwardthinking innovators across virtually every sector of the global economy.

Martin Schroeter, Chairman & CEO at Kyndryl

Salesforce Announces First Ever Carbon Credit Marketplace

businesses or individuals — can learn about climate issues.

“The uptick in extreme weather events shows that no one is spared from climate change — we need smart climate solutions now,” said Suzanne DiBianca, EVP and Chief Impact Officer, Salesforce. “Businesses aiming to achieve long-term emission reductions can complement their efforts with high-quality carbon credits. Net Zero Marketplace brings together Salesforce’s values, technology, and commitment to ecopreneurs to accelerate climate action.”

Quality carbon credits through Net Zero Marketplace can complement long-term emissions reductions

We are at an “all-of-the-above” moment in the climate crisis. Carbon credits are one important tool that – when made and used well – can play a critical role in an organization’s comprehensive climate strategy.

organizations to determine which carbon credits are best for them.

New partners announced today include ecopreneurs who bring innovative, diverse projects to support decarbonization and trusted ratings companies with expertise in identifying projects that deliver real climate benefits.

“Sylvera and Salesforce share the same mission of bringing transparency and trust to carbon markets to drive real climate impact. Quality carbon projects are a powerful and necessary tool to fight climate change, but reliable data and investment is needed to unlock their full potential,” said Sam Gill, co-founder and COO, Sylvera. “With Sylvera’s ratings, Net Zero Marketplace users can discover projects that deliver real climate benefits.”

Salesforce today introduced Net Zero Marketplace, a trusted platform that makes carbon credit purchases simple and transparent, and allowing organizations to accelerate climate positive impact at scale.

The global voluntary carbon market is estimated to grow to $50B by 2030 as many organizations race to achieve their net zero commitments. Yet, organizations may not always know how to build a carbon credit portfolio — or even where to start. What’s more, the path to purchasing carbon credits is complex, and buyers want to trust that the carbon credit projects have a positive impact.

Net Zero Marketplace, built on Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud, connects buyers and ecopreneurs — environmentally-focused entrepreneurs who lead and drive climate action worldwide — offering a catalog of third-party rated carbon credits and a seamless ecommerce experience for purchasing them. Net Zero Marketplace also features a climate action hub where anyone —

“The first step of anyone’s net zero journey is clearly reducing emissions. But we now know that reducing selfgenerated emissions is not going to be enough,” said Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary, UN Convention on Climate Change and CoHost, Outrage and Optimism.

Carbon credit projects go through a series of independent verifications against global standards. If they pass the verification process, the projects can issue carbon credits that can then be sold. Projects can include forest conservation, tree planting, wind farms, solar cookstoves, or better farming methods.

Partners bring innovation, scale, and ratings to trusted platform Finding and verifying a carbon credit’s quality can be difficult and timeconsuming. Net Zero Marketplace eliminates the uncertainty by aggregating and publishing third-party ratings for projects not locked behind paywalls or account registrations. This level of transparency helps empower

“Partnering with Salesforce to create this marketplace will turbocharge climate action and empower every company — large and small — to take responsibility for its emissions. We are proud to provide high quality offsets to clients who understand the value of compensating for their impact on the environment,” said Renat Heuberger, CEO, South Pole. “There is no time to waste, let’s take action today.”

At launch, Net Zero Marketplace will offer nearly 90 projects across 11 countries throughout Africa, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Buyers will be able to see project descriptions, alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and, for many, official third-party ratings.

Net Zero Marketplace offers carbon credit purchase to any organization

Any organization can access Net Zero Marketplace and buy carbon credits. For organizations currently using Net Zero Cloud, Salesforce’s carbon accounting solution, the credits are also easily integrated into the platform and will be tracked against their current emissions. Buyers will also get updates on project progress, which will encourage reinvestment.

Suzanne DiBianca, EVP and Chief Impact Officer, Salesforce

THE CHANNEL OPPORTUNITY IN CYBERSECURITY

The cybersecurity market in the Middle East is estimated to be around $20.3 billion. Tips from leading vendors on how channel partners can cash in on this burgeoning market opportunity.

Britt Norwood SVP, Global Channels and Commercial at Trellix

How can channel partners exploit the market opportunity in cybersecurity?

Organisations in the region are looking for a new answer when it comes to security. They are unable to manage the complexity but want to reduce risk and ultimately, use security for their business advantage. The addressable market is enormous and the partners that win will take an approach to leverage security as a platform and focus on building their own services capabilities to give clients desirable outcomes.

Also, customers may want to double down on their core business in the coming months, and this offers a great opportunity for partners, particularly managed service providers (MSPs), to step in and help with new business models. For channel partners with a cybersecurity play, it’s worth remembering that any uncertainty can potentially open new doors for threat actors. Identifying those security hotspots, fast, could be an opportunity for growth.

What type of vendors should they seek to partner with?

Partners should be looking to work with vendors that offer solutions that not only leverage latest technologies like AI and ML, so that they can learn and adapt to the latest threats, but as important, the vendors’ solutions should be open and native, so as to easily integrate with other security solutions, enabling partners to create configurations that are optimised to the needs of their customers.

Prashant Menon Channel Manager – UAE, Check Point Software Technologies

How can channel partners exploit the market opportunity in cybersecurity?

The COVID-19 reshaped our entire working culture and had a dramatic effect on every organisation. Businesses of all sizes and shapes around the world had to rapidly adapt and make significant infrastructure changes and move to the new normal workspace. When it comes to the channel industry, the skills which were available with channel earlier are bygone and less effective with the changing technology needs of the customers. We are amid the cyber pandemic involving more sophisticated 5th Generation (Gen V) cyberthreat landscape and the cyber-attackers have become more advanced, urging customers to seek robust security solutions who are now looking at cyber security as a business enabler to combat and prevent these increasing threats. Partners need to be educated that the conventional outlook of selling and positioning security technologies no longer gives their customer the comfort to invest with them. To grow sales and prosper, partners need to scale up to be become a trusted security advisor to the customers rather than just their service providers. Continuous skill development, training and bridging the knowledge gaps is an ongoing process for the channel industry and we can see this trend to continue. The channel executives will need to step up their game and build up trust with their customers as in the cyber security industry building up trust with the customers is the most important aspect to be successful in the future.

What type of vendors should they seek to partner with?

Covid-19 brought in a lot of changes to the workplace environment. As resellers settle into the reality of the current state of things and the new normal, they need to change their focus from ad-hoc arrangements to a fresh approach to their organisational strategy. Businesses that implement an effective, efficient and business-focused strategy significantly outperform their peers. Channel partners are expected to work hand in hand along with the vendor to have an effective and sustainable business model. Partners should seek vendors who deliver the best growth opportunities and rewards and help them be more successful by enabling them to take full advantage of new opportunities available in the ever evolving cyber security market. Being innovative and agile is of core significance, how swiftly and effectively the channel partners can get their messaging passed on to the customers by leveraging the partner initiatives provided by their vendors, would help in developing their sales pipeline and determine the growth of their business in this new normal.

What type of vendors should they seek to partner with?

Today, customers are becoming more aware of what technologies are out there. They are also looking for solutions that will give them the ability to automate the processes. They require from the channel partners to propose to them the leading technologies that not only cover one area of security but multiple interconnected ones. The customer is now looking at partners who are capable to propose a platform rather than multiple products. They also want to be offered the possibility to maintain the solutions they have in place with a possibility to integrate all additional solutions. This is why at SentinelOne we offer an XDR platform with different modules and an API integration option that allows the customer to expand on top of what they already have.

The cybersecurity landscape is changing. Partners need to consider vendors that have a complete XDR platform and a proper integration story to allow the customers to cover different security surfaces that go beyond their XDR.

How can channel partners exploit the market opportunity in cybersecurity?

The number of data breaches has been rising and while it is becoming a mandate for our customers to revamp their security, it has also been challenging for them to find the right resources and experts in the market to help with this required transformation. This lack of right resources has created a gap that surely represents a true opportunity for our channel partners who now not only have the chance to consult and sell the technology but also build a rich service portfolio to support customer build their security strategy and execute on it. Through the right services put in place, our channel partners are now able to play a strategic role in the customer cybersecurity transformation.

As SentinelOne, we rely on our partners to help us scale. We help our partners build their in house capabilities and we give the focus ones the opportunity to sell their support and deployment services to the customers.

How can channel partners exploit the market opportunity in cybersecurity?

Concepts like cloud security, work from anywhere, Zero Trust, and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) are the areas that channel should take advantage of to fulfil evolving customer needs and the demand for businesses to have even more robust security systems that can protect a distributed workforce. Organisations have dealt with an increasingly distributed workforce due to a surge in remote working as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, ‘work from anywhere’ has now become the norm. Therefore, businesses need a variety of adaptable software-based cybersecurity solutions that can lock down users and applications regardless of location. Ongoing digital transformation, paired with this change in work practices, have brought us to a point where networking and security are converging. The market opportunity for channel partners is enormous in this current climate, but in order to capitalise on it, partners

Meriam Elouazzani

Regional Channel Manager – META, SentinelOne

Fayez Eweidat Senior Sales Director, Juniper Networks

must have a good understanding of the needs of the customer and deliver tailored cybersecurity solutions that suit their specific requirements and complement their existing IT infrastructure.

What type of vendors should they seek to partner with?

Channel partners need vendors that can support them through accelerating innovation in their own business as well as the end-customer’s, help to activate valued customer outcomes, and drive profitability. Partners should choose a vendor that offer comprehensive learning programmes to ensure partners have the right skills and knowledge about the solutions so that they are well equipped to sell on behalf of the vendor. This also guarantees that partners can fulfil the needs of the modern customer.

How can channel partners exploit the market opportunity in cybersecurity?

Alexander Foroozandé Head of Channels, MEA, Nozomi Networks

How can channel partners exploit the market opportunity in cybersecurity?

With increased nation-state and ransomware attacks and a genuine increase in bad actors, cybersecurity continues to be a top priority for organisations of all shapes and sizes. IoT/OT security is an area that is considered green field, as such channel partners are primed to stay relevant by bridging the IT and IoT/OT security gaps.

What type of vendors should they seek to partner with?

Vendors with industry-leading Go-To-Market models and a channel-first strategy should be on top of the list. There are lots of vendors out there with great tech, but with direct Go-To-Market models and so, partners tend to come 2nd or 3rd on their priority list. It’s important they do their homework prior to signing up.

The opportunities that leading channel players need to go after is in addressing the significant challenges businesses now face as data volumes have grown exponentially. Enterprises in the region are finding that it’s nearly impossible to know what data they have, where that data is located and stored, or if it’s properly backed up and secure. This presents a huge risk, especially in the era of rampant ransomware. Working together with technology providers such as Cohesity, channel organisations have the ability to first address this issue from a cybersecurity perspective i.e. ensure data is backed up, protected from ransomware, and easily recoverable. Once this is done, they can then expand their engagement with customers by levelling the same next-gen data management platform as a means to deliver business insight from enterprise data.

What type of vendors should they seek to partner with?

Channel partners need to work with vendors that are ready to invest deeply into them. Going deeper with fewer is the hallmark technology vendors that are looking to create an ecosystem of highly empowered channel partners that are capable of going after the high-value deals, rather than transacting simply on volume. It’s also essential that the vendor has invested to develop robust technology alliances with other complimentary, market leading technology providers. This will ensure the partner is capable of offering turn-key solutions, rather than having to expend significant effort on vetting solutions and seamlessly integrating them.

Gregg Petersen Regional Director - MEA at Cohesity

PRIMED FOR SUCCESS

FVC, which has cemented its place as the leading value-added distributor of unified collaboration solutions, is branching out into new domains such as AI and cloud to turbocharge business growth. The company’s Managing Director, K S Parag, and Chief Sales Officer, Prakash Krishnamurthy, discuss their ambitious strategy to take the business to the next level.

What has been the impact of this pandemic on your business?

Parag: We’ve had a 30 percent growth in business in the last 12 months, mainly because unified collaboration has become necessary in enterprises. In the wake of the pandemic, many people were working from home, and organisations wanted efficient solutions to enable collaboration and remote work. Previously, unified collaboration was a goodto-have solution. During the pandemic, both large and small enterprises had no choice but to ensure their employees had all the collaboration tools necessary to work from home and keep businesses running. Even though we have seen the workforce returning, every enterprise now wants to strike a balance and be prepared for such eventualities, making UC an essential business requirement.

At the same time, we saw the UC marketplace grow because the prices of devices and solutions dropped significantly. Plug-and-play solutions became available at affordable prices because companies didn’t want any sophisticated solutions that warrant integration. Though prices dropped, especially for the devices, it was compensated by the growth in terms of penetration across all enterprises.

We’d come a long way from telepresence systems that used to cost half a million dollars to simple USB-based plug-and-play devices available today with price tags as low as $1100-1200, and have all the new

Prakash Krishnamurthy, Chief Sales Officer and K S Parag, Managing Director

features, including camera tracking, powerful speakers, etc.

How do you plan to grow your business over the next 12 months?

Parag: We are bullish about the marketplace and want to sustain this momentum to achieve 35-40 percent growth in business. We see that happening in two ways.

First, we have seen a significant change in the unified collaboration business. There was a phase during the pandemic when enterprises invested in easy-to-deploy collaboration solutions without researching these solutions and making them future-proof. So, we will become solutions architect consultants and help these organisations make their unified collaboration solutions scalable and more cost-effective. We see a good opportunity in the marketplace for this.

The second, I would say, is our investment in the cybersecurity business. We are reengineering our go-to-market strategy completely for this business. I have Prakash, who has joined us back with broad domain knowledge, and he is spearheading our cybersecurity and services side of the company.

Prakash: As Parag said, there has been a paradigm shift in the UC market because prices are dropping drastically, triggering massive adoption. The global unified collaboration market is estimated to be worth around $150 billion today. That is the potential we are looking at, and this market has attracted big players like Microsoft and Zoom.

On the cybersecurity front, I plan to grow FVC’s cybersecurity business to the $50 million mark over the next two years. This market has very high growth potential because attacks such as ransomware are intensifying in this region, and server-level attacks have also increased at the same time. On the other hand, IoT is becoming more prevalent with billions of devices connected to the Internet, which

have become potential targets for attacks. We are very strong in the identity and access management space. Last year, we bagged the best distributor award from BeyondTrust. On the server level, we have Netscout, which is slowly evolving as a cyber-intelligence product. Now, we are trying to beef up our cybersecurity portfolio by adding SIEM and vulnerability management products because cloud vulnerability has become a big thing. Along with the cybersecurity domain, we are also going to establish another domain for artificial intelligence in analytics and big data

Are you looking to onboard new vendors in other domains?

Parag: We are always looking for vendors that can add value to our portfolio. We have already added a couple of new vendors this year – Yealink and DTEN to the UC space. Also, we are focusing on ensuring we bring in specialised pre-and post-sales consultants who can help our channel partner community to go ahead and propagate the new way of collaboration in the cloud. This requires an extensive education cycle both at the partner and customer level. The shift from legacy systems hosted on-prem to cloud environments, especially Microsoft Teams and Zoom, requires migration and understanding the customer’s network. The channel’s role is to make them understand the value proposition and how easily this could be done with reduced total cost of ownership.

We have invested in this area, and we take pride in having the best pre-sales consultants and post-sales service engineers who understand every aspect of this migration. As a result, they can not only design solutions but also ensure the implementation is done to the customer’s satisfaction through our partner community.

And yes, we will continue to bring more value-added solutions

into the marketplace, which will be genuinely leading edge.

Prakash: Another area we have earmarked for growth is the UCaaS space, which is witnessing demand from specific verticals such as education. We have already signed up a vendor for this and want to be the only platform in the Middle East selling UCaaS through our community of more than 600 channel partners. Even in the AV domain, we are adding many new display products. We are building our portfolio across all four divisions – UCC, AV, cybersecurity, cloud, and AI. With all these growth engines in place, we are confident of doubling our value-added business by 2024.

What are you showcasing at GITEX this year?

Parag: We are going to have two double-decker stands at GITEX this year. One will be focused on unified collaboration and smart meeting room solutions. One of the new solutions we will showcase is Microsoft’s Front Row feature and products from Poly, Logitech, Barco, and Yealink. We will also be exhibiting Zoom Phones, which we recently launched in this market.

The other stand is dedicated to cybersecurity, AI, and big data, where we will have vendors such as BeyondTrust, and Netscout in addition to the new vendors we have signed up for in this domain.

Prakash: Additionally, we will have a unique message at the show from a services angle. If you have any proprietary technology like Cisco or Avaya and would like to integrate it with Microsoft Teams and Zoom, we have a centralized framework that can do it. I don’t think anyone else in the market is offering that capability from a service perspective, and this is something every customer wants today because they don’t want to be locked in with these vendors and legacy technologies.

MSSP CHECKLIST

Complicated IT environments and expanding network edges create new cybersecurity risks.

In response to the evolving threat landscape, more companies have turned to managed security service providers (MSSPs) who can provide access to hard to find security expertise and the latest technology. To position themselves competitively in a crowded market, MSSPs must offer the right combination of services, around-theclock protection as well as, cost effective solutions that deliver better risk management and compliance. It’s a twofold challenge that requires speed and scale in detection and response for more competitive value propositions.

Managed Security Provider (MSSP) Success Checklist

Creating a successful service offering means understanding customers’

security and business objectives. To help customers achieve these goals, an MSSP must establish a robust set of offerings that offer access to the latest technologies and security expertise at a price point that makes sense.

Actionable Alerts

Most customers begin their evaluation process by reviewing an MSSP’s solutions. Information overload and alert fatigue is a common problem facing security teams so the ability to address security monitoring is a key requirement. Without high-fidelity alerts that correlate events effectively, security teams find themselves spending too much time investigating false alerts.

To help address these problems, MSSPs must provide customers with aggregated alerts enriched with context that reduce false positives, while also

helping to define, guide, and accelerate investigations. MSSPs who can enable prioritization based on severity levels with technology that streamlines task assignments and automate response can differentiate themselves from other providers.

Advanced Threat Detection

In addition to alerts, advanced threat detection is also tied to the MSSP’s ability to incorporate advanced threat intelligence into its offering. With threat actors continually improving their tactics, techniques and procedures customers want a provider with real-time access to robust threat intelligence that can quickly detect attacks at machine speed. While many customers may already subscribe to threat intelligence feeds, disaggregated information across a fragmented security architecture actually creates security gaps and increases key metrics like mean times to detect and respond.

MSSPs need to support actionable alerts with high-quality threat intelligence. When combining the two in a single pane of glass, an MSSP can help customers respond to zero-day attacks, other emerging threats, as well as variations of known attacks more rapidly, and thereby reduce the likelihood of a data breach.

SOC Services

MSSPs offer more than just access to the latest technologies. Customers also turn to their providers for services, including talking to experienced people who can guide them through the incident response process. The cybersecurity talent gap leaves many companies struggling to find the right staffing to protect their systems, network, and data. Often, customers turn to an MSSP to act as their security operations center (SOC) or support their current team.

With this in mind, MSSPs must deliver a range of services from their own SOC, specifically those that can be offered at particular service levels or tailored to individual customer needs. By delivering a fully managed or co-managed SOC service, MSSPs can fill the talent gap by providing the human resources customers need, not just the technology and tools.

JonathanNguyen-Duy, Vice President, Global Field CISO at Fortinet, lists out tips for achieving success

Automated Response

Some customers may have SOC teams that need augmentation because they are bogged down by manual, inefficient, error-prone, and time-consuming steps. These customers need automation so that their teams can effectively filter repetitive tasks and focus on more critical issues.

MSSPs that offer automated response capabilities can address higher level requirements to address a larger market with more advanced requirements. By offering Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) with updated playbooks, MSSPs can offer highly differentiated services featuring enhanced detection and accelerated incident investigation and response.

Visibility & SIEM Access

Today, nearly every customer has a complex environment, regardless of company size. Most customers have multiple point products that create gaps in visibility and control. To gain that visibility, many work with an MSSP who can cost-effectively provide them with a cohesive Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution.

One of the keys to SIEM effectiveness is the ability to ingest large volumes of data from a wide arrange of vendor products. The ability to provide centralized management and customization options using API integrations is one way MSSPs can distinguish themselves within the market. In addition, MSSPs should consider services like granular reporting with event management that highlights important activity and alerts – providing a cost effective alternative to traditional in-house SIEM depoloytmens.

Flexible Deployment

Many organizations are implementing digital transformation and research consistently shows that security is the primary concern. Cloud adoption, distributed computing, remote working, complexity and increasing threats are key challenges driving customers to seek MSSPs with flexible solutions. Most customers want their MSSP to be their “one-stop-shop” for managing cyber risk and compliance. To differentiate themselves, MSSPs need to offer customizable solutions with flexible technology in the form of appliances, virtual machines or cloud delivered

services along with pay-as-you-go options that allow customers to onboard new solutions quickly and efficiently as their needs change. To do this, MSSPs need to offer on-demand services with extensive self-service catalogs – especially incident response and reporting.

The Business Benefits of Choosing & Working with an MSSP Beyond providing the right services and technologies, MSSPs must also demonstrate their business value. Many customers recognize their security problems but cannot articulate where the MSSP fits into solving them. To demonstrate the vital role they can play in securing customer networks and enabling the business, MSSPs should consider offering the following:

Specialized Skills and Services

For most customers, gaining access to the skills and services that help them solve their unique security issues poses a significant challenge. While no two customer requirements are the same, all organizations are seeking cost effective ways to access scarce security skills and services.

MSSPs should focus on platform scalability that allows efficient customer focus without the cost of dedicated staffing. MSSPs need flexible solutions that evolve with customer needs. In some cases, a customer may want a comprehensive technology and services package that gives them an entire team and all capabilities. In other cases, the customer may just be building out a SOC and looking to grow over time. Being able to meet customers where they are now, as they are now, and evolve with them is key to helping them understand the value.

24/7 Service

Threat actors can attack at any time of day, often outside of traditional work hours. Even companies with a SOC may not be able to have someone on-call every day, all day. MSSPs can provide that co-managed service for companies without a dedicated SOC or augment the current SOC to address these outside-of-business times.

Rapid Response

Our networks and systems are more interconnected than ever before, so the sooner a company can respond to a threat, the less damage that threat can cause. With automated response capabilities, customers can reduce response time to ensure a reduction in potential damage. Manual processes are no longer adequate as they can take anywhere from four to fifteen hours, but automated response technologies can reduce that to twenty minutes or less. Incident response is all about automation for speed and scale.

Lower Total Cost of Ownership

Building a SOC, deploying SIEM, tools and hiring the staff can be costprohibitive. Accelerating business requirements and cost concerns means companies are seeking alternatives to tradition build and operate approaches. The shared services model offered by MSSPs is an increasingly attractive model that provides accelerated time-to-service along with better risk management and compliance than traditional in-house solutions. MSSPs offer a predictable, demonstrated cost model that provides better value for risk management and business outcomes. Aligning operational metrics to customer business outcomes is a key differentiator.

Final Thoughts

Customization and scalability go hand-inhand when building out solutions. Services are just as important as technologies; part of providing a solution is delivering value through the right technologies that solve the right problems, at right price. Providing access to technology, expertise and services is the foundational value of MSSPs. By keeping this top of mind, MSSPs should focus on a platform approach that allows highly customizable, scalable solutions with a TCO that unlocks value and growth.

JonathanNguyen-Duy, Fortinet

SOLVING CYBERSECURITY CHALLENGES

For MSSPs, XDR can be the foundation of effective, ‘living security,’ writes Vibin Shaju, presales director – EMEA, Trellix

Two years on from our planetwide migration to the cloud, the unease experienced by IT and security teams lingers. Consumers demand more and better digital experiences. Employees demand more flexible working conditions. The C-suite demands more value and lower costs. And all of this takes place in an atmosphere of skills and resource gaps. On top of all this, everyone from the customer to the board expects delivery of their wish-lists in absolute security. But mounting evidence suggests security teams are not confident in their ability to meet these requirements.

In a global report by Trellix, companies revealed how unprepared they were in battling digital predators, especially when it came to the use of shared data. More than 90% confirmed they were in possession of such data but that it was incomplete and often did not give adequate details of attacks or their effects. This nervousness about the threat landscape can be felt everywhere. A recent PwC report found around 43% of Middle East organizations expected a “surge in reportable incidents” in 2022.

Security teams need help from several quarters. First, their organizations must change their culture to accept that cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility.

And second, IT and business stakeholders must recognize that handling the entire security function in house is no longer viable. Today, in the age of cloud, managed security service providers (MSSPs) are increasingly the answer to under-resourced and beleaguered teams.

MSSP challenges

MSSPs are also the answer to gaps in strategy. For example, Trellix’s report revealed one in 10 global organisations to be without a security strategy, and many must

lean on third-party support to identify the perpetrators of attacks. But it is important to note that these vulnerabilities can extend to MSSPs themselves. MSPs in general have been the source targets of supply-chain attacks such as those on Kaseya and SolarWinds. So, if MSSPs are to take their place as the go-to solution for plugging skills and resource gaps, they need to think about their own strategies to contend with an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape. And they need to consider how they will sift through the variety of tools currently vying for the title of “Cyber Panacea”.

To be an effective partner for the region’s embattled security teams, an MSSP must be able to independently and automatically identify and react to threats without complex SOAR integration. It must be able to convincingly demonstrate how its own backoffice and customer-facing systems are protected from advanced persistent threats (APT). And it must link to third-party threat assessments that are made available to the end customer. The endpoint detection and response (EDR) system used by the MSSP must

provide actionable directions when threats are found, so customers can take their own timely steps to mitigate the effects of incursions.

Even for MSSPs, the securing of digital experiences against cyberthreats is challenging.

In reality, policy and human commitment must come together with next-level technology to create an enterprise-wide environment of “living security”, where all roles and business units participate in defending the digital estate. On the technology side, extended detection, and response (XDR) is the ideal complement to human agency in building a livingsecurity model. It goes beyond EDR to drive automated responses without complex integration into SOAR for many reactions, delving into telemetry and log data from devices, applications, and shared sources.

The ‘living security’ proposition

For MSSPs to add value, their interhuman coordination (internally and with partners and customers) must come together with their XDR capabilities to create a shared-information ecosystem that can thwart today’s sophisticated threats. To be an effective business partner, MSSPs must be able to offer clients a unified security posture that accounts for postCOVID hybrid setups. It must allow the organizations it serves to peer into every digital nook and cranny, from the endpoint to the cloud. Security teams that have 4K resolution across their domains will be better placed to see the previously unseeable and take timely action to prevent damage.

XDR used as part of a livingsecurity environment enables faster, more accurate decisions through automation and correlation analysis across multiple vectors. Security teams can go on the offensive for a change, and SOCs, no longer encumbered by a deluge of false positives, can target

their efforts more effectively. An open, interoperable XDR platform backed by a cooperative hive of human ingenuity allows the integration of the toolsets everyone needs to arm themselves against digital adversaries. XDR and living security form a hybrid threat posture that learns, adapts, and empowers people to be proactive in their own protection.

XDR has been gaining popularity in the industry. But many organizations that engage with an XDR vendor are left with buyer’s remorse. This is because many vendors sell the technology as a one-shot, unified, integrated platform that can do it all. For MSSPs, the assumption that a single-pane, catchall sentinel can be deployed to watch over all their clients’ infrastructures is erroneous. XDR is still evolving. The living-security approach is one of the best ways to accelerate this evolution. The more data sources and cross-vendor cooperation we cultivate, the more value XDR will be able to add.

MSSPs are on a mission to shield their clients from the cyber battlefield — to fight the fight on their behalf. XDR and living security bring them the right weapons for the job. An end to alert fatigue. Faster, more accurate detection. More effective remediation. Greater visibility and control. XDR and living security are to an ideal MSSP what an ideal MSSP is to its clients — a costfriendly boon to productivity and effectiveness.

Vibin Shaju, Trellix

To be an effective partner for the region’s embattled security teams, an MSSP must be able to independently and automatically identify and react to threats without complex SOAR integration.”

loyalty for a new class of banking customers

Today’s

meet

and

expectations.

are no longer enough.

A NEW STYLE OF MSP

Ahmed El Sayed, Channel lead - Middle East, Saudi and South Africa at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, on how to empower partner-led services

to services, upfront payments to subscription etc.), MSPs have had to adapt a new style – one underpinned by enhanced flexibility and diversification of both offerings and financing models. This new approach is being supported by vendors empowering their channel partners to provide more partnerled services, which ultimately gives customers the freedom to unlock their own innovations.

To not only survive but thrive in the new hybrid working world, channel partners looking to offer managed services must wake up to this changing landscape and evolve their approach to meet these new customer requirements.

Fostering financial flexibility

To enable truly partner-led services, the responsibility first lies with vendors to offer more flexible financial options. This in turn allows partners to bring competitive and differentiated packages to market.

As today’s businesses increasingly shift towards mobile and cloud solutions, many are also looking for more efficient ways to acquire, manage and maintain their growing digital environments.

Against this backdrop IT budgets are shrinking, and the digital skills gap continues to expose fragilities in regards to technical talent, resulting in fewer resources to meet heightened business expectations.

These new conditions have carved out a redefined role for many working in the channel but particularly for

Managed Services Partners (MSPs).

As well as being relied on for their specialist expertise and dedicated focus, MSPs are increasingly being called on by customers looking to offset such budget and resource constraints while maintaining the ability to implement the technology solutions needed to keep their businesses alive. It should come as no surprise that according to IDC, the worldwide market for managed network services alone is expected to reach $162 billion by 2023.

As what end-customers are looking for changes (from hardware

Indeed, recent research from Aruba reflects a rise in customer demand for flexible financing. Out of 2,400 IT leaders we surveyed in 2020, as little as 8% said they planned to continue with CapEx only investments in the future. In contrast over half (55%) said they were interested in exploring subscription models for either hardware or software, and 30% were interested in financial leasing.

While supporting flexible financing requires a longterm commitment for any channel business, the benefits are compelling. Customized investment models can allow partners to offer customers a choice of payment methods – from partial self-financing (purchasing

some products upfront) to a full subscription service. Such flexibility not only makes it easy for partners to remove financial roadblocks for their customers but also set themselves up as an MSP quickly.

Flexible financing options also allow partners to insulate their business from quarterly performance variability and maintain account control by establishing a consistent revenue stream based on multi-annual contracts and periodic billing.

In recognition of this, different financial offerings are clearly gaining popularity. In fact, the latest Evolving Landscape of the MSP Business Report has shown that the channel is increasingly dedicated to providing a range of options – with those surveyed now offering four financial service offerings on average and 94% expecting that number to rise to six next year.

For customers, switching to a new consumption model means shifting away from a large up-front technology investment, and gaining the ability to treat their network management as a utility. The pay-asyou-go model enables the customer to act in an agile way – offering the option to scale up and down quickly when needed.

Driving diversification and competitive edge

It’s not just financial options that have diversified, the services now offered by MSPs are also underscored by different vertical approaches.

With competition fierce, once they’ve put in place the underlying network management infrastructure, partners need the flexibility to add on additional offerings as their practice and customer needs grow – and many are focusing their efforts around their vertical expertise. In retail, for example, a customer might need to introduce electronic shelf labelling into their environment. This gives partners the chance to think beyond basic connectivity, and layer up their own RFID technology as part of the package.

What’s more, the skills shortage is exposing the gap between innovation and the digital workforce. Within the new style of MSP, we are increasingly seeing partners able to offer up much more particular IT expertise, ultimately allowing customers to tap into sector-specific talent pools.

Aruba regularly works with partners across EMEA to bring differentiated offerings to life. In the education sector, we were recently engaged by one of the largest educational boards in the Netherlands – The Quadraam Educational Group – to upgrade the Wi-Fi access across 14 schools against a backdrop of reduced onsite expertise. Bringing in Wentzo, a long-time partner specializing in Wi-Fi, we were able to present a bespoke package that combined strong security credentials with the scale needed to accommodate future growth in Wi-Fi devices and users – both vital in an educational environment responsible for sensitive data and where a growing yearly intake equals a rise in tablets connecting to the network.

In the financial services space, our solution for the African money transfer company Mukuru relied on our partner MySky, who has a particular product expertise in implementing AI technology into finance systems, as well as integration with third-party platforms such as firewall services.

Cultivating time for customer innovation

With vendors providing flexible options and partners building on this with their own vertical expertise, where does this leave today’s customer? Well, with a bespoke packaged option, the MSP can dig deep to eliminate the day-today network management tasks that dominate up to 70% of an IT team’s attention. This allows the customer to focus on strategic activities that will create value for their core business.

With network management at the back of their minds, employees can work on the company’s direction,

growth, and strategy, rather than constantly being preoccupied with administrative work. Passing off more time-consuming daily activities helps to shift everyone’s focus to completing tasks that will increase profitability and encourage growth.

Aruba’s MSP program helps our partners to bring their customers’ innovation roadmaps to life daily. With the network taken care of, Mukuru is able to now focus on addressing pain points and value leakages in the informal system through technology that leapfrogs voids between the cash and digital worlds. Meanwhile thanks to the managed services provided by our partner Panor Informatika, one of Hungary’s largest logistics providers BHS Trans Hungary could focus on other business deliverables, including regional expansion and implementing a new SAP platform.

Conclusion

In recent years we have witnessed the evolution of the MSP offering, as hybrid working and distributed office environments have accelerated the shift towards cloud.

To break through the noise and reach the end customer, vendors and partners must collaborate on providing financially flexible and sector specific options (on both the vendor and partner side i.e. technical solutions, go-to-market materials and tools) to respond to individual customer’s needs. Armed with the latest technologies and talent to run their network, this sets up customers to focus on their own innovations and business needs.

Ahmed El Sayed, Aruba

EMBRACING DEVSECOPS

What are the trends driving the evolution and adoption of DevSecOps?

Chris: The most important driver is the business’ need for agility. Enterprises want a more reliable and robust way for their IT teams to deliver on the business objectives. That has created the culture of DevOps, but security has always been a stumbling block. Unfortunately, IT teams could not meet time-to-market goals because of security requirements. DevSecOps hopes to achieve that and help alleviate those gaps by introducing security early on. And in terms of technology, there are several factors driving the adoption. Initially, the conversation was about how do we survive during the pandemic. Now, that has changed - how do we survive in the post-Covid world? How can we enable employees to work from home and hybrid locations in a secure manner? DevSecOps addresses some of these concerns by introducing security from a software supply chain perspective.

What is the difference between DevOps and DevSecOps?

Chris: DevOps was a natural evolution from the old software development lifecycle that used to exist when we followed the waterfall-type approach. So historically, it was a case of doing the design phase, followed by the development, testing, and then code release. And that used to take a long time, and IT became not an enabler but rather an inhibitor to business performance. DevOps solves these problems by introducing agility. DevSecOps doesn’t necessarily look at faster, better delivery but at rapid, reliable security. So instead of just looking at how we release software, it is about how we release secure software. It

is about introducing security from day one, not as an afterthought.

Is DevSecOps critical to digital transformation?

Chris: Absolutely. I recently read a study that reveals that 98% of business leaders believe that DevSecOps is the key to digital transformation. And I believe that for two particular reasons. First, we want to empower our development teams to take securityrelated actions early on. Secondly, we want to empower the traditional security teams to leverage some of the benefits DevOps has introducedinfrastructure as a code, continuous delivery, and security as a code.

What are the channel opportunities in this domain?

Nicolai: From a channel perspective, there are a lot of opportunities for us. If you take a step back and think about what is empowering DevSecOps, or DevOps for that matter, it’s many different things. So Chris was talking a little about Covid and how organisations are starting to think about applications as a business enabler. If you look at some of the requirements or ingredients required to perform DevOps, we have

begun to see those modern platforms being created by cloud service providers. So the likes of AWS, Google, and Microsoft have created capabilities in their Cloud offerings to support the infrastructure that is required for modern, agile application frameworks. And because these service routers are starting to be here in the UAE, we’re seeing customers thinking about this as a real delivery method. What’s also quite interesting right now is that many of the clients going on this specific cloud journey and benefiting from the cloud are re-engineering their platforms to fit these new IT environments. However, they are also starting to reconsider how they do stuff on-prem. So actually, DevOps is not just a cloud phenomenon. It’s also something that’s happening on-prem in customer environments today.

One of the reasons I think this is a channel opportunity is because if you look at digital transformation as a whole and think of DevOps as one of its enablers, there is more and more dependency on IT systems to make business decisions effectively. This means that your business will be severely impacted if these environments are not operating correctly. One of the biggest challenges that we see today is security. It must be inherent and embedded into the development process early on –right from when applications are being written. We enable security to be part of that specific process, which is why I think we have some exciting opportunities as well as challenges.

DevSecOps mitigates application vulnerabilities by integrating security into the development process. Chris Zinn, Solution Architect, Help AG and Nicolai Solling, Chief Technology Officer, Help AG explain why enterprises must embrace this practice and what are the opportunities for the channel.

Chris Zinn Nicolai Solling

LEADING WITH VALUE

What were the key business highlights of the organisation this year?

StarLink has carved a niche for itself as the leading VAD in the cybersecurity and cloud domains. Earlier in 2022, we came up with a new theme called StarLink Transforms, which introduced Intelligent Automation (iAutomation). We firmly believe this is the next wave in the technology sector and will accelerate the digital transformation for our customers.

In January 2022, we also announced three new initiatives:

StarLink Cloud – It helps make the customer’s journey towards the cloud easy. Also, this initiative encourages more and more partners to become MSSPs which further helps in scaling up the business.

StarLink Fund – StarLink, being financially strong, feels privileged to reinvest in smaller organisations, enabling them to grow their businesses and take the market to the next level.

StarLink Extra – Under this initiative the KPI is to internally strengthen our value-added business. Our business managers will curate incremental business for our partners by selling integrated solutions and providing multiple technologies to our customers.

You expanded to Egypt as the hub for Africa last year. How is that business doing now?

Egypt is not new for us as we have had a presence there for almost ten years, allowing us to grow further and establish a local team there. Other smaller teams present in multiple countries will look after Egypt and Africa.

African continent especially North Africa, hold much higher potential, which allows StarLink to grow further as an overall business. The establishment in Egypt is adjusting well and displays huge opportunities for business growth in the region.

How many channel partners are you working with currently?

Currently, we have more than 1500 partners who are actively working with us.

At StarLink, we have categorised our partners under four different categories:

Specialised partners are the ones who specialise in all the different technology domains we focus on i.e., cybersecurity, cloud computing or intelligent automation. Their expertise in the technology domain gives easy and faster access to the market.

Large System Integrators have a fully established infrastructure which enables customers to accelerate their digital transformation or cloud transfer process. Additionally, these partners consider us as their extended arm in terms of services, sales, or

Can you please elaborate on how StarLink adds value to its channel partners?

Nidal Othman, CEO of StarLink, gives insights about the organisation’s strategies, initiatives, and various reward programs, and what makes them a trusted cyber and cloud advisor.

pre-sales because of StarLink’s 18 years of expertise in cybersecurity and cloud computing.

Global System Integrators handle large-scale projects in multiple countries where StarLink act as strategic distributors for them.

MSSP Partners are the ones providing package services in the cybersecurity or cloud domains. As a result, there is massive growth seen for these partners.

StarLink, being experts in these domains, add significant value to its partners.

What is the biggest opportunity in cybersecurity now for channel partners?

We are enabling our partners to build their services around cybersecurity as there is a massive gap when it comes to resources. We’ve been doing this for the past 18 years, and we cannot do it alone. The gap is huge so we see huge opportunities in the cybersecurity domain. Cybersecurity is the need of the hour and the implementation requires a lot of local service engagements. This maximises the partner’s profitability and more strategic service planning. StarLink aims to support all its channel partners in this.

How do you see cloud adoption in the region?

There will be a massive shift as we can see a huge number of cloud providers establishing their presence in the region. One of the key challenges every organisation faces is moving to the cloud with the data locally. All the cloud providers have now started complying with the regulations. For the past seven years, StarLink has been working closely with the customers to help them migrate to the cloud. Whether hybrid cloud or multi-cloud, StarLink encourages customers to shift to the cloud in a safe and orderly manner.

Is cybersecurity a significant barrier to cloud adoption?

Whenever there is any cloud migration, the very first concern witnessed is regarding data security. StarLink, with

deep domain expertise in cybersecurity, understands the regulations and statistics of different countries, and accordingly, we design our solutions. We mindfully use our skills and specialisation to encourage customers to move to the cloud. Our deep understanding of data and the regulations allow us to help customers to categorise the data to be kept locally and in the cloud. StarLink does not see cybersecurity as a barrier to cloud adoption if we understand the data well, which is also why we are the trusted cyber and cloud advisor.

Do you think the public sector will adopt cloud technologies?

As we can see different companies like AWS and Microsoft have started having a presence in the region by opening new data centres. Also, the government has started enforcing data regulations and privacy laws that clearly indicate that the public sector is getting ready to adopt cloud technologies.

Can you tell us how you are creating a difference in the VAD Market?

For the last 18 years, we have been adding value to the distribution landscape with our unique go-to-market strategy and a clear understanding of customers’ challenges. This helps us to create incremental business strategies with our partners and accelerate their business growth, as we are the experts in our domain. This also helps us in enhancing our existing business portfolio as we recognise the opportunities in the market. We have our partners always aligned in the process, preparing them for the future as they’ll have to eventually work with the end users. We are doing it in different countries like Saudi and Bahrain, and we’ll continue adding this value to the market.

How beneficial have your partnerships been for the channel?

The traditional way of working with partners is to equip them with the resources, and then they go to the customers to understand the demand and position the technology. This can work well with specialised partners or large system integrators who are domain experts. However, most partners do not

have this scale required to build that knowledge base. Moreover, it also adds to the cost, making finding the resources challenging. Such partners find it highly beneficial to collaborate with us. We ensure to enable our partners to enhance their service capabilities.

What can your partners expect over the next few quarters regarding market plans and partnerships?

We’ll continue to work with our partners following our core strategy. In addition, we have an extremely comprehensive Partner Rewarding Program known as StarLink Choice. We aim to go in-depth with our partners to train them to become strategic partners willing to invest in the three domains we are focused on.

What are the new trends and technologies that you are going to focus on in the upcoming year?

There are many new technologies in the market, like Machine Learning(ML), Zero-Trust, etc. For StarLink to adapt to new technologies, we need three major requisites to be fulfilled. We should be able to integrate the new technology with the existing one; the technology should be the market leader and, most essentially, should have a local commitment in the region. We are the domain experts in cloud, cyber, and automation, which we will continue to focus on.

What are the untapped markets you are targeting now?

Africa is one of the major markets where we envision huge potential and massive growth. We also had a presence in Africa earlier, but the operations were handled from the UAE. Since we have established a base in Egypt, which is close to Africa, we’ll have better opportunities, and the process will be much faster. So our focus will definitely be to enable the channel partner community in Egypt and Africa.

Are you on track to hit the target of $550 million this year?

Yes, we are definitely aiming to meet our target. Our H1 was incredible with solid numbers, and we are hoping H2 to be better with all the current and upcoming partnerships adding to our business enterprise.

RAISING THE BAR

What were the key business highlights of the organisation this year?

Our most recent milestones include master distribution for Targus in Africa and Logitech in Oman. With all this, Newcom is starting to expand its horizon in Oman and other regions, and we will make special announcements about our partnership with world-class brands in the coming few months.

The past few years have been great for us. We, as Newcom, see every challenge as an opportunity and believe in turning it into our Victory. Eighteen years of our existence have been a learning experience by itself. Since the market is slowly returning to its normal pace, the demand for gadgets has increased; in short, the world has digitalised itself and become more tech-savvy. Here is where Newcom continues to play the most crucial role with our philosophy of ‘Partnership beyond Business’ by building the bridge between the vendors and the channel partners to ensure the product reaches the correct end consumer. By adding more brands to our catalogue this year, Newcom has built a solid and dedicated team and continues its journey as one of the pioneers in the distributor for globally renowned brands such as Logitech, Samsung, Targus, Hyper, Rapoo, J5create, Lindy, Arozzi and few more in the pipeline.

Can you explain how you are adding more value to your channel partners?

We believe in our tagline “Partnership Beyond business”, where we support and nurture our customers with all the support needed from our efficient team members—developing partnership programs that are easy for them to

understand and achieve their goals. In addition, Newcom empowers channel partners in key areas like sales training, building industry expertise, technical training, and beyond.

Can you tell us how you are creating a differentiation in the VAD market?

With our strong presence in the market for value-added solutions such as video collaboration and interactive panels as well as consumer solutions at the enterprise level, we have partnered with well-known brands such as Logitech, Samsung, Targus, Hyper, Rapoo, J5create, Lindy, and Arozzi. We work directly with the top system integrators to offer the best business solutions to the sectors such as hospitality, education, automotive, and much more.

How beneficial have your partnerships been for the channel?

Newcom has offered it partners the

much-needed footholds, leveraging their existing customer base. We encourage our sales teams to connect daily with field partners and sell together with them. This tactic helps merge direct sales expertise with the local presence of channel partners for the ultimate win-win.

What can your partners expect over the next few quarters in terms of market plans and partnerships?

Our partners can expect new vendors on board with Newcom to increase the product line. Also, we are concentrating on profitbuilding programs to help our channel partners grow with Newcom, in addition to various sales and marketing programs to increase sales value and returns.

What are the new trends and technologies that you are going to focus on in the next 12 months? We have observed that the industry is inclined toward AI (Artificial Intelligence), AR (Augmented Reality), and cybersecurity solutions. We would like to explore and expand our brand partners in these fields. The new trends that will drive the market in coming years will be a strong digital presence and preparing different marketing strategies using geo-fencing data. With increased demand and technological innovation, we look forward to exploring different verticals and adding more feathers to our cap. We adhere to our vision and mission to become a trusted distributor for every potential partner in the Middle East and Africa region, and meet our customers’ expectations with innovative products and impeccable services.

Jai Bhatia, Director Sales and Marketing, Newcom, on how the distributor is expanding its portfolio of products and services to meet the needs of its customers and add value to the channel community.

CHARTING A GROWTH PATH

Can you elaborate on your biggest focus at this year’s edition of GITEX Global 2022?

At this year’s GITEX, there’ll be three major areas of focus. The first one is evangelising the concept of XDR (eXtended Detection and Response). There are still some misconceptions around XDR; people assume XDR combines SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) and EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response). XDR combines advanced analytics and data with u nrivalled threat intelligence to help detect both known and unknown threats. It’s important for us to work with customers and partners to show the value that XDR delivers to their security environment.

Secondly, we will talk about SecOps and why businesses need to invest in SOCs (security operations centres). Businesses stand to benefit from working with a quality Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider in terms of real-time investigation, continuous threat hunting, and incident response.

Finally, we’re going to showcase our Counter Threat Unit (CTU), which includes our consulting arm that provides expertise in penetration testing, red teaming, incident response, threat research, etc. This approach ensures we can offer superior detection and unmatched response for our clients.

How is your partnership with Redington adding value to the channel partners?

Redington, a multi-billion dollar organisation with presence across the Middle East and Africa, is an important partner in the region. It

gives us access to the broader market with thousands of partners. It allows us to scale in a way we couldn’t otherwise do.

We’ve also got a really exciting collaboration with Redington. It has launched DigiGlass, using Secureworks’ XDR platform to deliver its managed security services. This is in line with the vision of Secureworks, which wants to be in the heart of every SOC. Together we can offer high security and deliver a higher ROI for our clients.

What are the cybersecurity trends to watch out for over the next 12 months?

Gartner’s’ Hype Cycle on security operations determined that XDR is at its peak. Everyone wants to get into the XDR space, which indicates that this technology is here to stay, and we will continue to see it evolve.

However, there is still a lot of misunderstanding around XDR –what it is, and what it is not. And so

while many claim to provide XDR there isn’t a clear criteria or standard. Secureworks has built Taegis XDR to deliver superior detection with unmatched response. And we’ll continue to work with the market to show the benefits it can deliver to businesses today. This is going to become increasingly important for businesses in the next 12 months.

From the threat landscape perspective, security threats are massively evolving. Ransomware and Business Email Compromise are two of the major threats to businesses. Interestingly, our recent State of the Threat Report showed that the ways in which threat actors are executing these attacks are shifting – vulnerabilities in remote services (internet facing infrastructure) have over taken credentials as the primary attack vector.

Along with the large enterprises, ransomware gangs are starting to target mid-market companies and SMBs. Consequently, IT managers have started taking strict measures to bolster the security posture of their organisations.

What are business growth plans over the next couple of quarters?

We are on a tremendous growth trajectory. We have 31 employees in the region. Apart from the sales and pre-sales resources, the team includes the channel and customer success managers, penetration testers, incident responders, and program managers.

We are focused on a continued expansion in the META region, as well as South Africa, Emerging Africa, Saudi and Bahrain and we’ve made significant hires in the region to support this.

Gopan Sivasankaran, General Manager, META at Secureworks, talks about the security vendor’s GITEX participation and the partnership with Redington.

THINKING BIGGER

Our customers are facing multiple challenges as they embark on their digital transformation journeys and it requires them to refresh strategies, processes, modernise applications, adopt new technologies and enhance systems to achieve desired business outcomes.

Omnix helps and guides customers on various use cases and help to select those that will have the highest impact for their enterprise. This is a part of the Omnix consulting services, where we support customers in consolidating requirements, creating and delivering solutions and ensuring the success of the projects.

As trusted advisors, we support customers to meet their digital transformation goals by drawing up innovative solutions to elevate their operations into the digital age. These could include: leveraging digital technologies that will make a business impact, improving cybersecurity to protect customers’ environments, acquiring talents to fit skill requirements and using data analytics and improve current digital systems.

At Omnix, we are witnessing the adoption of solutions in the areas of cybersecurity, hyper-automation, application modernisation, data governance, smart infrastructure, and managed services. We are aligning our strategy and skills to ensure that we can support our customers to achieve the desired outcomes from these solutions.

Can you tell us about the partners you are working with?

Omnix currently works with more than 120 vendors from different solution perspectives including cybersecurity, applications modernisation, data platforms, cloud native vendors, from BIM / CAD engineering vendors etc.

These include global vendors such as Autodesk, Mendix, Unity, IBM, Microsoft, AWS, Informatica, TeamViewer, UiPath, PNY, Darktrace, MetricStream, BeyondTrust, ViACT, Red hat, Bose, Interel, Cisco, Commvault, Druid, HPE, Creston to name a few.

Which emerging technologies are you currently focusing on?

From our point of view, the fundamental point is how technology can help people to enhance their lives and for organisation to grow. Our key discussion points should be focused on the use-cases to solve everyday challenges. Depending on the use cases’ requirements, we can select – and sometimes create - the technology that best address these challenges.

As an example, today one of the hot topics is digital twins. This can help people in the healthcare track variety of health indicators and generate key insights, which will help in enhancing citizens wellbeing. Same can be used by organisations in predictive maintenance so they can proactively identify and predict real-time problems. In addition, this can be extended to

smart cities to enhance operations and increase citizen happiness.

We are also seeing traction for Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) and their use cases are new technology talking points. VR use cases range from treatment of specific illnesses, to gamified experience to virtual tours for product marketing. While AR use cases range from learning experience for educational purposes to virtual assistance through AR lenses/glasses to metaverse where the convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality in a shared online space happens.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are being increasingly adopted by different industrial enterprises, which can help in enabling better automation, enhancing customer experience, facilitating smart decision-making, and increasing organisations’ efficiency. This is also an area of interest for Omnix.

Can you tell us more about your recently launched centre of excellence?

Omnix’s XOC includes unique combination of Security Operations Center (SOC), Network Operations Center (NOC) and Operations Control Center (OCC) offerings as managed services aimed to assist organisations in accelerating their digital transformation initiatives and overcoming challenges relating to security threats, network issues and performance, as well as operations-related tasks.

The XOC, equipped with skilled resources and tools, enables our customers to identify cyber threats and analyse network performance, with the goal of enabling organisations to remain focused on turning their aspirations into reality. It is designed to provide a centralised and coherent view of the users’ network, security, and operations challenges and threats.

How is Omnix helping its client accelerate their DX initiatives?

Walid Gomaa, Acting CEO of Omnix International, talks about how the company is harnessing the power of emerging technologies to fuel innovation for its customers.

DIGITISING CONSTRUCTION

Kenny Ingram, Vice President, Engineering, Construction

& Infrastructure from IFS looks at three key opportunities that are now possible with modern software inside the construction industry, including new services, modern methods, and project planning.

With 2020 and 2021 playing havoc for so many construction companies, 2022 is the year for the industry to shine. With many central governments firmly setting their recovery plans on infrastructure projects the wheels are already in motion, and this creates a huge opportunity for the entire industry to meet industry

demands and stimulate a global bounce back. To do this, though, construction companies will need to focus beyond the here and now, turning their attention to what matters most - their customers and ensuring their long-term future.

Delivering services and maintenance

Fast and friendly service is more

commonly attributed to a waiter in your favorite restaurant than a worker on a construction site. However, an increasing number of asset owners are seeking to outsource service and maintenance contracts for their assets putting contractors who focus on the entire asset lifecycle at a significant advantage.

A survey of construction customers by IFS shows that 25% now include service, maintenance, and facilities management as part of their offering, and this is expected to increase to 50% by 2025.

Typically, these contracts are usually awarded to asset management specialists, however given the contract value for service and maintenance can typically be 120% - 200% greater than value of the actual construction contract alone; if service and maintenance is also secured by the same contractor this can not only increase their revenue margins but also provide a more predictable and reliable revenue stream – which provides a platform for growth, innovation and long-term success.

This trend is more commonly called Asset Lifecycle Servitisation, The New Business Revenue Model for the Construction Sector. It’s an opportunity for constructors and manufacturers to gain visibility into their future performance and as such significantly grow their business, so it’s no coincidence a recent report by McKinsey estimates that construction sector disrupters could share the industries $265 billion annual profit pool.

However, winning these coveted service and maintenance contracts and delivering the full asset lifecycle, requires construction companies to become more customer centric and change their outlook. This starts with a desire to increase build quality and remain focused on delivering the final asset on time and most importantly on budget.

The operating model also makes construction companies design the asset from a total asset

lifecycle cost and performance perspective - changing their mindset to think more about what outcome the asset delivers. For many this is a significant change and will require them to support a much wider set of business processes than they have been used to in the past which could include an opportunity to bring in new skilled labor. In short, the next generation of construction contractor will have to see themselves as a Total Asset Lifecycle Service Provider.

Modern methods of construction

As construction methods continue to evolve, so is the reliance on modern methods of construction. With practices like offsite and modular construction continuing to become a method of choice due to their ability to reduce the construction time and improve quality – all whilst helping to lower costs, and reduce the ECO footprint, it makes sense then that this trend will continue to be a differentiating factor for many.

Construction companies must think about standardisation of materials and components. They must consider logistics, shipping and storage requirements when designing the asset to make sure it is practical, low cost and ECO friendly. And as part of this respect best practice material and inventory management principles. Finally, constructors need to have a more structured approach to managing and executing construction work packages for erection, installation and construction tasks moving towards a final assembly mindset.

A long-term outlook will eventually result in 80% of the work being done offsite and 20% onsite so the winners will be the companies who can optimise this new way of working. Approximately 85% of all construction projects are predicted to use modern methods of construction in some capacity by the end of 2022.

It’s therefore vital that construction companies ensure

their business system architecture can support this trend. With many legacy systems unable to support modern methods, advancing construction techniques, logistics and shipping and engineer to order manufacturing processes – a radical rethink is required. In short, the next generation contractor will be a hybrid business – contractor and logistics company and sometimes a manufacturer as well.

Integrated project planning

In an industry which faces constant disruptions, battles disconnected jobsites and unpredictable environments– planning has never been so important. This has become hugely apparent throughout 2021, with the ongoing challenges around the diminishing labor pool still raging now combining with the equally troubling situation of raw material price increases and lengthening material supply lead times adding an uneasy lack of predictability.

Unfortunately, these challenges do not look like they’ll be easing anytime soon. It is therefore crucial that engineering and construction companies who want to grow and deliver projects successfully develop a more integrated planning process that starts from the initial project inception. The industry has traditionally managed with a reactive fire-fighting approach but the resource constraints that the industry now faces means that this approach is no longer sustainable.

Most industries have been driving to become lean by having fewer preferred suppliers and just in time deliveries. The resource shortage challenges are making it a necessity to think more about a “Just in Case” strategy to make sure projects can be delivered on time. The result is that planning excellence is now a MUST HAVE rather than a NICE TO HAVE.

Most engineering and construction companies use project planning tools to navigate the planning minefield and the use

of these tools is likely to increase –but they’ll need to develop in line with requirements.

Many project plans today are too high level, with resource requirements not included or not containing accurate dependency logic and in extreme cases potential risks going unflagged. This is described as the pretty picture approach - a Gantt chart on the wall that depicts project deliverables, ultimately the reality is that each department currently has their own departmental plans, often managed in Excel.

The implication of these plans therefore not being in sync with the master project plan can cause inevitable resource shortages, can lead to plant and rental equipment sitting idle incurring unnecessary costs or worst of all projects halting all together. This can’t continue. The new world needs a single master project plan with one version of the truth that integrates with all sub-plans.

Only then will different departments like engineering, procurement, plant and equipment, manufacturing and installation and construction all be in sync. 4D BIM scheduling tools also need to be integrated and together provide the capability to generate time phased resource requirements and provide active availability monitoring, not just produce a Gantt chart with a timeline.

For most companies this transition requires a shift in mindset, processes and business systems and a move to a more integrated world.

Kenny Ingram, IFS

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION MISSIONS GATHER PACE IN THE UAE

IT decision-makers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are doubling down on their digital transformation efforts, according to new research by market insight specialists YouGov.

Commissioned by F5 ahead of next week’s GITEX conference in Dubai, the findings highlight encouraging progress and awareness for emerging technologies set to underpin the nations’ future transformation plans.

“Businesses in the UAE are clearly ramping up their abilities to provide fast, seamless digital experiences,” said Fadia Abi-Ayad, Regional Director for the UAE & Gulf at F5.

“We’re now seeing that organizations are starting to anticipate greater automation as IT and operational technology convergence. In addition, they are also embracing the promise of AI to adapt to conditions that change faster than ever. At the heart of all this are applications, and their safe deployment across multiple clouds.”

Driven by consumer demand and expanding app portfolios, most decisionmakers ranked 5G top of their trends chart (62%), followed by multi-cloud networking (42%). The integration of IT systems with operational technology (OT) claimed third place (38%). Thirty-six per cent also flagged the importance of Web Application and API protection (WAAP) services, which encompass WAF, DDoS protection, bot management, and API protection, and 34% are keeping an eye on AIOps platforms (combining big data and machine learning functionality to support all primary IT operations functions).

The focus of all respondents’ digital transformation missions centered on customer-centricity and operational efficiencies.

Moreover, 44% are employing AI and machine learning to automate and optimize business processes for efficiency and/or effectiveness (e.g., fixing workflow bottlenecks in customer service). Fortyfour per cent are also automating business processes by integrating applications (e.g., multi-channel communications between chat and website, a seamless experience between mobile app and desktop for a digital banking or e-health solution).

In other future-seeking moves, 40% are using AI and machine learning to augment operations and 36% are employing APIs to create new or participate in third-party ecosystems (e.g., open banking or social media logins).

In terms of specific digital transformation benefits, 46% hailed employee productivity improvements (improved collaboration and decisionmaking), followed by increased revenue (42%), operational IT efficiency (40%) and new business/market penetration opportunities (38%).

YouGov noted both growth and increased dispersion of app portfolios; 31% of respondents work for organizations with between 100 and 500 applications in play; and 19% of organizations juggled portfolios of between 500 and 1000 apps.

Zooming in further, application services are increasingly deployed in a variety of different environments, with a high percentage of organizations using a mix of models. Forty-four per cent use public cloud, 40% leverage managed services and 36% use on-premises solutions. The popularity of edge (32%), co-location (27%) and Softwareas-a-Service (22%) deployments further underline a shift towards app heterogeneity.

Notably, half of all UAE decisionmakers are now deploying modern apps (mobile, cloud-native and microservices).

Seventy-one per cent of UAE respondents indicated that cloud services spend was up in the past year. In related projections, 36% expect more than 50% of their app portfolio to be hosted in the cloud within the next three years.

The most prominent emerging strategic cloud trends over the next three years include Security-as-a-Service (34%), SaaS (31%) and private cloud services (31%).

When asked about app deployment challenges across multiple clouds, 36% said they struggled to manage the complexity of management tools and APIs. In addition, 35% highlighted the difficulty in applying consistent security policies across all apps. Other enduring headaches include complying with regulations (32%), migrating apps between clouds/data centers (32%), and gaining visibility into application health (31%).

Security also remains a perennial challenge, with 84% reporting that they would benefit from additional cybersecurity expertise in their organization. Skill gaps were flagged for network security (24%), multi-cloud (21%) and public cloud (20%).

“The deployment locations for applications and the security and delivery technologies that support them are diverging, and as SaaS adoption and edge deployments generally increase, the balance will continue to shift toward greater dispersal,” added Abi-Ayad.

YouGov survey of IT decision-makers highlights expanding, increasingly distributed app portfolios, growing multi-cloud investments

Logitech’s New Brio 500 Series Webcams and Zone Vibe Headphones are Designed for Hybrid Work Era

Logitech unveiled two new product series, Brio 500 webcams and Zone Vibe headphones, designed to meet the evolving needs of hybrid workers.

A recent study showed more than 89% of work-from-home adults struggle with unflattering camera angles, poor lighting conditions, and field-of-view limitations when using a built-in laptop camera. Brio 500 webcams and Zone Vibe headphones address the challenges users face when working from home, while modernising work and play experiences. Both make it easier for IT managers to equip their organisations’ remote and hybrid workforces in an environmentally sustainable way.

“Many remote and hybrid workers are still underequipped and grappling with pre-pandemic era solutions,” said Scott Wharton, general manager of Logitech Video Collaboration. “Our innovative new genre of Brio webcams and Zone Vibe headphones answer the call of modern workers who need business-grade quality, style, and affordability for work and play. Transformational features like Brio’s Show Mode open up new sharing opportunities for teachers, designers, and architects to easily present physical objects, notes, and sketches remotely over video.”

Brio 500 Webcams

Created for those who want enterprise-grade audio and video quality, personalisation, and more engaging experiences on video calls, Brio 500 series (Brio 500 and Brio 505) is a new class of webcams that solve the most common video conferencing challenges. Brio 500 series introduces the Show Mode feature that makes it easy to share sketches or other physical objects on the desk. With an innovative mounting system and built-in

sensor that allows users to tilt the camera down to focus on objects, Brio automatically flips the image to render the correct orientation into video calls.

Stylish design and fashionable colors–graphite, off-white, and rose–give individuals the freedom to customise their workstation to suit their personality and taste. RightSight technology (enabled through Logi Tune) automatically frames the user, even when moving around, while built-in innovations like RightLight 4 automatically correct substandard lighting.

Zone Vibe Headphones

Logitech’s new Zone Vibe series are the first wireless headphones in the market to combine business-grade performance with comfort, style, and affordability. Also available in graphite, off-white and rose colors, they are designed to be comfortable for all-day collaboration with colleagues and connecting with family.

These lightweight over-the-ear headphones weigh just 6.5 ounces, and feature soft-tothe-touch knitted fabric and memory foam. See details at Zone Vibe 100, Zone Vibe 125, and Zone Vibe Wireless.

IT Management

For IT teams outfitting employee workstations and home offices, Brio series is plug-and-play, compatible with most video conferencing platforms and certified for Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom. Logitech Sync integration with Brio 505 allows IT admins to update firmware and troubleshoot problems so hybrid teams can collaborate without missing a beat. Zone Vibe Wireless presents the opportunity to offer employees enterprise-grade audio that’s easy to

use and looks stylish for multiple types of users so they no longer have to trade “looking good” for “sounding good.”

And because of compatibility with video conferencing platforms and the ability to push updates through Logi Tune and Logitech Sync, IT has fewer hassles and help desk tickets to manage.

Logitech’s new webcams and headphones help workers thrive in today’s hybrid era— professional enough for the office, perfect for working from home, while making it easier for IT teams to help users perform at their best and do right by our planet.

Sustainability

Brio 500 series and Zone Vibe headphones are certified carbon neutral, which means the carbon impact of the products has been reduced to zero due to Logitech’s investment in carbon-offsetting and removal projects. The plastic parts in Brio 500 include certified post-consumer recycled plastic: 68% for graphite and black and 54% for off-white and rose. Zone Vibe is made with a minimum of 25%** recycled plastic.

Both product families are packaged in paper that comes from FSC®-certified forests and other controlled sources.

Pricing and Availability

The Brio 500 webcam series and Zone Vibe 100 and 125 headphones will be available globally in September 2022 on logitech.com and at other global retailers. Zone Vibe Wireless headset will be available in December at authorised channels. The suggested retail price for the Brio 500 webcam series is $129. The suggested retail price for Zone Vibe 100 is $99.99; Zone Vibe 125 is $129.99; and Zone Vibe Wireless is $129.

HONOR Launches HONOR X6, Enabling All-Day Connectivity with Exceptional Power

Global technology brand HONOR today announced the official launch of the HONOR X6, the latest addition to HONOR’s reliable X Series line up, bringing HONOR’s latest cutting-edge technology to more users in the Middle East. Boasting a myriad of compelling features, the HONOR X6 is equipped with an ultra-large 5000mAh battery, a triple camera system consisting of a 50MP Main Camera, and large expandable storage to go with its 4GB+64GB memory, making smartphone innovations more accessible.

Designed for a style conscious crowd, the HONOR X6 is available in three striking colors: Titanium Silver, Midnight Black, and Ocean Blue.

Starting from 1st October, the HONOR X6 will be available to purchase in UAE market via HONOR Online Store and Sharaf DG at an affordable price of AED 499.

Long-Lasting Battery for All-Day Connectivity

Equipped with a 5000mAh battery, the HONOR X6 delivers up to 17 hours of online video streaming, 18 hours of social media browsing, or 31 hours of music playback, all enabled by a single charge to power users throughout the day.

Carefully Designed Camera System to Capture Stunning Moments

The HONOR X6 features a rear triple camera system comprising a 50MP Main Camera, a 2MP Macro Camera, and a 2MP Depth Camera. The impressive combination of cameras allows users to easily capture and record all their favourite memories, fulfilling their appetite for creative expression anytime, anywhere.

Seamless User Experience with Large Expandable Storage and Smart Features

Alongside the 64GB ROM, the HONOR X6 also supports large expandable storage of up to 1TB MicroSD, meeting the different storage requirements of users.

Delivering a smart and seamless user experience, the HONOR X6 runs on HONOR Magic UI 6.1 based on Android 12. Featuring HONOR Share, the HONOR X6 enables speedy wireless file transfers across HONOR devices including smartphones, tablets, and laptops. With the Efficient Smart Desktop feature, users can customise widgets on the home screen and access information without opening the apps, further boosting efficiency and productivity.

Stunning Visuals Meets Advanced Eye Care with HONOR FullView Display

Boasting a 6.5-inch HONOR FullView Display, the HONOR X6 delivers an immersive viewing experience. Coupled with a host of eye care features including Eye Comfort Mode, and Dark Mode, the HONOR X6 offers an extremely pleasant viewing experience in different types of user scenarios, perfect for reading articles, streaming videos, or browsing photos, even in direct sunlight or in dimly lit environments.

Packed with the unique eBook Mode, HONOR X6 can convert the screen to black and white, improving the reading experience for smartphone users.

Alongside a long-lasting battery, the HONOR X6 packs an impressive triple camera system and large expandable storage at an affordable price point

MICROSOFT APPOINTS NEW GENERAL MANAGER FOR UAE

Yazbeck will work with Microsoft’s UAE and Middle East and Africa teams to continue to drive the company’s growth aspirations in the UAE and support the country’s leadership in realizing its digital transformation agenda.

in the UAE, collaborating with government organizations, startups, and other private enterprises to leverage Microsoft’s platforms and technologies.

Microsoft UAE has announced the appointment of Naim Yazbeck as the General Manager, Microsoft UAE starting from July 1, 2022. Yazbeck is the successor to Sayed Hashish, who served in the role since 2016.

Yazbeck has served as Microsoft Regional Director: Enterprise and Partner Group (EPG) since 2016, where he led Microsoft’s efforts to accelerate digital transformation across industries in the Gulf region and spearheaded strategic partnerships with key customers and partners. In his new role,

ORACLE

“I am thrilled to be trusted with the amazing opportunity to lead an impressive team in the UAE that I have been a part of for the last five years. UAE is a country with unique aspirations and we have a great opportunity – and a responsibility –to step up and play a pivotal role in the realization of those aspirations. I look forward to building on the gains we have made in recent years to further empower customers and partners in the UAE through technology,” Yazbeck said.

Naim’s appointment comes as Microsoft bids farewell to outgoing General Manager: UAE, Sayed Hashish. Repeatedly recognized as an inspirational leader who has always led with a ‘people-first’ approach, Hashish has played an integral role in Microsoft’s growth

“My journey with Microsoft has been one of incredible growth, excitement, and accomplishment. It has truly been a privilege to contribute toward the impact that Microsoft has made in accelerating secure innovation and driving skills development in the region. I wish to thank the leadership of Microsoft Middle East and Africa and the phenomenal teams I’ve worked alongside throughout my tenure for the wonderful experience and look forward to seeing the further impact that Microsoft delivers across the region,” Hashish said.

Commenting on Hashish’s departure, Yazbeck said, “I want to thank Sayed for the great work he has done over the past five years and the great support he gave to me personally. Sayed will continue to be a mentor and a dear friend, and I will forever be grateful to him. I wish him all the best.”

RIHAM ALMUSA AS SAUDI ARABIA COUNTRY LEADER

private sector customers in Saudi Arabia. She will also prioritise Oracle’s initiatives to attract, train, mentor and prepare Saudi’s next generations talent for the digital economy.

Oracle announced the appointment of Riham Almusa as the Country Leader for Oracle in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this new role, Riham will support the digital transformation initiatives of Oracle’s public and

Riham is passionate about inclusion and equity in the workplace, specifically of women and the youth. As a result, with Riham as Country Leader, she will focus on how we further embed our global Diversity & Inclusion strategy with a focus on localising for Saudi Arabia where required.

“We are delighted to appoint Riham Almusa as Oracle’s new country leader for Saudi Arabia. Riham is a true Oracle champion and has in a short span successfully established our applications mid-

market hub in Saudi Arabia and helped our public sector business grow significantly. Riham’s growth at Oracle is an example for all aspiring Saudi women in tech, and we invite them to explore the incredible opportunities that Oracle offers to women professionals”, said Leopoldo Boado Lama, senior vice president – business applications, ECEMEA, Oracle.

Riham joined Oracle in April 2021 as Cloud Applications Director, following which Riham was given the additional responsibility of leading Oracle’s public sector business in the Kingdom. Riham holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology (IT) from King Saud University.

Riham Almusa, Oracle

Naim Yazbeck

COGNIGY

We have recently expanded our sales team to MENA and incorporated Cognigy MENA FZE in Dubai. Our focus is contact center AI and automation, and our technology helps companies all over the world deliver better customer experiences – it’s about scaling satisfaction.

What is the technology domain that you operate in?

We offer contact center technology that helps organizations deliver great customer experiences at scale based on Conversational AI. In simple terms, it means giving customers the ability to simply speak naturally and software the ability to understand it.

For contact center technology, conversational AI acts as an entirely new medium or layer that people and software can interact with each other, sharing data, finding information, and carrying out transactions. If suddenly I can talk to a virtual agent and update my information in a CRM or make a reservation or pay a bill via WhatsApp, that’s a real game changer for customers and contact centers. And because the customer is going through a single consistent process, not being handed off from one siloed system to another, context is maintained. That means better, personalized service and above all, not having to repeat yourself five times when being passed from human agent to human agent because of its integrated conversation context that even persists over multiple sessions.

How are you innovating your offerings to help customers futureproof their businesses?

gap. We’ve developed agent assistance capabilities which include both proactive AI-powered assistance as well as internal support bots that agents can use to directly find information or carry out tasks for the customer. With many agents now working from home and not having a manager or team mate to check with, shoulder taps are gone so this has made a big difference in increasing quality and consistency in staff, as well as reducing training time and needs. Finally, on the organizational side, remaining agile is difficult. As an example, the advent of social media was a game changer for companies: Customers would reach out via Twitter or Facebook pages, creating a lot of visibility for customer support issues. As a result, support organizations expanded into new live chat channels like e.g. on WhatsApp, making it again easier for customers to reach out. We designed our contact center AI platform with modularity and extensibility in mind. Serving new channels simply means a few clicks and new API keys, not desperately searching for a quick point solution which would mean extra cost, training, and maintenance. They can now just roll new channels into their existing processes.

Contact Center AI is a relatively young technology where most people have barely scratched the surface of its true potential and the entirely new opportunities it creates. So, in terms of this event’s theme, I think we have a perfect fit because the next digital universe is exactly what we see our most advanced customers discovering. When any new tool or technology comes, the majority of people and organizations tend to view it within a legacy mindset, i.e., a new way to do the same thing or a more efficient tool for the same existing processes.

We’re working with some of the largest contact centers in the world right now on their current and future needs. For example, we’ve got customers who can now automate millions of conversations a month or handle sudden spikes of tens of thousands of inquiries in a day. How did they get there?

Of course, it’s been a team effort as we’re always carefully listening to customers’ needs to help evolve our platform so they can power up their service and differentiate the customer experience.

Another example is dealing with the current labor shortage and retention challenges which have become a major hurdle to closing the customer service

What can your regional customers expect from your firm over the next few quarters in terms of market plans, partnerships, and new launches?

Our main focus over next few quarters is further developing a regional ecosystem of implementation partners who can cater to the growing demand for Cognigy in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and wider GCC. We’re excited to have opened our new Dubai office in 2022 and hired an incredible team. We’ve already brought a number of strategic partners on board to deliver better, faster service to our customers in Middle East and Africa.

Mr. Sascha Poggemann, the COO and Co-Founder of Cognigy

Can you elaborate on your biggest focus at this year’s edition of GITEX Technology Week?

How is your business complementing the event’s theme of ‘enter the next digital universe’?

FORTINET

challenges by tightly integrating network infrastructure with advanced security across all edges; and Cloud Security which delivers visibility and control across cloud infrastructures, enabling secure applications and connectivity in the data center and across cloud resources while maximising the benefits of cloud computing. Also, in focus will be FortiSASE, Fortinet’s clouddelivered security that secures remote users and powered by widely deployed FortiOS and FortiGuard AI-powered security services including SWG, FWaaS, ZTNA, CASB to allow organisations to shift from a CAPEX to OPEX business model.

How is your business complementing the event’s theme of ‘enter the next digital universe’?

In addition, organisations need security operations that can function at machine speed to keep up with the volume, sophistication, and speed of today’s cyber threats. AI and MLpowered prevention, detection, and response strategies based on a cybersecurity mesh architecture allow for much tighter integration, increased automation, as well as a more rapid, coordinated, and effective response to threats across the extended network.

What is the technology domain that you operate in?

Can you elaborate on your biggest focus at this year’s edition of GITEX Technology Week?

Fortinet’s focus at GITEX this year is to enable businesses to address their most pressing cybersecurity challenges, including the severe cybersecurity skills gap and the explosion of the edge with work-from-anywhere approach. Thanks to the Fortinet Security Fabric, customers will benefit from a broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity mesh platform that provides centralised management and visibility, supports, and interoperates across a vast ecosystem of solutions, and automatically adapts to dynamic changes in the network.

Visitors to our stand will also experience the key pillars of the Fortinet Security Fabric such as the Zero-Trust Network which securely connects applications hosted everywhere with users working from anywhere; Security Operations which enables fast, coordinated detection and enforcement across the entire attack surface; Network Security which addresses digital acceleration

Among the global trends in technology featured at GITEX Global this year, we find 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud & Edge and Cybersecurity as key topics among others. This is not surprising. According to the 2022 Global Risks Report, the second most significant long-term challenge, after the current climate crisis, is cybersecurity, which has become a broad sustainability issue, threatening our evolving connected society and the digital economy on which individuals, organisations, and nations now rely.

The first step to addressing this issue is to change behaviors, and that is done through awareness. The Fortinet Security Awareness and Training service provides timely end user awareness training on cybersecurity threats. It assists an organisation’s leaders of IT, security, and compliance in establishing a cybersecurity awareness culture where employees recognise cyberthreats immediately and avoid falling victim to them. The training service also helps satisfy regulatory or industry compliance training requirements for organisations that are need to comply.

Fortinet secures the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organisations around the world. Fortinet empowers its customers with intelligent, seamless protection across the expanding attack surface and the power to take on ever-increasing performance requirements of the borderless network—today and into the future. Our vision is security-driven networking for a hyperconnected world.

How are you innovating your offerings to help customers futureproof their businesses?

In 2021, Fortinet delivered significant innovative solutions, including launching the industry’s first integrated Zero Trust Network Access to support the increased number of customer employees working from home due to COVID-19. To help close the cybersecurity skills gap, Fortinet also launched multiple managed services, including Security Operations Center (SOC) as-a-Service, Managed Detection and Response, and Incident Response services.

At Fortinet, innovation lies at the heart of everything we do and is rooted in over 20 years of prioritising research and development in our company’s culture which has resulted in the industry’s broadest portfolio of cybersecurity solutions with over 50 securityrelated products.

Alain Penel, Regional Vice President -Middle East and Turkey, Fortinet

INFOR

Kerry Koutsikos: VP and GM, Infor Middle East & Africa

Can you elaborate on your biggest focus at this year’s edition of GITEX Technology Week?

At GITEX, we will highlight Infor’s industry expertise and the ability of our smart, pre-configured cloud solutions, which feature built-in industry functionality, to enable customers to simplify complexity, transform business processes, accelerate time to value, and put their end users at the center of the experience.

Infor’s solutions work seamlessly with the world-class capabilities of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and give organisations the power and responsiveness they need to stay ahead amid the current challenges of increasingly tough competition, global inflation, and supply chain issues.

How is your business complementing the event’s theme of ‘enter the next digital universe’?

Organisations are under increasing pressure to embrace digitisation, but it is no mean feat. Many organisations

are confused about how to transform, and even what transformation means. We’re here to help our customers in the industrial manufacturing and distribution sectors ‘enter the next digital universe’ by guiding them on a journey of comprehensive transformation. Indeed, digital transformation is about taking a full analysis of your organisation and understanding what you want to achieve, followed by a journey of continual innovation.

Infor’s software is helping to drive this type of holistic innovation in manufacturing and distribution by connecting organisations to their customers, supply chain network, plant and equipment, which enables employees to drive predictable revenues. By embracing powerful cloud-based software and a culture of continuous innovation, organisations can turn many of their current challenges into advantages, bringing simplicity where there was complexity, gathering and using data to maximum effect, and enhancing their ability to work in tandem with suppliers and partners.

What is the technology domain that you operate in?

Infor specialises in industry-specific cloud software solutions to help industrial manufacturing and distribution customers in the Middle East to automate and simplify complex systems and prepare for the future.

Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialised by industry. We develop complete solutions for our focus industries. Infor’s mission-critical enterprise applications and services are designed to deliver sustainable operational advantages with security and faster time to value.

Infor is continually innovating its industry-specific cloud solutions. In fact, one of the major advantages of cloud-based software is that it can be continually enhanced and updated for customers. Infor learns from thousands of customer deployments, gathering data, knowledge and insights on the challenges faced by companies operating in specific industries. This deep understanding of the industries we serve is fed back into our software, which helps our industrial manufacturing and distribution customers in the Middle East.

Using our software, organisations in industrial manufacturing and distribution can transform the way they manage their supply chains, business processes, assets, goods and services, and their people — all in one integrated, intuitive solution.

What can your regional customers expect from your firm over the next few quarters in terms of market plans, partnerships and new launches?

Infor will be announcing our next release of Infor Process Intelligence which will provide modelling capabilities, which will allow our customers to add new, needed business processes. In the Middle East we will continue to maintain our focus on helping industrial manufacturing and distribution customers transform. However, we are working hard to expand our network of partners in the region, which will enable us to help even more customers transform their operations. We already work with a number of strategic partners in the Middle East who help to market and implement Infor solutions. In the next 18 months we plan to expand our channel partnerships in key markets including the GCC, Turkey, South Africa, and Egypt.

How are you innovating your offerings to help customers futureproof their businesses?

RIVERBED

Theme of Riverbed’s participation

This year, our participation at GITEX will centre around the theme “Illuminate, Accelerate and Empower Every Digital Experience”. Visitors to our stand will have the opportunity to learn how Riverbed is evolving all parts of its Alluvio Unified Observability and Acceleration portfolios to address the needs of today’s hybrid organisations, helping to deliver seamless digital experiences and enterprise performance.

Solutions that Riverbed will be showcasing at GITEX Global 2022: Our Unified Observability software portfolio has been designed to provide IT with a unified view to see through massive complexity and transform data into actionable insights across the entire digital ecosystem. This enables organisations to provide seamless digital experiences that drive enterprise performance for both the employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX). The Alluvio portfolio includes our industry-leading visibility tools for network performance management (NPM), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (ITIM) and Digital Experience Management (DEM), which encompasses application performance management (APM) and End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM), that are available today

and used by thousands of organisations across the world. GITEX will also offer regional IT stakeholders a first look at our newly launched cloud-native, SaaS-delivered Unified Observability service, Alluvio IQ. This service leverages full-fidelity network performance and end-user experience data across every transaction in the digital enterprise and applies AI and machine learning to contextually correlate data streams and alerts to identify the most business-impacting events. In doing so, it enables IT organisations to “shift left,” empowering all staff to do the job of more experienced IT experts, freeing-up senior IT staff to focus on strategic business initiatives. Complementing the Alluvio portfolio, Riverbed’s flagship Acceleration solutions provide fast, agile, secure acceleration of any app over any network to users, whether mobile, remote, or on-premises. Built on decades of WAN optimisation leadership and innovation, Riverbed’s industry-leading acceleration portfolio delivers cloud, SaaS, client and eCDN (MS teams & streams) applications at peak speeds, overcoming network latency, congestion, and suboptimal last-mile conditions to empower the hybrid workforce.

Additionally, our enterprise SD-WAN provides best-in-class performance, agility, security, and simplified management of hybrid WAN networks.

Expectations and Plans for the show this year:

The demand for and participation at in-person event has rebounded this year so we expect a heavily attended show that will present us with the opportunity to engage with customers, partners, and prospects from all across the region. We have set clear objectives for our presence at GITEX. These include evangelising attendees on the rapidly growing Unified Observability segment which is set to be a US$19billion market, and how Riverbed’s industry leading solution is complimented by our established Riverbed Acceleration portfolio.

We will be unveiling the regional findings of a research study that we commissioned

on Unified Observability that was conducted by market leading research firm IDC. The survey revealed that a unified view of digital infrastructure is essential for IT teams that must improve the digital customer experience while boosting overall organisational productivity. This research also highlights that IT teams at organisations of all sises are overwhelmed, short-staffed and require more advanced tools that deliver intelligence and actionable insights to help them troubleshoot issues in real-time.

In celebration of the 20-year anniversary of our company, as well as the launch of our new brand identity and our Alluvio Unified Observability portfolio, we intend to make this one of our largest ever participations at GITEX. So, in addition to having our own stand, we will maintain a presence at the stands of each of our three regional distributors, as well as having a kiosk at the stand of our valued partner, Microsoft.

Message to the Channel:

At Riverbed, we’re putting a lot of effort into ensuring that our partners are fully capable of listening to their customer and proposing the right solutions for them. To do this, we’re not only arming them with theoretical information. Rather, we’re trying to provide them with real world scenarios, that demonstrate how our solutions empower customers to see everything that’s happening on the network – from the moment a transaction is initiated at a customer’s endpoint, to the time it reaches the cloud. This approach will serve to position our partners as consultants to customers, and allow them to not just make a sale, but gain a foothold as a long-term technology advisor.

Our portfolio today offers our channel partners a great opportunity to get closer to their customer and to become more profitable as well. We excited to see many of our traditional partners embark on this exciting journey towards observability with us – it’s a massive opportunity and we are keen for them to share in our success.

Ramzi Bsaibes, Senior Manager, the Gulf Region at Riverbed Technology

SOPHOS

bespoke pieces needed to launch the attack. Compounding the issue is the current cybersecurity skills gap.

Specifically, at GITEX, Sophos will focus on its Managed Detection and Response (MDR) capabilities.

The combination of Sophos’ experts and tools provided as a service can help organizations of all sizes to deal with any cyber issues 24x7 365 days of the year. It also helps organizations to proactively hunt for threats, scope their severity, initiate action, and remediate.

How is your business complementing the event’s theme of ‘enter the next digital universe’?

Next digital universe to us means the next level of digital experience that will affect all aspects of our personal as well as business life

SophosAI, Sophos delivers a broad portfolio of advanced products and services to secure users, networks and endpoints against ransomware, malware, exploits, phishing and the wide range of other cyberattacks.

How are you innovating your offerings to help customers future-proof their businesses?

Can you elaborate on your biggest focus at this year’s edition of GITEX Technology Week?

This year, our GITEX theme is ‘Cybersecurity as a Service,’ which we believe is the future of cybersecurity. Organizations need services to help them defeat cyberthreats, which have increased exponentially in the last couple of years, both in volume and sophistication – to the point where it is difficult for businesses to handle alone.

Attackers are constantly changing their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to launch cyberattacks like ransomware. To make matters worse, the ransomware business model is continuously shifting and expanding, with Initial Access Brokers (IABs) selling network access to any potential ransomware attacker. Even “unskilled hackers” can get into the ransomware business – by buying the network access, encry2ption code and other

From a security point of view, it will be like an expanded attack surface for adversaries, which means, more comprehensive cybersecurity ecosystems and human experts will be needed to provide protection to the digital experience.

Cybersecurity is a 24/7 job; attackers often strike on weekends, during holidays or after hours, when a network could be less monitored. Sophos can help organizations to better protect their digital transformation by providing around the clock cybersecurity through advanced cybersecurity solutions and services.

What is the technology domain that you operate in?

Sophos is a worldwide leader in nextgeneration cybersecurity, protecting more than 500,000 organizations and millions of consumers in more than 150 countries from today’s most advanced cyberthreats. Powered by threat intelligence, AI and machine learning from SophosLabs and

Sophos is future proofing its customers’ businesses by offering Sophos’ Cybersecurity as a Service capabilities, which is a combination of Sophos’ experts and tools provided as a service, which can help organizations of all sizes to deal with any cyber issues 24x7 365 days of the year. It helps organizations to have the right tools, people and processes to effectively provide the active threat protection their business needs. It also helps organizations to proactively hunt for threats, scope their severity, initiate action, and provide actionable advice to address the root cause of incidents.

What can your regional customers expect from your firm over the next few quarters in terms of market plans, partnerships and new launches?

Along with protecting our regional customers with our advanced cybersecurity solutions, we are also focusing on providing Cybersecurityas-a-Service (CSaaS) to organizations needing fully-managed, turnkey security solutions. Regional customers can manage their cybersecurity directly with Sophos’ security operations platform or use a hybrid approach by supplementing their in-house teams with Sophos CSaaS capabilities, such as threat hunting and remediation.

Harish Chib, Vice President, Middle East & Africa, Sophos

WISEAPP

Nisarg Shah, Business Head, WiseApp

Can you elaborate on your biggest focus at this year’s edition of GITEX Technology Week?

For the first time we are exhibiting in GITEX, and it is very pride moment for us. Our team will be demonstrating our AI-powered Solutions that helps you optimize your workplace and automate your business processes. Our solutions are best fit for any industry that wants to transform their business and are ready to provide a next-level experience to their customers.

How is your business complementing the event’s theme of ‘enter the next digital universe’?

WiseApp is a UAE-based AI company, working towards smart city initiatives. We help automate organizations to build

a smart workspace by assessing their current environment and optimizing their assets. Our team is helping organizations in their digital transformation journey which is a theme of the GITEX too. Our solutions ensure that your organization is empowering every individual to work their best, securely, and consistently with the tools and environments best aligned to their needs.

What is the technology domain that you operate in?

Our solutions are web and mobile both. We are using the latest technology available in the market to provide secure and responsive solutions to our clients.

How are you leveraging AI?

As the name implies, WiseApp is the wise choice for companies around the world. It combines intelligent features that are seamlessly integrated to make workspace administration a breeze. WiseApp enables you to experience a true digital workspace with carefully curated features supported by future-proof technology.

WiseApp uses AI that can accumulate volumes of data and quickly turn it into actionable information. This process relies on 3 key pillars: People, Technology, and Space. We leverage AI in a flexible way that caters to different space adn organizational structures.

How are you innovating your offerings to help customers future-proof their businesses?

Customer Experience is the top priority for 96% of GCC businesses. Our aim is to help organizations in enhancing the customer experience by automating

their business processes so that they can focus on their core business. We are focused on providing smart-city solutions to organizations that are ready to transform their business.

We help organizations experience a truly secure and digital workplace with thoughtfully ideated features backed by future-proof technology. Our approach is to build 360° workspace automation solutions for new-age organizations using nex-gen technology.

By adopting paperless solutions, our core focus is to have low to no carbon footprints to make this world a better place to live for our generations to come.

What can your regional customers expect from your firm over the next few quarters in terms of market plans, partnerships and new launches?

We have a team of young entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who are aligned on taking digital initiatives to the next level. We started with a few team members and the team is constantly growing. We are expanding ourselves into the other markets too outside UAE. Our clientele is increasing gradually, and we are getting good references from our existing clients too. We have more than 10 channel partners in the UAE, and we have recently partnered up in other parts of MENA region too. As a team we are excited to take our business to the new heights and add more success stories to our portfolio. We are working on certain new projects, but it is too early to talk about that.

EMBRACING DIGITAL SUPPLY CHAIN

As pandemic’s repercussions, volatility has become the new normal which has affected the industries adversely. The unprecedented supply chain disruption caused has had severe operational and financial consequences, with planners having to address issues including fluctuation in demand, surges by segment, supply shortages, inventory placement challenges and reduced productivity. In simple example, that we can relate to, is in the automobile industry. You would be seeing a major imbalance between the delivery of new cars and their wait time. The way it works is that a car manufacturer either makes the car based on parts they manufacturer themselves or source

Ashish Dass, a technology evangelist, writes about the importance of investing in supply chain digital transformation

them from 3rd party vendors which are then finally used to assemble and make your car ready. Then comes the logistics of having the car delivered to the customer. Any delay in this whole, chain creates a ripple effect in the full supply chain delivery and things start to fall apart. The result being price fluctuation, inflation, dissatisfaction in the customers resulting in economy being adversely affected. This is true for most industries.

Consequently, every industry, being from manufacturer to consumer, healthcare to automotive, are showing a deep desire to transform digitally their manufacturing and supply chain processes. A digital supply chain is a set of processes that use advanced technologies and better insights into the functions of each stakeholder along the chain to let each participant make better decisions about the sources of materials they need, the demand for their products and all the relationships in between.

Investing in supply chain digital transformation ensures your supply chain can harness and scale the technology and innovation that promise business growth, risk mitigation, and cost optimisation benefits.

Developing advanced supply chain capabilities makes strong economic sense and gives companies the agility needed to respond to disruptions. Digital supply chains are more customercentric and aim to meet futuristic three pillars of excellence in demand fulfillment: speed, personalisation and choice.

Despite this being revolutionary for the logistics segment, more than 50% of organisations have not yet actively started to build a roadmap for supply chain digital transformation. Like any change or disruption, the process of digitalising the supply chain has also its set of challenges which if considered, the benefits can come faster with the journey become smoother. Some of the challenges

that an organisation needs to acknowledge and address are:

The complexity and lack of flexibility of underlying processes, structures, and networks – The processes are not thoroughly understood and analyzed before digitising them. Although challenging, as it involves cross-functional as well as crosscompany processes, simplification needs to be considered to reach impactful results.

Technology competence and employee qualification –Dealing with the ever-evolving technologies, training becomes time-consuming and the high pace of change makes it more difficult to be up-to-date. Furthermore, supply chain managers are often not information technology experts. Functional as well as technological knowledge needs to be merged.

Along with all above stated challenges, the most challenging one is to have a proper change management. The challenge of accepting that a change is required and then working towards changing your processes to make them more efficient. Many organisations think, a current system cannot be put on hold while we work on the newer systems.

Having states some of the above challenges, it’s imperative to answer the question, do we have a choice? The answer is no we don’t. The sooner we understand and act on it, the better the organisation will be able to, not just cope with the current disruptions but also be more efficient and ready for the future.

A digital supply chain provides cost effective alternatives to each bottleneck that we come across, faster and cheaper than others. Hence, optimising the supply chain has become a hot topic for every CEO of every company. It has reached a stage that business continuity is now given more importance than just cost alone. Statistics say that 85 % of CEO’s think that digitalising the existing

supply chain will drastically enhance cash flows and reduce DSO (days sales outstanding), in turn improve customer satisfaction and their share of the pie.

Gartner surveyed more than 500 supply chain professionals to better understand supply chain technology focus, initiatives, value and challenges.

• 38% of organisations are improving supply chain technology to support end-to-end processes as we speak.

• More than half of supply chain organisations will have invested in artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics by the year 2024.

• 8 technology trends will accelerate supply chain digital transformation over the next several years.

To summarise, tomorrow’s supply chains will be connected and selforchestrated ecosystems. Nextlevel supply chain ecosystems will be far more sophisticated than today’s supply chains. One focus will be on connecting the supply chain with other functions across the enterprise, such as R&D (e.g., design for supply chain), finance, sales and customer service (e.g., enabling online and other new customer channels). Leaders will also use digital technologies, such as Internet-of-Things (IoT), dynamic enterprise management and global supply chain visibility solutions, to establish a two-way, near-realtime connectivity across the entire supply chain for better visibility and effective decision making.

Ashish Dass

MARKETING MINDS

Marketing is an important function across all businesses in all sectors. If partners didn’t pay attention to this task before, they are certainly seeing its value today. Investing in digital marketing strategies are becoming fundamental for growing revenues, acquiring new leads and enhancing brand image. In this section, marketing leaders who deal with the regional channel business shed light on how partners can improve their marketing plans and become active marketeers for their own businesses.

Why should regional channel partners invest in digital marketing tools and personnel?

For one, when it comes to marketing, digital, whether that be via social media or content syndication, is now the key engagement platform. Also, while vendors can provide the overarching campaign collateral, MDF and marketing tools, having dedicated marketing resources will enable the partner to fine tune the assets and messaging to the specific target customer and more importantly, nurture the customer.

How can partners effectively use Market Development Funds (MDFs) from vendors?

When it comes to MDF, I want to see the funds being put towards adding net new logos and pipeline generation. Partners should be focused on adding prospects to the top of the funnel, in target verticals.

Which is the biggest digital marketing trend in 2022? Account based marketing and influencer marketing

HASSAN HAMADANI

Marketing Director, EMEA Emerging, Pure Storage

TANYA JAIN

Senior Marketing Executive, InTWO DMCC

Why should regional channel partners invest in digital marketing tools and personnel?

The primary objective of every channel partner is to stay connected with existing and prospective customers through marketing. In such a scenario, digital marketing fits the bill by increasing visibility, and demand to strengthen the customer base in a region. Since most of the potential customer base is online these days, regional channel partners have no choice but to consider digital marketing strategies for business. The best part is that a company can always begin with small investments in this sphere of effective marketing.

How can partners effectively use Market Development Funds (MDFs) from vendors?

MDFs or as we say, Marketing Dollars are vital for any channel partner. The trick lies in understanding which form of MDF is beneficial for your business and utilizing it to accelerate business growth. It is important not to sell a product or service, but rather sell a solution - through marketing. Customers want a solution to overcome business challenges, not just a top-of-the-line branded software or product to associate with.

Which is the biggest digital marketing trend in 2022?

AI and Machine Learning are proving to be an asset to the marketing world.

AMRITA NAG

Regional Marketing Manager, Omnix International

Why should regional channel partners invest in digital marketing tools and personnel?

The digital revolution has paved its way with the changing marketing dynamic. Leveraging digital marketing tools will help in yielding positive ROI. In time, digital marketing practices will reach new heights and allow us to make the most out of the metaverse industry.

How can partners effectively use Market Development Funds (MDF) from vendors?

To have a strategic annual marketing plan towards developing a sales pipeline using the Omni channel platform. It can be best used to execute the go-to-market strategy which helps in increasing awareness and generating demand. Multi-channel marketing initiatives which are ROI driven, like customer events, SEO, and webinars, can be implemented.

What is the biggest digital marketing trend in 2022?

RIMA BEN SALAH

Marketing MGR, Trellix

Why should regional channel partners invest in digital marketing tools and personnel?

Digital is where people are spending the most time in. The fastest and most effective way to communicate to your segments is customizing your message through Digital tactics. Enable yourself & teams to fully understand the scope & leverage its value for maximum outreach. By expanding your multi-channel reseller networks, your Partners’ existing connections & market presence can boost sales incredibly: hence bringing you a better ROI. The results will be scalable growth without proportionately growing internal teams.

How can partners effectively use Market Development Funds (MDFs) from vendors?

Work you plan, plan your work! Prepare in advance your main goals & objectives, set them up in calendar through various Marketing tactics: nailing down major events, digital marketing, ABM and more. Market is forever changing; you need to be in reactive mode so you adapt your plan with the next trend happening. Being resilient and agile are key elements to make the most of it. These funds are put out by vendors to support Channel communities expanding their outreach and benefiting profitability in the long run for all parties. Dare to dream, ask & you shall receive !

Which is the biggest digital marketing trend in 2022?

Customizing content to the Market: Personalisation + Creating amazing Video marketing: Again, Content that speaks to the brand through the Experience created. + Ai is still in the works perhaps more in next issue.