CXO Insight Middle East - The Dynamic Duo

ISSUE 30 \ APRIL 2021

THE DYNAMIC DUO The new regional leadership of Micro Focus reveals plans to deliver on the promise of smart digital transformation

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CONTENTS

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THE NEW REGIONAL LEADERSHIP OF MICRO FOCUS REVEALS PLANS TO DELIVER ON THE PROMISE OF SMART DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

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THE DYNAMIC DUO

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A MATTER 12

OF TRUST 16 BUILDING A

TO THRIVE IN 28 HOW TODAY’S DIGITAL ERA

AI IS CHANGING 18 HOW THE WORLD

CYBERSECURITY 32 RETHINKING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

22 WINNING WITH DATA

THE RISE OF THIRD-PARTY 34 SOFTWARE SUPPORT

DIGITAL DNAN

DIGITAL FUTURE 24 OFTHEHEALTHCARE

PUBLISHED BY INSIGHT MEDIA & PUBLISHING LLC

PRODUCTS

CHANGING 30 THE FACE OF BANKING

KUBERNETES 36 TAILORING FOR TELCOS

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NEWS

AKER SOLUTIONS, AVEVA EXTEND PARTNERSHIP EMAAR’S ALABBAR TO INTRODUCE FIRST FULLSCALE DIGITAL BANK IN THE UAE PALO ALTO NETWORKS UNVEILS NEW CYBERSECURITY CONSULTING GROUP

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EDITORIAL

BRAVE NEW WORLD

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mong emerging technologies, nothing is both exciting and scary at the same time as AI. If you look at any prediction about trends which will shape the tech landscape this year, AI is perched right on top. A recent AI predictions survey from PwC says that AI will be a mainstream technology this year, with 86 percent of respondents stating that they plan to use the technology to offer better customer experience and help businesses make intelligent decisions.

AI is nothing new, and we have been using it for a while without actually knowing it. For example, Facebook uses AI to recognise people in photos.

Netflix has deployed AI tools to come up with personalised recommendations based on your viewing habit. Banks use AI-powered chatbots to assist customers.

Though it is easy to get swayed by the hype around AI, there are real-world use cases of the technology that address some business imperatives – you can use AI to automate

businesses, use advanced analytics to gain insights, and engage with employees and customers in a better manner.

Now, about the flip side – it has long been speculated that machines will replace humans and put people out of work. A case in point is RPA, which has led to reduced administrative jobs in some organisations. However, many studies reveal that those employees whose routines tasks have been automated have transitioned to other roles, focusing on higher-value work. No doubt, AI will automate people out of work, but it will also create new jobs. A recent report by the World Economic Forum suggests that machines and algorithms will create 133 million new roles while displacing 75 million jobs by 2022. AI is going to change how we work fundamentally. CIOs will have to figure out how to use AI to simplify work and make their workforce more efficient and productive. AI is a double-edged sword, and you have to wield it properly to gain from it.

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While the publisher has made all efforts to ensure the accuracy of information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors

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NEWS

AKER SOLUTIONS, AVEVA EXTEND PARTNERSHIP

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VEVA has expanded its long-term existing relationship with Aker Solutions to further accelerate the company’s digital transformation strategy and goals.

The extended partnership will see the two organisations implementing new engineering capabilities. This will enable multi-discipline teams to work effectively together to develop and maintain the detailed definition of all the key operational items.

And also deliver the full range of AVEVA’s process simulation, design, engineering, and lifecycle management technologies.

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The extended partnership which now comprises most of AVEVA’s Engineering offerings, including AVEVA E3D Design, AVEVA Enterprise Resource Management, AVEVA Asset Information Management, and AVEVA Point Manager, will further strengthen Aker Solutions and AVEVA’s relationship.

Aker Solutions is one of AVEVA’s top 100 customers. The renewal of the agreement will extend the existing strategic partnership and secure AVEVA’s position as a leading industrial software solutions provider on the Norwegian continental shelf, said the company.

Kjetel Digre, CEO of Aker Solutions said, “We are pleased to extend our

long-term partnership with AVEVA. Digitalization across our work processes is an enabler for our strategy and growth objectives. We are committed to creating a sustainable energy future to address the need to lower the carbon footprint through usage of advanced digital technology.”

Craig Hayman, CEO of AVEVA, said, “Our goal is to work with our customers to help them innovate and drive sustainability and the breath of our portfolio is enabling organisations like Aker Solutions to deploy faster, reduce energy consumption, cut emissions, and collaborate around innovation, boosting sustainable outcomes for all.”

EMAAR’S ALABBAR TO INTRODUCE FIRST FULL-SCALE DIGITAL BANK IN THE UAE

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maar founder Mohamed Alabbar has announced the opening of ‘Zand’ – a new full-fledged independent digital bank in the UAE. According to the Emaar chief and Zand’s chairman Alabbar, it will be the “first bank globally” to provide both retail and corporate banking services.

Armed with a complete UAE banking license, Zand is expected to offer innovative financial solutions and will make business and people’s lives much easier by meeting the demands of retail and corporate customers.

“The UAE combines progressive regulations with commercial, financial, and technology hubs. This provides the perfect environment for

a world-leading digital bank that can launch in the UAE and scale beyond,” Alabbar said in a statement.

The first full-scale digital bank in the UAE aims to be unique from the perspective of zeroing in on ecosystems and communities of

businesses and individuals, allowing it to offer exclusive products and services not usually available from other legacy banks, according to Alabbar.

Olivier Crespin has been appointed as the digital bank’s CEO.

passion for protecting our digital way of life. Wendi Whitmore leads new Unit 42 organisation that combines threat intelligence and security consulting offerings.

“Our increasing reliance on technology has turned cybersecurity into an existential matter. We wake up every day focused on collecting and analyzing the most up-to-date

threat intelligence and applying our analysis to effectively respond to cybe- attacks,” said Wendi Whitmore, senior vice president of cyber consulting and threat intelligence at Palo Alto Networks and leader of Unit 42.

The combined team will deliver a powerful set of services that enable organisations to respond to threats more rapidly than ever and will introduce new proactive services that closely complement Palo Alto Networks product offerings. It will also expand incident response services to more countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

The newly expanded Unit 42 will continue to build on what is already one of the world’s most respected brands in cybersecurity. Since it was founded in 2014, Unit 42 has produced more than 650 reports and regularly partners with governments around the globe to fight cybercrime.

PALO ALTO NETWORKS UNVEILS NEW CYBERSECURITY CONSULTING GROUP Palo Alto Networks is establishing a new cybersecurity consulting group to help enterprises respond to emerging threats as they navigate an increase in costly, crippling cyberattacks.

The newly expanded Unit 42 combines formerly Crypsis security consultants, who respond to 1,300+ incidents a year, with the company’s veteran Unit 42 threat research team, which has been fighting emerging cyberthreats since 2014. Together, they will help organisations tackle the most complex cyberthreats — from ransomware to state-sponsored espionage — bringing a relentless

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NEWS

MCAFEE: COVID-19 CYBER-ATTACKS CONTINUE TO ESCALATE

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he latest McAfee Threats Report: April 2021 examines cybercriminal activity related to malware and the evolution of cyber threats in the final two quarters of 2020. In Q4, McAfee Labs observed an average of 648 threats per minute, an increase of 60 threats per minute (10%) over Q3.

Both quarters also saw COVID-19-related cyber-attack detections increase by 240% in Q3 and 114% in Q4, while Powershell threats rose again by 208% due to continued increases in Donoff malware activity.

Raj Samani, McAfee fellow and Chief Scientist, said, “The world—and enterprises—adjusted amidst pandemic restrictions and sustained remote work challenges, while security threats continued to evolve in complexity and increase in volume.

Though a large percentage of employees grew more proficient and productive in working remotely, enterprises endured more opportunistic COVID-19 related campaigns among a new cast of bad-actor schemes.”

He added that ransomware and malware targeting vulnerabilities in work-related apps and processes were active and remain dangerous threats capable of taking over networks and data, and has costed millions in assets and recovery costs.

HUAWEI IDENTIFIES SIGNIFICANT POTENTIAL TO SUPPORT UAE’S DIGITAL GOALS

From the sidelines of the SAMENA Leaders’ Summit, the President of Huawei Middle East, Charles Yang, has provided an update on the company’s business globally and across local markets, with his comments following Huawei’s release of its annual earnings results for 2020.

In particular, the executive noted that the UAE government has had the foresight to invest in digital infrastructure long before the current 8

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pandemic, and that investments in areas like 5G and AI have paid off significantly. Huawei has in turn worked on numerous joint innovation projects to support the UAE’s digital ecosystem and bolster ICT talent development, supporting national development strategies outlined by entities such as the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology.

“Digitisation in the Middle East has accelerated remarkably over the last

year, with global network traffic having increased by around 50% during the pandemic,” notes Yang. “The ICT industry thus has an important responsibility to create new social and business value for governments, organisations, and individuals. We are fully committed to this value creation. We already bring the power of technologies like 5G to key events such as the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, and are now aligning with governments to support mega-events like Expo 2020 in the UAE and the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. We will keep innovating to create value for our customers and to support economic recovery and social progress.”

To that end, Huawei has said that it used the last year to further enhance its operations despite a challenging global environment. That led to achieving revenue and profit growth during 2020 overall. Part of that came down to an unwavering focus on R&D and joint innovation programs in areas like 5G, AI, and cloud, says Yang, with Huawei establishing 13 Open Labs around the world to support open collaboration for shared success.

INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION TO SIGNIFICANTLY BOOST THE KSA ECONOMY BY 2030

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ntelligent automation offers the potential to double the economy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to $1.6 trillion, adding an additional $293 billion by 2030, according to new research commissioned by Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software provider Automation Anywhere.

Results of the Saudi Arabia: Showing way to the world research, from Ernst and Young (EY), also showed that the KSA has an opportunity to drive technologyled productivity through intelligent automation deployments. Intelligent automation is a combination of

RPA and artificial intelligence to accelerate digital transformation.

The EY modeler computed the impact of incremental automation adoption across all sectors of Saudi Arabia for three scenarios: • Optimistic scenario – 50% incremental intelligent automation adoption by organisations across the region will add $ 293 billion to the nominal gross domestic product (GDP) • Moderate scenario – 30% incremental adoption will add $ 184 billion to the nominal GDP • Conservative scenario – 15% incremental adoption will add $ 103 billion to the nominal GDP

The KSA has laid strong foundations by actively promoting private and public partnerships for its Vision 2030, a strategic framework to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil, diversify its economy, and develop public service sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, recreation, and tourism.

According to the new research, industries that include government services, public sector, banking, insurance, energy and materials, offer the best opportunities to maximize intelligent automation while achieving the Vision 2030 goals.

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NEWS

ORACLE ENRICHES THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE WITH ORACLE JOURNEYS

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racle has announced a new platform to deliver a more intuitive, personalised, and streamlined employee experience within Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM).

Oracle Journeys helps organisations create a one-stop shop for employees as they navigate all aspects of work and complete complex tasks. The new capabilities enable HR teams to create, tailor, and deliver step-by-step guidance to walk employees through events as diverse as onboarding, having a baby, returning to the workplace, launching a new product, or growing their career.

“With our homes doubling as offices over the past year, we’ve grown accustomed to the way technology improves our lives as consumers, and

employees want that same experience at work,” said Chris Leone, Senior Vice President of development, Oracle Cloud HCM. “As offices reopen, it will be critical to provide consistent and positive experiences both in the office and for remote workers – but it doesn’t stop there. Organisations need to provide guidance throughout an employee’s entire career, from training to finding a mentor, returning to the workplace, and eventually traveling safely. Oracle Journeys will help HR teams provide value beyond traditional HR processes by tailoring unique experiences for their workforce.”

Oracle Journeys guides employees through tasks and key milestones while delivering quick access to resources they need across HR and

NUTANIX, AL HUSSEIN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY TO FOSTER CLOUD SKILLS

Nutanix has signed an agreement with Al Hussein Technical University (HTU), a Crown Prince Foundation initiative, aimed at collaborating and enhancing students training programs, exchanging technical expertise and developing computing infrastructure at HTU. 10

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Based in King Hussein Business Park in Amman, HTU was established as a Crown Prince Foundation Initiative to promote technical education in Jordan and the region and grants bachelor and technical degrees in engineering and computer science.

the entire organisation. It also makes it easy for employees to take action as they move through various events.

The new features in Oracle Journeys help HR leaders by enabling them to move beyond standard HR workflows to create personalised, step-bystep guidance for any task – be it personal, professional, operational, or administrative. By providing easy access to AI-recommended processes tailored to individual needs, the solution helps employees save time and improve productivity.

The agreement signed at HTU, stipulates that the university is accredited by Nutanix as an official Nutanix academy. It grants HTU the necessary technical facilities to hold specialised courses in the field of cloud computing, and train HTU staff on the latest computing techniques in order to qualify as certified trainers.

The agreement also provides internationally accredited training courses for HTU students, to enable them to obtain Nutanix certificates, in addition to holding workshops and specialized training courses.

HTU President Prof. Ismail Al-Hinti, commended Nutanix for its role in training HTU students on the latest software and technologies related to cloud computing and appreciated the company’s efforts in developing a specialized, exclusive course for HTU students entitled ‘Basics of Hybrid Cloud Computing’. The course, conducted remotely via Zoom video conference and delivered by a Nutanix certified trainer over a three day period, was attended by twelve students.

SOFTWARE AG: DX INVESTMENT WILL CONTINUE IN 2021

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oftware AG has recently released the global ‘Situation Report’ based on responses from IT Leaders on their views around digital transformation investment strategies. The research highlighted some priorities and assumptions that companies have in common, and some areas where opinion is divided on the best way forward.

IT leaders were unanimous in their belief that digital transformation is expected to accelerate significantly over the next few years with entities set out to continue investing across data and analytics, quicker processes, customer experience and integration. The predicted growth is attributed to technology implementation strategies in line with goals that include cost efficiency, customer experience, security, employee safety and environmental policy.

The interviewee companies strongly believed that their IT infrastructure and business is resilient, with a split in companies that considered to diversify their technology portfolio and those that preferred consolidating on technologies. A large majority of experts also stated that innovation will play a key role and technologies such as Cloud computing, 5G, Integration, IoT will be vital in tackling challenges as economies move towards a more digital future. In terms of the beneficiary of digital investments, customers, employees and ‘the business’, were all cited as top priority. Simultaneously IT leaders also predicted customer expectations to rise in the next year, given the digital shift new technologies have caused, resulting in a new kind of modern customer.

Rami Kichli, Vice-President, Gulf and Levant, Software AG said, “The

UAE Vision 2021 aims to transition the country into a technology-based knowledge economy as it embraces innovation expeditiously. In 2020, despite the challenges, Software

AG grew 40% given the rapid surge in demand for business resiliency through digital. This is a reflection of the country’s emphasis on a digital first approach.”

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VIEWPOINT

A MATTER OF TRUST VIBIN SHAJU, PRESALES DIRECTOR, EMEA ENTERPRISE, MCAFEE, SAYS THE ZERO TRUST SECURITY MODEL IS A MUST-HAVE FOR THE NEW NORMAL HYBRID WORLD.

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rior to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the business case for cloud computing had been convincingly established.

Business agility, control over IT costs and significant reductions in complexity were all there for the taking. All that remained was for forward-thinking stakeholders to take the plunge.

Some of the last hurdles to be cleared in winning over die-hard doubters were compliance issues — particularly those imposed by regional governments on the issue of data residency. AWS, Microsoft and Oracle all established cloud data centres in the GCC region before the pandemic, in part to address data residency concerns across the Middle East.

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Then COVID put public and private organisations across the region on the back foot. Before long, however, enterprises dusted themselves off and headed for the cloud, not for the convincing business case, but out of necessity. Industry pundits spent the next few months revising cloudspend projections upwards. Mid-2020 predictions from IDC, for example, foresaw Middle East Turkey and Africa (META) cloud investment hit US$6.5 billion by 2024.

The other shoe…

Amid this mass migration, an unwelcome — but not altogether unforeseeable — by-product reared its ugly head. Digital opportunists, driven by the perceived unpreparedness of cloud migrators, took

advantage of new vulnerabilities, and struck. The UAE alone faced a 250% increase in cyberattacks in 2020, and the government’s own head of cybersecurity attributed much of the surge to WFH conditions.

IT teams had delivered on productivity, employee satisfaction and business agility, but failed to account for the hunger and effectiveness of bad actors. It is an unfortunate fact of cloud life that hybrid architectures that require sensitive data to cross several corporate boundaries make for tempting targets. In addition, those working from home do so on devices that may not be sufficiently updated to account for software vulnerabilities.

The convenience of quick delivery was impossible to refuse. Being able

that controls access based on risk.

In the cloud-first universe, Zero Trust can reduce threat levels while enhancing compliance. The resultant view for threat assessors is one of user behaviours and device usage mixed with data flows and business processes.

This is instrumental in providing a comprehensive real-time picture of emerging threats, which allows rapid action and prevention.

To implement Zero Trust well, IT stakeholders must establish a roster of users and their access levels to data and services. Privileges should follow a strict recipe of trust combined with corporate need. Sensitive material, for example, should be made accessible only to a confirmed identity who needs it for their work.

to go — almost overnight — from a cumbersome, on-premises business with little or no capacity for remote work, to an agile, work-from-anywhere enterprise with scalable infrastructure and predictable costs was something no business could pass up on when faced with the realities of lockdowns and social distancing.

Perimeters become irrelevant But every element — device, platform, service, domain — added to the corporate network during the transition brought risk to the business. The attack surface ballooned, and personal data and intellectual property found themselves in new jeopardy. Indeed, to the cybercriminal the coronavirus was the gift that kept on giving. They cynically leveraged the pandemic in phishing campaigns, posing as health providers or global medical-research centres to lure a fearful public to fake websites or other unsafe resources.

Other campaigns simply exploited known vulnerabilities in widely used applications to gain access to networks.

Such campaigns end with an attack that has already breached the perimeter.

If preventative measures such as firewalls, VPNs, and security information and event management (SIEM) are all that exist to protect sensitive data, they will fail in these new hybrid environments.

Simplicity in hybrid networks is reserved for the end user. Complexity is the architectural reality; and that complexity can lead to problems in a miasma of cloud services and applications. IT may try to rein in users and their devices by patching together a tapestry of solutions, but multi-vendor suites only add more headaches. And they can make life difficult for threat responders when it comes to chasing down an alert. To many false positives make effective mitigation and response problematic at best.

Who do you trust?

As a remedy, we should adopt a model that carries a default distrust of users, devices and applications, and centres

ZERO TRUST CREATES A STRONG FOUNDATION FOR HOLISTIC SECURITY, WHICH EMPOWERS IT WITH CONTROL OVER — AND CONFIDENCE IN — THEIR ENVIRONMENT. THE SYSTEM MEANS BAD ACTORS WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO PROVIDE VERIFIED CREDENTIALS AND WILL BE DENIED ACCESS TO SENSITIVE DATA IN THE CLOUD. on identity management to keep unwanted parties at bay. In this zero trust model, IT teams are back in the driver’s seat, with control over the entire network and every component and process within it.

The health of a device, the user’s location when accessing the network, and a host of other factors will come together to give a trust assessment

Bad actors beware Under Zero Trust practices, identity confirmation should include multifactor authentication (MFA). Rapid detection of anomalies requires constant monitoring of data transfer and user behaviour. MFA should apply to any major transfer or content access, even if a user is already running an authenticated network session.

Distrust by default may seem distasteful, especially if corporate culture encourages person-toperson trust among team members.

Culture changes may require a strong messaging campaign that stresses that digital Zero Trust in no way impugns the character of employees. On the contrary, it is designed to protect them and the company from nefarious outsiders whose motivations are far from charitable.

Zero Trust creates a strong foundation for holistic security, which empowers IT with control over — and confidence in — their environment. The system means bad actors will never be able to provide verified credentials and will be denied access to sensitive data in the cloud. And finally, the cloud can live up to its reputation as a best-of-allworlds breeding ground for agility and innovation.

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COVER STORY

THE DYNAMIC DUO MICRO FOCUS IS RIDING THE CREST OF A GROWTH WAVE WITH A RANGE OF INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS THAT ADDRESS THE BUSINESS CHALLENGES OF ITS CUSTOMERS. WE SAT DOWN WITH THE COMPANY’S NEW REGIONAL LEADERSHIP TEAM – ANAS JWAIED, VP AND GM OF EMERGING MARKETS AND TOUFIC DERBASS, MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA – TO TALK ABOUT HOW THE SOFTWARE GIANT IS DELIVERING ON THE PROMISE OF SMART DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.

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icro Focus is a relatively new brand in the region. Have you been able to increase brand awareness?

Toufic: It is a valid question, especially here in the Middle East. When HPE merged its software business with Micro Focus, we were relatively a new name in this region. However, we have managed to retain 90 percent of our workforce. This strong employee retention has ensured continuity in the relationship with our customers and partners, leading to strong brand awareness.

Anas: I think the brand is stronger than ever. We’d spent a lot of time and investment on the launch event in late 2017, which put us big time on the map. We have been extremely active on social media, and our partners have played a key role in creating awareness in their markets. Also, our loyal customers have been active advocates for us, which helped in strengthening the brand.

2020 was a remarkably difficult year for businesses. What’s been the impact of the pandemic on your business?

Toufic: Even during the pandemic, we were able to thrive because our customers needed to streamline their business operations and go live with applications.

We were able to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives with our deep portfolio of solutions and services. With

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Anas Jwaied

the smooth roll-out of vaccines, we are confident that the global economy will rebound this year.

Anas: In terms of numbers, we have seen positive growth last year. Though the pandemic adversely impacted multiple industries such as aviation, travel and tourism, retail, and real estate, many organisations in public and private sectors continued to invest in modernising IT and digital technologies to adapt to the situation. We have seen a massive shift to the cloud and new consumption models. Secure access and identity management became more important than ever with the move to remote work, and all these trends augured well for our business.

Are you seeing a significant shift in the tech investment priorities

Toufic Derbass

of your customers in the wake of Covid-19?

Anas: We see that market is moving more and more into digital. There is a lot of focus on AI and automation in both business and IT to enable innovation.

In parallel, companies are looking to make IT more resilient to disruptions with business continuity plans. Many of our customers are investing in smart analytics to gain insights into evolving customer expectations and outrun the competition. Simultaneously, cloud-based solutions are finding more acceptance because employees need access to data from any location. If you take Micro Focus as an example, we have been transforming the way we work – remote work has upped the productivity of our employees, and we are going to continue to have this hybrid working model.

Toufic: There is a big focus on industryspecific discussions. If you want to be relevant to your customers, you have to speak about their use cases. With the breadth of our portfolio, which includes ML and analytics, we are well-positioned to have these industryspecific discussions. You can no longer get away with selling solutions that do not address the core business needs.

Micro Focus has built its portfolio around four key pillars. Is there any particular product category that is growing faster?

Toufic: It depends on seasonality.

Last year, during the lockdown, when companies shifted to work from home arrangements, IT had to scale and provide remote access to applications.

As a result, we saw a big surge in demand for security and testing solutions. However, we are seeing sustainable growth across all of our four pillars. Now, with IDOL and Vertica in our portfolio, we are able to embed ML into all our products, allowing us to tailor our offerings to various industries.

Anas: Indeed, we have seen a doubledigit growth in the cyber risk business, especially around application security and IAM as a result of the shift to remote work. Also, we registered good growth in application delivery management and hybrid IT management solutions, which include DevOps and service management automation.

In the Middle East and Africa, which are the fastest-growing markets for your business?

Toufic: We see a lot of momentum in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt.

Saudi is building a robust digital infrastructure and creating smart cities such as NEOM. Qatar is getting ready for the world cup next year, and in Egypt, there is a big drive from the government to modernise the country.

And, of course, the UAE has always been a growth market for us, and we have a huge loyal installed base here, which allows us to grow organically.

Recently, you have announced a partnership with AWS. Can you give us a regional perspective of this alliance?

Toufic: This strategic agreement is to transition mainframe workloads onto AWS and it underscores our position as a leading modernisation technology vendor. The modernisation of mainframe applications is imperative for digital transformation in large enterprises.

You’d be surprised to know there are many enterprises that still run monolithic mainframe workloads in our region as well. This partnership will help them to accelerate their transition to agile services in an evolutionary approach.

Anas: The mainframe is still around, especially in public sector and financial services industry. From a regional perspective, we have been talking to customers who are using mainframe and our Cobol-based applications, and they have shown keen interest in taking this to the cloud. We are still in the early stages of this partnership, with many pilot projects underway. We will probably see this partnership take off in a major way by the second half of this year.

Micro Focus is promising to deliver ‘high tech and low drama’.

What does that mean?

Anas: CIOs are looking to accelerate application delivery and at the same time, simplify IT transformation and strengthen cyber resiliency. We have been delivering mission-critical software that delivers the results necessary to succeed in the digital economy. We act as a bridge between legacy and new and emerging technologies, which helps enterprises to run and transform. By combining pragmatism and customer-centric innovation, we have helped thousands of organisations of all sizes to evolve, manage and modernise their enterprise application infrastructure. By low drama, what we mean is that you don’t have to rip and replace anything; you don’t have to take away your existing systems and applications. We will help you use what you have by modernising and transforming it.

WE HAVE MORE THAN 300 TRUSTED, PROVEN PRODUCT LINES AND RELEASED 500 PLUS PRODUCTS IN THE LAST TWELVE MONTHS ALONE. OUR MENTALITY IS TO MAKE SURE WE CONTINUE TO SUPPORT, AND ADD NEW VALUE TO THE DEPLOYMENTS WE’VE ALREADY MADE. THAT MAKES US VERY UNIQUE. Covid-19 accelerated the pace of digital transformation last year.

Do you expect that to continue this year as well?

Toufic: Definitely. Now they have the benefit of hindsight, and from the discussions with some of our customers, I gather that they have been able to secure more budgets for digital transformation.

The executive management has realised that business survival depends on agility, which requires investment in technology or they might just fade away. In other words, digitisation has become a business imperative.

What sets you apart from the competition?

Anas: We have the size, scale, and expertise to solve the industry’s most challenging problems. Micro Focus is one of the top ten pure-play enterprise software companies globally, and we have been in business for more than 40 years with 40,000 customers around the world. We have more than 300 trusted, proven product lines and released 500 plus products in the last twelve months alone. Our mentality is to make sure we continue to support, and add new value to the deployments we’ve already made. That makes us very unique.

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VIEWPOINT

BUILDING A DIGITAL DNA JOE BAGULEY, VP & CTO VMWARE EMEA, ON HOW TO FULFILL CONSUMER CRAVINGS FOR ELEVATED ‘DIGITAL EXPERIENCE’

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he business-consumer relationship has been challenged by a world gone digital. As organisations work to discover their digital identity, growing consumer expectations are placing online experiences under a microscope.

Evidence shows that many people are digitally curious, with 42% of consumers globally who think the increased presence of digital experiences in their daily lives is exciting rather than scary. Data also shows 46% of people are using a specific brand service because of its superior digital offerings in the market.

This is great news for organisations out there who are currently rethinking, adapting, or creating their next digital strategy move.

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However, despite this digital appetite, consumers have been left feeling underwhelmed in the online services they’ve been served up; a judgement business cannot afford to ignore.

As digital connectivity continues to improve the quality of leisure, work and daily living, today’s consumer is increasingly reliant on the functionality of their tech, and the possibilities it provides. And with this comes the opportunity for businesses to increase the diversity of their digital services – but in a way that separates them from the competition.

Over the past 12 months, many organisations have been forced to adapt their business strategies almost overnight to function primarily if not entirely online. Innovation has been palpable. For example, American

Hospital Dubai, a premier private healthcare provider in the UAE, used its advanced digital platform to help transform a hotel into an operational, 390-bed field hospital for COVID-19 patients, including secure access to the main hospital IT services. It also used its digital platform to strengthen remote-working capabilities for the hospital’s administrative employees, which included call center, finance and HR functions; and launch a new telehealth service, months earlier than planned, to ensure patients can still access medical experts and treatments.

The hospital was able to provide muchneeded medical support to patients and, as a result of accelerating its digital projects, is better positioned than ever to provide the best medical care now and in the future.

The good news for both public and private sector organizations is that 64% of consumers now identify as ‘digitally curious’ or as ‘digital explorers’, meaning they have a willing and able audience to consume their services and experiences. In fact, consumers have been moulded into addicts of innovation. For example, purchasing new smartphones on an annual basis based on new ‘features’ or ‘designs’.

From the comfort of their homes, consumers have recognised the benefit of being able to purchase products and services on-demand without the location, supply and time restrictions of the in-person alternative.

Social media furthers this digital effort by hosting online retail directly on their platforms. In October 2020, Instagram launched its new ‘Shop’ feature providing Instagrammers with the ability to browse, create wish lists and make purchases all through an app on a mobile device. In finance, the benefits of online mobile banking through the web and on-device applications remove the limitations of branch visits as customers can transfer money, access statements, address queries via AI chatbots and more.

Apps are becoming the new bank branch, with apps such as Revolut, for easy international transfers and the ability to work with cryptocurrencies, and Honeydue, the app marketed to couples designed to make synchronised money management easier, turning up the heat.

With all this impressive tech on offer, consumers are developing more of an appetite for pioneers; not reactionary followers. Those brands who have not adapted in ‘the big digital shift’ run the risk of losing relevancy in their markets and exposing themselves to possible long-term failure. As seasoned companies and new challenger brands are locked in market competition, 48% of consumers globally are prepared to abandon brand loyalties and switch to a competitor if their digital experience doesn’t live up to expectations – a mere 12% are prepared to remain loyal.

Whilst some organisations have

THOSE BRANDS WHO HAVE NOT ADAPTED IN ‘THE BIG DIGITAL SHIFT’ RUN THE RISK OF LOSING RELEVANCY IN THEIR MARKETS AND EXPOSING THEMSELVES TO POSSIBLE LONGTERM FAILURE. embraced this potential to strengthen their bond with consumers, others have not been as future-forward, even though 82% of business executives recognise that customer experience is directly intertwined with revenue growth, according to Forrester. It is no longer sufficient for organisations to ‘digitise’ through newly hosting existing products and services on online platforms.

Consumer delight is won through the ability to identify market gaps, capitalise on the latest technological capabilities and improve upon existing standards and quality of life that is already on offer. If it is not clear how a product, service and experience is able to add to their existing digital portfolio it is not pushing market boundaries or entertaining consumer curiosities.

The sensitivity of this digital shift is clear; companies must ensure that throughout their digital strategy they consider consumer experience as the key driver for change. This means listening to the wants and needs of consumer trends, working along the tide of consumer behaviour to ensure their business remains attractive, socially relevant, and profitable.

In this unpredictable world, while no business or government can entirely know what’s around the corner, change will be constant. But, the ability to develop and get new applications into the hands of consumers is going to lead that change. They must look to unify consumer experience through the enabler of a digital foundation. A foundation that can deliver applications, via any cloud, to any device, securely, and at speed. A platform that can deliver new emerging technologies, from IoT to AI and ML, to deliver the next experience or next-generation app.

Organisations are now faced with a refreshing reality; it is no longer sufficient to ‘digitise’ but to be ‘be digital’. To truly embrace digital to enhance the physical, and optimise the online. The cry for innovation will be answered with the creation of products, services and experiences that draw upon the attractive features that have made the digital advantage our architect of opportunity; ease of use, speed of service, exciting, engaging, greater resource management, increased agility and productivity to name a few. Consumer cravings satiated with elevated digital experience should be a warning and opportunity for all. Businesses must prepare to reflect and reform to unlock the full potential of ‘the big digital switch’.

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FEATURE

HOW AI IS CHANGING THE WORLD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS MAKING DEEP INROADS INTO ALL INDUSTRIES WITH A PROFOUND IMPACT ON HOW WE DO BUSINESS. WE EXAMINE HOW TO PUT AI TO WORK TO TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS.

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uch has been written about AI’s potential and what it can do or can’t do. Over the years, AI has been steadily extending into all functional areas of business and has become a focal point for many CIOs today.

The biggest promise of AI for IT leaders is that it can optimise business processes and automate tedious tasks. Though it is very transformative, AI is still a poorly understood area of technology as it consists of many concepts, methodologies, and algorithms.

Many new AI-related technologies came out of the oven last year, and it will be exciting to see what 2021 holds for AI, with the global AI market predicted to reach $190 billion by 2025.

“There is an increasing adoption of AI and cognitive solutions across the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region. IDC predicts that spending on AI across META will be more than double by 2024 to reach $979M—South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE being the top three biggest markets,” says Manish Ranjan, Program Manager for Software & Cloud at IDC Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

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He says the increasing adoption of AI is primarily driven by organisation’s need to achieve greater customer experience, infuse process automation, enable stringent cybersecurity, and accelerate business innovation. According to the latest CIO survey by IDC, almost 67% of CIOs across MEA stated that they are planning to significantly increase their spending on AI in the next 12 months.

Government within the region plays a key role by outlining AI strategies such as UAE National AI Strategy 2031 and Smart Dubai Ethical AI toolkit in the UAE, formation of SDAIA – National Strategy for Data and Artificial Intelligence in Saudi Arabia and similar national AI strategies by other countries like Qatar, and Turkey are paramount examples. Both public and private sectors are establishing partnerships within AI and Machine Learning areas and upskilling the local talent.

Mohammed AbuKhater, VP, Middle East, Turkey and Africa at F5, cites a recent report from PwC, which states the Middle East is expected to accrue 2% of the total global benefits of AI in 2030, equivalent to $320 billion. “We’re going to see a growing

willingness across different industries – from oil & gas to financial services, healthcare and government – to adopt AI in various formats. All sectors stand to gain from AI, and we see a growing awareness of the need to adopt it here in the Middle East.”

Raed Hijer, Principal Technologist – AI, ML & DL, Dell Technologies MERAT, says in 2021, human-machine partnerships will become deeper, richer, and more immersive than ever before. “As people adapt to hybrid working models, technologies will continue to evolve. User experiences with devices will improve as a combination of AI, cloud, and enhanced connectivity merge. AI will make intelligent PCs more seamless, personalised, and enjoyable.

Additionally, new apps and services will continue to make collaboration easier and more organic, and the systems we’re using will also start to see upgrades in functionality. We’ll also see more voice and languagedriven intelligence, from customer service centers to digital assistants.”

Ayhem Al Zaem, ICT Regional Sales Manager, Middle East and Africa, Red Hat, comments the number of AI solutions developed for IT purposes will increase, and large-scale adoption

Manish Ranjan

is set to transpire throughout the IT industry. Augmented processes will become increasingly popular with AI optimising software development, voice and language-driven intelligence will become more prominent as enterprises use AI to ensure compliance and conduct routine checks, and AI will help in structuring data and play a more significant role in cloud adoption.

“In truth, AI entails a whole world of possibilities, and other trends likely to come to the forefront over the course of the year include AI-driven operating models, data analytics,

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY

Mohammed AbuKhater

AI democratisation, and more autonomous operations to lower task times, reduce human error, and increase safety,” he says.

What are some of the advanced AI use cases?

AI can transform the way we live and do business, and there are many examples of AI that we are already using to make things better for us.

“In the last year, we have seen the regional healthcare sector undergo significant digital transformation, and this is set to continue this year with a bigger role played by AI,” says Sharif

Ayhem Al Zaem

Mazhar, Director of AI & Analytics, Gulf Business Machines. “We will soon see doctors use AI to offer faster and more accurate prognoses, which would help them treat patients more efficiently.

A doctor can input the symptoms he/ she sees into the model, and AI can scour the knowledge base and come back with all possible prognoses with percentages of accuracy. Based on this, the doctor can treat the patient, leading to a much faster and more accurate prognosis.”

Farid Faraidooni, Chief New Business Innovation Officer, du, agrees that artificial intelligence is moving from

Artificial intelligence is transforming many business fields, and some of the hottest applications are in self-driving cars, e-commerce, the Internet of Things, financial services, and supply chain. A more current and relevant use case to highlight is AI in healthcare applications, which is currently becoming more relevant with the pandemic.

AI in healthcare is enabling new services in four categories – medicines and vaccines R&D; automated and personalised patient care; medical business management; and early diagnosis and detection of diseases.

While AI is used in many aspects of business these days, from chatbots to anomaly detection, some pioneers have put AI to more advanced use cases. This includes using AI for automation in IT and business processes; performing predictive and corrective actions before users are impacted; implementing AI in low-code platforms while masking the deep data science technology underneath; and AI-enabled Internet of Things that aids in smart decision-making.

Bassel AlHalabi, Managing Director of Trident Technology Services

Rajalakshmi Srinivasan, Director, Site24x7

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FEATURE

Sharif Mazhar

Farid Faraidooni

Murali Konasani

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the hype stage to practical usage and value as communities begin to harness its power. “An important use case is precision farming. COVID-19 has made consumers re-think how the food is sourced across the globe and how societies can curb food waste.

Countries and communities are seeing the benefits of having food harvested closer to the table. Here, AI/ML together with IoT could drive up crop yields, reduce costs and wastage while allowing the crop to be harvested in regions where soil might not have the necessary nutrients to support a harvest.”

Ranjan from IDC says the topmost use cases of AI in the region are automated customer service agents, fraud analysis and investigation, IT automation, automated threat intelligence and prevention systems and sales process recommendation and automation. Adoption of digital assistants that process voice commands (i.e., conversational AI), computer vision and facial recognition, and chatbots are on the rise. Preventive and predictive maintenance is another important area where AI is making a substantial difference.

Marwan Zeidan, Real Estate and Healthcare Segment Director, Middle East and Africa, Schneider Electric, says AI has evolved significantly, and we are now really starting to see the effects of what intelligent systems can do. For example, in the data centre, algorithms that have been built for task automation and predictive maintenance are becoming more refined, allowing administrators to focus less on routine tasks and more on future planning.

“As AI algorithms get more refined, their accuracy improves. Already, machines such as intelligent UPSs can alert us when they need a new battery or troubleshooting. Going forward, algorithms will leverage historical data to predict more precisely when something needs maintenance. So, in addition to telling something is about to fail, intelligent systems can

minimise the chances of failure thanks to data-driven predictive maintenance models,” he adds.

Why cloud is important for AI AI feeds off vast volumes of data, which becomes quickly accessible only in cloud environments.

AbuKhater from F5 explains the relation between AI and cloud: “The compute requirements of AI are immense, so organisations must be willing to invest in that level of computational resources to develop the AI processes in their own environment, or they must leverage the benefits of AI via the cloud. The latter approach makes sense for most companies and we see the major cloud providers like Microsoft, Amazon and Google investing heavily in their ability to offer AI services.”

Murali Konasani, CEO of Teksalah, echoes a similar opinion: “In many ways, AI and cloud computing go hand in hand. Building an in-house AI solution is not feasible for most businesses. It is a tediously long and complex process, which involves huge upfront costs and, most importantly, skill. This is where cloud fits well in any organisation’s journey of AI adoption.

Right from AI as a service options such as IBM Watson, Google Vision to AI PaaS offerings on Azure and AWS, there are many flexible, on-demand options available for businesses.”

Hijer from Dell concludes: “One of the benefits of AI is its ability to accelerate data management and analysis, through identifying, consuming and managing numerous data from varying sources. With the cloud’s ability to store applications and large volumes of data in a scalable and easily accessible manner, it emerges as a critical advantage to go along with AI, helping organis ations become more efficient and insight-focused. Enterprises can gain increased competitive advantage by being data-driven, offering improved customer experiences, and optimising their workflows, and the combination of AI and cloud go hand in hand in helping to achieve this.”

Cloud Adoption through Automation Driven Transformation

INTERVIEW

WINNING WITH DATA DR CHRIS COOPER, DIRECTOR AND GENERAL MANAGER, LENOVO DATA CENTRE GROUP MEA, ON HOW TO USE DATA TO TRANSFORM BUSINESSES.

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hat is data centered?

‘The Data Centered’ are the leaders who seek to understand more about the power of their data, and that empower their people to use their data - they are the visionaries and tech optimists who understand the value of data, and see data’s potential to dramatically accelerate their organisations, improve their Industries, and solve humanity’s greatest challenges.

The pandemic has served as a catalyst for digital transformation. Technology has the power to overcome the noise about volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) and help businesses stay connected with their customers, to innovate and to thrive.

Data, supported by cutting-edge technologies such as AI, 5G, edge computing, IoT and blockchain, can be the source of innovation, and although we are generating seemingly endless amounts of it, if people know how to harness it, learn from it and then springboard from it, their organisations can stay ahead of the curve.

How can CIOs measure the success of their digital transformation efforts?

Every organisation will have different metrics and measurements for the success of their transformation projects.

What Lenovo believes is that for digital transformation to become an ongoing process of successful outcomes, organisations need to understand data, and empower humans to use that data.

In the new economy all businesses are data businesses, and every employee works in a data ecosystem. A data strategy, focusing on skills, literacy and

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analysis therefore, needs to be put at the heart of an organisation.

Data needs to be democratised. We need to broaden the access to data beyond conventional IT and data science roles. The most important responsibility business and IT leaders hold is to ensure that all of their users are part of the journey and no-one is left behind.

There are few roles within any organisation that wouldn’t benefit from data skills. Supporting data literacy and encouraging ongoing development are essential requirements in any modern workplace.

Data and technology are the engines of digital transformation, but people will always remain the drivers. It’s critical to bring the people along with the technology.

Why do businesses need to put people at the centre of their technology decisions?

Data on its own is powerless. Data doesn’t transform the world, people do.

It takes smarter, more ambitious, more driven humans to bring it to life, apply it, derive its meaning and give it purpose.

It’s not the data that makes the decisions, but the people interpreting it and presenting it in order to suggest a way forward. Technology is not about dehumanising the workplace or displacing the softer or more strategic human abilities; data, and artificial intelligence, should augment our unique human qualities to guide business decision-making and result in better outcomes.

The role of humans in a data ecosystem is to understand the problems the machines are able to solve and design the systems to meet their intended outcomes. The user’s role, therefore, shifts from the ‘doer’ to the problem-solver, using their analytical and reasoning skills to improve the quality of their output.

How do you support the new normal and remote work arrangements of your clients?

One year after the global remote work

revolution, the shift to work from home (WFH) and work from anywhere (WFA) is already resulting in profound effects on businesses’ digital transformation as well as data security concerns. zz z According to Lenovo’s new Future of Work and Digital Transformation study, which surveyed 8,000 employees and IT decision-makers (ITDMs) across 14 markets, a vast majority of businesses (83 percent) expect to work remote at least half the time. Most employees (83 percent) want a hybrid work model post-COVID, which businesses say are more than happy to accommodate because they know it’s a way to drive employee engagement and attract new talent.

To enable remote work, we have seen an increased usage of personal devices for work; wider adoption of collaboration cloud and software; and a heightened focus on data security among IT functions across businesses of all sizes. The main challenges presented by remote work is slow or unstable internet connections and lack of IT support, especially for smaller businesses.

Lenovo suggests that businesses may want to consider always-connected PCs with integrated LTE or 5G as a way to offer employees freedom from reliance on the home Wi-Fi network and to provide higher security. Smarter devices, services and software solutions that can self-diagnose and pre-empt IT issues can also help small businesses that don’t typically have a robust IT support team.

Businesses of all sizes will need to grapple with how best to keep themselves secured with the integration of partner security services and commit to a more agile business-centric approach to security that also focuses on the cloud and data.

What is your best practices frameworks for managing data assets?

Digital transformation is impacting all areas of IT and business, having profound effects. One key recurring

theme is the increasing need to gain insights from exponentially growing volumes of data. This data can be structured or unstructured and come from sources as diverse as traditional IT systems, social media or sensors embedded in a smart infrastructure.

Whatever the source, businesses are increasingly reliant on mining its content, often in near real time. It is for this reason that data is often being compared to oil as a core natural resource fueling our lives and businesses.

Today companies are leveraging data to improve customer experience, open new markets, make employees and processes more productive or create new methods of business. All of this to build competitive advantage. This is a very different environment from that which set our expectations of data in traditional IT. With the growing adoption of cloud computing, business enterprises and other organisations face a wide variety of choices in defining and deploying the necessary IT infrastructure. This includes on-premises dedicated installations, on-premises private cloud, public and hosted clouds and a combination thereof. Application software aimed at doing specific business tasks can now be deployed across such a hybrid landscape.

However, making the necessary data available requires careful considerations along a number of dimensions. The as-a-service deployment model for data flow is taking hold and brings a need for proper governance and security along with it. Traditional data centers are expanding to include edge infrastructures, whether they are in branch offices, remote locations or on mobile assets owned by an organisation.

The ultimate success in creating a data-centric architecture that enables an organisation to become data-driven is based on an ongoing convergence between the disciplines of highperformance computing (HPC), AI and Big Data.

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FEATURE

THE DIGITAL FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE, HELPING PROVIDERS TO DELIVER MORE PERSONALISED AND EFFICIENT PATIENT CARE.

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or years, the healthcare industry has been a laggard when it comes to the adoption of digital technologies. However, the pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation in healthcare, leading to greater efficiency and responsiveness. The move to digital care delivery has bridged the gap between patients and doctors,

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resulting in reduced costs and improved operational efficiency.

According to research by Aruba, a HPE company, as of last year the healthcare sector was among the furthest ahead in terms of its adoption of advanced technologies and the sense of urgency it felt around this.

Around three-quarters of healthcare IT leaders had started to implement trials or applications in areas such

as artificial intelligence (AI) (74%), Internet of Things (IoT) (76%) and machine learning (71%).

“While there are several drivers for digital transformation in healthcare, the most important one is access to reliable, quality data – which is essential for improving outcomes, quality of care and services to patients,” says Jad Bitar, Managing Director & Partner, Boston Consulting

Group. “Moreover, increasing costs, a global shortage of expert caregivers, and the ability to provide further highquality services with a limited budget are additional drivers accelerating digital transformation in healthcare.

It’s also important to note that the COVID-19 crisis has sped up this adoption. Although patients and caregivers have been restricted in terms of movement, they have still received care and carried out their responsibilities, respectively, due to sustained transformation progress.”

Kassem Darwish, Solutions Architect, CME, says, however, the transformation was a widespread aspiration even before recent events transpired due to several factors that have remained relevant throughout the crisis. Firstly, rising consumer expectations are a key driver. With the power of digital becoming more and more apparent, demands are increasing for services that are seamless and offer greater convenience and transparency.

“Secondly, there are intense cost and competitive pressures.

Healthcare providers and payers are required to lower expenditures, including preventing foreseeable illness and streamline their operations to reduce inefficiencies and waste while providing customised services that align with the highest standards.

Finally, profound regulatory changes and compliance challenges are also taking place across the industry.

Collectively, these areas must be addressed, and digital capabilities can ensure success is met in each of these areas,” he adds.

Many digital technologies are shaping the future of healthcare, enabling better patient outcomes.

These include AI, ML, blockchain, mobile apps, wearables, and many other advancements.

“IoT is already making a significant impact, enabling healthcare professionals to make assessments through smart devices, identify the best treatment courses, proactively

MANY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES ARE SHAPING THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE, ENABLING BETTER PATIENT OUTCOMES. THESE INCLUDE AI, ML, BLOCKCHAIN, MOBILE APPS, WEARABLES, AND MANY OTHER ADVANCEMENTS. connect with customers, and prevent several types of illness and diseases.

Then there’s machine learning, which is streamlining administrative and operational processes in healthcare providers and payers, personalising medical treatments as well as insurance plans. There are many use cases concerning these technologies, and we will see more and more emerge over the coming years,” says Darwish from CME. Bitar says data-driven healthcare will lead to a significant care model transformation. “This includes the rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence-based self-care, with such applications able to provide accurate diagnostics and recommend short-term treatment courses for select cases by analysing patient data. The emergence of self-care will be one of the most significant disruptors of the industry. Beyond data and AI, telehealth will also have a huge impact, allowing experts to provide services to patients anywhere, anytime,” he says.

Changes in how medical care is provided in the wake of Covid-19 has

Jad Bitar

Kassem Darwish

made the healthcare industry a prime target for cybercriminals. In 2020, the sector bore the brunt of ransomware, malware, and phishing attacks, and many healthcare providers in the region are woefully unprepared to deal with these cybersecurity challenges.

Giuseppe Brizio, CISO EMEA, Qualys, says the healthcare industry is being targeted, now more than ever, by bad actors as the covid pandemic has made it increasingly vulnerable. Ransomware in the healthcare industry has grown more than 45% over the past 12 months, causing major disruption in healthcare

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FEATURE

Giuseppe Brizio

Chris Morales

Israel Barak

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RANSOMWARE IN THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY HAS GROWN MORE THAN 45% OVER THE PAST 12 MONTHS, CAUSING MAJOR DISRUPTION IN HEALTHCARE SERVICES AND COMPROMISING UTILISATION OF MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND INTENSIVE CARE INFRASTRUCTURES.

services and compromising utilisation of medical equipment and intensive care infrastructures.

“Data breaches on personal health and medical records have also grown with the increased adoption of telemedicine. Most cyberattacks start by targeting an individual as the human factor is the weak spot. Therefore, regular security awareness training should take place to educate users on how to recognise cyberattacks, including phishing and social engineering simulation campaigns,” he says.

Chris Morales, head of security analytics, Vectra, says the real threat is already in healthcare networks in the form of privileged access misuse, and the growth is healthcare IoT devices is overwhelming and dangerous. “By default, a lot of people have access to patient medical records. This makes it very easy, and perhaps a bit enticing, for some to take advantage of the situation.

Internal actors are largely responsible for healthcare data loss. I’m talking

about employees who access patient data out of curiosity or commit identity fraud. Apparently, it is the only industry where this occurs at such an alarming rate. While everyone else worries about cyberattacks from someone they’ve never met, security professionals in healthcare worry most about the people they talk to in the break room.”

How can the healthcare industry fight cybercrime and improve its security posture?

“There are a number of security best practices that should be implemented or maintained to protect patient data.

As a first step, all employees should undergo security awareness training.

This will enable them to better identify and manage phishing emails that often act as cybercriminals’ initial point of entry. Secondly, it is critical that these organisations have visibility into their network and invest in threat detection solutions to minimise the time it takes to respond to a threat. Next, security resilience should be made a priority.

That is, legacy systems should be updated where possible, and software patches swiftly applied. Tabletop exercises should be regularly held as well to prepare for the worst. If in doubt, organisations should partner with experts in security for advice and support, should an issue arise,” says Israel Barak, CISO, Cybereason.

Bitar from BCG sums up: “A critical aspect of security and safety in healthcare will be the protection of patient data. Although many such standards already exist, the most essential mechanism – in my opinion – will be to enable patients to own and govern their own data, with access to data requiring their consent and knowledge. To complement this, awareness campaigns will be required to ensure caregivers understand the importance of the issue, while policies will also have to be adopted so all healthcare players follow suit. Finally, regulators will play an important role in putting together the legal framework to enable this.”

VIEWPOINT

HOW TO THRIVE IN TODAY’S DIGITAL ERA LORENZO LUMASSI, VICE PRESIDENT, SERVICES SALES, MERAT, WESTERN AND CNE REGIONS, DELL TECHNOLOGIES, SAYS, ENTERPRISES ARE INCREASINGLY RELYING ON IT SERVICES TO BRING AGILITY TO ALL PARTS OF THE ORGANISATION.

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f we look back to just a few years ago, much of the digitalisation conversation was about discovery; learning what transformation is and why it’s important. For many businesses it was about overcoming the hesitancy of embarking on a digital transformation journey. Nowadays, the conversation has shifted and is less about the need to transform. Businesses and customers have kick-started their technology modernisation plans and have been learning and navigating through them real time.

If there’s anything that businesses recognised in the past year, it was the importance of technology in ensuring stability and long-term operational success. Having already started their journey, the time has come from businesses “needing to transform” to “needing to accelerate.” The ability to remain competitive and ensure their organisation is agile enough to respond to changes is especially concerning for board members and CEOs. For IT, the directive has changed from “do more with less” to “do more with less…faster” as time expectations of the business are compressing exponentially.

As organisations look to integrate and build strong technology-based foundations, we’re seeing investments being made with a view to drive business agility, manage a connected and remote workforce efficiently, derive valuable insights from data and offer enhanced customer experiences. But transformation initiatives have been often stalled because IT teams are consumed with the demands and intricacies of ongoing operations.

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What IT requires is greater flexibility to meet variable demands from the business, and the expertise to successfully manage transformational initiatives and keep pace with advancing technologies. Without well run IT operations, the likelihood of a transformation initiative failing to meet expectations increases. IT leaders need to focus their talent on transformation, but performance, reliability and security of operational systems cannot be compromised in the process. To better respond to the needs of business, organisations are turning to IT services to bring agility to all parts of their organisation.

Leveraging services helps keep an organisation’s technology environment operating at peak performance in the face of fast paced change, increased consumer demands and what can feel like overwhelming IT complexity. With IT-as-a-Service (ITaas), organisations are realising the benefits from

having the hardware, software, and support according to their needs, in a subscription-based or consumption model. As cloud based-based capabilities are broadening, numerous solutions are available to everyday burdens. Almost any IT function can be supported by IT services experts, to help accelerate time-to-value on new technology investments and maximise productivity for IT and end users.

These delivery models are also an opportunity to reposition IT as a function that can drive business value. First and foremost, they free up IT departments from the day-to-day operations, allowing for more resources to focus on the core business and value-added projects, becoming a catalyst for innovation. Aside from increasing efficiency and being cost-effective, they can also facilitate the flexibility to scale as needed, whether through infrastructure, applications or skill sets if the leverage residency, managed or education related services.

But, IT services don’t only touch infrastructure and software.

Transformation is moving beyond the foundation of a modern infrastructure as it involves people, process and workflow changes. Businesses are turning to consulting services to access expertise, help reassess their environments, and build transformation plans that achieve measurable outcomes aligned to corporate vision and strategy. These services also involve upskilling teams by identifying knowledge and skills gaps and defining a strategy to keep them up to date and leverage their full potential.

The days of having a single role such as storage or server admin are fading fast. Coming to the forefront are new roles spanning multiple technologies like networking, server, storage, cloud and virtualisation, with a security-first mindset.

It’s clear that innovation leaders need IT services to drive transformative outcomes. The organisations that prioritise digital transformation and recognise it as fuel to the success of their business are turning to services to eliminate barriers, reduce costs, drive innovation and accelerate their transformation journey.

VIEWPOINT

A SMART WORKING FUTURE RICHARD VAN WAGENINGEN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT IMEAR, ORANGE BUSINESS SERVICES, SAYS HEALTH AND SAFETY WILL BE A CORPORATE PRIORITY IN 2021

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he pandemic has given us all a heightened awareness of the safety of our environment and the importance of our personal space. Promoting employee and customer confidence in the workplace will be paramount this year as we ease back into the new different, and technology will have a big role to play.

The workplace faces further changes in 2021. While remote working will continue, the office has not been entirely abandoned. In fact, it is likely that offices will start to open as vaccination programs roll out. Many employees, however, will be worried about returning to shared spaces they haven’t worked in for months.

Every enterprise will be responsible for balancing employee safety, both mental and physical, with the possibility of variant virus outbreaks and business demands.

This is not an easy call.

Staying safe Analyst firm Forrester has developed pandemic management protocols on how to bring employees back into the office. This includes employees coming back in stages, scheduling work shifts, creating a hybrid working policy and retaining social distancing.

The office will look very different from twelve months ago. IT teams will need to plan for an upswing in technical support as users return to their desks. Physical workspaces will have been reconfigured, hygiene processes put in place and the number of people limited for in-person meetings. Digital and physical workspaces will need to be designed for adaptability and resilience.

To meet health and safety demands, Forrester expects offices to introduce a number of measures including

contact tracing, employee temperature measurements, safe zones in lifts and remote controlled robots with ultraviolet lights to sanitize surfaces.

UV light is recognised as a reliable, antimicrobial technology.

There is a large amount of help available to help enterprises get over the complex challenge of opening up their offices for business again. Organisations such as the non-for-profit International Social Security Association (ISSA) and its Vision Zero campaign, designed to “promote a world without work-related accidents and illnesses”, have been advising on how to address virus risks in the workspace. ISSA has a news monitoring app so members can monitor COVID-related social security news from around the world.

Redesigning the workspace The times of densification of the office space to save money are over, according to Forrester. In fact the trend is reversing due to the pandemic. Although overall office space will decline due to flexible working, the office space per employee is very likely to increase. Instead employers will provide modern open spaces designed for employees to collaborate, engage and innovate outside traditional rigid cubicle environments. A “Starbucksification” of the office space if you like.

These trends are accelerating innovative technological developments for the workspace and the adoption of devices and services. Mobile apps for scheduling meetings and contactless lift and light switches, for example, reduce the number of surfaces employees need to touch. The Orange Smart Office app enables employees to access a range of common office services like hot desks, room bookings and other resources

such as telepresence and identification services. Other functions include personal identification.

The use of IoT and sensors to create “smart” office spaces is enabling employers to keep their employees safe and productive. Remote monitoring and real-time analytics, for example, can track what spaces are being used, where. This can help with reducing office density and monitoring social distancing policies.

Employees will soon realise the benefits of their new found spaces.

Gartner predicts that by 2022, 60% of hybrid workers will prioritise a wellnessequipped smart office over a remote working environment. But to achieve this, enterprises need to start deploying advanced technologies now to create 24/7 wellness monitored safe office spaces, the analyst firm advises.

Technologies required include workspace management solutions, resource scheduling apps and artificial intelligence and IoT together with motion sensors and beacons for social distancing. Keeping ahead of virus outbreaks will require contract tracing, thermal imaging to test temperatures and wellness coaches, amongst other support networks for employees.

The pandemic has opened up opportunities for different ways of working.

Not everyone, however, finds working from home easy or has the space for a home office. Technology will enable employees to confidently and safely return to the office environment.

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INTERVIEW

THE CHANGING FACE OF BANKING ABU DHABI ISLAMIC BANK HAS RECENTLY DEPLOYED A HYBRID CLOUD SOLUTION FROM IBM TO ACCELERATE ITS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY. MAMOUN T. ALHOMSSEY, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER AT ADIB, TALKS ABOUT PLANS TO PROVIDE IMPROVED DIGITAL BANKING EXPERIENCES TO ITS CUSTOMERS.

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ow important is hybrid cloud to your corporate objectives?

ADIB seeks to be a pioneer in the adoption of a hybrid multi-cloud architecture which is focused less on physical connectivity and more on supporting the versatility of workloads to suit various business needs. Our objectives around this are enhancing cost optimisation, advancing our digital transformation, and reducing our exposure to private clouds.

The hybrid cloud environment brings cost optimisation through a scalable infrastructure and operational efficiency through automated testing and deployment capabilities. The scalability and speed to market that a public cloud brings, coupled with ADIB’s existing private cloud resources, makes the combination - a hybrid cloud architecture - essential for ADIB to fulfil its strategic objective of driving digital transformation at pace.

With intense competition amongst banks, an ever-escalating number of transactions, and the speed of innovation today, rapidly delivered advantages are key to the business and through a hybrid cloud we have an ideal architecture to deliver them.

Can you provide details or a use case about how IBM hybrid cloud solutions have helped to automate ADIB’s improved customer service?

IBM’s hybrid cloud solutions have 30

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AS PART OF ADIB’S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION STRATEGY, WE ARE CONSTANTLY ADDING NEW APPLICATIONS SUCH AS ADIB CHATBOT, WHEREBY WE LEVERAGED A SAAS-BASED CONVERSATIONAL AI PLATFORM HOSTED IN A PUBLIC CLOUD, WHILE ALSO USING IN-HOUSE RESOURCES, SUCH AS THE IBM API CONNECT, ESB MIDDLEWARE AND BACKEND SYSTEMS. empowered ADIB through platforms that deliver standardisation, agility and innovation in both IT and business processes. Enterprise financial cloud expectations are very different from consumer cloud needs and hence, at ADIB, we must connect critical assets from on-premise systems to private

cloud and public cloud platforms. IBM’s hybrid cloud technology provides the bridge which allows all three.

For instance, IBM’s RedHat OpenShift Container supports our cloud journey at ADIB providing unique technologies that cover monitoring and security, robust isolation options, data protection and performance needs. With OpenShift, our developers have a fast and secure way to containerise and deploy enterprise workloads in Kubernetes clusters. OpenShift clusters build on Kubernetes to offer consistency and flexibility for the development lifecycle in our operations.

The flexibility to respond to sudden changes is key to ADIB, and the development of our digital channels has helped ADIB to react to evolving customer behaviors to ensure we’re always providing an exceptional banking experience.

What new services have you been able to bring to market as a result of implementing IBM’s hybrid cloud solution for ADIB? IBM provides ADIB with adaptable solutions, allowing us to migrate from private data centers to public clouds. As part of ADIB’s digital transformation strategy, we are constantly adding new applications such as ADIB Chatbot, whereby we leveraged a SaaS-based conversational AI platform hosted in a public cloud, while also using

tools while also developing new, cloudnative applications that deliver faster deployment in any cloud environment.

in-house resources, such as the IBM API Connect, ESB middleware and backend systems.

Through this hybrid cloud approach, we have been able to deploy the ADIB Chat Banking service as well as an ADIB Care chatbot for our employees. Looking ahead, we will be using the same approach to deploy a chat banking solution for our Gen-Y customers. In addition, we have used similar technology to modernise legacy applications, such as our cutting-edge mobile banking solution and retail internet banking experience.

Specifically, we are building and transforming applications to use microservices architecture, which breaks applications into smaller, loosely coupled, reusable components focused on specific business functions. These applications are deployed in containers lightweight executable units using IBM’s RedHat OpenShift platform and Ansible.

Through this innovative architecture ADIB has managed to modernise digital

channels at scale while also automating internal processes.

What specific workloads are being supported or benefiting from IBM hybrid cloud solutions?

Our OpenShift workloads can scale across data centers delivering native cloud-ready solutions. At the same time, we can uniformly monitor, log, and secure our apps. Because the OCP Platform helps us to manage these services, we can place a greater emphasis focusing on innovation and data with IBM Middleware, such as readiness for AI and analytics.

We also have access to RedHat’s packaged open-source tools, runtimes, frameworks, databases, and more, which all helps us with innovation.

This has supported the bank with its digitalisation journey, and particularly with mobile banking, ADIB Chatbot and internet banking solutions for customers. Our investment has undoubtedly paid off as it represents an ideal solution for both cloud-native organisations and large enterprises with complex legacy applications that require modernisation.

How has ADIB adapted to hybrid cloud in terms of development of new services?

Our Cloud Platform approach is based on IaaS VMs and IBM’s RedHat OpenShift and combines the power and flexibility of both technologies. We also use other tools that can accelerate our cloud journey, such as IBM Cloud Paks which offer enterprise-grade, full-stack cloud solutions to reduce development times and operational expenses.

Using OpenShift sits in the heart of our modernisation strategy as it provides a faster and more reliable way to build, move and manage all aspects of our cloud journey. In addition, IBM Cloud Paks provide a complete and consistent experience to speed up the development of applications built for Kubernetes. We will therefore continue to focus on enhancing our existing applications with IBM’s integrated

Besides cost flexibility and scalability, what are the other key benefits you have achieved with this implementation?

We are realising significant benefits from the implementation of these technologies including shorter product development cycles, more agile innovation, and faster response to market changes, such as COVID-19.

It has also supported better integration with FinTech partners and third-parties to deliver a fresh customer experience.

Examples of this include our Chatbots, as well as the modernisation of our mobile app and internet banking platform.

We have also benefited from cost savings by retiring our legacy infrastructure as we migrate workloads to a hybrid cloud model. All in all, it has improved operations within the bank as well as enhancing the quality of service we can deliver to our customers.

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EVENT

RETHINKING CYBERSECURITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE THE CYBER STRATEGISTS 2021 SUMMIT ORGANISED

BY CXO INSIGHT ME BROUGHT TOGETHER INDUSTRY PRACTITIONERS AND SECURITY EXPERTS IN THE REGION TO EXPLORE NEW WAYS TO BUILD CYBER RESILIENCE AND DISCUSS INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS.

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he event was kicked off by Shahab Siddiqui, global head of cybersecurity at Petrofac, with an insightful presentation about the impact of digital transformation on cybersecurity.

“The perimeter is disappearing fast as a result of the accelerated adoption of the cloud and virtualisation technologies.

This poses a unique challenge to cybersecurity teams because the attack surface has increased. Due to remote work, many organisations had to open up their legacy systems and applications, which were not designed with security in mind. They also fast-tracked digital transformation initiatives without considering cybersecurity. Your users, data, and systems are everywhere now, compounding visibility problems,” he said.

He pointed out cybersecurity teams are not involved in the initial phase of digital transformation. Businesses must set up a formal steering committee for DX and make sure that the cybersecurity team is involved right from the beginning. “And we can’t talk about digital transformation without discussing cloud security. Many people assume that cloud vendor is responsible for security. It is a fallacy – cloud security has to be shared responsibly. You can’t afford to think that if it is a SaaS product, security is a given. Configuration issues can happen anywhere, even in the cloud.

You can leverage technologies such as DLP, CASB, and DRM to protect your enterprise,” he added.

Jude Pereira, managing director of Nanjgel Solutions, addressed the cybersecurity challenges of remote work in his presentation titled digital workspace in a 32

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covid continuum. “Responding to covid-19 has essentially forced organisations to accelerate the evolution of the work environment by five to ten years. Fiftyseven percent of the business plan to work remotely, even after normalcy returns.

However, the hasty implementation of remote work has resulted in a significant rise in cyberattacks worldwide. The biggest challenge facing CISOs is the need for cyber transformation to facilitate remote work with limited budgets. Organisations need a digital workspace solution that provides virtual apps and desktops, zero trust-based access, data protection for BYOD, and strong authentication,” he said.

A presentation from Bhawani Singh, principal solutions architect at Checkmarx, followed this on increasing software vulnerabilities and how to manage risks with DevSecOps. “The increased speed and app complexity are resulting in security gaps. Besides, the developer community is getting bigger by the day, and 70 percent of developers are not trained to write secure code. By taking the DevSecOps approach, you can be confident that your apps are as secure as possible.

You have to make security part of the

development workflow by integrating as much as possible into the developer environment,” he said.

The event also featured a panel discussion with industry experts on the need to rethink cybersecurity for the digital world. Taking part in the discussion, Nicolai Solling, CTO of Help AG, said many organisations have now realised security is a day zero problem for digital transformation. “More and more enterprises are depending on digital systems to do business, and security has to be on the first page of the lexicon around DX,” he said.

Giving the audience an end-user’s perspective, Prince Rana, manager of information security and governance at Al Fardan Group, said digital transformation is no longer a choice but a business mandate. “Last year, we have seen cyber criminals exploiting all the pandemic-related digital transformation initiatives. However, governments in the region have come out with strong regulations, especially around consumer data protection to mitigate those risks.”

Mohieddin Kharnoub, chief revenue officer of Spire Solutions, spoke about the need for a risk management framework and risk quantification before embarking on the digital transformation journey. Echoing a similar opinion, Shabbir Zakavi, director of cybersecurity and managed services at Visiontech, stressed the need for risk management and said internal threats now account for 80 percent of cyberattacks.

Aliasgar Bohari, IT director of Zulekha Hospital, gave the audience a clear overview of the cyber challenges facing the healthcare industry in the region.

“We deal with sensitive data, and security has been a top priority for us even before the pandemic. You can’t ever be 100 secure even if you invest in all the latest security technologies. Security has to become a business enabler, not a hindrance,” he said.

Cyber strategists summit was sponsored by Checkmarx, Spire Solutions, Help AG, Nanjgel Solutions, and Visiontech (Signature partners); Event partners: Micro Focus, Solarwinds, Teksalah, and Redington.

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VIEWPOINT

THE RISE OF THIRD-PARTY SOFTWARE SUPPORT TAHER HAJ-YOUSEF, REGIONAL MANAGER FOR RIMINI STREET EXPLAINS WHY THIRD-PARTY SOFTWARE SUPPORT IS GAINING TRACTION AMONG LARGE ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS

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he world of enterprise software support is caught in the vortex of disruptive new developments. On one hand, enterprises are under pressure to hold onto costly and dated software support agreements with vendors.

On the other, they are challenged to modernise, improve ROI, and allot budgets for more important and strategic goals, such as innovation and growth.

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For many years, CIOs have been grappling with the rising cost of maintaining their enterprise software.

These systems have matured over time and organisations have built up functionality customised to their business processes. Traditionally, the existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have been maintained through support from vendors with a mandate to maintain updates and upgrades as per the timelines dictated by the vendor. However, the costs

associated with such a working model have skyrocketed. In fact, according to a leading vendor’s own survey, 73% of its customers said they upgraded simply to stay supported, likely because they see no ROI. Gartner’s “IT Key Metrics Data 2021: Executive Summary” revealed that the number one challenge for organisations to drive growth and innovation was the lack of IT budget to invest in new technologies that are crucial to improve their competitive

advantage. Gartner estimated that companies spend up to 90% of their IT budgets on ongoing operational expenditures and enhancements, with only 10% left to invest in innovation.

Furthermore, in an increasingly cloud and subscription world, the c-suite executive has now started scrutinising the not-so-transparent policies of original software vendors. They are demanding more ROI from every investment. In the realm of vendor software support, in many cases, vendors simply have not delivered.

They have often looked at software maintenance fees as a guaranteed revenue stream and as a result, they have not been challenged to win those dollars with a competitive support model or differentiated services.

Disgruntlement over software vendors’ support policies is widespread, as reflected in several surveys conducted over the last two years. A Morgan Stanley 2018 survey showed that only 2% of CIOs regarded a particular big-time vendor as ‘most’ integral to their cloud computing strategy. Another survey by J.P. Morgan revealed that only 6.5% of CIOs considered this global giant a key vendor. Essentially, it appears clients are questioning this vendor’s credentials as a future cloud platform, the maturity of its cloud offerings, and the business case for abandoning their current, mature and stable system investments.

In addition, the dynamics influencing enterprise decision-making for IT have become far more complex than ever.

The IT industry is evolving rapidly, and new best-of-breed cloud solutions are coming to the market. It is anticipated that in no time most enterprise customers will have access to viable cost-effective alternative solutions quite different from the traditional software products used today.

This has opened the doors wide for third-party enterprise software support providers.

In fact, if we look at a 2019 Gartner study, by Frances Karamouzis,

David Groombridge, Dolores Ianni, it acknowledges that enterprises should consider third-party support because software vendor support costs keep rising and the return on value keeps going down. It also noted that thirdparty support would become a mass option and estimated its market would grow by 200% (to reach $1.05 billion) by 2023.

We are witnessing a significant uptick in demand for third-party support services in the Middle East.

Businesses are adopting new IT strategies to accommodate changes, including cutting budgets, optimising existing business applications and redirecting resources to work on initiatives to boost the organisation’s competitive advantage. GCC countries, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have started reviving infrastructure projects and introducing sustainable business policies to stimulate economic growth and attract investors amid the many challenges of 2021 like the effects of the pandemic and the slow economic growth globally.

The signs are clear. The time is ripe for independent third-party enterprise software support services to replace traditional vendor support contracts.

The gains of substantial savings on

total software support costs and extracting more value from their enterprise software investments by, for example, avoiding unnecessary upgrades and updates, and using those savings to invest in innovation and concrete growth are too good an opportunity to overlook.

It is not a pretentious belief that the best enterprise software support comes from a provider that is solely focused and dedicated to support.

Paying great attention to client success by bringing top-of-the-line expert engineers in direct contact with clients is part of the third-party support industry ultimate promise to offer a superior customer experience and best-in-class Service Level Agreement (SLA).

As expected, there is a notion that there are risks in migrating enterprise software support to third-party support services. This argument does not hold water. The thirdparty support industry has evolved tremendously over the years. Some of the world’s largest companies rely on the third-party industry for support of their complex mission-critical enterprise software applications.

Furthermore, under third-party support, customers can continue buying additional licenses from the software vendor and they can return to software vendor support if needed, typically without having to pay for the gap period.

The key takeaway from all this is that the IT industry is evolving at a breakneck speed and enterprise software customers should consider alternatives to entering into long-term agreements with software vendors.

This is particularly true in the case of their cloud offering as there is no clarity on how they can accommodate their customer’s business priorities and needs to have an ROI. Ultimately, Enterprise customers no longer need to adhere to vendors’ wishes just to maintain full support. The third-party industry can be a great service in this regard.

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VIEWPOINT

TAILORING KUBERNETES FOR TELCOS BART SALAETS, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF EMEA SOLUTION ARCHITECTS AT F5, ON WHY KUBERNETES IS THE NEXT STEP FOR TELCOS.

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n the IT world, Kubernetes is everywhere. Supported by more than 43,000 contributors, this open-source system has become the default way to deploy modern applications in the cloud. Why? Simply put, Kubernetes makes life much easier for developers, speeding up the rollout of apps and adding value to the underlying platform for end-users.

Kubernetes, also known as k8s, has recently turned heads in the telecoms industry, as operators look to make the transition from walled gardens to open platforms. The system is set to be an intrinsic part of the flexible cloud-native 36

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architecture required to bring out the best in standalone 5G networks. A true cloud-native network offers a myriad of benefits, from rapid deployment of services and automation to much greater resiliency and efficiency. As a case in point, Google deploys more than two billion containers a week using its internal platform Borg, which was the predecessor to Kubernetes.

This kind of flexibility and scalability is fundamental to the telco cloud vision— the idea that 5G networks will become a versatile platform for a wide range of services and apps developed by third parties. As it enables telcos to deploy

apps in portable containers, Kubernetes can, for example, bring services to the edge of the network, closer to endusers, reducing latency.

Abstract and appealing for developers So, what does Kubernetes actually do? A modern application is typically built out of different microservices, each handling a specific function, such as order management, reporting, or payments. Once the microservices are packaged in containers, Kubernetes automates their deployment, scaling, and management. Kubernetes can also

support auto-healing in the case of a failure in a cluster of microservices.

Crucially, Kubernetes abstracts away some of the underlying internal networking complexities for app developers. This makes life much easier for the typical app developer. In essence, Kubernetes enables apps to be made accessible to the outside world in a simple and straightforward way.

A Kubernetes ingress controller is the conduit through which an end-user interacts with a web application via the HTTP protocol. The ingress controller also provides traffic management, ensuring that user requests get routed to the right microservice within the Kubernetes cluster.

Telcos will need to think differently All these benefits can be harnessed by 5G networks’ service-based architecture, but only if telcos adopt a new mindset. Although Kubernetes delivers many benefits, the system can seem somewhat orthogonal to what telecoms engineers are accustomed to.

As they live and breathe networking, telcos are comfortable manually configuring the IP addresses of networking equipment and setting their own rules for routing and load balancing, and other parameters that Kubernetes is designed to abstract.

However, this kind of manual configuration would undermine the whole point of Kubernetes: it would

IF APPROACHED CORRECTLY, KUBERNETES CAN BE TRULY TRANSFORMATIVE FOR TELCOS: IT CAN UNLOCK THE MANY BENEFITS OF A CLOUD-NATIVE ARCHITECTURE AND MAKE IT MUCH EASIER FOR OPERATORS TO INTERACT WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD. ONCE IT IS FULLY TAILORED TO A TELECOMS ENVIRONMENT, THIS OPEN-SOURCE SYSTEM WILL SURELY BE AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE 5G FUTURE. prevent the rapid deployment and automated scaling that are hallmarks of the major cloud platforms, such as AWS and Azure. The first network functions virtualization (NFV) solutions deployed by telcos in 4G networks have tended to employ manual scripting and, as a result, lack the dynamism and automation of a modern IT architecture.

A square peg in a round hole?

With the rollout of 5G core networks, telcos have a blank slate. But, unfortunately, they can’t simply transplant a standard Kubernetes system. The vast majority of telcos are deploying 5G networks alongside 4G networks, so they will need a Kubernetes ingress that can also support standard telco protocols— SCTP, Diameter and GTP—as well as HTTP. That is because the Kubernetes ingress that front ends the 5G services won’t interface directly with a user via HTTP but will instead connect to other 4G and 5G core elements. In some cases, an interworking function will

be required that translates HTTP/2 messages into Diameter messages and vice versa.

Another complication is how to support internal communication within the application cluster. In a standard Kubernetes deployment, a service mesh is typically used to securely manage and track the communication between different microservices.

While such service meshes support IT-centric tracing capabilities, telcos are discovering that the associated functionality is not optimally adapted to their requirements.

The third issue is how the 5G functions within the Kubernetes cluster will talk to the outside world. Opening up the dynamic internal IP addresses assigned by Kubernetes is not a good idea. The addresses will change over time and giving this level visibility to the outside world would constitute a major security risk. Telcos want full control over the assignment of IP addresses to certain 5G functions. These should be independent from the IP addresses used by the underlying containers that make up this 5G function. A smart Kubernetes egress function is required to achieve this.

Why cutting corners is a bad idea One option would be to dispense with Kubernetes and just deploy a 5G function in a container with a static IP address that is accessible to the outside world. But if you cut corners in this way, you would pay a big price in terms of scalability and flexibility. You would not, for example, be able to deploy 5G functions anywhere in the network simply by pressing a button.

If you want that level of automation, which will be the future, you can’t cut corners with Kubernetes.

If approached correctly, Kubernetes can be truly transformative for telcos: it can unlock the many benefits of a cloudnative architecture and make it much easier for operators to interact with the outside world. Once it is fully tailored to a telecoms environment, this opensource system will surely be an integral part of the 5G future.

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VIEWPOINT

THE DIGITAL DILEMMA CATHERINE DARROUE, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER PROPOSITION AND GLOBAL HEAD OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS AT AETNA INTERNATIONAL, ON ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON EMPLOYEES’ HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

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t comes as no surprise that digital technology has transformed the way many businesses operate and support their employees. From the Internet of Things (IoT), communications platforms and collaboration software to smartphones, apps and virtual services, tech is an undeniably powerful force, something that has become glaringly evident over the last year.

But, when it comes to its impact on employees’ health and well-being, is it a force for good or for evil — or a little bit of both? And what can employers do to leverage the positive influences and diminish the negative impact on workers?

The positive: Technology and digital innovation as a health promoter According to the Aetna International Digital Health Dilemma 2020 report, survey respondents — including over 1000 from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — have clearly bought into technology’s ability to improve connectivity, collaboration and productivity and, as a result, worker 38

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health and well-being. 93% of workers in the UAE say technology lets them complete simple tasks quickly, connect with co-workers across different locations and receive job support. 85% say technology lets them manage time better, thus reducing stress levels. And 54% of UAE workers say technology helps them improve physical and mental health overall.

Furthermore, UAE employees clearly believe that technological innovation and digital tools and services could further help them to improve their health. One area of note is mental health — while less than 40% of respondents say they currently use video, text-based or telephonic solutions to help manage their mental health, an equal number said that they might consider these options in future.

The negative: Technology as a health detractor While most employees recognise the advantages of workplace technology, they do acknowledge that it has its drawbacks.

For example, 72% of UAE respondents believe that being able to have a company mobile phone to handle work calls and emails remotely helps them better manage their mental health. Yet almost the same percentage (69%) worry that they use their phones too much. That’s probably why 61% try — but apparently fail — to check their phones less often.

A big concern is that digital technology contributes to an “always-on” mindset.

73% of UAE respondents admit to checking their phones first thing in the morning for work-related messages, whilst nearly an equal number (74%) do the same thing right before going to bed.

Striking the right balance There is a clear opportunity for organisations to harness the positives that technology enables — and an equally clear imperative for organisations to diminish the negatives that technology brings. And while the coronavirus outbreak will one day run its course, few organisations will fully return to the norms, cultures, policies and practises that were in place pre-pandemic. It’s now

more incumbent upon organisations than ever to understand how to apply technology in ways that enable collaborative, flexible, productive and healthy working practises for the benefit of all.

Curbing “always-on” culture and employee burnout Employees clearly see the value that workplace technology brings, but they just as clearly see its shortcomings. They want to unplug when they’re out of the (virtual) office, which can be difficult to do when they carry all the tools of their trade in their pockets.

Employers should leverage employees’ call for more help curbing “always-on” culture and tech overload by: • Establishing workplace policies: If organisations provide technology to workers and expect them to use it, they should also erect guardrails to help individuals unplug outside office hours. And those policies should be enforced — not to punish workers but to protect them. In addition, in a world where employees work from home, remotely or even internationally, careful consideration needs to be given to alternatives or schedules for in-person meetings, which the data shows are of benefit to employees.

• Communicating clearly: Communicate workplace policies and educate workers on how to keep work from bleeding into personal life. And that means limiting work-related communications to work hours. Again, organisations operating internationally or across different time zones need to provide a degree of flexibility, give and take, and trust when it comes to establishing boundaries for working hours and out-of-hours communications.

• Leading by example: It’s important that business leaders model the company culture they are promoting — especially since they often struggle more with work/life balance than many of their workers. Some practises, such as in-person meetings, might be difficult for international or virtual teams. Being available through one-to-one calls to offer emotional and professional support is a powerful way for leadership teams

to explore new or improved guidance or support mechanisms to help meet employees’ needs.

Harnessing the power of virtual health and digital well-being Some organisations and workers alike have embraced digital health tools, as evidenced by the proliferation of wearable fitness trackers, joint mobile health applications and workplace wellness programs that are tied to them. These tools can help members establish goals, set fitness schedules and stay on top of their well-being by sending reminders whenever a member is due for a check-up, flu shot or repeat prescription.

Yet, there is room for improvement and organisations can do more to ensure employees harness the power of technology to improve their physical and mental health: • Know your audience: Rather than simply handing out Fitbits or launching a wellness initiative, organisations should first engage workers via surveys or one-on-one line manager discussions to find out about their areas of interest and appetite for health and wellness apps.

• Identify your priorities: Audit the employee population to identify health risks and high health claims.

• Personalise your approach: Create a customised wellness strategy by identifying and implementing benefits and digital tools to meet the unique needs of your workforce.

Enabling employees to help build the corporate culture By and large, employees are happy for their employers to use anonymised data to, for example, improve the company’s culture and employee benefits, but they would feel betrayed if their data were shared with third parties or government agencies.

To that end, employers need to set clear data-use policies, educate employees and allow employees to share in the organisation’s future direction. To help alleviate concerns, organisations should establish policies to protect workers’ health data and ensure that workers are aware that they retain ownership of that data.

• Inspire confidence and trust: Communicate the organisations’

commitment to upholding data privacy and to empowering employees to own and retain control over their data. Detail the relevant processes, policies and regulations at play.

• Build the culture together: Give employees a voice and the chance to help shape the company’s culture and join the company on its journey through a shared sense of purpose and values.

• Celebrate successes: If the use of anonymised health data leads you to start a program that yields measurable results, share that success with workers.

Let them see the impact analysing health data can have.

Final Word Widespread adoption of digital technology by businesses and the health and well-being industry has been accelerating for years, and that acceleration has only increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the pandemic plays out and whenever it ends, we will never fully return to pre-2020 attitudes and norms — nor should we.

Business leaders today have a once-in-ageneration opportunity to reconsider how their organisations deploy technologies and digital tools to help improve workers’ health and well-being. Working in tandem with their health benefits and technology partners, business leaders should harness lessons learnt during the pandemic to create a more holistic approach to employee well-being, embracing the power of technology to positively influence health and well-being.

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ANALYSIS

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER SECURITY EXPERTS AT ANOMALI SAY CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE PROVIDES MIDDLE EAST ENTERPRISES WITH A CLEAR PICTURE OF THE THREATS THEY FACE

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ike all regions of the world, the Middle East is no stranger to cyberthreats.

Nations here have always had to contend with some of the most potent adversaries operating across the threat landscape.

Recently, cyber threat intelligence provider Anomali identified a malicious campaign carried out by Iran-backed cyberespionage group Static Kitten, which targeted Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and likely other countries across the broader region.

“Through the collection and analysis of cyber threat intelligence from several sources, our expert threat intelligence analysts were able to determine that Static Kitten was the most likely actor,” says Andrew De Lange, Intelligence Solutions Architect, Anomali.

When asked how threat intel made it possible to reach such a conclusion, Winston Marydasan, an Anomali

Andrew De Lange

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intelligence analyst for the Middle East, says that by leveraging available sources of intelligence and in-house expertise, they have been able to dentify a combination of “Israeli geopolitical-themed lures, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) references, and the use of specific tactics and techniques the threat actor group is known for using.”

The Middle East has been a booming market for traditional and emerging sectors such as energy production and technology innovation. It’s also long been a flashpoint for cyber and kinetic espionage activities. “Organisations that call this part of the world home need to be especially vigilant now, as things like growing remote workforces, 5G deployment, and cloud adoption continually expand attack surfaces here,” warns De Lange.

To balance the demands of global commerce with the concerns over the friction that cyber adversaries can create, organisations are turning

Winston Marydasan

to multi-layered defense strategies, which frequently include a mix of talent, technologies, and services.

A key element includes cyber threat intelligence, which helps to detect threat actors and aid in response to incidents.

“Modern threat intelligence technologies are now capable of immediately detecting threats that are targeting or that have breached networks,” says De Lange. “They can also communicate in real-time with security controls and workers to investigate, neutralise, and remove adversaries before they cause catastrophic damage.”

Talking about the practical application of cyber threat intelligence in cases such as this recent Static Kitten campaign, De Lange says that it benefits everyone involved in cybersecurity operations.

“It allows everyone — ranging from analysts, to SOC employees, to business leaders — to gain a comprehensive picture of the threats and risks they face, so that smarter defensive actions can be taken.”

Cyber threat intelligence technologies have been around for a while, although they have recently emerged from their nascent stage and entered the mainstream. Anomali entered the market in 2013, around the same time, numerous other disruptive startups burst onto the scene. De Lange says that solutions are starting to mature out of the “startup” phase and into a level of what you can call “maturity.”

He adds that cyber threat intelligence is now recognised as a critical building block of what could be viewed as “movements” in cybersecurity. “We are seeing increased demand for our product portfolio suite among organisations that rely on traditional technologies such as SIEMs, ISACs, and other threat sharing platforms. We are also experiencing inquiries from businesses that are exploring new ways to extend their visibility over threats, detect them in real-time, and respond more quickly.”

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WHY IS AGILITY IMPORTANT

PAUL HARDY, EVANGELIST, CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICE, SERVICENOW, SAYS AGILITY IS THE ENABLER OF THREE KEY C-SUITE PRIORITIES

2

0 years ago, a group of 17 software developers changed the world.

20 years ago this past February, a group of 17 software developers — what was called the Agile Alliance — put forward the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.

The Manifesto was written over a long weekend at a world famous ski resort in the mountains of Utah in the United States and advocated for a new approach to software — one that emphasized adaptation, action, and speed over careful planning and consideration.

What started as a grassroots movement, gained momentum and support from the wider technology community, launching a genuine agile revolution. Today, that revolution — arguably accelerated by COVID-19 — has finally reached the executive suite. Agility is officially a C-level priority.

However, rather than talking about agility as a standalone C-suite priority, I see it as a foundational enabler of these three key organisational priorities.

1) Defending the base while setting up for growth Protecting the company in the current climate is priority number one for almost every C-suite. The trick is to stay protected while a growth focus. By putting the needs of people — both customers and employees — at the heart of the organisations’ strategic thinking, CEOs and their executive teams can achieve both.

This principle has its roots in the original Agile Manifesto, and the results play out in real life.

The IDC agility survey found that more than half of businesses in the highest tier

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of agility readiness performed excellently in terms of customer experience, compared with fewer than a fifth of organisations overall. These companies depend on flexible operating models to integrate customer feedback and align quickly to shifting preferences, increasing satisfaction and performing 20% better than market average when it comes to customer loyalty.

2) Maximising employee efficiency and productivity By digitising processes on a single workflow platform, organisations can automate manual, repetitive tasks to reduce costs and increase productivity. This clears the way for companies to move more quickly and frees employees to focus on highervalue work.

Greater efficiency, underpinned by agility, has a direct impact on the speed of delivering new products or services to market. IDC found, for instance, that time to market for agile companies is 16% better than market average.

That, of course, has a huge impact on productivity and growth. I recently spoke with a large pharmaceutical company that saves $1 million for every day it reduced medication time to market. Far more valuable are the lives saved by this acceleration.

3) Managing risk Risk used to be about prioritising and mitigating operational risk. Today, Covid-19 has shifted the focus onto human risk, particularly on the health and safety of employees.

Bringing in that human element is essential, and technology can facilitate

an agile response to changing risk environments.

By taking an integrated view of rapid risk response across the organisational estate, companies can ensure that they remain competitive from both an operational and employee experience perspective.

The agility imperative Though the benefits of agile are clear, the landscape is mixed when it comes to assessing the progress made by companies across Europe.

When measured against five pillars of organisational agility — Leadership vision, Structural agility, Process agility, Portfolio agility and Technology architecture — IDC found that one third of organisations sit in the lower “static” or “disconnected tiers, while nearly half are categorised as the “in motion” middle tier of the agility journey. Just one in five (21%) have attained the top levels of “synchronised” and “agile.”

For those in the lower two tiers, 2021 will be particularly challenging.

I’d go as far as to predict that many of these companies will not be here at the end of 2021 due to their siloed legacy systems, rigid processes, and slow development cadence.

And yet, for those committed to applying agile principles to their business operations, the current environment presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to drive change across the enterprise in an agile way. By overcoming corporate barriers and embracing digital workflows, we can join the agile revolution and position our organisations for success.

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Apple iMac Apple has introduced an all-new iMac featuring a much more compact and remarkably thin design, enabled by the M1 chip. The new iMac offers powerful performance in a design that’s just 11.5 millimeters thin, with a striking side profile that practically disappears. Available in an array of vibrant colors to match a user’s personal style and brighten any space, iMac features a 24-inch 4.5K Retina display with 11.3 million pixels, 500 nits of brightness, and over a billion colors, delivering a brilliant and vivid viewing experience.

The new iMac also includes a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, studio-quality mics, and a six-speaker sound system — the best camera and audio ever in a Mac. Also,

Touch ID comes to iMac for the first time, making it easier than ever to securely log in, make purchases with Apple Pay, or switch user profiles with the touch of a finger.

Combining the power and performance of M1 and macOS Big Sur, apps launch with blazing speed, everyday tasks feel incredibly fast and fluid, and demanding workloads like editing 4K video and working with huge images are faster than ever. The new iMac joins the incredible family of Mac models powered by M1, including MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, marking another step forward in Apple’s transition to Apple silicon. Customers can order the new iMac beginning April 30 and will be available in the second half of May.

Fitbit Luxe Fitbit has announced Fitbit Luxe, a new fashion-forward fitness and wellness tracker designed to help you take a more holistic approach to your health and wellness. Luxe offers the motivation and support you need to stay healthy in today’s world with everything from stress management tools to automatic activity and sleep tracking – all in an effortlessly chic bracelet design. Luxe also gives you insights into your wellbeing through the Health Metrics dashboard in the Fitbit app to help you identify changes, which could be caused by increased stress or fatigue. With Luxe, you’ll get a six-month trial to Fitbit Premium for added support and deeper analysis of your data. Luxe is a beautiful, sleek tracker with a color touchscreen and up to five days of battery life that is versatile for any occasion and comfortable for all day and night wear.

It can be paired with a wide range of new stylish accessories, including a modern luxury bracelet from gorjana.

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D-Link Vigilance Series D-Link has released its new lineup of Vigilance Solutions including a network video recorder and six outdoor surveillance cameras. Providing advanced features such as high-resolution video, storage efficiency, high flexibility, and simple management, these solutions are suitable for enterprises of all sizes and every business vertical.

D-Link’s JustConnect H.265 PoE Network Video Recorder (DNR-4020-16P) delivers powerful, professional-grade surveillance with 16 PoE ports, a 120W power budget, and a Gigabit Ether-net port to ensure sufficient bandwidth and reliability. Users can simultaneously stream from 16 channels in real time, as well as record and play back footage anytime, anywhere. With support for ultrahigh-definition 4K, the DNR-4020-16P ensures viewing experiences of the highest qual-ity. The DNR-4020-16P also features H.265 (High Efficiency Video Coding) for improved effi-ciency, saving up to 50% more storage compared to previous standards. As businesses have increasing demands for more cameras and higher-quality footage, storage can be expanded up to 16 TB with its two 3.5” SATA ports. The JustConnect+ mobile app allows for on-the-go view-ing and management. This network recorder is also ONVIF compliant to support D-Link cameras and rack mountable for easy installation anywhere.

Featuring a 2, 4, or 8-megapixel progressive CMOS sensor, each vigilance series camera delivers superior

quality video and is IP66 weather resistant to sustain any outdoor environment. Wide Dynamic Range ensures that imaging is clear in high contrast lighting conditions, and 3D Noise Reduction allows the camera to capture clearer videos in poor lighting conditions. With a 30M IR illuminator, the camera can see in complete darkness at night time. Additionally, Corridor Mode provides vertically oriented streaming for maximized field of view when users need to monitor areas such as hallways, staircases, tunnels, etc. Users can also block out sensitive areas with the Privacy Mask feature.

Z BY HP Bringing new levels of power previously only available in high-end desktop workstations, at NVIDIA’s GTC 2021, HP has announced significant GPU performance improvements to its entry Z by HP desktop lineup, including HP Z1 Tower G8, HP Z2 Small Form Factor G8, and Z2 Tower G8. Additionally, in order

to democratise 3D for entry workflows and bring advanced visualisation to the masses, Z offers the latest technology from NVIDIA and Samsung.

Performance is critical for creators to speed up the conversion of ideas into designs and their needs continue to grow with real time engines as design cycle times are reduced. As companies migrate to a more hybrid work model, 77 per cent of IT decision makers agree that this means an increase in security vulnerabilities. The Z entry desktop lineup offers advanced security features, equipping IT departments the ability to keep devices, data, and identities protected.

NVIDIA’s new NVIDIA RTX A4000 and RTX A5000 provide HP Z2 Tower G8 customers the option to configure their Z desktop with the latest generation RT cores, Tensor Cores, and CUDA cores to deliver a powerful desktop experience for designers, engineers, and artists to create the future, without limits. Z by HP is also adding additional Ampere graphics options to the performance desktop line, including the Z4, Z6, and Z8 desktop workstations, for improved performance across segment workflows.

APRIL 2021

CXO INSIGHT ME

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BLOG

A NEW DIGITAL AGE FOR BANKING

SUNIL PAUL, MD OF FINESSE, WELCOMES THE LONG-AWAITED TRANSFORMATION IN BANKING

H

ave you groaned at the idea of making a trip to the bank and been put off at the thought of long queues, filling forms, getting shuffled from counter to counter? Well, good riddance to these woes because today we are in the era of full-scale digital banking.

Many traditional banks in the country have opened their digital banking arms and already supported digital channels for transactional banking activities well before the pandemic. For example, EmiratesNBD had launched its digital-and-mobileonly bank Liv. in 2017. However, the adoption rates and the customer demand for digital banking have accelerated in today’s socialdistanced reality, making it a necessity and transforming the banking sector forever. Digital-only banks blend advanced technology into all levels of the financial lifecycle and will redefine the way funds are managed, stored, distributed and controlled.

This month two digital-only banks have made the headlines. Al Maryah Community Bank is the first licensed full-scale digital banking entity to receive the green signal from the UAE Central Bank to launch operations in the country. Emaar Properties founder and former chairman Mohamed Alabbar has also announced plans to open an independent digital-only bank in the UAE called Zand, which is currently awaiting regulatory approvals.

Last year it was reported that Abu Dhabi’s ADQ, one of the region’s

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biggest holding companies with direct and indirect investments in more than 90 organisations, is also expected to launch an online-only banking institution with an initial capital of Dh2 billion.

These digital-only banks offer a host of advantages to customers and the banks themselves. With 100 percent of the banking services online or through applications, customers can easily transact end-to-end anytime, anywhere, literally with just a few taps on their devices. It is convenient, easily accessible, instant, and offers enriched customer experiences.

They can avoid the hassles of dealing with paperwork, bank tellers and not waste any time travelling to physical locations and waiting in long queues.

Customers will also benefit from better financial returns as these online-only banks can afford to offer lower or zero account maintenance fees and higher interest rates as there are no brick-and-mortar branches to manage. It can also provide superior banking privileges and other perks. Digital banking complements customers’ increasingly digitalpowered lifestyles.

From the bank’s perspective, digital-only banks are much more cost-effective and offer the ability to provide customers with enhanced and direct banking experiences.

They can also capitalise on advanced technologies and employ open architectures to scale and offer streamlined services.

Legacy banking establishments must integrate easily accessible

technologies and services, keeping the customer at the heart of its operations; or massively transform the way they operate if they wish to stay in the game. They must invest in technologies such as Open APIs, Cloud, AI & Chatbots, Machine Learning, RPA, Customer Experience Mangement and more to appeal to the demands of digital customers.

Recently, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) conducted a survey to examine the evolving customer sentiment and behaviour in the UAE’s banking sector. It revealed that 76 percent of respondents were keen to switch banks, and 70 percent actively look for new bank offers. It also discovered that 87 percent would be willing to open an account with branchless digital-only banks. According to the consulting firm, the finding reinforces its global benchmark, which saw over 53 percent of UAE banking customers doubling down on their mobile app usage for banking during the pandemic and more than 50 percent who enrolled in digital banking for the first time as a result of the crisis.

Driven by customer demands, digital acceptance, technology advancements, easy setups, and current market conditions, we can expect to see more digital-only banks coming up in the region in the near future.

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