INTERVIEW
A CATALYST FOR INNOVATION ABDUL RAHMAN AL THEHAIBAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY & AFRICA GOOGLE CLOUD, TALKS ABOUT HOW BUSINESSES IN SAUDI CAN UNLOCK BUSINESS GROWTH AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES WITH CLOUD TRANSFORMATION.
W
e are seeing significant investment and expansion opportunities in Saudi Arabia post COVID-19. What impact can digital transformation and businesses migrating to the cloud have on the Saudi economy? The Saudi market is one of the largest across the MENA region in terms of IT spending. From the Google Cloud perspective, we wanted to have an in-depth assessment of the market potential in Saudi. Accordingly, we commissioned the economic strategy firm Alphabeta to identify cloud adoption’s potential and economic impact. The study encompassed ten countries in the Middle East, which included the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study has revealed that businesses in these countries can potentially unlock almost $600 billion worth of opportunities by 2030 through digital technologies, powered by cloud adoption, which is a key pillar of digital transformation. In Saudi specifically, the study has revealed that businesses in the Kingdom can unlock almost $202 billion of economic impact in 2023 by fully utilising the digital technologies enabled by the cloud. This figure is nearly equivalent to 25 percent of KSA’s GDP in 2019 and clearly shows how digital technologies enabled by the cloud could transform economic development in KSA. The study also sheds light on the different sectors in KSA that, when digitally
38
CXO INSIGHT ME
APRIL 2022
