OUTLOOK 2023

and hybrid workplace environments.

2. Consumers have higher expectations for 5G. Performance, ultra-high speed, and dependability are facets of the 5G experience that are expanding consumer expectations. Two years after the debut of 5G, consumers anticipate new services such as real-time translation, enhanced event experiences, and immersive VR-gaming to become a reality. Private 5G network is enabling the pathway for augmented / virtual reality through creation of applications that require high frequency and low latency which will be the gateway for metaverse and digital twin to come to life building upon the digital economy and create greater efficiencies.

3. Blockchain technology is at the heart of the region’s technology transformation. Designed for transparency, it provides advanced transactional data security and provenance of transactions. du is building decentralized applications and offering an integrated set of solutions for the blockchain ecosystem. By building on top of our Blockchain Platform as a Service (BPaaS), du’s new use cases are an important step towards providing smart solutions that create efficiencies for government transactions.

How are you helping your customers build operational resilience?

We are working on identifying and develop new 5G use cases for enterprises in the UAE. These use cases will focus on improving operational and cost efficiency through digital transformation for various industrial sectors including manufacturing, transport, shipping, aviation, energy and health across the UAE. This is how we are accelerating enterprise 5G use case development and enabling UAE enterprises to experience the future on our 5G network. du continues to be a pioneer in 5G and network solutions as well as delivering best-in-class network infrastructure. We are committed to providing “A network that gets you” in terms of customers’ network needs, whether it’s an enterprise or an individual.

Can you list some top trends that will have the maximum impact on the tech landscape in 2023?

hyper automation technologies can help organization to optimize processes, save cost and accelerate time to market.

What are the biggest challenges facing CIOs this year?

The top challenges CIOs face are skills (talent retention/ acquisitions), accelerate efficiency, cybersecurity, transform legacy applications and enhance employees/customers experience.

How are you helping your customers build operational resilience?

Omnix’s strategy is built around providing services and solutions to address the key customers challenges. Our highly skilled resources guide customers to adopt new technologies. Omnix uses the best practices in adopting the new technologies which help reducing risks and accelerating deployments. We have teams to support cybersecurity, applications modernization, engineering and foundational technologies, Metaverse and smart infrastructure.

Can you list some top trends that will have the maximum impact on the tech landscape in 2023?

Here are three trends that will shape the region’s digitization stories in 2023.

Employee expectations regarding flexible working

In May last year, a Cisco survey found that 90% of the nation’s workers preferred remote or hybrid work and that 61% would be less likely to look elsewhere for opportunities if their employer implemented flexible work schedules.

The good news is that businesses have already seen the productivity benefits that go along with home-based work. Far from the feared slow delivery and stale service that stopped prepandemic moves to remote-work models, we have seen staff morale and productivity receive notable boosts. Flexibility and automated workflows are recruiting badges, attracting young, driven professionals with much to offer. Firms will have a choice — deliver flexible work or try to get by with a stale unmotivated workforce.

WALID GOMAA

Acting Chief Executive Officer at Omnix International

The top trends that we see today are sustainability, Metaverse, automation, user experience/happiness and adaptive AI. These trends will impact tech landscape since tech companies and solutions providers must be able to provide solutions to address the needs. We see that these trends will require solutions like cloud to support the sustainability requirements and reduce energy utilization; AI solution to enhance efficiency and decision making process; digital twins, remote support and better collaboration are some of the use cases that support the Metaverse initiatives; conversational AI technologies to help enhance user experience and customers/employees happiness; and

Talent sought, but where?

This issue compounds the first in that the very talent that is expecting enhanced work experiences can afford to make such demands because it is also in short supply. As time goes on, companies that do not respond to such trends will be hit by talent drains that will impact operations and service levels. At the same time, these same elements will be enhanced at enterprises that offer more alluring environments to their staff.

A recent survey by PwC showed that 47% of Middle East companies were addressing talent gaps by upskilling their workforces. Meanwhile, some 32% had opted for automation, including automation that enhanced the employee experience. This digitization taking place side by side with upskilling is the ideal environment for today’s young professionals, as it gels with their outlook and ambition. So, in 2023, tools and training that empower each employee to innovate independently while working flexibly will be critical.

The continued ascendancy of ESG

In 2023, as ESG pressure reaches critical mass, regional businesses will start to form strategies and focus groups. When complying with government, industry, and market expectations, it will help to have the right talent in place. Conveniently, digital natives share an affinity with environmental and social matters. They will also be better placed to effectively use the technology platforms that produce ESG insights and drive progress in these matters.

What are the biggest challenges facing CIOs this year?

In 2023, CIOs will come under pressure to show tangible ROI on technology investments. Inflation rates may be lower in the GCC than they are in the Americas or Europe, but they are still of concern. The right digital investments could have a corrective impact on the bottom line. It is already hard to imagine a modern business that is not, to some extent, digital. And as we wade ever deeper into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, CIOs, and the business at large, should be prepared to address a range of issues, from the employee experience and its association with technology procurement to the ongoing pressures of regulatory compliance and ESG.

How are you helping your customers build operational resilience?

In crisis, everyone looks around for reassurance. Businesses look around for ways of getting through the crisis and becoming immune to the next one. “Resilience” has been the word of the day for countless months. It remains so because of the aftershocks of the pandemic — supply-chain issues and inflation being just two examples. AI-powered analytics does not just allow real-time insights into the efficiency of processes and the profitability of business models; it clears the way for predictive analyses that show a path to long-term success.

When technology stacks include platforms like ServiceNow that provide mechanisms for extracting meaningful, useful data from structured and unstructured sources and categorizing it for presentation and review, decision makers get access to valuable knowledge. In 2023, we expect to see an innovation cycle, as the positive ROI from these technologies encourages yet more investment.

However, many security leaders are still managing multiple point products, which just doesn’t scale. Not with ongoing budget constraints, brazen cyberattacks and shortage of security talent.

The converged capabilities of a single-vendor SASE platform offer a compelling opportunity to provide more control and agility in how organizations secure their business and critical data anywhere it can be accessed via a Zero Trust framework. Forcepoint is the only security company today delivering single vendor Data-first SASE, and I’m bullish on our SASE market opportunity for 2023. We have made significant investments the last two years to accelerate our converged security platform, and our channel strategy for 2023 builds on this commitment to simplify security.

To continue to grow and scale, it’s important for us to continue to invest in product development and go-to-market to meet the growing, global demand for single-vendor Data-first SASE offering.

Browsing the web and accessing content is continuously at threat as the world becomes more global. At Forcepoint, we carry on making it easier for hybrid workforces to securely browse the web and access content safely. Think of it as bringing Zero Trust to web access: we can make the web safe for a wide range of users and devices, including employees, contractors, and partners using managed or unmanaged devices, even BYOD. Safer web activities extend to downloading and sharing content from the web. We enhance controls for web data and access by integrating Secure Web Gateway (SWG) with Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) and Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) technologies to proactively sanitize content and websites.

Over the past few years, we have witnessed an uptake in Zero Trust and the importance of it. As we head into 2023, we will continue to roll out enhancements to Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), making it easier to connect to private, internally-hosted apps using Forcepoint Secure ZTNA agent and our SD-WAN appliances. In addition, customers can use Forcepoint SD-WAN appliances to provide employee connectivity to private apps without VPNs via our embedded ZTNA SD-WAN agent.

In addition, we believe 2023 will see an increased effort in Data Security. Forcepoint has expanded our Data Security offerings to make it easier to discover, classify, monitor and protect data through capabilities that work together. We believe data security should go beyond DLP and we are providing a single security policy regardless of data channel to make data access and usage controls more effective, more reliable and less complex.

What are the biggest challenges facing CIOs this year?

MANNY RIVELO Chief Executive Officer, Forcepoint

Can you list some top trends that will have the maximum impact on the tech landscape in 2023?

To thrive and grow, businesses must integrate security into their operational model. They also need to streamline and simplify operations, including their approach to security.

Two decades of massive purchases and deployments of security point products has reached a crossroads. The sheer cost of managing solutions and the lack of institutional knowledge and personnel are driving teams to deploy new security architectures, consolidate vendors and demand platforms with pre-built integrations.

Chief Information Officers are recognizing this and transitioning to cloud-based network architectures that would streamline how they develop and manage their applications and provide secure access to resources. With workers both returning to the office and working from anywhere, it’s not unusual for people to use multiple devices in different locations and networks, sometimes in high-risk public areas. This includes not only their own workforce but also third-party suppliers and partners who want to use their own devices. The new edge is everywhere people use and create business data.

Within this context, data continues to represent enormous value and competitive advantages. Yet, the pervasiveness and importance of data increases corporate risk. The expanding attack surface makes it nearly impossible for both CXO and CIO’s to prevent sophisticated bad actors and aggressive nation-states from using automation, scale and customization in their tactics to break into your hybrid IT infrastructure and digital supply chain.

The only way for CIOs to succeed despite these challenges is to simplify security for customers, not create more complexity. We must change how we approach access and controls to achieve better outcomes. That means freeing people to use the device that works best for them, yet to do so in a way that ensures unified management and distributes Zero Trust to the right end point and application at the right time.

Can you list some top trends that will have the maximum impact on the tech landscape in 2023?

Applied AI would become more common in 2023 with generative AI models like ChatGPT taking assisted searches and AI outputs to a totally different level. Security would continue to hold the attention and get more complex with threat actors going full Monty on AI . The landscape would get more cloudier than the previous years as the marketplace acceptance for cloud compute is maturing fast. Data Protection would be a key element that would dominate the IT landscape.

What are the biggest challenges facing CIOs this year?

Paucity of tech talent would be a key challenge. While technology advances at a rapid rate with more complexities the gaps to manage it keeps getting wider. Also, while the challenge to mitigate security risks continues to grow the knowledge level or lack of it within organisations puts needless strains to IT policy makers. Another challenge is the market uncertainty because of the trying times. Ironically sustainability targets are also viewed as challenging because the CIOs and CEOs tend to put a cost of time and resources to this.

How are you helping your customers build operational resilience?

We, at Cloud Box Technologies, rely on our capabilities to own and implement solutions with the primary objectives of improved productivity and robust resilience. Companies entrusts us with responsibilities from designing to managing security, data protection, active and passive storages etc. These carries a very high level of accountability, and we use the best tools and skill levels to augment and complete the tasks. It also helps that we have subject matter experts managing different components of an activity.

The drive towards ‘Smarter’ buildings is a key area with four main trends driving technological changes:

First is the large increase in the number of devices that need to be connected. Smart Buildings by definition rely on data from the different ‘Operational Technology’ (OT) systems in the building – security, power, HVAC, lighting etc – to be interconnected. In order to collect and share this data, all sorts of IoT devices & sensors are required to monitor, report and ‘act’ on the inputs received. We therefore need to find ways to connect and ‘network’ many more ‘OT’ devices in addition to the traditional ‘IT’ devices already planned.

The second driver is the need to plan for large bandwidth variations. Many of these ‘OT devices’ require relatively low bandwidth, whilst others like HD CCTV etc may be higher. The need to be able to support very low to very high bandwidth needs, without under - or over – specifying, needs careful consideration.

The growth of wireless transmission and 5G is the third issue. As WiFi bandwidth increases, the range of each access point decreases - so more access points are required to cover the same area. This again means more connection points are required with higher bandwidth backbone connection. A similar issue applies to 5G connections.

Finally, IoT devices need to be powered. This can be supported via Power over Ethernet (PoE), Single Pair Power over Ethernet (SPoE), separate mains supply, or batteries – each of which present their own challenges and solutions.

How are you helping your customers build operational resilience?

The key here is to plan any new cabling infrastructure to ensure it is flexible, scalable, and adaptable to support the specific needs of the individual customer. We have a large range of solutions in terms of performance, flexibility, bandwidth, power deliver, ease of management, fire performance, distance support etc. That enables us to help our customers make the smart choices needed. By understanding their needs, we can help them to select the most appropriate technical solutions that work best for them over the customers intended timeframe.

Based on Red Hat’s 2022 Global Tech Outlook, the following factors give us a glimpse of what the future holds for businesses and how you can adapt to the new wave of innovation:

Digital revolution continues apace: As part of the evolution of Industry 4.0, in 2022 we saw the continued merging of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) in scenarios such as smart cities, smart factories, assembly lines, robots and process controllers. Industrial organizations are successfully breaking down internal silos with the help of technology like open APIs and open hybrid cloud, and furthering the reach of compute and data gathering by use of more “Edge” computing technology extending the opportunity to innovate. This technology expansion combined with a shift in innovation being enabled and improved collaboration across teams as a culture change developing rapidly in organisations will accelerate this IT/OT convergence and accelerate digital innovation in 2023. Hybrid cloud strategies continue to dominate: While 18% of firms are still in the process of defining a cloud strategy, hybrid cloud strategies are the most prevalent (30%). Incorporating enterprises who opted for multicloud — a phrase that is sometimes used interchangeably with hybrid cloud — raises the proportion of businesses relying on several clouds to 43%. This will give leverage on development costs (develop once deploy anywhere), flexibility (not tied to one Cloud Service) and commercial leverage (multiple competing suppliers).

Security is always a primary priority: IT security was selected by far the most frequently (46% of respondents) among firms’ top IT technology funding objectives for 2022. This increased emphasis is also apparent in other financing areas. Despite a four-percentagepoint decline from the previous year, network security continues to be the top funding priority for security at 38%. Cloud security followed closely at 37%. The prioritisation of vulnerability management increased the most since last year, from 21% to 27%. Selection of a clear technology choice to enable Hybrid Cloud capability where that choice also embodies end to end security capability will reduce the security challenge across multiple clouds.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) continue to dominate the planning of developing technologies: Combining IoT with edge computing, 61% of respondents want to employ either one or both in the next 12 months. With AI/ML at 53% and IoT at 49%, the percentage of firms considering or planning to utilise emerging technologies increased across several workloads this year. More and more artificial intelligence services either native to the cloud provider or third party services and becoming available and whilst AI is in it’s infancy, those who invest early and learn how to harness this technology early to make efficiency or business expansion gains, will be in great position for the future.

Automation advances: Similar to investments in security, investments in automation will be prioritised in numerous sectors until 2022. While IT operations automation remains in the middle of the pack in terms of top IT spending priorities (28%), this is an increase of two percentage points from the previous year, and automation has also played a role in other funding priorities. For instance, automating IT operations was the second most popular financing priority (38%) for optimising legacy IT, representing the greatest rise from the previous year. Automation has a huge benefit in reducing the cost of expensive and rare human resources used/wasted in repetitive tasks, allowing them to be used in more strategic differentiation, and also delivers better operational and security consistency, avoiding human errors.

What are the biggest challenges facing CIOs this year?

As 4G gives way to 5G, businesses will see the rise of hybrid cloud and edge technologies. Manufacturing industry will also see big changes as smart factories with AI emerge and the pace of data collection, preparation and inference accelerates. Challenges will include eliminating skill gaps, increasing application development, integration of reusable technologies and services to call on “a service” elements to enhance innovation capability, and developing a secure and robust hybrid cloud platform. All of these are key components of a successful digital transformation strategy.

In aiming to uncover the greatest technology challenges our customers face, a recent survey commissioned by Riverbed and undertaken by IDC found that 75% of business decision-makers say their organisation struggles to glean actionable insights from data that is generated by their technology infrastructure. This data is essential to improve the digital experience for users and boost organisational productivity both of which are business imperatives for today’s resource-constrained enterprises that find themselves in an increasingly competitive market.

The answer to this is Unified Observability and as this becomes the responsibility of C-level technology executives (CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, etc.), organisations in the UAE are also investing more dollars in observability solutions. In the same survey, the vast majority (86%) of UAE respondents said their observability budgets will rise in the next two years.

What are the biggest challenges facing CIOs this year?

Throughout 2022 but especially in recent months, companies have been under increasing pressure to ‘do more with less.’ Of course, while constraints are being imposed on IT headcount, expectations around technology advancement for business enablement continue to grow. Consequently, CIOs are turning to their technology partners for solutions that empower even the most modestly-sized IT departments to drive innovation through the organisation.

In 2023, we expect to see increasing demand for technologies such as Unified Observability that democratise IT team’s knowledge and enable organisations to ‘shift left,’ allowing Level 1-2 staff to solve more problems without escalations. By reducing mean time to resolution, precious resources can redirect their efforts on high-value initiatives that drive business outcomes.

Can you list some top trends that will have the maximum impact on the tech landscape in 2023?

Rise of data backup ransomware attacks: Ransomware attacks are not going away and will remain a major threat next year. However, many attackers will choose an easier and less obtrusive path to gain the same critical data. We will see more attacks target backups that are less frequently monitored, can provide ongoing access to data, and may be less secure or from forgotten older files. Security tools that typically monitor for these attacks, like Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), are also often turned off or ignored because they often trigger false alarms for data backup systems. This makes it even more difficult to distinguish between false and legitimate attacks.

MFA bypass attacks will explode: We will see a continued movement away from using multiple use passwords and towards adopting multifactor authentication (MFA), passkeys, FIDO 2 authentication and other additional layers of security. Companies like Apple and Google are also developing their own authentication token systems. This will all lead to a badly needed increase in security but also result in an explosion of attacks that aim to bypass such MFA approaches, including using stalkerware to take advantage of company executives and board of directors’ use of mobile phones to record their keystrokes and interactions.

Attackers will hide stalkerware in consumer apps: While mobile phones are more secure than desktops, we will also see a greater volume of stalkerware included in downloaded apps that target consumers. Pegasus is a key example of this threat, which can install itself on iOS and Android devices with zero clicks. Hackers are also creating malicious stalkerware apps and hiding them in app stores. As people also become more accustomed to downloading family tracking software and giving away app permissions, the risk of having their keystrokes, locations, voice, and even photos and videos recorded for financial theft and other nefarious purposes will also increase.

Organisations must go on the offensive to close the cyber skills gap: Cyber professionals need to close the skills gap to understand what attackers are exploiting and why. Next year, we will see more offensive training and increased focus on threat hunting to improve hunt-to-detection time and examining endpoints and network traffic for anomalies to detect attacks and prevent them from causing damage. This will be especially important with an expanded attack surface from a continued hybrid workforce. At the same time, organizations won’t be able to hire during the recession and will need to upskill and make their staff better trained to defend against attacks. As such, we will also see a rise in purple teaming so that security professionals can practice with each other on penetration testing, uncovering, and defending against the newest cyberattacks.

Can you list some top trends that will have

maximum impact on the tech landscape in 2023?

The year 2023 will continue to see some remarkable developments within the key technologies such as cloud, AI, IoT, and mobility. Organizations across industries and business segments will continue to invest in the customer experience, user experience and automation solutions which will accelerate the spending on AI, analytics and intelligent process automation solutions. As discussion around sustainability intensifies, organizations will look for the ways to achieve their environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) goals through digital investments. Metaverse will create a buzz in the MEA region which was also one of the key themes in the Gitex 2022. Technology developments within Metaverse will be interesting to watch, especially from the UAE perspective after the announcement of Dubai Metaverse Strategy in 2022. The country already has long term national strategy around blockchain and AI, and with Metaverse Strategy, it aims to turn Dubai into one the world’s top 10 metaverse economies and establish the country as a global hub for the metaverse community.

What are the biggest challenges facing CIOs this year?

One of the biggest challenges that CIOs will face this year is the ever-increasing IT cost stemming from inflation and currency fluctuation. Keeping a balanced approach to pursue digital innovation initiatives while managing daily operational tasks and addressing the disruptions of IT supply chain will further pose challenges for the CIOs across the Middle East & Africa region.