An Agenda for Digital Transformation

Arabian Reseller speaks to industry experts who explain why digital transformation has become more urgent than ever

As the COVID-19 epidemic con- tinues to unfold across the world, political, bureaucratic and business leaders are coming to a common conclusion: Digital transformation has become more urgent than ever. It is time for the government, enterprises and society to invest more intensively in digital technology. The reason behind such a call is simple. COVID-19, today, has already reoriented our relationship to the outside world and to one another. In response to travel bans, lockdowns, as well as containment measures and quarantines, people are turning to online shopping, e-learning and social media to maintain some sem- blance of normality. At the same time, aggressive social distancing mandates means companies, educational institutions and other organisations are harnessing digital technology to collaborate and operate more effectively. Organisations that were hesitant to invest in digitalisation because things were going reasonably well must review their stance now for business con- tinuity and to mitigate the business impact of COVID-19. Or they risk their very survival.

The Current Scenario

So is digital transformation un- derway in the region? “Yes, by all means and our partners are excited to understand how they can provide customers with the right DX solutions. Moreover, customers are even eager to understand what vendors and partners have to offer,” explains Maya Zakhour, the Channel Director for MEA, Italy and Spain at NetApp. “DX initiatives, however, are at different levels and stages. Some customers choose to go all the way with their DX efforts by deploying

data analytics and AI to their implementations, while some stop at simply digitizing their data.” According to IDC, investments in digital transformation and innovation will account for 30% of all IT spending in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) by 2024. “So there is huge opportunity for vendors and partners, and both need to have their strategies in place to make the most out of these opportunities. If we look at the popularity of video conferencing today for example, imagine where all this data is being stored, retrieved and used. If not accessible at the right time, with the right information, that data is not of much use. Hence, we see huge opportunity from a data management vendor perspective, NetApp and our partners are well prepared to meet it,” Zakhour further adds. Amin Hanafieh, the Country Manager for UAE at VMware, says that digital transformation is most certainly under way and gathering greater momentum, particularly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. “The rest of the GCC is also making good strides and in North Africa I can say that Egypt is taking a lead. Across the region, many governments are paving the way and encouraging the deployment of the latest technology. Here in the UAE, the government is committed to going digital as part of the country’s ambitious diversification and development plans. Increasingly, private organisations also understand the need to digitally transform in order to compete effectively and seize opportunities afforded by the modern digital age,” he adds. Hanafieh adds that he has seen an increase in demand across sec- tors, but especially in education and healthcare for digital workspace solu- tions including VMware Workspace One platform. “This allows organ- izations to provide their staff with immediate access to an entire set of business applications with seamless and secure access to all cloud and data center apps, including Horizon virtual desktops and applications as needed based on job functions,” he says. Over the past two years, Jumbo Group implemented various phases of digital transformation within the company such as rolling out a new CRM, upgraded warehouse management, last mile delivery solutions, as well as major transformation on its back-end ERP for transaction system. “We have also implemented Robotic Process Automation (RPA), cloud based call centre solutions and ITSM (IT Services Management) solution. The biggest challenge we faced is managing change, getting employees to unlearn the old habits and adopt new best practices. The other major challenge was to get people to reimagine the new way of working and then derive benefits out of the system in terms of better services, improved efficiency and growth,” adds Arvind Agrawal, CEO of Jumbo Group. There are immense opportunities for vendors and partners with regards to digital transformation. “Traditional processes are being replaced with digital processes, and work models are being revised and implemented. With evolving technologies, more time is being dedicated to development, as technologies are increasing workflow efficiencies, reducing errors and increasing flexibility and performance. Digital Transformation implemented has also increased the satisfaction for beneficiaries, in turn improving viability for investments,” explains Mutaz Al Hersh, Business Development Manager – KSA & Jordan at Kingston Technology. According to Vijay Jaswal, CTO, Middle East & Turkey, Software AG, digitalization is not a choice any- more – in fact it forms the core of the region’s agenda. “Speaking of the GCC, Dubai continues to be at the forefront of transformation with several digitization efforts led by the Smart Dubai, Dubai’s Smart City projects continue to see movement in line with the city’s commitment of making it the happiest and smartest city. Additionally, the city’s AI roadm- ap continues to accelerate through several projects,” he says. The opportunity for digital transformation is to shift the business from being product centric into becoming a technology business that is built around the delivery of customer outcomes. “For this, you need to have a solid business transformation strategy. Choosing a right technology partner is the key to digital transformation, one that has the best assets and capabilities to help reshape the customer’s business and technology drive. There are some world class technology vendors that are present in the region who are capable of providing strong solutions and services to help the region into its digital transformation needs. There are a host of industries that are working towards their business and digital transformation including, Oil & Gas, Healthcare, Education, Manufacturing, Financial services, and we see great opportunities to work with them along with our vendor partners,” says Avinash Gujje, Practice Head – Infrastructure, Cloud Box Technologies.

Barriers to Adoption

According to a global survey by McKinsey & Company (October 2018), 80% of the companies surveyed had taken on digital transformation efforts over the last five years. While an earlier study carried out by the research firm showed a whopping 66% failure rate, the new study shows an even higher failure rate. According to Jaswal the top pitfalls that hinder a succesul digital transformation are the lack of business objective and a disconnected strategy and execution, absence of success measurement metrics, a rigid approach to delivery, lack of young blood in the transformation journey, and fighting culture and collaboration. A poor or non-existent DX strategy coupled with lack of skills, investment costs and executive buy-in are some key barriers to the adoption of a DX. Decision makers need to truly un- derstand that power of DX and build their strategy to reap the benefit in the future. “DX is based on what cus- tomers want to achieve from their in- itiative. The DX concept is still vague to some who don’t fully understand its benefits. Some businesses simply look at DX as digitizing documents or archiving information. DX is beyond this and some companies that have a proper strategy in place have incorporated cloud, AI and ML to fully utilize their DX initiative,” says Zakhour.

According to Zakhour, a key concern for businesses, however, lies in understanding which vendor to work with as each vendor has a different narrative, a different technology, and different approach. “Cloud adoption is a concern for businesses, so we advise a hybrid cloud model to have more control over their data. The Data Fabric empowers our customers with secure access to their cloud data the same way as it is on-prem. While we see a decrease in on-prem solution, it still is a popular choice,” she explains. Hanafieh also says that the biggest barriers to adoption of digital transformation strategies are lock-in with legacy solutions, disagreement amongst management team about technology investments, and a fear of losing control by migrating to the cloud. “When organizations look at the positive impact digital transformation can have on every aspect of their operations, they will realise that the perceived barriers are worth breaking down,” he adds. “One of the obstacles is there are several companies that are yet to embark on digital transformation. For example, while one may try to fully implement electronic transactions, some partners still require paper based documentation as proof of transactions. Ideally if all partners in an ecosystem were to move to digital systems, we can process all transactions electronically and move to an eco-friendly paperless workspace,” says Agrawal. Every digital transformation project needs to have a security transformation project to be run parallel. It is critical that the new technology being de- ployed is fully understood by all teams so that it can be properly secured. “As customers continue to expand their service offerings to stay competitive in the growing digital economy, partners must gather and use up-to-date threat intelligence to protect them from po- tential risk. Analyzing this information is the key for partner security teams to build sophisticated security strategies that address the evolving cyber risks their customers face. This not only allows partners to effectively manage today’s threats, but also enables them to offer comprehensive security solutions in the future,” explains Kalle Bjorn, Sr. Director, Systems Engineering - Middle East at Fortinet.

Security Issues

While digital transformation presents a range of opportunities to organizations, it also brings along a set of challenges. “Some of the most prevalent are the evolving security needs that come with expanding one’s digital presence. As an organization we find that following a set of best practices helps us provide or customers with stronger security measures, these include; Integrating systems to create a unified security architecture, sharing threat intelligence across the organization, ensuring that safeguards work across the entire network and automating more than half of the security practices,” says Gujje. Meanwhile, Zakhour says that NetApp has the technology in place to ensure that every bit of data that is being managed is encrypted at source. “For that we have backup and recovery, disaster recovery, data security and the data compliance solutions to support our customers even before a separate layer of security is being added to the deployments,” she adds. Hanafieh adds, “Our philosophy and approach is to make cybersecurity intrinsic across the network, on anywhere, on any cloud and on any device. By making security intrinsic across all parts of the network, we can reduce the risk to critical applications, sensitive data, and users by shrinking the attack surface across clouds, data centres, end users, and the enterprise edge. We’re essentially shifting the balance of power from attackers to defenders by removing the complexity inherent with cybersecurity. We are delivering intrinsic security through a comprehensive port- folio spanning the critical control points of security: network, endpoint, workload, identity, cloud, and analytics.” Bjorn also says that today’s evolving digital economy is radically changing how organizations around the world do business. “It is expanding their markets and opportunities, leveling the playing field, and enabling nimbler and more responsive business strategies. To achieve this, these organizations are rapidly consuming and deploying digital innovations that have radically retooled their networks. And traditional security solutions and sales approaches are

Maya Zakhour, Channel Director - MEA, Italy and Spain, NetApp

Vijay Jaswal, CTO - ME and Turkey, Software AG

Amin Hanafieh, Country Manager - UAE, VMware

Avinash Gujje, Practice Head – Infrastructure, Cloud Box Technologies

simply not designed to protect these customers or address their security needs,” he adds. According to Bjorn, protecting digital assets is more important than ever. However, there is increasingly not enough available talent for organizations to adequately staff their security teams. “The cybersecurity skills gap continues to pose a challenge to organizational success, which has only been compounded by a growing barrage of cyber threats. However, the true challenge goes beyond the lack of cybersecurity professionals. Today’s technology users suffer from a general lack of awareness of even the most basic threats, putting the organizations they work at constant risk of a potentially serious breach. And that is due to a failure in understanding that cybersecurity is everyone's job, and organizations need training and education programs that address many different audiences,” he says.

Partnerships Key to the Success of DX Initiatives

Partnerships play an important role in digital transformation projects. “And that’s one of the many reasons why we recently launched VMware Partner Connect, a simplified and flexible program to help partners do business with VMware in a way that aligns to their business models,” explains Hanafieh. “Partner Connect also focuses on upskilling our partners’ expertise to align with our customers’ new priorities and models of IT consumption. Our partners have an excellent understanding of the nuances of the markets in which they operate and their customers’ needs. By continually improving our relation- ship with our partners, I believe we will ultimately help our customers on their digital transformation journeys.” A vendor and channel provider’s partnership has proven to be a suc- cessful combination in the region in the last few years. While the vendor brings in a solid product and sound technology solution to the table, a channel partner in turn is vital link to both; customers as well as the vendor. “With their feet on the ground and a pulse on the market nuances, they are the first in the chain of command to detect market changes or trends and guide customers as well as vendors in shaping their offerings respectively. They are also able to shake up a customer’s inertia due to their proximity to them and get them to welcome a digital future in many ways. Therefore, it is a three-way winwin-win partnerships for the vendor-channel provider-customer with most accurate solutions at in the best possible manner,” says Jaswal. Zakhour also reiterates by saying partnerships are essential, especially for a company like NetApp. “Because we do not have a direct model, we rely on our partners and distributors to reach out to the customers and provide them with a strong solution. Having the right distributors and a strong partner network that understand the success parameters for digital transformation initiatives and execute our strategy makes all the difference. We have incentives in place that encourage partners to go the extra mile to ensure overall success, and ensure their profitability,” she adds. Meanwhile, El Hersh says that digital transformation is one of the top priorities for any country in the world. “In the region, a wave of digital transformation is taking place in all industries. Countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are implementing and embracing emerging technologies rapidly and we can see an evolving change and a solid infrastructure to keep digital transformation underway. Hence, a partnership between all sectors is very important to complete the initiatives of digital transforma- tion cycle,” he says. Striking the right partnerships and al- liances is the need of the hour when it comes to digital transformation. “What businesses and organizations stand to gain from a trusted partner- ship is that they act as a guiding force to navigate through the complex ven- dor landscape and helping in shaping the decision making process. What is also evident is that choosing the right partner to implement a digital transformation strategy is also key to being able to speed up the implementation process and the possibility of lowered costs,” explains Gujje. The road to building the right digital transition agenda can create an amazing advantage for any company. A focus on the business side of the transition is imperative and the right leadership will help ensure ROI and embrace digital transformation for the most effective results. The technology is important but should be the secondary consideration, and only implemented if it drives actual business success.

Arvind Agrawal, CEO, Jumbo Group

Kalle Bjorn, Sr. Director, Systems Engineering - Middle East, Fortinet

Mutaz Al Hersh, Business Development Manager – KSA & Jordan, Kingston Technology