Enabling the Connected Fu ture is Top Priority

Enabling the Connected Future is Top Priority

Redouane Gaouar, the Director for Go-to-Market Practices and Strategic Partner Alliances at Dimension Data Middle East, speaks about his company’s plans to weather the challenges brought forward by the COVID-19 pandemic

During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

Our people and clients remain at the heart of what we do. Our foremost priority has therefore been to ensure their safety and well-being during this unprecedented time. To do this, we quickly implemented measures to mitigate the need for our people to travel, and based on local country guidelines, encouraged our staff to work from home.

As a technology company, collaboration tools have been leveraged quite extensively by our employees for the past two decades. Therefore, while the adoption of collaboration tools is quite high in our organization, our main focus has been on rapidly equipping our fixed-desk colleagues with mobility solutions and providing clear guidance for effective remote working.

The majority of our 50,000 employees around the world are now working from home, which means they can stay safe and healthy while continuing to deliver the mission-critical services expected by our clients.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

As a business, our purpose is to enable the connected future, and now more than ever, it is critical to do so. We have an extremely important part to play as the solutions we deliver help our clients, people and communities stay connected and navigate through this time. Our service delivery teams have done a fantastic job of deploying our business continuity plans and delivering uninterrupted services to our clients. We have been agile and responded to their needs in ways that have made a significant difference to our clients and communities all over the world.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

Over the short term, our focus is strongly maintained on our clients and on delivering on our priorities, while keeping our workforce safe and connected. Our role as leaders is to protect and enable our people so that we can collectively provide continuity of service and help our clients respond efficiently to Covid-19. Every day, our people are supporting clients, both onsite and from our service and operations centres, in critical services industries such as healthcare, supply chain and food retailers. Our teams are advising and assisting businesses in implementing outcome-oriented innovative Smart application platforms, establishing digital solutions, rolling-out collaboration tools, enhancing networks and keeping operations secure. While we keep monitoring the evolution of the global lockdown, we acknowledge that clear and frequent communications is more than ever essential. We therefore leverage the power of the digital channels to further enhance our communication so that we keep our people, clients, and partners well-informed as we adjust to the global impact of this situation.

What sort of business and financial impact do you expect for your business as a result of COVID-19?

We continue to see on daily basis a changing landscape as the world responds to Covid-19. This is impacting our habits, affecting our work-life balance, accelerating the implementation of new ways of working, and making us support differently vulnerable people in our communities. Since it will take time to fully assess the impact of the pandemic, it is crucial to maintain an agile mindset and to collectively adapt to this new way of living and working. As a technology leader, Dimension Data is also committed to constantly monitoring the situation, communicating extensively with employees and customers, and continually adjusting our business model and operations.