Smart SMB August 2019 by Business Media International

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STRATEGY

INSPIRATION FROM ANYWHERE PUBLISHED BY Business Media International REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City www.bmi-digital.com

The inspiration for a new Business could come from different quarters, on your travels, through your conversations or through your research. To recognize an idea and build a purposeful Business plan around it and then have belief in the whole journey is what makes successful leaders stand part.

EDITOR IN CHIEF Raman Narayan narayan@bmimea.com Mob: 971-55-7802403

In this regard, we track the story of Papparoti, a truly inspirational story of an emirati woman entrepreneur Ms Rasha Al Danhani who has paved an ambitious journey in building a formidable brand that has now expanded to many other countries.

SALES DIRECTOR Ankit Shukla ankit@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-2618885, Mob: 971-552572807

There is always the space for a new Brand that offers a new value proposition, whether it is in logistics, education, food, entertainment etc. When there is great clarity as perceived by customers in what a brand is offering them, the loyalty is quite steadfast. And when a brand starts drifting from its core values, it could start losing its customers.

EDITOR Diksha Vohra editor@smartsmb.net Tel: 971-4-2618885, Mob: 971-506395616 CIRCULATION MANAGER Bhawana Bhatia bhawana@smartsmb.net Tel: 971-4-2618885 SALES R. Subramanyan subu@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-2618885

In the era of digital transformation, it is imperative to not to lose sight of the factthat howsoever impressive the technologies appear, they need to be subservient to Business outcomes and enhance customer service. Along the course of discussions with different IT heads through multiple sessions, it emerges that most organizations have already embarked on digital transformation in some measure. It is a however a minority that have truly embraced the technologies at the level where they get a multiplier effect in their outcomes, not mere incremental improvements. This is perhaps because the mix of technologies that they have deployed may not be optimized as yet. If newly adopted technologies continue to exist in silos and are not truly integrated, there can be no magical outcomes. To get to the pinnacle, perhaps they need a helping hand and if that expertise isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t available in-house, they need to seek from experts outside.

R. Narayan Editor in Chief, Smart SMB

FINANCE Akhilesh Pandey akhilesh@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-2618885

Management Chairman S.N. Tiwari

CEO Saumyadeep Halder

DESIGN Ali Raza ali@qnamarcom.com Tel: 971-4-2618885

Publisher Raman Narayan

Managing Director Ankit Shukla

sn.tiwari@bmimea.com

narayan@bmimea.com

saumyadeep@bmimea.com

ankit@bmimea.com

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to validate the accuracy of all information included in the magazine, the publishers wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be liable for any errors therein Copyright@2019 Business Media International LLC. All rights reserved.

August 2019 / SMARTSMB

CONTENT

CONTENTS Feature

strategy

Paving the Road to Where Sustainability Meets Profitability

Column SCALING NEW FORNTIERS IN FOOD INDUSTRY

Talkpoint The Focus on Strength

Thriving in Disruption

WHY YOU SHOULD USE A BACKUP SOLUTION TO PROTECT YOUR CLOUD DATA

28 Intelligent Manufacturing

Cloud, AI, IoT and Advanced Automation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; transformation Imperatives for the Manufacturing Industry

Techwatch

IT Directory

Market Mirror

ROUNDTABLE Towards a Digital Facelift

pharma

The Stiff Challenge

logistics Aligning with new demand patterns and shifts SMARTSMB / August 2019

NEWS

ETISALAT DIGITAL SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH 8 BANKS ON NEW BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORM UAE Trade Connect (UTC) is aimed at driving digital transformation of trade in the UAE

Dell Technologies adds Russia to its Digitally Advanced Markets in Middle East, Turkey and Africa region Digital transformation continues to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of digital economies across key markets in the MERAT region

Etisalat Digital, in partnership with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Avanza Innovations, have developed UAE Trade Connect (UTC), a new nationwide platform that will use the latest disruptive technologies to digitise trade in the UAE. The initial phase will focus on addressing the risks of double financing and invoice fraud before turning to other key areas of trade finance. UTC is aimed at driving digital transformation of trade in the UAE by enabling banks, enterprises and governments to collectively benefit from innovations such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics. Seven major UAE banks, in addition to FAB, have joined the nationwide platform. The agreement to develop the solution was signed by Salvador Anglada, Group Chief Business Officer, Etisalat, with Manoj Menon, Head of Global Transaction Banking, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB); Sumit Aggarwal, ExecuSMARTSMB / August 2019

tive Vice President and Group Head Transaction Banking Services at Emirates NBD; Hassan Al Redha, General Manager, Institutional & Transaction Banking, Commercial Bank of Dubai; Ahmed Abdelaal, Executive Vice President, Mashreq; Devid Jegerson, Head of Customer Experience and Platform Development, National Bank of Fujairah; Peter England, CEO of RAKBANK; Haytham Elmaayergi, Global Head of Transaction Banking, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank; and James Greenwood, Chief Operations Officer, Commercial Bank International. Etisalat Digital along with the eight banks will form a working group to further develop and extend the solution to other areas of trade. This nationwide platform, which is open for all UAE banks to join, will safeguard banks from potential fraud losses through advanced detection tools, allowing them to extend additional financing to their corporate clients.

Dell Technologies has announced that its Middle East, Turkey, Africa (META) region is now being expanded to include Russia, with the change coming into effect immediately. The re-mapping of the CIS markets follows Dell Technologiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; view that these countries have similar needs and customer requirements, leading to Russia joining the digitally advanced markets in the META region. The region will be led by Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice-President, Middle East Russia, Africa & Turkey (MERAT) and Boris Shcherbakov, Vice-President, Russia will continue to lead the local Russian business operations for Dell Technologies, reporting to Mohammed. As ICT continues to be a key driver of socio-economic growth, Russia is accelerating its national digitization agenda across both government and industry and remains a key growth market for Dell Technologies. Combined with the need to stay ahead of the digital maturity curve and compete

NEWS

in a new world, companies in Russia are also making a concerted push to transform their business with technologies such as multi-cloud; Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Security – segments in which Dell Technologies has the broadest, industry-leading portfolio of end-to-end solutions. Mohamed Amin, Senior Vice President – Middle East, Russia, Africa, Turkey, Dell Technologies said, “Russia is a market with significant potential and is poised to dramatically accelerate its adoption of disruptive technologies in the coming years. This is closely linked with trends we are seeing within the META region as well, so this change will allow us to extend our growth strategy and business roadmap to Russia. Within the META region, we have also built in-depth experience and seen double-digit growth year-on-year, while being the trusted partner of choice to companies as they embark on implementing their digital strategies. I am humbled by the trust placed in me and look forward to working closely together with our Dell Technologies Russian team, customers and partners.”

UAE MOVES UP IN ECONOMIC GROWTH INDICATORS

KPMG’s 2019 Growth Promise Indicators (GPI) report ranks UAE as 22nd among 180 countries

The UAE ranked as high as 22nd from among 180 countries overall, and ahead of other Middle Eastern countries. The nation’s macroeconomic stability, openness, quality of institutions and infrastructure, and human development informed the overall score, earning it recognition in KPMG’s 2019 Growth Promise Indicators (GPI) report. The UAE has moved up three places in the rankings since last year, largely due to advances in infrastructure development, particularly in transport. The nation’s Vision 2021 program has been a key driver of growth, as it supports development of reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure - including regional and transborder - to support economic and social development. The GPI report ranks the quality of a country’s transport infrastructure as a crucial factor for economic competitiveness. However, the report also clarifies that, while the ability of people and goods to move freely is a fundamental determinant of growth, maintaining and improving transport infrastructure requires significant investment from the public and private sector.

Mohammed Amin

Senior VP, META, Dell Technologies

Vikas Papriwal, Head of Advisory at KPMG Lower Gulf, said: “KPMG’s GPI report offers an unbiased view of a country’s true potential, based on factors that go far beyond GDP. It is

encouraging that the UAE scores well on pillars like infrastructure development, macroeconomic stability and openness, indicating its potential for businesses and investors. Equally, it speaks to the nation’s commitment to large-scale sustainable growth, technology and innovation, and social development programs.” The GPI report also indicates that an economy equipped with a strong workforce has the potential to grow more quickly. The UAE performs well against this pillar as well, having access to the labor required to power the economy as it expands, and being equipped with the right skills and knowledge to accelerate growth. The UAE also scores higher than countries like Norway and Sweden on the macroeconomic stability pillar which assesses countries’ progress according to their levels of national debt and budget deficit, and how successfully governments manage public finances. Yael Selfin, Chief Economist at KPMG in the UK and author of the report, said: "The importance of stable institutions and their role in promoting sustainable economic growth is paramount. The index shows that globally, the top performing countries that have been able to lay the foundations for solid growth are leading the way. Smaller nations, such as South Korea and the UAE, are also moving quickly up the rankings, while developing economies are often making progress faster than their developed counterparts.” August 2019 / SMARTSMB

NEWS

Mimecast announces new Cyber Alliance Program New program expands API & Data Sharing Collaboration between security vendors Mimecast, a leading email and data security company, launched the Cyber Alliance Program, a new program designed to align security vendors into an extensive cyber resilience ecosystem. Interoperability and data sharing are key to any advanced security plan while building a more cyber resilient organization. Mimecast’s Cyber Alliance Program is focused on bringing complimentary cyber software vendors together for the greater good of the customer. Driven by customer demand, the Cyber Alliance Program is based on the premise that sharing data about threats, malicious code and attack vectors among cyber vendors helps strengthen products and creates additional protection for the customer – helping each product become more effective and allowing for customers to be more cyber resilient. The program is open to select technology companies offering security and cyber resilience products that meet the program criteria and that are interested in integrating their technology into Mimecast’s platform using open APIs. “Organizations are often strapped from a resource and budget perspective,

yet, IT admins are still responsible for processing and responding to alerts, all while managing a variety of disparate security solutions. Automation through interaction with Mimecast APIs helps streamline and simplify these efforts as they bolster cyber resilience,” said Christina Van Houten, chief strategy officer at Mimecast. “The goal of creating the Cyber Alliance Program is to provide an ecosystem of like-minded vendors who want to help customers efficiently and effectively protect their infrastructures, helping organizations build a more cyber resilient world.” Customers can now benefit from the Cyber Alliance Program by maximizing their current or planned investments, reducing administration time, and immediately gaining deeper insights into today’s advanced threats. Cyber Alliance Partners can now work more effectively with Mimecast on integrations by accessing APIs and conducting impactful joint go-to-market initiatives. Mimecast Cyber Alliance Program is designed to offer customers and partners additional benefits including:

Christina Van Houten

Chief strategy officer, Mimecast

• Purpose built, ready to use integrations from some of the market-leading vendors. • Out of the box API’s for rapid development. • Thoroughly documented guides with sample code in five development languages. • Simple tutorials to explain and highlight how and when to use the integrations within an organization’s environment. The Cyber Alliance Program covers a number of cybersecurity categories including SIEM, SOAR, firewall, threat intelligence and endpoint-security vendors.

New Avaya Research reveals challenges for AI adoption in the UAE 93% of UAE organizations Identify AI as one of the most important technologies in 2019 Almost half of businesses in the UAE are struggling with a knowledge gap when it comes to adopting artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey of business leaders in the UAE, conducted by Vanson Bourne and sponsored by Avaya Holdings Corp. That gap can be attributed to the confusion between “real AI” and “TV/movie AI” as cited by 44% of UAE respondents SMARTSMB / August 2019

— higher than the global average of just 30%. And those organizations that have success-fully navigated this potential stumbling block are held back by resource constraints; 40% of UAE organi-zations claim to lack the inhouse skills to facilitate adoption. Given these challenges, it isn’t surprising that 98% of UAE businesses concede that their organization has work to do if it is to get the most out of AI.

Yaser Alzubaidi

Senior Director – Digital Engagement Solutions, Avaya International

NEWS

Mastercard and Zoho expand access to tools to help small business owners around the world thrive Robust solution suite offers resources to help small businesses increase efficiency and grow faster Mastercard announced it is expanding its partnership with Zoho to bring small business owners around the world a comprehensive array of products and services to make running their enterprise easier, more efficient and more profitable. Every business is on a quest to increase efficiency and productivity; for small business owners it can be a matter of survival. With Zoho’s platform, Mastercard is able to offer its small business customers access to a suite of marketing, accounting and CRM tools to automate and digitize time-intensive, paper-based processes. Scaling its existing partnership from India to the rest of the world, Mastercard and Zoho are enabling simpler business operations for SMBs globally. “When Mastercard and Zoho come together, we’re able to pair our smart solutions and scale to fundamentally address some of the challenges small businesses owners face every day,” said Zahir Khoja, executive vice

However, UAE organizations are keen to overcome the challenges around adopting AI. Nearly half of UAE organizations (46%) want to adopt more solutions integrating AI-based technologies. “While it is encouraging to see the strong appetite for AI in the UAE, the fact that organizations are still struggling to separate the AI fact from fiction validates the guidance and approach we have been offer-ing our customers,” said Yaser Alzubaidi, Senior Director – Digital Engagement

president, Global Acceptance at Mastercard. “These entrepreneurs drive job creation, productivity and growth globally; it’s critical that we find partners and develop solutions that allows us to help them succeed.” In fact, small businesses account for nearly 50 percent of the world’s GDP and employ almost two thirds of the global workforce1. Through Mastercard’s financial institution and acquiring partners, small businesses will now have access to various solutions such as enterprise resource planning and finance software, customer relationship management, and marketing solutions, amongst others. “We are excited to partner with Mastercard, a company committed to empowering small business owners across the globe. This partnership connects small businesses to the innovative applications that enable them to access, manage and analyze real-time information that are critical to their success," said Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho Corporation. "Together,

Solutions, Avaya Interna-tional. “We have often stated that organizations do not need AI — they need solutions to business is-sues. Applying AI for the sake of AI can be tempting. However, the main focus of any CEO looking to deliver best-in-class customer and employee experiences should be on utilizing AI, if — and only if — it solves a business issue.” Just 25% of UAE businesses have a fully implemented AI strategy, according to the research, with the remainder still weighing up use cases. With

Sridhar Vembu

CEO, Zoho Corporation Zoho and Mastercard simplify the daily responsibilities of these entrepreneurs and help their businesses grow and thrive. As partners, we embark on our joint mission to fuel the global small business economy." Zoho is a cloud-based platform accessible via website and app and can be delivered via API. Zoho’s technology stack is flexible, taking the heavy lift off the integration process and making bringing solutions to market faster. Mastercard and Zoho shared solutions will be available later this year.

customer experience more important than ever before, Alzubaidi suggests focusing on those applications of AI that can have a measurable positive impact on the customer journey as the best place to start. This means integrating AI into the contact center. UAE businesses agree on this point; 92% of UAE respondents said that effective AI can transform the performance of their contact center. Indeed, over half (51%) are at least half-way through their strategy for rolling out AI in the contact center. August 2019 / SMARTSMB

NEWS/ KENYA

KENYA’S MSURVEY REBRANDS TO AJUA The move serves to reflect their growth, ambition and African Identity in their corporate brand. Nairobi based Customer Experience company mSurvey has rebranded to Ajua, Africa’s first Integrated Customer Experience Company. Ajua unveiled its new brand on Wednesday, July 31st at the Capital Club East Africa alongside chief guest Sylvia Mulinge, Chief Customer Officer, Safaricom. The move serves to reflect their growth, ambition and African Identity in their corporate brand. Ajua’s products have evolved to accelerate business growth on the continent by bridging the gap between businesses and their customers. “We’re building a brand that embodies the future of Customer Experience in today’s world.” Said Ajua CEO, Kenfield Griffith. “Our new brand embodies our dedication to continuously innovate our technology to provide businesses with actionable insights.” Ajua’s technology integrates with

PEZESHA AMONG FINTECHS TO BE GRANTED CMA REGULATORY SANDBOX APPROVAL Pezesha has been approved to extend their Digital Financial Marketplace by providing a digital crowdfunding Exchange platform Pezesha has been chosen as one of the initial three Fintech companies to receive approval to participate in the CMA Regulatory Sandbox. Pezesha has been approved to extend their Digital Financial Marketplace by providing a digital crowdfunding ExSMARTSMB / August 2019

businesses at the points that matter most to their customers to measure and optimize their Customer Experience. Since the company’s inception in 2012, Ajua has enabled leading brands in Africa to improve their Customer Experience and increase operational efficiency with strategic information on their customer brand journey. The tech firm drew inspiration for their new corporate brand from Ajua, a game of strategy which is believed to be one of the oldest games in the world. Ajua originated from Africa and spread to the rest of the world, it has been passed down from generation to generation and is still widely played to date. The board game is now over 1,300 years old with over 200 variations. It goes by over 800 names and is played in about 99 countries around the world. change platform, through which small businesses can apply online for funding provided by investors through loan notes. The CMA approval restricts the testing period to 12 months. “The Regulatory Sandbox allows live testing of innovations under a less onerous regulatory regime and is expected to attract fintech companies and existing capital markets licensees to test the application of technology to financial services. The admission of the three firms is an important milestone noting that the Authority had set itself a target to admit five firms to the Regulatory Sandbox by 2023”, said Mr. Muthaura, CEO of CMA Kenya. Upon exit from the Sandbox, Pezesha could be granted a license or approval to operate in Kenya subject to compliance with existing legal and regulatory requirements.

Ajua mirrors the game of strategy by enabling businesses to see, think, move and win. The company’s evolution into an Integrated Customer Experience Company has gone a step above giving businesses a proactive customer centric approach with rich customer data from meaningful customer interactions. The company now aims to enable companies to predict customer needs with up to date customer analytics and tools to take action where it matters most. Speaking on the evolution, Chief Product Officer, Louis Majanja added “We are embedding technology into culture, our rebranding captures our commitment to help businesses understand their customers and empower consumers in the market.” “We are excited about this CMA approval, as it brings endless possibilities as well as cements trust and credibility in our business by shortening our time to market and allowing us to achieve our mission of financial inclusion at a larger scale, while addressing any legal and regulatory requirements. More so, opening up the market for retail lenders, DFIs, angels and impact investors to provide working capital to quality and creditworthy small businesses, as their growth and opportunities are continuously choked due to the lack of affordable and accessible long term financing”, says Hilda Moraa the CEO of Pezesha. “Our vision as Pezesha is to evolve to a digital Exchange financial platform of choice and equality that brings financial inclusion to the underserved MSMEs who are the anchors of youth employment and economic development in Africa”, she adds.

IN DETAIL

AWS LAUNCHES REGION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

New AWS Region expands cloud pioneer’s global footprint, enabling customers to innovate faster and run workloads from data centers located in the Middle East Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company has announced the opening of the AWS Middle East (Bahrain) Region. With this launch, AWS now spans 69 Availability Zones within 22 geographic regions around the world, and has announced plans for nine more Availability Zones across three more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Italy, and South Africa. Starting now, developers, startups, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and non-profit organizations can run their applications and serve end-users from data centers located in the Middle East, as well as leverage advanced technologies from the world’s leading cloud, to drive innovation. “The cloud has the chance to unlock digital transformation in the Middle East,” said Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon Web Services. “Today, we are launching advanced and secure technology infrastructure that matches the scale of our other AWS Regions around the world and are already seeing strong demand in the Middle East for AWS technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, data analytics, IoT, and much more. We are excited to see how our cloud technology will provide new ways for governments to better engage with citizens, for enterprises to innovate for their next phase of growth, and for entrepreneurs to build businesses and compete on a global scale.” The new AWS Middle East (Bahrain) Region offers three Availability Zones at launch. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones, which each comprise at least one data center and are located in separate and distinct geographic locations with enough distance to significantly reduce the risk of a single event impacting business continuity, yet near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications. Each Availability

Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected via redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault-tolerance. AWS infrastructure Regions meet the highest levels of security, compliance, and data protection.

environmental services, financial services, land and real estate, and many other industries.

Millions of active customers are using AWS each month in over 190 countries around the world, including tens of thousands of customers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Government organizations are also working with AWS to lower costs and better serve citizens in the region. The Bahrain Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) is responsible for ICT procurement for the Bahrain government and is leading the government’s migration project to support the country’s Cloud First policy. iGA’s Chief Executive Mohammed Ali AlQaed said, “Bahrain is committed to becoming a country in the cloud and we will be able to accelerate our journey with the launch of the AWS Region in Bahrain. By December of this year, we will have 30 percent of all 72 government entities migrated to AWS and by June 2020, we expect to have most government data centers shut down, while the rest are minimized allowing us to focus resources on projects that benefit our citizens and dramatically improve the overall availability and durability of government applications and data.”

Emirates NBD is working with AWS to build an Artificial Intelligence-enabled bank of the future. The bank is utilizing AWS’s artificial intelligence and machine learning services, data analytics, and natural language processing technologies to better engage with customers and simplify banking. Well established family businesses in the Middle East are also moving to AWS to become more agile and innovate. This includes Saudi Arabia’s Abdul Latif Jameel , one of the most respected family-owned businesses across the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, and over 30 countries worldwide, with diversified interests in major sectors including transportation, energy and

Another regional enterprise moving to AWS is Al Tayer Group, one of the largest privately held family-run conglomerates in the MENA region. Al Tayer Group has interests in automobile sales and services, luxury and lifestyle retail, and hospitality.

August 2019 / SMARTSMB

STRATEGY

Scaling new frontiers in food industry An Emirati woman entrepreneur who went against all odds to setup her F&B brand - Papparoti, Ms Rasha Al Danhani’s story is an inspirational tale on its own. In a candid interview with the founder herself, we unveil the story of Papparoti, its start, the challenges it faced and recent expansions. Read on to find out more…

By Diksha Vohra

“I love food, I love exploring new food, tasting different kinds of dishes. I feel food binds people,” says Ms Rasha Al Danhani, founder of Papparoti, a cafe that needs no introduction. Born and raised in the UAE, Rasha had always dreamt about starting something of her own. Little do people know that she had worked in the banking and property sector before she stepped into her entrepreneurial shoes. The road to success, however, wasn’t all that easy. Coming from an Emirati background where not many women ventured into unconventional lines back then, Rasha decided to create her own path. Her first independent venture was a marine themed spa which she ran for almost two years before she decided to launch Papparoti. At a point when the F&B market seemed quite saturated to many, she dived into the ocean with a concept, a dream, an ambition and most importantly - her spirit.

The start Back in the late 2000s, Rasha had travelled to Malaysia when she stumbled upon ‘Papparoti’ which SMARTSMB / August 2019

literally translated means ‘Father (pappa) of the buns (roti)’. She was so impressed by it that she decided to name her brand after it. Finally in 2009, the outpost opened its doors to food lovers with its first kiosk at the Dubai Mall and redefined cafe dining in the Middle East.

The Gap Malaysian food, back then, wasn’t quite popular and there were no proper luxury cafes around which served great Malaysian food with a twist. Rasha so wanted to bring the taste of Malaysian food to the region that she decided to be the master franchiser of the brand for the entire Middle East. Since food is a necessity and people in the UAE love trying new food, Papparoti became an instant hit and kept growing from one point to another.

The Concept Papparoti is where great food meets great price. Coming from a non-food background, Rasha understood the pulse of the market. Having launched Papparoti in a period of severe market crunch, she

decided to work smart. While Papparoti serves authentic Malaysian inspired food with a twist for the regional diaspora, it is also not too heavy on the pocket. “My vision was to offer the people of UAE a unique, fresh product that wasn't available in the market and with PappaRoti I was able to do just that,” says Rasha. Moreover, the brand doesn’t target a particular age group but serves the tastes of all be it kids, teenagers, grown-ups or the elderly. The ambiance further adds to the charm of the brand as Rasha wanted to create a comfortable setting for people to dine at ease, a prominent factor which most of the kiosks didn’t have.

The Challenges When Rasha launched the brand in the year 2009, UAE was already undergoing a severe financial crunch. People were not taking any risks with establishing new businesses, forget about launching an unheard product. Everyone wanted to play safe. “To be honest, I was advised against the idea by many people as 2008-2009 was

STRATEGY

the time the UAE was undergoing a severe recession, the market situation was bad and starting something new during the period was a risk, a risk I was willing to take and well, the risk paid off.â&#x20AC;? The second challenge was the choice of the location. The Dubai Mall is undoubtedly a prime property, being the largest mall in the world. The space was very expensive and people advised her against opening the kiosk there. But Rasha was steadfast in her choice of location as she believed that being at the right place at the right time is important for a business to grow. Even as she overcame all the naysayers and opened her kiosk, exactly where

she wanted, the challenge of making a success of her decision still loomed large, but not for long. As she had not invested any substantial money for marketing activities she was fully dependent on the product. And she indeed had a winner. The freshness, crispness and fluffiness combined to give it a great taste and soon people were thronging her kiosk.

The Expansion After nearly a year of running the kiosk, she was pretty confident that the product would indeed succeed in whichever market it was launched in. Soon the first

Papparoti franchise outside of UAE came up in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Today the number of outlets serving these delicious buns in the UAE has risen to 17 indicating the acceptance of the product. Over the years new outlets have been opened in Oman and Kuwait in the Middle East. As far as the parent organisation is concerned Papparoti brand that started from Malaysia has since expanded across the world to India, China, Oman, Vietnam, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Australia, Bangladesh and the United Kingdom.

The Innovation Consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; tastes keep chang-

Rasha Al Danhani

Founder, Papparoti

August 2019 / SMARTSMB

STRATEGY

ing and evolving with time and it becomes imperative for any food business to create new tastes not only to attract more customers but also to retain the existing ones. Rashi says, in keeping with this philosophy, “We're constantly innovating with our bun toppings and drinks that go alongside the bun. We have a set of drinks that come out every season, Summer, Winter and we also have a special selection of items for Ramadan.”

Tips for startups Talking about the steps entrepreneurs need to set up a successful venture, Rashi says, “Instincts play an important role while you plan to start a business.” These instincts should be followed by thorough research as research is the bedrock of all successful business initiations. Of course, proper planning and execution are also required to start a business and to take it on the path of success. She also opines that self-belief and convic-

tion are of utmost importance for an entrepreneur and one should remain rooted in one’s beliefs and work constantly to accomplish his or her dreams irrespective of what others say.

The way forward Talking about her plans for Papparoti, Rasha says that they would be introducing a new main product shortly in the market. Stopping short of divulging more details about the product, Rasha is confident that it would be lapped up by the customers. She also has plans to take the franchise to new countries and is in talks with interested parties. The entrepreneur in her is not content with the success of Papparoti and she has exciting plans up her sleeves for more ventures. One such venture, "The 1978 Suite, a one-stop beauty salon has come into existence recently in Dubai. It

has a number of beauty services under one roof, from nail, hair & beauty services to massages and Moroccan bath that would make ladies happy and rejuvenated. She also plans to further expand in the F&B business and is in the process of setting up a fine-dine restaurant, “Micro,” in Dubai. She does not intend to stop here and has more concepts to work on in the future.

"I love food, I love exploring new food, tasting different kinds of dishes. I feel food binds people"

TALKPOINT

THE FOCUS ON STRENGTH Xtramix Group of Companies is one of the leaders in the UAE construction materials industry. Abdel Razzak Dajani, MD, Xtramix Group of Companies speaks about the group’s operations and its focus By R. Narayan the product range of Xtramix Group of Companies. The vision is to be a total concrete solutions provider in the industry. XCP manufactures different types of blocks and interlocks.

What outlook do you see for construction as it goes through boom and downturn?

Abdel Razzak Dajani

MD, Xtramix Group of Companies

Tell us about the group’s focus in construction industry?

advanced 15 batching plants, 99 transit mixers of 10m³ mixer drum capacity, 21 mobile boom type trucks with mounted concrete pumps, and two stationary pumps with placing booms.

We are a construction material company. We produce material related to cement ingredients. We have three companies in the group. Xtramix Concrete Solutions was the first to be established in 2006. We are a market leader in providing complete solutions to all customers’ needs in concrete products in the region. Xtramix produces high-quality and high performance concrete to major projects for all sectors including but not limited to petrochemical, infrastructure, hospitality, real estate, energy, pipeline, and others. Xtramix is strategically situated in different locations in Abu Dhabi, Western Region, Al Ain, and Dubai. We are fully equipped with fully automated and technologically

Xtramix International Precast LLC is engaged in design, manufacture and erection of Precast Concrete components for construction projects. The factory is located in ICAD III area of Abu Dhabi. The production facility in ICAD III area was built on a 144,000 square meters land and is equipped with a modern precast concrete production facility that incorporates hollow core slab production plants, as well as circulated line modules, equipment and machinery for production of wall frame building system, framed structural systems (columns and beams) and boundary walls.

SMARTSMB / August 2019

Xtramix Cement Products LLC was acquired on 2014 in order to increase

The economic cycle has shrunk compared to previously. Earlier, we would see a period of 5-7 years of growth but now it seems to be around three years. I believe this is pretty much part of the globalization trends- going from the lowest point to the peak and then climb down. Our industry is important to the gulf region and of course the UAE. The UAE has tremendous developments compared to any other countries in the region. There has been extreme competition and development in the business in the UAE and that is especially what brought me here as I was inspired by the challenge and the opportunities. We have done well in our industry. As far as outlook is concerned, the market, in Abu Dhabi, has been better compared to last year and I see the trend going higher next year. In the readymix division, we have attained considerable repute for our quality products. We are one of the largest suppliers of concrete for all ADNOC projects, for military also. We have worked in many of the most challenging projects in the UAE, those which require the ultimate strength in concrete. We are proud of our achievements.

Discuss the focus on

TALKPOINT

strength of concrete Discuss how many cus- How do you see you materials? tomers you engage with company amongst your on a regular basis? competition? When you measure the concrete, you measure the strength by pressure exerted per square cm and so on. With the effort of our technical team, we have been able to produce the concrete with the ultimate highest strength in the UAE which is a minimum of 120 Newton.

Discuss some of the kind of projects you worked with? We have done many important projects in precast division, datacentres, schools, sustainable city in Dubai. We are working on the extension of the Dubai outlet mall which is an interesting concept. We have done done many large villa projects in the residential segment. As of now, the large projects seem to be in the quasi-government segment. A lot of new projects are coming up in Abu Dhabi in the next couple of years, in infrastructure, housing and support services.

We work with everybody. Between our three companies, we have roughly close to 500 clients we work with on a regular basis. We have a large organization to take care of so many clients. We manage them through an ERP system that we developed in house with a UAE based solution provider. We have invested all of our experience in it and the product works quite well for us. From sales to production to logistics and maintenance, all these and more functions are covered by the solution.

We are by far technically the strongest in our segment. We have a rich back of data , technical support, tremendous HR resources that makes me confident that we are a leader. We are definitely in the top three in the UAE.

Are you looking to expand? We have multiple plants and try to minimize the cost of transformation and are eyeing all other regions of the UAE as part of expansion plans.

Have you invested in any new solutions lately? Which of your businessWe have partnered with Etisalat this es has been the fastest year for tracking solutions, an effort growing? in the direction of digitalization of the company. This helps to track our equipment and the quality of the concrete while it is being delivered. We are the first company to sign such an agreement with Etisalat.

The Readymix has always been the fastest growing because of the demand. However the precast Business has also been growing very well.

August 2019 / SMARTSMB

TALKPOINT

THRIVING IN DISRUPTION

The traditional role of IT being just a cost center and keeping the lights on is no longer valid and stakeholders are now looking at CIO’s to drive business models that generate revenue By Baraka Jefwa As many of the world’s economic sectors continues to transition towards the fourth industrial revolution; whereby technologies such as Big Data, Blockchain, Cloud Computing, Analytics and artificial intelligence are being used in a bid to revolutionize businesses, we take a look at how such technologies are influencing the hospitality industry in Kenya.

the industry, to educate and empower every user to inter-dependently work with the technology we provide and to employ technology that is objective. The traditional role of being just a cost center and keeping the lights on has been decimated and stakeholders are now looking at CIO’s to drive business models that generate revenue,” added Mr. Maina.

According to statistics from Jumia Travel, a major hospitality brand, Kenya is ranked top in Africa, in share of mobile internet traffic at 83 percent as of 2017; while 86 percent of the country’s population has access to the internet (43 million Kenyans).This high connectivity has allowed more Kenyans to go online to look for travel information such as deals and discounts on hotels and airlines, new destinations as well as travel packages.

Mr. Maina further explains that to achieve both his and the hotels vision, he works with a team of highly competent and intelligent people; with whom, over the years, they have been able to log several achievements which include:

Apart from online bookings, the hospitality industry is amid the tech revolution with VR, online video marketing and IoT among just a few of the technologies disrupting the industry. According to Francis Maina, IT Manager, Sarova Stanley, a top hotel in Kenya, “As much as the hospitality industry encapsulates customers as our main clients, we have other beneficiaries of technology who also need to be catered for,” “As the custodian of this drive for innovation, the focus is and has always been to enable better and seamless interaction between all our beneficiaries and the infrastructure employed in SMARTSMB / August 2019

• Improving their guest satisfaction index (GSI) to above 90% and above • Enhancing uptime of all admin and customer facing applications to above 98% • Optimizing the supply chain life cycle, • Enhancing e-commerce security management and have • Overseeing some of their technological initiatives in causing significant reduction of overhead operating costs for the entire Sarova Group Mr. Maina further explains, “We always have our ears to the ground to know what is changing out there and how fast this change is happening so that we can get on board the “correct train”. We have sensitized our service providers to never shy away from pro-

Francis Maina

IT Manager, Sarova Stanley, Kenya

viding information on new solutions even the said solution is still in its testing phases. Our objective is always to stay abreast with our customers’ needs and demands to the degree that these needs align with our “Why”, our “What” and our “How”,” “Our attention is now in AI, robotics, predictive analytics, IoT and BPM which are becoming more of reality now than futuristic tech. The B2C and B2B application has increased in scope that we would be blind if we did not get with the program,” added Mr. Maina. To the question of what new technologies he thinks will influence Kenya's hospitality industry in the future? Mr. Maina responded by noting that to him, analytics and big data are at the forefront of influencing Kenya’s hospitality industry especially because of the dynamism of trying to satisfy the clientele’s hunger for greater CRM platforms. “Robotics is a big one too, and we have seen this already in other countries where natural language processors have developed enough to be able to interpret questions and requests and deliver intended outcome. IoT is slowly being embraced away from the home environment though it’s adoption will only be realized when there is a guarantee of security of data and information for the consumer.” Mr. Maina concluded.

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ROUNDTABLE

TOWARDS A DIGITAL FACELIFT

The leadership day with Epicor and RheinBrucke explores trends in manufacturing industry as manufacturers get on board the By R. Narayan digital transformation journey of Companies mentioned how his group of companies has gone after digital transformation by incorporating different technologies. He said,”We have our own ERP systems and we have invested our experience in that solution. We have customized the ERP to work perfectly for us, from production to invoicing etc with all modules. We have bar codes assigned for every item that goes out from the factory in our precast business and can be tracked right through. We have also partnered with Etisalat for IoT platform and the next phase of action is to have live data feeds from our machines. We have investigated several options before we settled for the Etisalat platform.”

he leadership day with Epicor and RheinBrucke , organized by Business Media International was held at the Sheraton in Abu Dhabi on 16th July. The session set out to understand in some detail as to what is driving the need for transformation in manufacturing. The discussion also looked to enhance a shared understanding among the participants from manufacturing sector about best technology practices for their organizations to accelerate growth strategies via digital transformation. Nader El Hediny, Channel Sales Manager and Suresh Chandrasekharan, Chief

SMARTSMB / August 2019

Solutions Architect at RheinBrucke IT Consulting chaired the session and set the stage for understanding some of the transformation initiatives that the participants were currently undertaking. According to Nader, “ The introduction of a group of technologies in recent years is enabling digital transformation to enhance customer experience. While it is necessary to differentiate for companies in their domains, digital transformation can be different for different companies.” Abdel Razzak Dajani, MD, Xtramix Group

Mubarik Hussain, Group CIO at Bloom Holding said, “We are Abu Dhabi based and have different businesses. We have been going through the digital transformation journey and have deployed a lot of solutions including ERP, SIEM solutions etc. We have been on to other areas and have been looking to digitize our buildings, all integrated together. That will help in operations of those buildings.We are looking at blockchain as well. Our infrastructure is hybrid- we have some workloads in the cloud and something on premise. We run a lot of SaaS solutions. We have a lot of customer analytics touchpoint sacross our Businesses which helps us enhance our offerings.” A few of the participants mentioned they are in the mode of already de-

ROUNDTABLE

ploying some IoT platforms or are in an exploratory phase. Adding to this, Nader mentioned how Epicor IoT connects into the Microsoft Azure IoT hub, allowing companies to capture the vast amounts of data from IoT sensors and analyze that data to gain insights that support smarter decision-making. Suresh highlighted an example from one of RheinBrucke ’s projects as to how IoT is enabling smart solutions for different industries. He said, “We have done a project in Europe for container ships at the port. The challenge was as to how do we arrange the containers in the ports efficiently. If the containers are not positioned correctly, space cannot be used efficiently. With the solution, The crane is able to sense the kind of container it is lifting and the server is able to decide algorithms for the space to ensure space is efficiently allocated.” He elaborated using another example as to how IoT will enable factories in streamlining preventative maintenance of machines well in advance. “Most of the factories have different equipments - equipment have sensors deployed on the machines and if vibration goes beyond a certain frequency, then immediately a request goes out for maintenance and is carried out. These are small value additions but will make a great difference to factory production. The dependency on IT is going higher and there is a need to adopt these technologies.”

Some of the questions raised included as to what were the kind of challenges the technology leaders face when driving the digital transformation journey. Whether there was a need for Change management? Whether there was a resistance to digital transformation? Was it external pressure or internal aspiration to be ahead of competition that drove the adoption of some of these newer technologies? From opinions shared at the forum, it was evident that some IT leaders are evangelists of the technologies within their organizations while some keep pace with what is required for their industries. The challenges for pioneers is there are not many examples to follow. In terms of resistance, the Return on

investment is an important consideration for the top management and that needs to be shown to the management from these investments as a business case. There has to be a balance. According to Shahzad, CIO of RDK group it helps if Business leaders are brought into the equation from the beginning. He said,, “We have to have the Business leaders on the same page. Select the pain points and show how digital transformation can help. It is not always technology leaders who need to lead the transformation and the opportunity should be given to Business leaders.” In final analysis, the forum brought out the growing interest of companies in the manufacturing sector towards adopting technologies to enable smarter factories.

August 2019 / SMARTSMB

PHARMA

THE STIFF

CHALLENGE With medical insurance becoming compulsory and an increase in competition from bigger groups, are small, independent pharmacies finding it difficult to survive in the UAE market?

By Diksha Vohra

fter her doctor’s appointment, Raina walks into an Aster pharmacy which was located right next to the Aster clinic she visited. She hands over her doctor’s prescription to the pharmacist. “Do you have insurance, ma’am?” the pharmacist asks. Raina nods, removes her Emirates ID (since the insurance policy is now updated on the Emirates ID itself) and gives it to her. “Your total bill is AED 40/- for the following 4 medicines,” says the pharmacist. Raina pays for the same and

SMARTSMB / August 2019

leaves, allowing the next customer to purchase her medicines. A few days later, her friend visits a small pharmacy located under her building to purchase the same medicines. While her original bill was AED 40/-, her pharmacist introduced her to a few more supplements which she could take to increase her immunity, which she purchased. As the supplements were not covered by insurance, she ended up paying AED 49 extra over the original bill. Surprisingly enough, the cost of four

medicines was AED 40 and the cost of one supplement was AED 49. Thanks to insurance, customers now have to pay only a fraction of the total cost of the prescribed medicines to the pharmacies. While insurance companies take 60-90 days on an average to process insurance claims from the pharmacies, are pharmacies able to maintain a healthy cash flow during this period? “We don’t feel the pressure because we focus on other elements,” says Dr Abeer Osman who heads Vita Pharmacy in Sharjah. “Since insurance claims take long, we try to provide a much

PHARMA

more dedicated customer service so that we can have cash purchases. On a daily basis, our insurance bills account for 50% of our sales and the rest are cash transactions. That’s how we manage.” Moreover, most of the suppliers of the medicines also offer a credit period between 60-90 days for payment, says Dr Abeer. So the insurance period coincides with the supplier payment period on an average for most medicines. However, as competition gets tougher, even that’s beginning to become a problem. “A lot of vendors have stopped offering a long credit period,” says Dr Abeer. “Hence, we are unable to open an account with them and store their medicines in our pharmacy.” This is where

Dr Abeer Osman

Head, Vita Pharmacy Sharjah

the catch for most independent pharmacies comes to picture. With group pharmacies, thanks to their brand value, goodwill and apparent understanding that they are not dependent on a few outlets to generate their income, they’re a better choice for suppliers. They’re also able to offer shorter credit periods to vendors who prefer to keep their medicines in their pharma-cies. While the customer service of smaller pharmacies may attract people, but if the prescribed medi-cines aren’t available, they have no option but to go to bigger pharmacies to purchase the same. Interestingly enough, pharmacies have been amongst the fastest growing categories in the local retail sector last year with a lot of mergers and acquisitions happening. Due to the benefits of better credibil-ity, interdependency and more, smaller pharmacies are either being shut down or being taken over by large pharmaceutical groups. For instance, the Aster group today owns more than 150 pharmacies across the region at some of the most prominent locations like shopping malls, clinics, upcoming commercial and residential locations in the city. And more are on the way. To an extent, this indicates that the only mode of survival for independent pharmacies in the age is by joining a bigger group. But is that true? “What you see from the outside is not what it on the inside,” says Jason Morais, Managing Director of Genese Group of Companies. “There are many group pharmacies which are struggling with funds. Right now, nobody is looking at profitability. Everyone is

looking at organic growth and sustainability through increasing the number of outlets and the top line.” A serial entrepreneur, Jason is now stepping into the pharmacy business by launching a new brand ‘Aqua’ towards the end of the month for which he is already in the process of taking over a few pharmacies. “We’re not going their way,” says Jason. “We’re very clear about what we need and hence we are on-ly acquiring those pharmacies which have a great location, are generating a good revenue and have the potential to do better. We’re focused on ROI and profitability which is why we’re being very choosy about which pharmacy to take over.” Jason believes that each pharmacy should be sustainable in its own accord and it should not depend on another clinic’s revenue hoping it would pull the chariot for both riders. This, however, brings us to the big question - which is a more sustainable business strategy: running an independent pharmacy or joining a bigger group? “It all depends on where you are at the moment,” says Dr Abeer. “We are not facing any such threats and we’re able to manage our cash flow and business well.” Following Jason’s opinion, it can safely be concluded that one needs to be wise and intelligent before making the choice. Simply associating with a brand without understanding how its other branches are doing (specially the ones located out-side popular retail outlets and commercial spots) would be detrimental to the business. On the other hand, for an independent pharmacy to survive which doesn’t at least have four to five branches, ac-cording to a report, can be difficult due to the ongoing credit shortages, insurance claims and so on. So even if smaller pharmacies are planning to expand, it would be wise enough to choose which pharma-cy to acquire based on real time data, location and previous records. “It is a profitable business to do, provided you’re wise, well planned, and you know your goal,” concludes Dr Abeer. August 2019 / SMARTSMB

LOGISTICS

ALIGNING WITH NEW DEMAND PATTERNS AND SHIFTS

By Diksha Vohra

The last decade has witnessed an increase in companies offering transportation and warehousing services. Amidst that and technological development, what strategies are mid-market logistics companies using to thrive over these challenges? Wherever there is trade, there is a need for transport. Since long, the UAE has been recognized as a trading hub be it across land, sea or air. Undoubtedly, UAE would be the ideal destination for any logistics company to establish itself with so much scope of work. While this statement holds true to an extent till date, over the last decade this industry has witnessed a lot of change and a disruption in profit models. As per Mohan George Pulinthitta, Partner and Managing Director of Integrated Freight & Logistics LLC, the economic recession is the biggest factor that ignited this disruption. “The global recession we have been experiencing for the past few years has forced many of the clients to look into cost reduction in every segment,” he says. With cash flow being an important concern across all industries where customers decided to spend lesser on transportation and storage, this lead to many logistics firms collaborating with third party international players to share costs. “The last decade has witnessed companies realizing that emerging international markets are a part of their growth strategy,” says Thomas Gregory, Executive Director and Partner at Fusion Specialised Shipping & Logistics LLC. “Logistics solution providers pushed themselves to go international and established this trend by networking with key players in the international markets. Technology has played a key role in these developments. Having said that, this also led to a lot of new companies mushrooming every other day. With a hunger to grab business “at any cost”, a latent price war SMARTSMB / August 2019

has taken form.” Varsha Sharma, Business Development Manager of Diligent Freight Services LLC seconds Thomas. “Due to this upsurge, expense awareness to the clients has been simplified and profit margins have been affected.” While price wars do not affect big firms as much, considering they have an established market value, loyal customers and benefits from economies Mohan George Pulinthitta of scale, it were the Partner and MD, Integrated Freight mid-market companies & Logistics LLC which were drastically affected. On one hand, the weak new startups flow. “With the shift of customers toobviously couldn’t continue because wards cost optimization, our business it didn’t make financial sense, and pattern has changed from value based stronger startups, on the other hand, to volume based shipments. Definitemade corrective measures to not sink. ly, increasing of volume has increased “With over 10 years of industry presour investment with a direct impact on ence, we were able to clearly stay cash flow. ” says Varsha. However, are above water. Yes, our margins were increased volumes and quicker transup for negotiations and in some cases portation requirements impacting the were reduced. But our long standing quality of goods being shipped? relationship with our customers and the quality of service provided has “We don’t feel this has or will ever been helping us tide over these chalimpact the quality of goods – that lenges,” says Thomas. could spell out the doomsday for such business,” says Thomas. According For other companies in the same to him, customers have compromised pool, apart from relying on long term on quality of services by extending customer relationships, increasing the delivery timelines but have never volume seemed like the most viable compromised on the quality of goods. option to maintain continuous cash

LOGISTICS

With rising fuel prices, wages would increase which would eventually increase the costs on the transporter’s end. Companies like Tesla, Starsky Robotics and more are hence creating long haul robotic drivers to curb the expenses, improve efficiency and reduce the probability or errors. Regional companies, however, still feel that this is too long away.

With constant technological innovations in place, the inspection practices have improved for faster shipment. “The sample testing practices have improved a lot which is really time saving and the quality of products has not been compromised at all. This has also raised the efficiency bar with first time right solutions,” notes Varsha. Mohan also credits Government authorities and improved regulations in this matter. “With proper systems in place from Dubai Ports and Customs, Dubai Municipality and other Government authorities, it is nearly impossible that there will be any impact on the quality of inspection and the goods. Speed is measured terms of processing and delivery, without compromising quality,” he adds. Talking about technology, where procedures have been implemented to improve efficiency, quite a few international companies are also taking steps to automate the entire process.

Varsha Sharma

Business Development Manager, Diligent Freight Services LLC

“The infrastructure requirements to have these advanced services operational is going to take a lot of time and none of the countries have taken a big step in developing the support infrastructure,” notes Thomas. “UAE being a major trading hub and infrastructure developments contributing a sizeable share in the non-oil sources of the GDP, such automations could put a clog in the machinery as UAE is not ready yet.” By the looks of it, while the technological advancements will have an impact, such developments regionally would take time to build. “With Tesla rolling out their EVs almost 2 years back, we are yet to see a major shift in the people’s preferences. We feel this could be similar case with transport automation in logistics,” he says. Mohan also feels that these vehicles need to be carefully monitored and tested well before being launched, which doesn’t seem to be happening soon. But companies do feel that once these technological innovations are in place, they would have a positive impact on the industry. As Varsha says, “When automated transportation will be available in the UAE it would definitely open up new or untouched segments of business, bringing in new opportunities in the market. Furthermore, highlighting some benefits being life safety where human life is the topmost priority; timely or timebound delivery of materials would be considered wherein rest breaks of drivers would be eliminated, therefore increasing the efficiency in work.” The fact, however, remains that automation can only solve one part of the problem. The major challenge logistics companies are facing today still remains unaddressed - cash flow. In to-

Thomas Gregory

Executive Director and Partner, Fusion Specialised Shipping & Logistics LLC day’s date, credibility of customers has become a huge concern for many companies with quite a few of them falling out on payments leaving the logistics firm in financial stress. “In an industry where our payouts are non-credit and our pay-ins are on a long term credit, the commitment to ensure that the wheel doesn’t stop at any point in time is a daunting task. However after such struggles, if the customer is a willful defaulter and if there is no recourse to receiving the payments, is when we feel that the whole business exercise is of no use. Risk cover against pay-ins is the biggest ask for the hour,” says Thomas. There is a need of a regulatory body comprising of government institutions, banking heads and other commercial regulatory authorities who can grade, rate and monitor the performances of companies in terms of vendor payments. This will then allow the logistics industry to have this as a shield against willful defaulters and chronic delayed-payers. “Also I feel they need to allow only the registered forwarding agents to process custom clearance and related activities. This will bring in more energy to the industry and less headaches for the authorities,” concludes Mohan. August 2019 / SMARTSMB

FEATURE

PAVING THE ROAD TO WHERE SUSTAINABILITY MEETS PROFITABILITY Amruta Kshemkalyani

Founder, Sustainability Tribe

While sustainable businesses have been the talk of the town for a while now, not many businesses in the UAE are seen adapting sustainable technology in their business. We explore the reasons and bust myths on sustainability. By Diksha Vohra

ustainability, as a concept, is not new to the world. Where people across the globe are exploring the idea of sustainability at home and incorporating the same in their lifestyle, the commercial world, especially businesses who’s direct byproducts are not environment friendly have remained quite aloof from this concept. The same is the case with the concept of ‘sustainable business’ in the UAE. “Sustainable Business means the business which strives to meet these three: bottom line people, planet and profit,” says Amruta Kshemkalyani, a sustainability consultant and founder of The Sustainability Tribe. “This kind of business adopts innovative ways to reduce its negative impacts on local or global ecosystem or environment and contributes to the growth of the local society in ethical ways.” One of UAE’s top evangelists, Amruta has developed sustainability policies and initiated dedicated sustainability departments in various organisations. Throughout her extensive experience of dealing in the sustainability industry, she feels that in the UAE, businesses face two big challenges. “First is 'Greenwashing' and second is 'Substituting CSR in place of proper efforts to transform businesses into a sustainable business’." While some of the businesses take the first path, where the same business model and business practices are marketed as 'green' without taking much efforts to actually transform the business into making it more sustainable. Instead more efforts are taken into the marketing leg of the business. In the second

SMARTSMB / August 2019

path, instead of going on a longer term plan of assessing the business, creating a sustainability strategy and then implementing it to transform the business and adopt more sustainable ways; a short term plan of a few CSR activities are preferred where some positive efforts are taken on short term basis and promoted to facelift the image of the business. “In both cases, the business cannot be transformed into a more sustainable business in reality,” says Amruta. While nearly half (44 per cent) of mid-market enterprises (MMEs) in the UAE, see a direct connection between sustainable business practices and commercial success, according to data from HSBC Commercial Banking, only 18% of them feel that sustainable business practices are important to their business today. We are also seeing a rise in CSR activities like donations, sponsorships and so on, which though good, has taken the attention away from the main topic - implementing sustainable practices in the day to day running of the business to reduce negative impact on the environment.

Myths and Challenges “Yes, it (sustainable business) is a relatively new term in the UAE market but we have seen a surprising number of businesses choosing to go solar,” says Shivaram Reddy, Business Development Manager of SunScope Technologies, UAE. “Initially, the business owners or decision makers in the or-

FEATURE

ganization are usually skeptical about the solar panels on the roof. But, in our company’s model, we give a free feasibility report to the customers to help them decide if going solar is the right option for them. The savings part of the report surprises and attracts the people as they usually don’t expect to save as much.” This is not unusual as most people assume that implementation of green practices might cost them a fortune, which is actually not true. “There are financial institutions in the solar industry which help business owners fund their solar plant for the roof initially and charge the client monthly, based on the energy generated from the plant. This charge is usually lower than the DEWA’s tariff rate for electricity. Hence, the business owners can start saving up on electricity right from the first year of installation, without any upfront payment,” says Shivaram. In-fact, in 2016, DEWA created the Dh100 billion Dubai Green Fund to finance environmentally-friendly projects at favourable interest rates. In the private sector, First Abu Dhabi Bank issued a five-year $587 million (Dh2.16bn) green bond - the region’s first - in March 2017, and has set aside $10bn for financing green businesses over the course of 10 years. With so much support from the Government and the private sector, businesses have an incentive in going green. But as Shivaram notes, this is not their first priority. “Going solar unfortunately is still the secondary decision business owners want to take apart from their expansion and other business related aspects,” he notes. What businesses are failing to understand is that in due course of time, these sustainable techniques would only help them sustain in the market for long and maintain an edge over their competitors through rising profits because electricity through fossil fuel, as predicted, is not going to get any cheaper. Using solar energy can, however, turn the tables for them. The second myth is that only a few in-

dustry sectors can be sustainable. As Amruta notes, every possible business sector be it the primary sector (where we need more sustainable and circular raw materials), secondary sector (where we need more environmentally friendly, clean and ethical manufacturing processes and methods) or the service sectors (where we need more sustainable service providers) can be sustainable. “To reduce the adverse impacts on climate change and to progress towards circular economy, we need every business sector to take part and do their bit in terms of sustainability. That is the only way forward,” she says. Thirdly, as seen over the last two years where companies have tackled reduced economic sentiment linked to lower oil prices, some argue the focus has been on cost cutting rather than sustainability strategies. It is important to note that cutting costs can also be done by getting cheaper raw materials but the impact on the environment remains the same. Profitability does not necessarily equate to sustainability but conversely, sustainability does equate to profitability in the long run.

The future of sustainability in the UAE As far as the UAE is concerned, the Government has initiated quite a few campaigns to encourage sustainability. For instance, one of Dubai’s major green projects under development is the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the world’s largest single-site solar park. The Government has also launched the National Climate Change Plan, which targets ‘green’ energy to meet 27 per cent of the country’s energy needs by 2021 and 50 per cent by 2050. There are also many exam-

ples of companies who’re not primarily associated with environment friendly activities committing to sustainability initiatives. For example, Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) has committed to an expansive agenda, with $16.3m invested towards implementing initiatives over the 2014-2017 period. In 2017, the company published its first sustainability report following guidelines of the independent Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Another notable example is Dubai Properties, which said that it had completed the instalments of energy-saving systems from Honeywell and Signify in its communities that will offset an estimated 1,450 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. This proves that businesses do see the need of following ethical business practices but there is a need to increase awareness about such projects and how various businesses can go green. “The primary aspect one fails to notice is the very source of electricity that lights up the offices and runs the printers. We can save paper by printing less and going digital but as long as we choose to go with the energy generated from fossil fuels, it is going to have a massive impact on the environment,” concludes Shivaram.

Shivaram Reddy

Business Development Manager, SunScope Technologies August 2019 / SMARTSMB

COLUMN

WHY YOU SHOULD USE A BACKUP SOLUTION TO PROTECT YOUR CLOUD DATA Many organizations believe once their data is in the cloud their worries are over. Simon Hwang, APAC President from Synology however gives convincing reasons for organizations to invest in a cloud backup solution to create a foolproof situation around their data. As a region, the Middle East has its own set of compliances and privacy requirements. One of the very stringent requirements is to keep its government, mission critical, public sector data resident within its areas of jurisdiction. For this reason, in the last few years a number of cloud and infrastructure vendors have initiated roll outs to host their local editions in the region.

tions must have the complete copy of their cloud data accessible to themselves in the event of a wide spread operational failure or unexpected litigation or force majeure of any sort. Recent global outages involving large cloud service providers, like the recent Google outage in April 2019, have led consultants to point out that losses from such prolonged incidents could run into tens of billions of dollars.

Gartner has forecasted that Middle East and North Africa spending on public cloud services including software, infrastructure, platforms, and security, will cross the $2 billion mark by 2020.

Migration of an organization's employees to cloud platforms has meant they now have access to data stored on the cloud. Irrespective of how well security policies have been mapped into cloud application platforms, accidental deletion or malicious deletion of data by users is another unpredictable possibility for the loss of data in the cloud.

Overall, the adoption, usage and spending on public cloud has seen a consistent double-digit growth in almost every region of the world. The primary reason for this is the switchover from an asset-based capital expenditure model for IT spending to an operating expenditure, pay-as-youuse model, that is provided by a public cloud type of consumption service. This reduces the burden of having a high initial expenditure outlay and a software vendor-based lock-in. The consumerization of IT, which is so much a part of the public cloud platform, continues to be an enabler for the double-digit growth of IT spending on this platform. On the flip side, it has opened the gates for a large number of users to come on board and use the platform. While the number of cloud-enabled users will definitely boost collaboration and workflow inside an organization, it exposes a wider segment of executives to the vagaries of an external environment. Irrespective of the service level agreements of uptime provided by the cloud service providers, business organizaSMARTSMB / August 2019

Consulting company, Aberdeen Group, points out that the most common reason for data loss in the public cloud, is end-user deletion, even when multiple confirmation steps are required. While such incidents are definitely not frequent, when they do occur, the financial losses could be devastating. In other words, the cloud platform does not offer a fool-proof plan for data protection unless organizations actively build such a plan. One of the best ways to build such a fool-proof plan is to invest in a data backup solution that can replicate and save data from the cloud to on-premises, irrespective of which cloud platform is being used by the organization. Moreover, the best backup solution is one which allows data to be backed up from multiple cloud platforms and saved on-premises. The reason for this is, most organizations are in a multi-cloud platform environment rather than a single cloud one. Such a backup solution would work

Simon Hwang

APAC President, Synology equally well whether the cloud platform was Microsoft's Office 365, OneDrive or MyDrive, as common examples. The backup solution would also offer multiple modes of backup operation, which could be a continuous mode process, scheduled process, or manual process. With increasing prices of cloud storage services, as you include value added services such as security, backup and recovery, backing up data from the cloud to on-premises, is getting increasingly economical. This is more pronounced for large, sprawling, global enterprises. By backing up data from the cloud to on-premises, end users can save on cloud storage costs and only keep the most current data in their licensed cloud platforms. Lastly, the backup solution should offer the latest storage management features such as deduplication and single instance data management. This would bring cost and storage efficiency to the organization that has taken the initiative to backup cloud data into an on-premises data management platform. While innovative technologies may come and go, offering multiple opportunities for businesses to adapt and move efficiently forward, being able to successfully manage inherent risks is also part of the success.

Synergising the Mind & Technology Economy The biggest tech show in the Middle East, North Africa & South Asia

#GITEX2019

gitex.com

#gitexfuturestars

futurestarsSales@dwtc.com

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INTELLIGENT

MANUFACTURING Manufacturing is Back, and More Intelligent Than Ever—But Are We Reaping the Benefits Yet asks Terri Hiskey, Vice President of Product Marketing for Manufacturing at Epicor Software Look around, and the manufacturing industry is brimming with examples of firms that are bringing the latest technological developments to their factory floors. Their goal? To improve processes, increase automation levels, and facilitate future business growth. A case in point is the manufacturing giant Siemens, which has used automation to reduce the rollout time of new products by a third. Another example is global autoparts manufacturer Hirotec, which has used cloud-based analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) to reduce system inspection times by 100 percent—a move that has helped the company avoid a painful $361 per-second bill for downtime during manual inspections.

Inspiring innovation It is outcomes such as these that are inspiring other manufacturers, across the globe, to implement IoT technologies into their production environments. In fact, according to recent research from Epicor, 69% of manufacturers believe their industry is on the verge of large scale IoT adoption, or is at least at an experimental level. All this indicates the sector is entering an exciting period of change, where manufacturers seize on digital innovation and transformation opportunities. Indeed, the same Epicor research shows us that manufacturers are increasingly embracing technology. 79% already have sensors on their machines, and 42% are using IoT technology to control and work with robots. In addition to making manufacturers more agile and more responsive, such technologies can also enable smaller firms to compete against much larger players. Like many emerging trends, willingness to adopt and get to grips with IoT varies across geographic regions. Despite the SMARTSMB / August 2019

Terri Hiskey

Vice President of Product Marketing for Manufacturing, Epicor Software

hype, a surprising 44% of global manufacturers have still either never heard of IoT or know little about it. This rises to 57% in EMEA, where the pace of adoption is much lower compared to Asia Pacific, where the thirst for new technology is much higher. Just 27% of manufacturers in APAC are unaware or poorly informed about IoT.

Counting the gains However, where IoT is put to work—with production robots that can send and receive data, or perhaps the use of RFID

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technology to connect shipments with factory equipment—not every manufacturer is finding it easy to measure the gains enabled by these technology implementations. Research tells us that IoT technology itself can be challenging to implement, and that its impact can be hard to quantify. In fact, around three-quarters (72%) of manufacturers surveyed by Epicor in the research above, say they are yet to measure any real return on their IoT investments to date. This, it seems, is the harsh reality of IoT. Yes, connected technology is putting the spotlight back on manufacturing. Yes, it’s making the factories of the future possible, today. And yes, there are outstanding examples of manufacturers transforming their operations as a result. Yet many firms within the manufacturing community are struggling to justify their spend on all of this new technology.

IoT and ERP—the perfect pairing By default, the IoT involves capturing a huge amount of data—from the production line through to the wider sup-

ply chain. If the IoT is to truly bring value to an organization, this data needs to be captured and analyzed via an effective enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Afterall, a return-on-investment figure can’t be calculated if outcomes cannot be measured. Using ERP technology alongside IoT solutions is becoming increasingly accepted among manufacturers as a way of addressing this particular challenge. Many are starting to recognize the importance of placing an ERP system at the heart of their smart factories because it means that centralized monitoring becomes possible, accurate data can be collected, informed decisions can be made, and improvements can be measured. To give factories the confidence to take the plunge in full scale IoT adoption and realize the benefits, they need to be reassured about security and stability. Failing to start with a secure foundation, or utilizing best practices and platforms is an expensive mistake to make. Azure Sphere from Microsoft is an example of a technology used to build highly secure connected intelligent products. Security is at the heart of the microcontroller and combined with the operating system

and cloud services provides in-depth defense against threats and the ability for manufacturers to focus on the real features of IoT, not the underlying concerns. Combine this with Epicor IoT and each manufactured product can be coupled with its digital twin, and bi-directional events can flow between the core ERP system, providing a next generation platform allowing manufacturers to move quickly with confidence and reimagine their business. As we move in to the second half of 2019, we can expect to see switchedon manufacturers continue to shift towards using intelligent cloud-based ERP solutions to justify their IoT investments. This will enable them to continue to take advantage of new opportunities, to optimize processes, and to remain agile. All through the powerful combination of IoT and ERP. Manufacturing is certainly back—gone are the days of dirty or dingy factories. Gone is the high use of manual labour and blue screens. Instead, we are entering an Industry 4.0 world where manufacturing is increasingly digital. In this world, ERP software combined with smart factory technology will be the perfect pairing.

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CLOUD, AI, IOT AND ADVANCED AUTOMATION – TRANSFORMATION IMPERATIVES FOR THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY In the digital era, manufacturing companies face business challenges that could scarcely have been imagined even a few years ago. Addressing these challenges depends on the company’s ability to take full advantage of the latest advances in information technology (IT), writes Aaron White, Regional Director, Middle East at Nutanix

Manufacturing and the Cloud Cloud computing is poised to transform every aspect of modern manufacturing. Industry leaders—as they embrace digital transformation—are turning to cloud technologies to increase operational efficiency, improve supply chain management, and change how products are designed, produced, and distributed. No matter what type of manufacturing your company is engaged in—Consumer Goods, Automotive & Transportation, Chemicals & Metals, Industrial & High Tech, Medical & Pharma—advanced IT and cloud technologies can help you increase competitiveness, enhance innovation, and reduce costs. A recent study from Cloud Technology Partners found that the cloud can reduce total cost of ownership for manufacturers by as much as 42 percent. Embracing cloud technology will be essential in enabling manufacturers to deliver customized products with shorter delivery times. Success will be underpinned by three technology imperatives that every manufacturer must contend with: • IoT. The Internet of Things can improve operational efficiency, decrease maintenance costs, and generate new service revenues. • Artificial Intelligence. Manufacturing organizations are turning to big data analytics and AI in the form of machine learning and deep learning to enhance all aspects of their operations. • Automation. Advanced automation is transforming everything from the supply chain to the manufacturing floor, to distribution, to ordering.

Cloud Success Manufacturing IT teams have to careSMARTSMB / August 2019

fully navigate the evolving cloud landscape to be successful. This will require mature processes for deciding which applications and services to run in which cloud—whether that’s an on-premises private cloud, a CSP, or a big public cloud. And, because much of the operations will remain on-premises, the company needs to transform its datacenter infrastructure to deliver cloud-like agility. To build next-generation infrastructure, the company must look beyond legacy architecture to create datacenters that rival the cloud. But what does this new enterprise IT stack look like, and how can the company leverage the latest innovations as it puts datacenter and cloud strategies into practice? A growing number of manufacturing organizations have discovered that an enterprise cloud that offers the agility of public cloud without sacrificing control over critical resources is the answer.

Manufacturing and IoT Manufacturer companies are turning to IoT to connect and gather data from a wide variety of equipment and sensors across production facilities, distribution centers, transportation equipment, offices and other locations to deliver a competitive advantage in an increasingly wired and data-intensive world. By gathering and analyzing data in a more comprehensive way, companies can improve productivity and efficiency in production processes and supply chains. Many manufacturers are also extending these benefits to products that have been deployed by customers. For example, a maker of agricultural equipment might use IoT data received from customer machinery to enable predictive maintenance, improving customer satisfaction and

customer engagement, while also increasing service revenue.

Blending Operations and IT One of the most important changes resulting from IoT is an increasing need for operational staff and IT staff to work together. Depending on how your company is organized, both logically and geographically, these functions may be completely separate. In addition to collaboration, some reorganization may be necessary to ensure that all parties involved understand the business problem being addressed as well as all requirements and constraints

Jump-Starting IoT Efforts Many companies have difficulty identifying their best opportunities for IoT. Your goal should be to identify the places where IoT can make the biggest difference: • Where would having better data help your organization with decision-making or operations planning? • Do you have the data analysis tools in place to analyze the IoT data once you gather it? • Which manufacturing processes are the most troublesome? Could IoT data help fix those processes? • Which front office processes are the most troublesome? ·Could better or more complete data address those issues? Once you have identified a list of processes that could be improved by IoT, the next step is to identify the ones that pertain to equipment that either already has or can accommodate the necessary sensors and instrumentation. Most importantly, in order to accommodate IoT needs, infrastructure

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Aaron White

Regional Director, Middle East at Nutanix flexibility is essential. If the current IT is built on infrastructure that’s complex, expensive, and rigid, it will not be easy to accommodate new IoT demands. A flexible, agile cloud-based approach will make it easier to adapt to IoT and other new resource demands—both on-premises and in the cloud.

Manufacturing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Industry leaders are taking notice of the potential of AI to transform manufacturing. According to a recent report from Infosys, companies want to use AI to further automate manufacturing in order to increase productivity, minimize manual errors, reduce costs and eliminate the need for humans to perform repetitive tasks. These benefits apply across a wide variety of AI use cases from the front office to production facilities.

AI Use Cases in Manufacturing There are a number of AI use cases that manufacturers are already targeting. AI has the potential to help across your entire company, facilitating fraud prevention, predictive ordering, and opportunity assessment. Below are some: • Adaptive manufacturing - Today’s customers want products customized to their needs or taste. AI technolo-

gies are the key to making today’s rigid manufacturing and assembly line processes more flexible and able to adapt to changing demands quickly and with far less human intervention. • Human/robot collaboration - For some tasks, humans can’t be replaced. Artificial intelligence and improved sensing capabilities will enable new or updated robots to work more closely with humans, quickly learning new tasks as needs change and making the whole process more adaptive. • Quality control - Performing anomaly detection on hundreds of units in seconds, rather than hours, enables manufacturers to identify and resolve production failures before expensive delays pile up. Applying AI to quality control not only accelerates production, it can improve quality and reduce reliance on manual human inspections. • Streamlined supply chains - AI can help make sense of supply-chain data, identifying hidden patterns and improving performance across diverse areas including warehousing, transportation, production, and packaging while also allowing operations to adapt more quickly to market changes. • Predictive maintenance - Most manufacturers do equipment maintenance on a set schedule that doesn’t account for actual operating conditions. By analyzing equipment log data for anomalies, AI can enable companies to adapt maintenance schedules to actual needs and identify potential problems before failures occur.

Operationalizing AI for Manufacturing A good rule of thumb for AI projects is: don’t reinvent the wheel. There is no reason to spend your time developing AI models to solve problems that someone else has already solved. On the other hand, you won’t achieve a competitive advantage using the same tools as everyone else, so focus on innovating in the areas where you can differentiate your company. There are two important parts of AI where IT infrastructure decisions are critical: • Managing data - The first step is to collect data efficiently from the

source: IoT sensors, customer equipment, supply chain partners, etc., and stream that data for processing— usually to a datacenter or in the cloud. • Building and operating AI training clusters - If you are creating and training deep learning algorithms, that requires a training cluster equipped with GPUs that can process data in parallel.

Manufacturing and Advanced Automation The opportunities for automation across various types of manufacturing are almost endless. Some companies are even evaluating the potential for factories that are 100% automated, with environmental conditions optimized for machines not humans.

IT Infrastructure to Support Automation The entire operational environment— including IT—is going to become a lot more dynamic than it has been in the past, which has a number of important implications for IT: • Modernize infrastructure. If you are currently running a lot of legacy infrastructure, you will need to modernize to the greatest extent possible to reduce technical debt, increase agility, and free up resources to focus on new value-added projects. • Get ready for the edge. As your company rolls out IoT, AI, and automation projects, you will need a lot more IT infrastructure in edge locations such as production facilities, distribution centers, and remote offices. Many of those locations may lack onsite IT staff, making centralized management capabilities and ease of use essential. • Start by automating IT. To keep up with the increased dynamism and scale of your automation efforts, you will need the ability to automate IT tasks. Consider a private cloud to allow stakeholders to access IT resources and services on demand via self-service. • Leverage the cloud. Look for opportunities to take advantage of resources in the cloud where it makes sense, including public cloud services, specialized cloud service providers, and SaaS partners. August 2019 / SMARTSMB

IT DIRECTORY

DCG MEMBERS LIST Company Name

Head of Company

Name of Company Description Sales Person

Contact

E-mail

COIMBATORE COMPUTER CO LLC

GOPALKRISHNAN C. R.

IT Service and Solutions Provider in UAE since 2000, and Microsoft Silver Partner

04-3857121 050-7850992

info@computers-me.com

04-3932553 050-5057575 050-4576766

usman@copier.ae

COPIER INTERNATIONAL TRADING FZE

MUHAMMAD USMAN

COPIER INTERNATIONAL TRADING (CIT), headquartered in Dubai, has emerged as one of the most premier wholesalers and distributors, leading the industry with the latest in photocopiers, printers, allied consumables and computer technology. Under the aegis of highly able and ethically sound leadership, CIT has enviably become the choicest partner to many globally renowned manufactures and suppliers of the aforesaid products. Consistent innovation, focused vision, over twenty years of industry experience and 5000 plus SKUs from 50 global brands in stock, we have over 1000 ardent customers from over thirty countries

DAISYTEK COMPUTER LLC

AKSHAY ASHOK GEHI

RAJNIKANT JOSHI

Daisytek Established in 1990 & headquartered in Dubai, Daisytek Computers LLC is one of the leading trader & exporter of printer consumables & computer accessories (all types of office supplies) in the Middle East.

04-3930734 050-1987635

daisytek@daisytek.ae

04-3936912 050-5594401

suresh@datacaredubai.com

DATA CARE LLC

SURESH SHETTY

AKASH JAIN

DataCare LLC is a Dubai based IT wholesaler with customer base in Middle East and Africa. DataCare was founded in the year 2003 by an experienced industry professional, who identified the latent potential of the Storage Media market and addressed it in the right manner. Today we have become one of the leading IT wholesaler,dealing with Data Media, Printer supplies, Consumer IT products and hardware.

DAYLIGHT INFOSYS TRADING LLC

MITESH THACKER

MAHEK DOSHI

We are stockiest for HP Consumables, IBM Data Tapes

04-3588411 050-2942028

mitesh@daylightinfosys.com

DIGITAL FUTURE SOLUTIONS LLC

PREMAN PONDHEN

PRAKASHAN P

Digital Future Solutions LLC (DFS) is an LLC company formed in 2005 and we are dealing in Electronics/ Computers/ Computer Accessories/ Networking / Gaming and Professional products. We are located in Baniyas Square, Deira, Dubai, UAE.

04-3978812 055-5527404

premanp@eim.ae

DIGITAL NETWORKS COMPUTERS LLC

KHALID PARKAR

Digital Network Computer LLC is a Computer Accessories & Media Products Company based in Dubai.

04-3936721 055-4705701

diginetc@emirates.net.ae

D-LINK MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA

HARISSON ALBERT

SHAKEER HUSSAIN

D-Link is a global leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of advanced networking, broadband, digital, voice and data communications solutions. Following our company motto, "Building Networks for People",

04-8809022 050-6243778

shussain@me.dlink.com

DONIC ELECTRONICS TRADING LLC

NITIN ADTANI

LAPTOPS, DESKTOPS, PRINTERS, SCANNERS, MONITORS, SOFTWARES AND NETWORKING ITEMS

04-2688060 055-4985655

donielectronics@gmail.com

04-3514486 055-8871796

egfzco@emirates.net.ae

EARTHGATE TRADING FZCO

DIYARI MIRZA

We provide solutions in the design, construction, commissioning and support of voice, video and data networks for multinational corporations, businesses, service providers, the finance, hotels and manufacturing industries. These networks can support a wide range of applications such as broadcasting, video-on-demand, file transfer, online transactions, reservations, and Internet/ Intranet communications. We offer advanced, internet-based voice and data services from our PARTENER Tier 1 internet backbone, linked to fully service managed satellite VSAT networks across the ME / North Africa region and throughout the world.

EASYGO GEN TRADING LLC

JESSA ANGELA DCOSTA

JAKC DCOSTA

Distribution & Trading House of Consumer Electronics, IT Peripherals, Gaming & Mobililty Accessories & Home Automation

04-3439533 056-5341366

sales@easygodxb.com

EQUINOX INTERNATIONAL LLC

MOHAMED JAVEED

RAJARAM KHANOLKAR

A Reputed Software Solution Provider: Accounting Packages, Mid Tier ERP, Clinic & Retail Solutions

04-3518242 055-8707475

rajaram@equinox-int.com

EXPERTS COMPUTER LLC

SHAILENDRA RUGHWANI

MONESH RUGHWANI

Leading IT company since 25 years distributing PC, AIO, Laptops from HP, DELL, LENOVO, ACER, Projectors (SONY, RICOH, VIEWSONIC), HP Printers & Consumables, Cametron IP Cameras, CAMEX Smart Home Solutions.

04-3936390 050-6245109

sales@expertscomputer.com

04-8703333 050-5511863

manojk@fdchq.com

FDC INTERNATIONAL FZE

DR. F. B. SAFE

MANOJ KHUBANI

Founded in 1989, FDC is one of the best IT Distribution companies in the region with over 200 qualified professionals. FDC International has a full suite of products comprising Notebooks, Tablets, Hard Drives, Motherboards, Graphic cards, Optical storage drive, Digital storage, Networking products, Security software and Memory solutions; and is leading distributor of IT products for the region such as Acer, Lenovo, Asus, i-Life, Western Digital, Seagate, XFX, Palit, nvidia, Intel, AMD, Ricoh, TP-Link, Netgear, QNAP, Synology, Asrock, ECS, Kingston, Apacer, Geil, Plextor, Liteon, Shuttle, Tech21, eset, Kaspersky, Bitdefender.

FIDA HUSSAIN TRADING LLC

NAJAMUDDIN

HUSSAIN NAJAMUDDIN

Importer Exporter of all IT products inclding hardware, software, printers, memory & storage

04-3939642 050-3752701

fhtrading@hotmail.com

FLORENCE INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER TRADING LLC

AHMAD ALI ALI HUSSAIN

Importer & exporter of Laptops & Desktops in wholesale & retails.

04-3888373 050-4847920

florenceintl@gmail.com

SMARTSMB / August 2019

IT DIRECTORY

Company Name

Head of Company

Name of Company Description Sales Person

FUTURE CITY COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY LLC

SAJEER P

Contact

E-mail

Well known name in UAE for IT hardware, peripherals & accessories in wholesale & retail

04-3936105 055-7695501

sajeerpp@hotmail.com

04-2776875 055-5048086

finance@fbit-me.com

FIRE BIRD DISTRIBUTION FZE

KOURBAN SEITNEPESOV

ANIL KUMAR P

Fire Bird Information Technology (LLC) was founded in 2003 in Dubai, UAE. The company was engaged in wholesale and retail of computer peripherals and information technology products. Fire Bird Distribution FZE was established in 2006 as a distributor of information technology and consumer electronics products.Today the company is the largest distributor of mobile devices and wide range of consumer electronics products in Turkmenistan.Also the company develops retail distribution business in the Middle East and GCC countries for smart kitchen appliances.

FUTURE GENERATION COMPUTER LLC

KANAND M. DESAI

KANAND DESAI

Well known name in UAE for IT hardware, peripherals & accessories in wholesale, retails & Corporates

04-3522290 050-4537917

technet@emirates.net.ae

RAJESH BABU Y

Global Computers LLC is founded in 2010. Global Computers has a full suite of products comprising Hard Drives, USB Flash Drives, Memory Cards, Graphic cards, Optical storage drive, Digital storage, Printers, Notebooks, Networking products, Memory solutions, Pc Monitors; and is leading Reseller of IT products for the region such as Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, SanDisk, Kingston, Sony, Imation, Hp, PNY, Crucial, LG, Linksys, Samsung, Transcend, Acer, Lenovo, Asus, TP-Link, D-Link, Canon, Epson.

04-3516833 055-5180206

rajesh@globalcomputers.ae

BASIL HALA

Established in 1995, Hala Electronics Est’s commitment to service excellence has positioned the company to become a preferred choice of resellers for sourcing leading IT hardware and networking products in the UAE, GCC and Africa. Dedicated to the reseller and retailer channel, we are committed to maintain a consistent and expert delivery service in order to fulfil the diverse requirements of the customer, and the demand for quick product availability.

04-3973978 050-6504976

basil@hala-its.ae

04-3937474 050-8499159

manish@hcomdubai.net

GLOBAL COMPUTERS

HALA ELECTRONICS EST

RAM NARISHETTY

BASIL HALA

HAMOOR COMPUTERS LLC

VINOD J SAJNANI

MANISH ADVANI

HAMOOR COMPUTERS LLC is Dubai based IT Whole Seller & Retailer Company with the customer based in Dubai, Middle East, GCC, Africa, CIS and Malawi. HAMOOR COMPUTERS LLC was established in year 2001 by Mr. VINOD J. SAJNANI. Who identified the potential of IT products such as desktops, laptops, printers, consumables, computer components, security software in SMB & corporate sectors in the right manner. Today we have 3 showrooms in Dubai, which reveals our dedication & success story.

HGC TECHNOLOGIES LLC

MUHAMMAD ISMAIL

WASEEM ISMAIL

We are dealing in Laptops, desktop and Projectors.

04-3864334 050-7800189

info@hgctechnologies.com

04-3933253 050-4558105

hmp2@eim.ae

HMP COMPUTER LLC

MUHAMMAD YAGHI

SALEH YONES

House of Memory and Processor (HMP) is a Dubai-based company known as a reliable supplier of computer hardware( RAM, CPU, HDD, VGA ) & accessories, Branded Desktop , Laptop, Printers, Network Devices & IOT to local and international market. As a specialist supplier of computer hardware and peripherals, HMP has been able to meet the varying requirements of its client base spread over the entire Middle East, Eastern Europe and even on African markets , With 16 years of trading experience, HMP has always aimed for total customer satisfaction by providing top quality products backed by the best of services.

HUMAID BUAJEEL COMPUTER TRADING LLC

SAINATH SALIAN

We stock IT office automation products. We are the only Printer Supplies Company stocking quantity supplies for all brands of printer for businesses who want to source their supplies.

04-3930410 055-6056560

hbc@eim.ae

INTEX TECHNOLOGIES LLC

SANJAY BANSAL

MD. RAAFI

Intex Technologies started in Dubai in the year of 2002 is major business participant in the consumer electronics, mobility and IT accessories.

04-3544468 050-2185425

sales@intexuae.com

ITCOM CO. LLC

KARIM PIRANI

MURTAZA

We specialize in Computer Hardware, Software & Consumables.

04-2523635 055-2296463

karim@itcom.cd

04-3388900 050-5841841

nitin.g@jackys.com

JACKY'S RETAIL LLC

ASHISH KUMAR PANJABI

NITIN G.

Jacky’s Group’s mission has always been to bring the latest consumer electronics products and technologies in the market in the UAE. With Samsung showing its dominance worldwide particularly in the smartphone and TV segments, Jacky’s Group launched Jacky’s Retail LLC in the last quarter of 2013 to manage and operate Samsung Brand Shops across the UAE.

JET TECH GEN. TRADING CO. LLC

VIPUL PATEL

JAY THAKAR

Exporter of IT Hardwares

04-3937212 055-4054278

jay@jettechtrading.com

KARAM MOHD HASSAN TRADING LLC

DINESH DHOLWANI

Importer Exporter of all IT products inclding hardware, software, printers, memory & storage

04-3522875 050-6512782

dinesh@kmhte.com

KNOWLEDGE COMPUTER TRADING LLC

AHMAD ZIA

Leading importer & exporters of IT products Laptops, Desktops, Printers, Projectors & all other hardware products

04-3544051 055-1442051

knowledgetech@hotmail. com

KOBIAN GULF

PRAMOD AGARWAL

ABDULL HANNAN

We offer a complete technology product portfolio through our Mercury brand, comprehensively meeting our customer’s specific needs. Thanks to a solid management team, Kobian’s performance has been consistently strong.

04-8830370 055-1111235

abdul_hannan@kobian.com

August 2019 / SMARTSMB

TECH WATCH

AOC USB MONITORS AOC, a worldwide leader in monitor display technology, announced the three new models of AOC 16" class USB Monitors in Middle East. The ultra slim and lightweight USB monitors offers portability and productivity to the users in the region The 15.6" plug and play models I1601FWUX, I1659FWUX and E1659FWU are build with ultra-slim IPS panel for extreme portability. The ultra slim and lightweight USB monitors receives both power and signal from a single USB cable for connectivity. Simply plug the monitor into a USB port on your laptop and it is ready for use and multitasking on the move without hassle. Supporting multiple monitor connections and compatibility with PCs and Macs, AOC USB Series is an ideal extended display.

Highlights: • Experience the superb picture quality with the advanced IPS technology for vibrant, consistent colours and wide viewing angles.

• Portable design allows users to enjoy crisp and refined visuals anytime they want. Ideal for users who are always on the move. • Auto pivot your screen while you rotate the display in Portrait or Landscape mode. Install AOC iMenu software to activate Auto Pivot function. • View Full HD images and videos (including Blu-ray titles) with maximum clarity and detail. I1601FWUX & I1659FWUX comes with resolution (1920 × 1080 @60Hz) and for the model E1659FWU (1366×768 @60Hz). • A pixel response time for I1601FWUX (5 ms GTG), I1659FWUX (25ms), and for E1659FWU (8ms), means speed without the smear for an enhanced gaming experience. Fast-moving action and dramatic transitions will be rendered smoothly without the annoying effects of ghosting. • Low Blue Light for harmful blue light reduction. Keep your eyes comfortable as you use AOC monitor into the night.

DGS-1250 SERIES SMART MANAGED SWITCHES D-Link has launched the DGS-1250 Series Smart Managed Switches with 10G uplink port, PoE output, high port density, multiple management interfaces, and advanced security features in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). All models include four built-in 10G SFP+ slots, providing high bandwidth connections. Support for IEEE 802.2af/ at and a higher PoE budget up to 370 watts allow the PoE models DGS-125028XMP and DGS-1250-52XMP to power more devices and be installed in remote locations. A variety of management features such as the D-Link Network Assistant (DNA) and support for CLI* and SNMP that can work with D-Link D-View 7.0

SMARTSMB / August 2019

TECH WATCH

COMPACT MULTIFUNCTION PRINTERS FROM XEROX

or other NMS will allow for easy integration and management of the network. The series is also equipped with a complete lineup of L2 features, including IGMP snooping, port mirroring, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), and Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP), as well as L3 lite Static Routing.

Highlights • Static Routing- network administrators can divide the network into VLANs, increasing network efficiency

Xerox has announced a new series of compact printers for small businesses and home offices, making work easier with WiFi Direct technology and mobile printing. There are three devices in the series – the B210 printer, and B205 and B215 multifunction printers. All the printers are equipped with Wi-Fi Direct and mobile printing, as well as offering high-speed wireless connectivity. The series reaches print speeds of up to 31 ppm, while delivering high-resolution 1200 x 1200 dpi enhanced image quality. Perfect for smaller businesses with higher-print requirements, the series delivers the same functionality, ease of use, capacity and user experience as many of the more enterprise-focused devices, but at a far more SMB-friendly price point.

Highlights: • The devices offer high-speed wireless connectivity, allowing users to print anywhere, at any time. • Each device features WiFi Direct technology that enables wireless printing without a router and mobile print functionality with Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria and Android support. The series reaches print speeds of up to 31 ppm, while delivering high-resolution 1200 x 1200 dpi enhanced image quality. • Taking cues from the Xerox VersaLink and AltaLink series, the B215 also features a 3.5-inch touchscreen, giving users a smartphone-like experience.

• Auto Voice VLAN and Surveillance Mode- allows voice and video traffic to be automatically identified and handled differently than regular network traffic • D-Link’s Innovative Safeguard Engine- helps protect switches against traffic flooding from malicious attacks • Access Control List (ACL)- enhances network security and helps protect internal IT network • IP-MAC-Port Binding- enhances user access control to prevent unauthorized access to network devices • 802.1x Port-based Authenticationauthenticates all users and devices accessing the network. August 2019 / SMARTSMB

MARKET MONITOR

IOT SPENDING IN THE MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA TO SEE DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH Spending on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) is set to top $8.47 billion this year, according to the latest forecast from global technology research and consulting firm International Data Corporation (IDC). A recent update to the firm's Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide shows that IoT spending in the MEA region will grow 15.9% year on year in 2019 and reach $17.63 billion by 2023 as governments and businesses ramp up their investments in digital transformation projects. "IoT adoption in the MEA region is expected to accelerate over the coming years as organizations from both the public and private sectors look to improve their provision of customer services, expedite decision making, improve the quality of products and services, accelerate their time to market, reduce costs, and increase productivity," says Krishna, program manager for telecommunications and IoT at IDC MEA. "And as organizations continue to reap the value generated by IoT, we can expect to see further development of innovative industry-specific solutions.â&#x20AC;? Totaling $2.99 billion, hardware is forecast to be the market's largest technology category in 2019, with the majority of this spending going towards modules and sensors. IoT services, forecast to be worth $2.98 billion, will be the second-largest technology category in 2019, with the majority of this total going towards ongoing services and content-as-a-service, as well as IT and installation services. Software will be the third-largest technology category, followed by connectivity. Meanwhile, software will be market's fastest-growing category over the coming years, with spending in this area increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.9% SMARTSMB / August 2019

over the 2018â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2023 forecast period. The big four countries in the region, namely South Africa ($1.9 billion), Saudi Arabia ($1.49 billion), Turkey ($1.24 billion), and the UAE ($0.65 billion), are expected to account for 62% of total IoT expenditure in the MEA region in 2019. The industries that are expected to spend the most on IoT solutions in 2019 are manufacturing ($1.52 billion), government ($1.11 billion), consumer ($1.09billion), transportation ($1.06 billion), and utilities ($0.73 billion).

grids for electricity will account for 78% of total IoT spending in the utilities sector.

Manufacturers will direct most of their IoT spending in 2019 towards solutions that support manufacturing operations and production asset management. In the government sector, public infrastructure asset management, public safety and emergency response, and intelligent transport systems, will account for over 66% of IoT spending in 2019.

The IoT use cases that IDC expects to attract the largest investments in 2019 are manufacturing operations ($0.58 billion), smart grid electricity ($0.57 billion), production asset management ($0.53 billion), smart home ($0.44 billion), fleet management ($0.44 billion), and freight monitoring ($0.42 billion). IDC forecasts that the top use cases will retain their positions through 2023, with the exception of fleet management and freight monitoring, which are expected to swap their positions. The use cases that will see the fastest spending growth over the 2018-2023 forecast period are airport facility automation (41.1% CAGR), electric vehicle charging (31.3% CAGR), health and wellness (28.9% CAGR), smart building (26.2% CAGR), and smart grids for water (25.2% CAGR).

Over 75% of consumer IoT spending in 2019 will be driven by investments around smart home technologies, remote health monitoring, and connected vehicles. In the transportation sector, fleet management and freight monitoring solutions together will account for approximately 80% of IoT spending in 2019. Meanwhile, smart

"Ongoing national transformation programs and digital transformation projects will continue to fuel IoT adoption over the coming 12 months, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the UAE," says Krishna. "As such, these two countries are expected to contribute a combined $2.13 billion of the MEA region's total IoT spending of $8.47 billion in 2019."

REDEFINING DIGITAL AND BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION September 11th 2019, Atlantis The Palm Hotel, Dubai

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