In an exclusive interview, Jay Kalra, Chief Technology Officer at Catalyst Business Partners, shares insights into how the company is transforming businesses with cutting-edge cloud solutions and AI technologies. From integrating ERP, HCM, and CRM systems to offering Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) for enhanced scalability and security, Catalyst provides a comprehensive approach to driving innovation. The discussion covers their unique cloud migration strategies, smart automation integration, and advanced cybersecurity measures, along with exciting developments in AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics.

How does Catalyst integrate ERP, HCM, and CRM into an organization’s framework?

Everyone has a different reason for choosing or adopting any of these technologies. For me, it’s about having information at my fingertips. These functionalities can significantly enhance an organisation’s existing framework by streamlining processes, improving data flow, and providing better decision-making capabilities. They also help with data unification, process standardisation, sales and marketing alignment, customer and employee data integration, scalability, compliance, and interoperability. With the recent advancements in AI and ML, business users can get deep insights from these systems.

Can you provide insights into Catalyst Cloud’s infrastructure and key benefits compared to other cloud services?

Our offerings are tailored to the client’s requirements. While some may opt for the Public Cloud, others prefer Cloud @customer or a local/ regional Data Center. Our team members review the requirements, assess, discuss, and finalise the offering. Our preferred cloud is Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI, in short.

OCI is Oracle’s comprehensive cloud platform, offering various computing, storage, networking, and database management services. It is designed for enterprise workloads and provides high performance, security, and scalability for businesses of all sizes. Generative AI is embedded across the entire technology stack to provide immediate business value, and customers can use AI capabilities provided by OCI for their applications and solutions.

OCI also offers hybrid cloud capabilities, allowing businesses to connect their on-premise infrastructure to Oracle Cloud via services like Oracle Cloud at Customer, which provides a dedicated region within a customer’s data center.

It supports multi-cloud architectures, where businesses can integrate Oracle Cloud with other public cloud services, such as Microsoft Azure, through partnerships and interoperability solutions like Oracle-Azure Interconnect, Oracle-AWS Interconnect, and Oracle-Google Interconnect.

How are you incorporating smart machines and automation into your service offerings?

Since early 2008, we have been helping our customers in their IoT (Internet of Things) and workflow automation journey. With the recent advancement of AI and Gen AI, customers are taking workflow automation to the next level.

Many ready-to-use connected devices (LoRa, BLE, WiFi, and others) are available and can be incorporated for various smart use cases. Sometimes, a custom solution may be required, and our team can build such solutions. Because our team understands smart devices and ERPs, we can combine smart devices with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to create a highly integrated, data-driven ecosystem that further enhances automation, real-time monitoring, and operational efficiency. This approach allows customers to gain a competitive edge through real-time, data-driven decision-making.

How do you ensure seamless integration and optimisation of Oracle applications within your client’s IT environments?

Seamless integration and optimisation of Oracle applications within a client’s IT environment requires a comprehensive strategy encompassing planning, execution, and continuous improvement. It all starts with careful listening, understanding the business needs and current IT landscape, a thorough compatibility check, integration scope & architecture, data migration, cloud vs on-premise, testing and validation, security, use of pre-built connectors as much as possible, incorporating industry standard best practices, avoiding customisations, and most importantly training of end users, IT teams, and a structured change management process.

How does Catalyst protect businesses against emerging cybersecurity threats?

Protecting businesses against emerging threats requires a comprehensive, multi-layered approach that combines technical, procedural, and strategic measures. Our goal is to achieve a near Zero trust architecture. If the customer already uses cybersecurity solutions, we will do an assessment followed by recommendations. We use different methods to define the landscape using various Cyber Posture solutions that provide us with data based on risk-scoring models, leading to advanced monitoring and detection tools.

One must use proactive defense mechanisms with AI & ML, solid incident response, and automation. Regular audits, penetration testing, and training are other important factors to stay on top of new threats.

How does the company assist organisations in navigating the complexities of cloud migration, and what cloud platforms do you specialise in?

Migrating to the cloud can be a complex, multi-faceted process, but with careful planning and execution, organisations can navigate this shift smoothly.

Understand your scalability, cost-efficiency, performance, security, and innovation needs. One must evaluate their current infrastructure, any challenges, future expansion plans, and workloads, as while some may be cloud-ready, others may require additional planning & modifications.

Choose the suitable model-

Public Cloud: Great for scalability and flexibility.

Private Cloud: Best for security-sensitive industries.

Hybrid Cloud: Balances flexibility with security.

Multi-Cloud: Leveraging multiple cloud providers for redundancy and flexibility.

Once you have the above data, we compare the cloud providers, their pros and cons, pricing, migration strategy, data strategy, security, compliance, AI capabilities, backup, and fine print.

We help our customers from start to finish; our custom offerings include any part of the cloud journey, including post-go-live support, training, and managed services. While our teams are trained on all major cloud providers, we prefer Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

What distinguishes your managed services from those of other providers, particularly in terms of proactive monitoring and issue resolution?

Proactive monitoring and issue resolutions are the critical differentiators. We use solutions with AL & ML with unified, centralised Dashboards, Reports, and Actionable Insights. We provide tailored SLAs to ensure our clients can select what’s most relevant to their requirements. All the options are provided with on-demand scalability and multi-environment support, dedicated account management, knowledge transfer, and continuous improvement.

What innovations or new services is Catalyst planning to introduce in the near future, particularly in AI, machine learning, or advanced analytics?

We are developing solutions using custom AI models, Generative AI for creative content, AI-powered data augmentation, and workflow automation, as well as providing best-of-the-breed solutions and services using a broad partner channel.

Some of these partners work on AI-driven predictive analytics, advanced AI-based cybersecurity, healthcare diagnostics, employee training & coaching, talent recruitment, video analytics, and conversational bots.

We are excited about the future and looking forward to helping our new and existing customers.

Salesforce has officially inaugurated its new office in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Dubai Internet City. The company’s expansion in Dubai is part of its commitment to support AI innovation, customer success and growth in the UAE.

The opening ceremony was attended by His Excellency Omar Sultan AlOlama, Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, Malek Al Malek, Chairman of TECOM Group PJSC, and Abdulla Belhoul, CEO of TECOM Group, alongside Salesforce executives, other key customers and representatives from the company’s thriving partner ecosystem.

The launch of Salesforce’s new state-of-the-art office at Dubai Internet City, a leading technology hub, builds on the company’s ongoing investment in the UAE. Last year, Salesforce made Hyperforce, the company’s trusted cloud platform, generally available in the UAE in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This year the company achieved the Dubai Electronic Security Centre (DESC) Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Security Standard for Salesforce Services on Hyperforce in the UAE to support government and public sector entities.

Salesforce is experiencing rapid growth in the UAE as more companies invest in AI-driven digital transformation and look to partner with Salesforce as a trusted AI partner. The new office, with its collaboration and innovation spaces, will enable Salesforce to showcase its latest AI technology innovations and better serve local customers.

At Dreamforce, Salesforce unveiled Agentforce, a groundbreaking suite of autonomous AI agents that augment employees and handle tasks in service, sales, marketing, and commerce, helping to drive unprecedented efficiency and customer satisfaction. These agents are integrated on Salesforce apps and leverage real-time data from Salesforce’s Data Cloud to deliver accurate, personalized, and automated responses. They can perform complex business processes autonomously, significantly reducing manual workload and enhancing productivity​.

“I am thrilled to introduce Salesforce’s latest transformative AI-driven solutions to the UAE, and the entire team is eager to collaborate with customers and showcase how these best-of-breed solutions unlock new possibilities,” said Srini Tallapragada, President and Chief Engineering Officer, Salesforce. “The Salesforce Platform, with Data Cloud at its center, enables Agentforce and every Salesforce app to deliver seamless, AI-powered experiences across every customer touchpoint.”

“Our new presence in Dubai Internet City further strengthens our dedication to serving customers in the UAE. We are especially excited to bring the AI innovations announced at Dreamforce empowering public and private sector organizations to thrive by leveraging AI and cloud-based solutions to optimize data use, enhance agility and truly prioritize customer centricity,” said Thierry Nicault, Area Vice President and General Manager, Salesforce Middle East. “Additionally, our participation in Gitex later this month further underscores this commitment, as we continue to engage with the region’s most forward-thinking enterprises to drive the next wave of digital transformation.”

“Salesforce’s launch strengthens our nations’ legacy of collaborative advancement and signifies a long-term investment in the digitally enabled knowledge economy, which Dubai Internet City has nurtured for more than two decades. Its expansion in our district is a profoundly positive move that will help unlock the UAE’s and Dubai’s vision for inclusive, sustainable progress and talent development, in line with the goals of Dubai Economic Agenda D33,” said Ammar Al Malik, Executive Vice President of Commercial at TECOM Group, and Managing Director of Dubai Internet City. “Technological collaboration is enriching the shared vision for collective prosperity that has underpinned the UAE-US economic corridor for more than 50 years. We are delighted to welcome Salesforce to our ecosystem, the region’s leading technology hub.”

By: Jakob Westh Christensen, Market Analyst at eToro

The one investment megatrend to watch out for is the rollout of AI. There is no doubt that this single megatrend has the potential to reshape companies and economies – and your investments.

As AI automates tasks that workers perform today manually, we will see a significant uptick in productivity in companies and economies. Seeing the megatrend is clear, but positioning your investment is the hard part. We are still in the early stages of this revolution, and I don’t expect we will see a measurable productivity impact on companies’ and economies’ output until 2 to 3 years.

While the earnings growth (and stock price gains) so far are coming from the chip designers and manufacturers, it’s vital for the successful investor to identify the sectors and companies that eventually will benefit from a productivity boost and consequently stronger earnings.

This is likely to be found in companies where they can achieve a high degree of automation, and at the same time have a strong competitive advantage. This ensures that cost cutting results in margin expansion, and not just passing on cost cutting to end users.

For example, the taxi industry could achieve an exceptionally high level of productivity per employee with the introduction of self-driving cars. While initially, the industry could see a margin expansion with a lower employee cost base, this competitive industry could soon see price competition lowering margin to ‘normalised levels’, benefiting the consumer and, to a lesser extent, the investors.

On the other hand, insurance companies could see significant cost reductions in the underwriting process, which can be highly automated. At the same time, customer habits and customer inertia can result in less price competition, benefitting the company and its investors.