Tech Features

Harnessing Technology in Hybrid Work Environments: Strategies for Success

Published

2 years ago

March 19, 2024

By Professor Fiona Robson, Head of Edinburgh Business School and School of Social Sciences at Heriot-Watt University Dubai

For many, working in a hybrid model of some working from home and some from organisational premises is seen as a positive scenario. However, it can also be a double-edged sword in terms of blurring the boundaries. Advantages include flexible working options and may open up a new pool of candidates who don’t want to or aren’t able to travel every day. The benefits of hybrid include the cost implications of not having to travel twice a day and not losing productive time when travelling. Not every role would be suitable for hybrid working, for example someone working in customer services or providing a service in the homes of clients. Offering hybrid working options gives the potential to increase employee retention by meeting their needs. It is also important to recognize that hybrid working shouldn’t be perceived as a part time role with part time organizational commitment. Leaders are responsible for developing a culture whereby all eligible employees are encouraged to work remotely for at least some of their working time.

There is research which suggests that employees who are able to work from home are more productive than in the office. This makes assumptions that a) employees don’t mind the blurring of boundaries with their home life b) that they will have appropriate space from which they can work and c) that appropriate technology and infrastructure (e.g. wifi) is available. Depending on the home situation, there may be more distractions when working away from the office if it shared with other people. Ultimately the decision around moving to hybrid working will need the leader to consult and then take all the factors into account to establish the potential impact.

Technology can be used to improve performance throughout an organisation, for it to be successful there are a range of factors which need to be in place. Firstly, selecting the correct technology that can meet the needs of the organisations and their users. Once selected, extensive learning and development support is needed so that users feel confident and competent in using it for their roles. If there is equipment or software which isn’t used regularly, some reminders and an offer of training may be useful. The health and safety of hybrid workers should be considered, ensuring that remote working is organised and carried out in a safe way as part of the leader’s duty of care.

Technology is a good alternative where it isn’t possible for the leader to meet with all their employees. Software such as Teams and Zoom allow information to be shared instantaneously. Whilst there may be specific occasions where in-person is needed, many meetings can be online. Probably the biggest impact of the pandemic was how organisations had to pivot to be able to work remotely. For some employees, this was seen as a very good thing; having previously been told that it wasn’t possible for some roles, it was established that it could work. Hybrid working can also give time flexibility which may make international collaborations easier. Leaders should lead by example and highlight their own hybrid working, ensuring they have maximum visibility.

Potential disadvantages of hybrid working include having a negative impact on team-working and morale which leaders may need to address. Opportunities for valuable ‘water cooler’ conversations are likely to take place less frequently might lead to missed chances for collaboration or process improvement.

Hybrid/remote working does not mean that all networking opportunities are lost; technology now gives us many ways to achieve this – again, learning lessons from the pandemic where many conferences and events were delivered wholly online. Platforms such as LinkedIn allow leaders to connect to people across the globe and build their digital network. Other specialist software encourages leaders and their employees to have some informal online ‘coffee break’ time.

As a leader, a key decision is the extent to which employee performance should be monitored. Technology is available to do this; however, it raises an issue of trust. There may be certain occupations where it is necessary for the organisation to have access to this data for security reasons. Data protection and privacy policies should be adhered to at all times.

Strong leaders recognise the importance of giving and receiving feedback and for this to be built into project plans rather than just at the end of the activity. Where hybrid working means fewer opportunities for face-to-face engagement, technology can be used via software that collects and stores employee feedback. Leaders need to role model good behaviour by visibly seeking and responding to feedback on their own performance.

As a leader it is important that the HR team are briefed to reflect the organisation’s commitment to hybrid working by ensuring that policies and practices do not disadvantage hybrid workers. For example, reviewing internal promotion and performance review criteria to ensure they are appropriate. Updated IT policies should be considered, to reflect the needs of people who work at home and use secure data which would previously not have been available. Leaders should consider some of the sensitive issues around hybrid working, for example does it lead to the introduction of hot-desking. For some of their followers losing the artefact of their own personal space could be negative.

The use of AI in most organisations is still at a relatively early stage where many are only confident to dip their toes into the water. Where women leaders become early adopters of AI this can have a positive impact on the whole organisation. It also potentially provides the leaders themselves with a competitive advantage. Being upfront about the advantages and disadvantages will be useful as well as identifying where and when it might be used. The early inclusion of employees to influence the scope and implementation of AI is a worthwhile investment.

Many organisations collect data on a daily basis but don’t make the best use of it, and this is a missed opportunity. Leaders should invest in new hires who are experts in data analytics and can provide some bespoke use of technology to meet the specific needs of the organization. Importantly these appointments can upskill the existing workforce by learning in ‘real play’ rather than role play.

Whilst AI could lead to some disruption, sometimes that in itself encourages more innovation. Leaders have an ethical responsibility as well as a management one to ensure that AI is used appropriately and in compliance with regulations. Possibly the strongest opportunity at this stage for the use of AI to really make a difference, is collecting data on employee engagement on a continuous basis. This can be used to predict future behaviours and actions for the leadership team.

Leaders can use technology, for example, as part of their recruitment and selection processes so prospective candidates get a personalised experience. Personalisation could also be used as part of an employee engagement strategy. The use of AI isn’t a magic cure, and there will still need to be human interventions, particularly in the early adoption stages, to ensure fair decision-making.

Leaders’ HR teams will have to work with the experts to ensure that any potential negative outcomes of AI can be minimised e.g. if employees all start using Chat GPT for their work. Leaders will need their skills in managing change progress for an organisation that may find change very challenging.

Tech Features

THE MIDDLE EAST’S DIGITAL FAULT LINES: A RESILIENCY BLUEPRINT FOR CIOS AND CTOS

Published

4 days ago

May 22, 2026

Integrator Web-Admin

Ahmad Shakora, Group Vice President- META, Cloudera

We are now in an era where digital connectivity underpins many areas such as commerce, security, governance, and social life.

In the Middle East, with ever-changing external factors, access to data has transitioned into a critical asset, with organisations and nations increasingly focused on protecting a vast array of information.

For businesses operating in this region, traditional efficiency-focused IT strategies are no longer sufficient. Robust business continuity and disaster recovery must take center stage.

The expanding risk matrix

The current operating environment highlights several areas of vulnerability for global digital infrastructure, demonstrating that risks can be either planned or entirely unexpected:

Government interventions can result in significant, sudden internet restrictions. Additionally, physical data center infrastructure is susceptible to multiple external factors. Severe and unpredictable environmental events, including extreme heat and unexpected flooding, can place a strain on the physical and cooling infrastructure of centralized data centers, forcing facilities offline
Unexpected impact on physical infrastructure can arise, causing noticeable latency
Total reliance on centralized third-party platforms amplifies operational risks. These can stem from planned events, such as routine maintenance and vendor migrations, or unplanned events, such as global software updates that inadvertently lead to widespread, cascading outages

In response to these varied and potentially compounding threats, the Gulf Cooperation Council is shifting from efficiency-first cloud adoption to resilience-first planning. Nations are accelerating investments in localized data centers, sovereign cloud environments, and multi-channel data access architectures that can withstand both cyberattacks and physical military threats.

In the UAE, the sovereign cloud market is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 23% through 2033, signalling a sustained commitment to securing critical data and reducing exposure to fragile global dependencies.

When resilience becomes the backbone of survival

These external forces elevate Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery from a regulatory checkbox to a fundamental requirement for corporate survival. For CIOs and CTOs operating in the Middle East, ensuring operational resilience requires highly specific architectural choices.

Tech leaders who view infrastructure through a purely technical lens may be vulnerable. Data infrastructure must function as a strategic fortress. Resilience must supersede efficiency as the primary design goal. To continue operating amidst disruptions, tech leaders should look for the following differentiators when building their enterprise data infrastructure:

1. Cloud power, local control: do not put all the eggs in the public cloud basket. Organizations need a setup that works the same way whether it is in a giant data center or a small server at a remote branch. By running mini-clouds locally, enterprises keep the speed and control without being at the mercy of a service provider’s outage. Infrastructure must allow organizations to run data and AI workloads anywhere, converging the best of public cloud with on-premises deployments, including secure air-gapped environments.

2. Maintain internal control over enterprise AI: if there are disruptions to internet access or travel is restricted, AI shouldn’t stop working. Sovereign Private AI, by design, brings the thinking power to where the data actually sits. This keeps sensitive data secure and ensures automated systems stay online even if the rest of the world goes offline.

3. Diversify technology partners: tech leaders should implement an Open Data Lakehouse architecture that unifies 100% of the organization’s data to avoid vendor lock-in and catastrophic single points of failure. A critical design principle to look for is the strict separation of compute and storage. By utilizing highly scalable, S3-compatible object storage independently from computing power, enterprises can leverage robust data replication and erasure coding to ensure high durability, guaranteeing that all backup data remains safely within sovereign boundaries.

4. One view, no silos: managing fragmented data across a region during a crisis can be chaotic. CIOs need a Unified Data Fabric that breaks down silos and provides a single view of all organizational data with centralized, end-to-end security and governance across complex hybrid environments. Coupled with this, infrastructure must support Data in Motion: the ability to seamlessly move and process real-time data from any source to any destination. If a subsea cable is damaged or a data center goes offline, this capability ensures business-critical decisions can still be made seamlessly as traffic reroutes.

5. Visibility & isolation: Operational survival requires extreme visibility. A resilient infrastructure must feature granular observability across the full IT stack for proactive health monitoring, incident response, and data-flow policy enforcement. By using containers to isolate different tasks, enterprises can ensure that if one part of the business encounters technical issues, the risk is contained, protecting critical operations.

The future of business in the Middle East belongs to leaders who treat their infrastructure as a sovereign fortress.

True resilience requires moving past simple cloud adoption to build localized, hyper-resilient architectures that remain fully functional when global networks fail. CIOs and CTOs must now prioritize digital autonomy by anchoring their most critical operations in hardened, local environments that can withstand physical and international uncertainties. By designing for total isolation, leaders can ensure their organization remains operational and secure regardless of regional instability. The ultimate competitive advantage is the ability to maintain power and connectivity.

Tech Features

FIVE WAYS B2B MEDTECH MARKETPLACES ARE RESHAPING HEALTHCARE BUSINESS

Published

5 days ago

May 21, 2026

Integrator Web-Admin

Healthcare and wellness businesses across the GCC are growing in a market that is becoming more digital, specialised, and commercially active. The GCC healthcare market is projected to grow from $121.9 billion in 2025 to $170.5 billion by 2030, according to Research and Markets, creating stronger demand for trusted platforms that connect buyers, sellers, service providers, and investors. Yet many businesses still rely on personal networks, fragmented supplier searches, and informal channels when selling equipment, finding operational support, or exploring business transactions.

MedSahra, the first B2B MedTech ecosystem platform focused on healthcare and wellness trade across the GCC, outlines five facts that show how marketplaces can bring more structure to this evolving sector.

Verified businesses build trust

Healthcare transactions often involve high-value assets and licensed businesses, which makes trust essential from the first interaction. A B2B marketplace becomes stronger when sellers and buyers are verified before they engage with others. This can include requesting documentation that confirms a company is legally registered and operational. For buyers, this reduces uncertainty. For sellers, it creates a more credible environment where serious business conversations can begin with greater confidence.

Private listings support business sales

Selling a healthcare or wellness business is often sensitive because owners may not want staff, competitors or the wider market to know they are exploring a transaction. In many cases, owners are left to rely on word-of-mouth or private referrals because there is no clear, specialised marketplace for these opportunities. Public listings can create unnecessary concern among employees, patients, and competitors before a deal is even serious. Private listings can make this process more practical by allowing sellers to present opportunities discreetly, while helping buyers discover small private clinics to large hospitals in different sectors, including general, dental, dermatology, cosmetology, pediatric and others areas, with existing infrastructure, equipment, and customer bases.

Equipment access becomes more efficient

Medical equipment is a major investment, yet many owners struggle to sell pre-owned devices through the usual channels. In some cases, distributors may only buy back equipment when the owner is purchasing a new device, which leaves clinic owners with limited options when they simply want to sell. A dedicated marketplace creates a clearer route for listing and discovering all types of medical and wellness equipment, whether new or pre-owned, across healthcare and wellness categories, including dental, diagnostic, general medical, cosmetology and others. This is increasingly relevant as the UAE medical devices market is projected to grow from $3.18 billion in 2025 to $4.71 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights. Marketplaces can also help users find providers for repair, calibration, upgrades and spare parts.

Support services become easier to find

Running a clinic or wellness business requires more than medical expertise, and finding reliable service providers can be a constant operational challenge. Owners often depend on search engines, personal recommendations, or scattered supplier contacts when they need support for digital marketing, accounting, logistics, customs, software development, printing, pest control, equipment repair, calibration, hardware upgrades, or software upgrades. A B2B marketplace can make supplier discovery more structured by bringing relevant service providers into one professional ecosystem where businesses can compare options and start conversations more efficiently.

Consulting adds structure to transactions

Complex business decisions often require specialist support, especially when buying equipment, selling a clinic, or preparing for a larger transaction. Consulting partners can support areas such as M&A, accounting, audit, legal guidance, equipment planning, and operational readiness. This advisory layer is becoming more important as healthcare providers adopt more connected technologies, with GCC connected medical devices and wearables projected to grow at a CAGR of around 20.19% between 2025 and 2030, according to MarkNtel Advisors. A marketplace that connects businesses with relevant experts can help transactions become more informed, secure, and commercially viable.

Tech Features

OPPO Find N6 Signals the End of Foldable Trade-Offs

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Integrator Web-Editor

For years, foldable smartphones have existed within a category shaped by compromise. Users typically had to choose between slim form factors and flagship-grade performance, with many foldables sacrificing battery life, imaging capabilities, or long-term usability in favour of portability and design.

OPPO’s new Find N6 appears designed to challenge that equation directly.

With the Find N6, OPPO is positioning foldables less as experimental devices and more as fully capable flagship smartphones that happen to fold. The device combines a slimmer profile with flagship imaging, next-generation processing, and the largest battery yet seen within the Find N series, signalling how rapidly the foldable segment itself is evolving.

A New Hasselblad Imaging System

At the centre of the device is OPPO’s new Hasselblad Master Camera System, led by a 200MP Hasselblad Ultra-Clear Main Camera alongside a 50MP periscope telephoto lens supporting 6x optical-quality zoom and up to 120x digital zoom.

The system also integrates a redesigned ultra-wide camera and OPPO’s True Color Camera sensor technology aimed at improving white balance and colour accuracy across different lighting conditions.

The Find N6 additionally inherits several imaging capabilities from OPPO’s Find X flagship lineup, including the LUMO Image Engine, Hasselblad Portrait Mode, Hasselblad Master Mode, and XPAN-style panoramic photography modes designed to emulate cinematic film aesthetics.

Bringing Flagship Video Features to Foldables

Video also forms a major part of the Find N6’s flagship positioning. All three rear cameras support 4K 60fps Dolby Vision recording, while the main 200MP sensor additionally supports 4K 120fps Dolby Vision capture for higher frame-rate workflows.

The inclusion of Log video support also pushes the device further toward professional and enthusiast creators looking for greater flexibility during post-production and colour grading workflows.

Powered by Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

Performance is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform, featuring the third-generation Qualcomm Oryon CPU architecture.

According to OPPO, the platform delivers improvements in both performance and power efficiency, helping the foldable maintain smoother multitasking and sustained workloads without heavily compromising battery endurance.

The newer Adreno GPU architecture also introduces improvements across graphics performance, efficiency, and ray tracing capabilities, reinforcing the device’s flagship-level positioning beyond design alone.

Tackling the Foldable Battery Challenge

Battery life has historically remained one of the biggest limitations within foldable smartphones, largely due to internal space constraints.

OPPO addresses that challenge with a 6,000mAh Silicon-Carbon battery, representing the largest battery integrated into a Find N device to date while maintaining an ultra-slim 8.93mm folded profile.

The device also supports 80W SUPERVOOC wired charging and 50W AIRVOOC wireless charging, helping reduce downtime for users balancing heavy productivity, content creation, and entertainment workloads.

The Foldable Category Is Maturing

More broadly, the Find N6 reflects a wider transition happening across the foldable smartphone category itself.

Earlier generations of foldables were often viewed as engineering showcases that required users to compromise somewhere along the experience. Increasingly, however, newer foldables are attempting to position themselves as mainstream flagship devices capable of matching traditional smartphones across imaging, performance, endurance, and portability simultaneously.

With the Find N6, OPPO appears intent on pushing that transition further, presenting a foldable device focused not only on design innovation, but on delivering a more complete flagship experience without the compromises that once defined the category.