The Middle East gaming market is booming. Competitive gaming has become a major attraction drawing in millions of fans across the region, where players vie for cash prizes in e-tournaments, which have become a major attraction, drawing millions of viewers across the globe. This phenomenon is particularly thriving in the Middle East, where many identify as gaming enthusiasts, competing in games like Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, and Fortnite.

The Growth of Esports in the Middle East

The interest in e-sports in the region has been steadily growing, with the number of gamers expected to rise to around 87 million by 2026. Saudi Arabia has emerged as a dominant market for e-sports, largely driven by widespread mobile penetration and government investment in gaming infrastructure, including state-of-the-art gaming zones, like NEOM’s gaming hub. Currently, Saudi Arabia’s Esports World Cup is the globe’s largest e-sports tournament in the world.

In the UAE, the government’s vision for economic diversification is paving the way for improved digitalization and its emergence as an e-sports powerhouse. This is evident from recent investments in setting up gaming hubs, including Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC)’s new Artificial Intelligence (AI) centre in Dubai that integrates Crypto and gaming centres.

Why Telcos Are Winning in the Middle East Gaming Market

Telcos are eager to take part in the Middle East’s growing gaming scene.

With deep roots in tech and innovation, they’re now exploring ways to enable and monetize this opportunity. In Saudi Arabia, STC’s gaming platform, STC Play, allows users to browse content, buy digital gear, join tournaments, and connect with other players through built-in chat, creating a vibrant, interactive community.

Telcos in the Middle East, too, are also actively supporting the gaming ecosystem by offering a Gaming Pass that provides dedicated data for gaming. e&’s eLife TV Gaming service allows subscribers to access over 70 premium games in HD quality directly through its eLife TV set-top box.

Gaming Tourism and Hospitality Trends

The popularity of gaming has led to the rise of ‘gaming tourism’, with personalized, gaming-integrated hospitality experiences. Some hotels have fully equipped gaming rooms for gaming aficionados. For instance, Rove Hotels in Dubai offers gamer guests high-speed wired internet connection for their gaming needs, in addition to leisure facilities.

Gaming tourism is an attractive opportunity for telcos in the region to tap into this rapidly growing market and diversify their business. However, the next generation of gaming services enabled by 5G will require high-capacity, resilient networks that support today’s bandwidth needs.

How Telcos Support the Middle East Gaming Market

Telcos can promote gaming culture in the UAE in many ways. These include offering premium game subscriptions, supporting in-app purchases, and using data analytics to enhance user experience and streamline operations.

Across the region, telecom providers are also upgrading their infrastructure to meet growing demand. For example, e& UAE plans to deploy Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme, making it the first to deliver 1.6 Tb/s speeds in the Middle East.

In addition, e& UAE and Lenovo are working on a new 5G Edge-in-a-Box solution. This technology will allow for faster, more flexible deployment of 5G connectivity across various locations.

Meanwhile, STC in Saudi Arabia is expanding its fiber optic network to enable high-bandwidth, low-latency connections. These efforts support Saudi Arabia’s broader goals—powering mega-projects, enabling smart city development, and becoming a global esports hub.

Meeting gamers where they are

Telcos face a growing challenge: scaling their network resources to handle peak gaming demand. Gamers today are still tied to a single platform, physical hardware, and long software downloads.

But that’s changing. Players increasingly want more flexibility, mobility, and freedom in how they game.

As graphics improve and real-time mobile gaming gains popularity, latency—or lag—becomes a critical concern. To reduce this, telcos may need to rethink their network architecture. Solutions like edge networking and enhanced data center interconnects can help minimize lag and keep performance high

What’s Next for Gaming in the Gulf?

As the gaming industry in the region scales even further, analytics and network intelligence will be critical to identify congestion and latency during peak periods of usage and to activate additional network resources on demand. Instead of simply ‘throwing more bandwidth at the problem’, an adaptive network will put telcos in the driver’s seat, presenting gaming as a valuable monetization opportunity.

The post Middle East Gaming Market: How Telcos Are Driving the Esports Booms appeared first on The Integrator.

Speak about your participation at GITEX GLOBAL 2022. Is it through partners or independent?

Maintaining the Titanium Partnership with Dell, Cloud Box Technologies will be focusing on Dell EMC PowerStore Storage as well as the advanced Dell EMC VxRail Hyperconverged Infrastructure solution at the event.

There is also an emphasis on showcasing the company’s cybersecurity offerings which have been strengthened over the last year with best-of-breed global vendor partnerships. They will also highlight the in-house infrastructure capabilities that enable them to provide customers with seamless services.

Ranjith Kaippada, Managing Director – CBT

Describe the competitive advantages enterprises receive while relying on CBT for integrations

With years of combined technical expertise in the Middle East, Cloud Box Technologies has partnered with Global IT companies providing local support services – all delivered by vendor-certified engineers. Solutions include Data Center, Storage, Server, Backup, Disaster Recovery, Network Security, Server Managed, and Desktop Virtualization.

The organization works with talented professionals that help clients define the strategies to evaluate, design, develop and implement systems and processes that best achieve their Digital Transformation goals. CBT also provides the best combination of value and expertise required to deploy bespoke IT solutions to drive growth. CBT believes that quality breeds quality and success is a by-product.

Discuss the emerging technology products and solutions CBT offer to its customers

Cloud Box Technologies is emphasizing smart digital transformation for both small and large enterprises and is capable of addressing customers’ individual needs within allocated budgets. The company is very capable of being a Systems Integrator that is highly equipped to tackle on-prem digitization, it provides customers with a strong NOC as well as strengthening how it is being pre-emptive in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service capabilities.

What are your Middle East business plans and strategies for the remainder of 2022 and 2023

Cloud Box Technologies has been growing not only its bouquet of solutions and services but has also been focusing on several new industries. Apart from providing technology infrastructure support to its customers, the company is very focused on understanding the current customer trends and is making heaving investments in its cloud, security, and MDR capabilities. It is also putting heaving emphasis on developing in-house skills and technical capabilities. Besides being present in the banking and finance, retail, and healthcare sectors, the company is now gearing up to be able to support customers in the hospitality and education sectors. For this, Cloud Box Technologies is partnering with global vendors to be in a position to provide software capabilities by adding several additional layers.

The post Cloud Box Emphasizes Smart Digital Transformation for Enterprises appeared first on The Integrator.

COVID-19 has been a massive catalyst for digital transformation, but companies need to do more than implement short-term solutions that enable remote work. Businesses with an eye to fully automated workflows will enjoy benefits that far outlast the pandemic.

Work From Home – Work Must Go On

Working from home isn’t exactly new, but the need to work from home is. When it became apparent that social distancing would be a key tactic to slow the spread of COVID-19, immediately closing office buildings was the natural response.

Naji Kazak, Managing Director – EMEA at Kodak Alaris

In fact, it is likely that companies’ familiarity with remote work — if only on an occasional basis — has smoothed the rapid transition and enabled ongoing operations.

However, this urgency has served as a sort of double-edged sword: While it is responsible for the rapid transition to remote work policies, it is also responsible for quick fixes that may do more to hinder than help workflows in the long run.

Urgency Spurs Tech Adoption

Companies that embrace digital transformation are more successful than those that lag behind.

Digital companies typically have a superior customer experience, better employee engagement and retention, and increased business growth and profits, among other benefits. What’s more, manual processes can cause companies to miss opportunities, make ill-informed business decisions, and lose clients to competition.

In the midst of this global pandemic, these realities take on even greater importance: Digital transformation is no longer a question of “sinking or swimming” over an extended period of time, but of sinking or swimming now. Technology adoption has been one of the single biggest factors in ensuring business survival.

For instance, grocery stores have turned to online ordering and curbside pickup, restaurants have implemented QR code menus to minimize shared objects, and healthcare organizations have relied on telehealth platforms to provide virtual care.

For companies that have turned to remote work, tech adoption has meant using equipment such as document scanners, mobile devices, and multifunction printers (MFPs) as specific needs arise.

From Digitizing Paper Processes to Fully Integrated Workflows

Getting the right information to the right employees is challenging enough when everything is paper-based and everyone’s working remotely, but the issue is greater than that.

Enabling digital workflows isn’t just about scanning paper documents into electronic files so that the immediate task at hand can be completed, but about automating the processes themselves so that work can be carried out efficiently and effectively over the long term.

This automation requires taking a close look at business processes, reengineering them as needed, and investing in technology that goes beyond simple document capture.

For instance, when faced with these issues, Xenith Intelligent Workplace Solutions teamed up with Kodak Alaris to create a new Scan@Home Solution with preconfigured automatic workflows. Built on Kodak Alaris’ INfuse Smart Connected Scanning Solution, the offering enables workers to save information to the right place, send documents to the right person, and scan directly into line-of-business systems from home — all without a PC connection or local software.

A Cultural Shift

Remote work seems to be here to stay, and digital transformation will continue to facilitate it. For companies that haven’t embraced it, now is the time to invest in the digital transformation strategies that enable remote work, and in the technologies that spur digital transformation.

The post Digital Transformation During and Beyond COVID-19 appeared first on The Integrator.

Digital transformation is seen as a big investment but is becoming a prerequisite for survival in the current and future landscape. Businesses are now more reliant on digital infrastructure than ever – with many organizations completely dependent on their IT systems and the data being generated, which is their IP. With data being viewed as the “new currency” today, it is vital to protect its integrity. A Modern Data Protection solution ensuring the backup, recovery, and management of critical data is essential.

Mohamad Rizk, Senior Director, Technical Sales – ME, Veeam

The Veeam Ransomware Trends Report 2022, reveals the extent of vulnerability of businesses when it comes to ransomware defense. 72% of organizations had partial or complete attacks on their backup repositories, dramatically impacting the ability to recover data without paying the ransom. Cybercriminals are successfully encrypting an average of 47% of production data and victims are only able to recover 69% of impacted data! 76% of organizations also admit to paying ransomware criminals.

Security Weaknesses

Although organizations in the Middle East, in general, spend a lot on security technologies, there is a huge gap when it comes to planning and executing a security strategy. This mainly boils down to the complexity of the IT environment. The region is risk-averse when it comes to adopting cloud technologies and there are still a lot of legacy systems. Protecting these complicated environments is a big challenge and becomes even more so in the transition phase of moving to the cloud.

Pillars of a Robust Security Strategy

Regional CISOs need to have a stringent security plan in place which includes important elements like stress testing of IT Systems, backup, a disaster recovery plan, and educating employees:

Stress Testing of IT Systems

If stress testing of data, people, and processes is not done at regular intervals, ideally once a month, then the business is being put at significant risk. There are a few reasons for the lack of testing. One is that organizations do not have the correct software and processes in place. The second, as mentioned earlier, is that organizations still have legacy disparate systems, which increases the complexities of testing so many different parts. The fear of failure is what causes people not to stress test to the level that they should.

Backup – Immutability is key

Every admin should have a backup. This principle works for any virtual environment; regardless of the hypervisor, you are running (VMware, Hyper-V, or whatever). One of the timeless rules that can effectively address any failure scenario is called the 3-2-1 backup rule. Veeam has upgraded this to the 3-2-1-1-0 rule. This upgraded rule gives incredible versatility by going the extra mile:

• There should be 3 copies of data
• On 2 different media
• With 1 copy being off-site
• With 1 copy being offline, air-gapped, or immutable
• And, 0 errors with SureBackup recovery verification

Disaster Recovery

Enterprises produce huge volumes of employee, customer, and corporate data, of which they are the trusted custodians. Given the growing importance of personal data, organizations have a broader societal responsibility to ensure their systems are fully recoverable at all times. While IT departments have a crucial role to play here, business leaders also need to truly buy in to the importance of Disaster Recovery (DR). A good DR strategy should encompass a documented process that has been tested. DR testing needs to be stringent – looking at every possible eventuality and preparing an appropriate response.

Employee Education

Without creating awareness and providing a deeper understanding of best practices through cyber literacy, any threat mitigation tool is rendered useless. It is imperative to educate employees and ensure they practice impeccable digital hygiene.

If organizations in the Middle East follow the above pillars of a sound security strategy, then they would have taken care of a very important piece of the digital transformation puzzle.

The post A Good Security Strategy Against Ransomware is at the Heart of Digital Transformation appeared first on The Integrator.

The C-Suite and business leaders understand the value of technology and the benefits it can bring to their bottom line, but there is one key technological shift on the horizon that they can’t afford to ignore. Networking at the edge.

Over the next few years, organizations in every industry will experience change on an unprecedented scale as people, digital devices, smart technologies, and an ever-expanding network come together to transform commerce, work, education, healthcare, recreation, and more. A whole new range of possibilities emerges when we can engage with literally every device and build intelligence and connectivity into physical objects such as office furniture and clothing. The path to 2030 will spawn new customer-centric businesses, enable entirely new industries and reinvent existing ones, challenge us to adapt and evolve, and facilitate greater access, equity, and inclusion across every aspect of society – this is the potential of the Edge. We define the Edge as the new experiences being enabled by edge technologies for customers, employees, students, patients, and any users of network services.

Jacob Chacko, Regional Director – ME and SA, Aruba

Smart meets digital at the Edge – smart conference rooms, smart assembly lines, smart menu ordering, smart stadiums, and a range of technology-enabled smart experiences. The opportunity at the Edge is driven by many things, including smart applications powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), mobile devices, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, data analysis, next-generation Wi-Fi, 5G communications, and “edge-to-cloud computing.”

Transformational Aspects of Edge-Based Strategies

Edge-based strategies are driving five critical shifts shaping the future of business and work:

1. User Empowerment – The technologies are enabling a fundamental redesign of the user experience – be they customer, student, patient, or employee – giving users the tools to define what they want, how they want it, and even how they want to pay for it.
2. Transformational Leadership – The scalability and rapid capability enhancements of exponentially advancing technologies such as AI, ML, IoT, and cloud computing are enabling leaders to pursue and deliver experiments to drive 2x to 10x greater improvements across their businesses.
3. The Pursuit of Digital Innovation and Excellence – The increasingly central role of digital technologies demands that we raise digital literacy across the organization and prioritize the rapid evolution of our digital capability to accelerate the adoption of a digital mindset and speed up the creation of digitally based products and services based on insights generated from data collected.
4. Embracing and Embedding Smart – The Edge is helping organizations embrace the true power of smart devices to deliver mass customization and deep personalization of a range of user experiences. Rapid advancements in AI and ML are enabling the establishment of smart spaces and creating the opportunity for smart personalization, adaptation, and continuous learning in the applications offered to users.
5. Emergence of New Businesses and Industry Sectors at the Edge – The focus on solutions tailored to customer needs is driving opportunities from the creation of new businesses to the birth of new trillion-dollar industry sectors.

Call to Action

The opportunity at the Edge represents a new way of conceiving business – designing from the outside in and putting the organization’s focus on what happens at the edge to maximize value for customers and employees, while also driving operational efficiency. Although it may seem that the concept is in its infancy, the nature of competition and the exponential rate of advancement in the underlying technologies mean that the pace of adoption will accelerate. This will lead in turn to transformational shifts in the experiences created and the business and revenue models adopted across every sector. For the C-suite, the call to action is clear. The only question is: how quickly can you respond to start building the future?

The post Preparing Businesses for the Next Wave of Digital Transformation appeared first on The Integrator.

Speak about the partnership that Jedox can offer to enterprises in their digital transformation journey.

Jedox supports the digital transformation journey of organizations with our enterprise performance management (EPM) platform that drives increased efficiency and productivity by enabling the automation of manual, repetitive business processes. It also strengthens collaboration by first unifying and then extending planning across the organisation. With Jedox, you can easily shift to Extended Planning & Analysis (xP&A) wherein every department can create continuous, company-wide plans that are more comprehensive, more agile, and more accurate. This means organisations can successfully transform their business and achieve a culture of decisiveness and confidence in planning so that you outperform expectations.

Discuss the role of cloud and its services in digital transformation

Andreas Simon, Director Sales MEA at Jedox

The cloud has radically evolved the digital landscape in the region and accelerated the digital transformation journey for many organisations. At Jedox, we recognise the value that the cloud offers and believe in providing our customers with unmatched data integration and adaptability – no matter what their preferred deployment model is.

Our annual customer satisfaction survey found that Jedox as a managed solution provides the very best customer experience. With our managed services, our customers benefit from the comprehensive expertise of the experienced Jedox Cloud Operations team which takes the burden off their IT departments. This is available for Jedox as a managed solution running either in the Jedox Cloud, or in a customer-owned infrastructure.

How do you differentiate Jedox from its competitors in offering cyber protection within its solution range?

With Jedox X, we provide our customers access to our latest product innovations as well as simpler version upgrades, and superior performance and scalability. As a result of uniquely enabling our customers to leverage Jedox as a managed service, we provide world-class security in the Jedox Cloud as our experts take care of continuous monitoring, fail-over protection, and automated security patches to ensure business continuity. Moreover, as Jedox Cloud is hosted in the data centres of our cloud partner, Microsoft Azure, our customers are assured the use of industry-leading security technologies and standards that protect their data and give them full control.

Elaborate on the opportunities of SMEs and large enterprises while choosing to transform digital applications and devices.

Ongoing globalisation and the resulting increase in competition heightens the need for business strategies to be frequently adapted. Today, even the very largest organisations risk their market share being eroded by more agile players that are capable of rapidly evolving with fast-changing markets. Leveraging automation supports greater agility. So, where planning and forecasting were previously characterised by laborious, error-prone manual processes; recent advancements in automation and AI and ML are driving what we refer to as the digital enterprise.

The key to impacting value creation in the company is being able to simplify business complexities so that you get better insights and drive better decisions. Extended Planning & Analysis (xP&A), AI, continuous real-time planning, granular operational models & solutions, driver-based simulations, scenario planning, Predictive Forecasting & Machine Learning are key innovation areas that offer businesses the opportunity to gain this valuable insight.

With teams spread across the globe, and an unprecedented pace of business, all of these areas are fundamental to the digital transformation journey and to supporting value creation.

The post Jedox Supports the Digital Transformation Ambitions of Organizations With Its EPM Platform appeared first on The Integrator.

Speak about the solution that WSO2 offer to customers in their digital transformation journey?

Organizations that partner with WSO2 know that they are getting more than just our industry-leading products in the areas of integration, API management, and CIAM. They choose us for our deep domain expertise, our ability to understand their business’ pain points, and our innovative solutions and best-in-class support. We have also developed a framework for addressing the people, processes, and technology that need to be aligned for digital transformation, which has added significant value to our customers’ business.

Discuss the role of the cloud and its services in digital transformation

Uday Shankar Kizhepat, VP and GM – MEA, WSO2

The cloud has rapidly become an enabler in today’s digital transformation initiatives and plays a crucial role in an organization’s ability to build and implement scalable solutions faster than ever before. Unlike running your own data center, when you leverage the cloud, you get access to all the required infrastructure without the cost and maintenance burden that comes with on, premises data centers—you only pay for what you use. Better still, the cloud is limitless; as your business grows, or with fluctuations in demand, you can scale up or down depending on your needs. So, not only can businesses see significant cost savings, but they also can more quickly react and adapt to changing requirements.

How do you distinguish between WSO2 and its competitors in offering advanced solutions?

There are many ways to distinguish WSO2 from our competitors, but I will highlight the two key differentiators:

• WSO2 is the only technology company that provides a comprehensive platform solution offering API management, integration, and identity and access management capabilities
• The second differentiator is at the heart of what WSO2 is all about: open source. WSO2’s open source portfolio offers the solution to these requirements, giving information technology teams the ability to utilize our open-source products and deploy them on-premises, in a public cloud, in a private cloud, or a hybrid setup.

Elaborate on the opportunities of SMEs and large enterprises while choosing to transform digital applications and devices

SMEs and large enterprises that want to keep pace with changing consumer trends need to embrace the digital evolution that was accelerated by the pandemic. From the web to mobile apps, the Internet of Things, and the newly emerging metaverse, acknowledging how intertwined our lives have become with the digital world and adapting your business model and operations to those requirements is the first step.

Now there’s a new generation of SaaS offerings for application development that hide the complexity of cloud infrastructure and automate many previously manual functions. These SaaS offerings are leveling the playing field for enterprises of all sizes.

Tell us about the cloud strategies enforced by WSO2 in favor of its customers

WSO2 works closely with our customers to help rapidly and securely move on-premises APIs, integrations, and identities to the cloud and provide a SaaS experience. Depending on the organization’s requirements, we can also provide a hybrid of on-premises, private cloud, or full SaaS deployment options. Doing so offers enhanced agility, reduces the total cost of ownership, provides automated updates, and facilitates rapid innovation.

The post With Exceptional SaaS Experience, WSO2 Helps Enterprises Rapidly and Securely Move to the Cloud appeared first on The Integrator.

What role does Freshworks play in their digital transformation journey of enterprises?

While in the aftermath of the pandemic, organizations have understood the need for an accelerated pace of digital transformation to optimize their digital-first engagement with employees and customers, many have been left wondering where to start. IT and business leaders cannot simply execute on a couple key initiatives and then rest on their laurels. A successful digital transformation journey is one of continuous evaluation of the company.

Digital technologies are only useful when they have been wholeheartedly embraced by the intended user base. This is where Freshworks’ democratic design principles yield results. Our software is designed from the bottom up to be easy to pick up and learn by the front-line user in sales, support, marketing, or IT. At Freshworks, we strive to put more power into the hands of end-users through intuitive interfaces, easy integrations, and straightforward workflows.

Discuss the role of cloud and its services in digital transformation

Cloud is key to digital transformation. It provides the platform for enterprises to digitalize operations with far less risk, predictable operational costs, and a dramatically flattened technical curve.

For this reason, Freshworks has ensured that our software is purpose built for the cloud and also for our end users, making it easy to set up and run. And we work very hard to make sure it works seamlessly for everyone. Unlike traditional enterprise software companies that design for the Fortune 500 executive suite, we design for the millions of organizations that need business software to work out-of-the-box, empowering end-users to be productive in no time with beautiful software they will love.

How do you distinguish between Freshworks and its competitors in offering cyber protection within its solution range?

We believe our out-of-box security features, alignment to global industry standards, and security best practices, are competitive differentiators. We have a robust product and software security process, incorporating security in every stage of the product life cycle to optimize our ability to thwart the ongoing digital threats. The continuous testing and monitoring approach also accelerates our time-to-market and improves the quality of the solution we offer, which has enabled us to earn and maintain the trust of more than 58,000 customers across the globe.

Elaborate on the opportunities of SMEs and large enterprises while choosing to transform digital applications and devices

With the democratization of digitization, today, both SMEs and large enterprises have the ability to leverage the latest technologies to advance their IT transformation agendas as they look to drive business outcomes. We are already starting to see businesses deploy AI and IoT infrastructure without owning a single server or proprietary piece of cognitive code. Modern no-code interfaces will become more popular as a lack of programming knowledge will cease to become a barrier to offering world-class customer and employee experiences through cloud technology.

We also believe organizations stand to benefit tremendously from deploying chatbots. Regional businesses are having to re-evaluate the employee experience because now that talent has become a global market – thanks to the success of remote work – employees can be a lot more discerning when selecting an employer.

And of course, all this is underpinned by the steady march towards cloud as with greater adoption of SaaS and PaaS, more organizations have the ability to adopt such cutting-edge innovations.

The post Freshworks’ Democratic Design Principles Help Enterprises Yield Stable Results appeared first on The Integrator.

The cover story analyses several viewpoints on digital transformation delegating the idea of sustainable transformation. With expert comments, the story helps readers understand how the process can contribute to the collective growth of an organization.

The goal of digital transformation is to achieve seamless business and simplify the workflow of enterprises. However, there are confirmed reports of organizations’ failure in digital transmission. Boston Consulting Group conducted a story and found that 70 percent of digital transformation projects fall short of their goals – even after the leadership of respective companies is aligned to the process.

How does that happen? In simple words, the organizations are neither prepared to transform themselves nor their resources are united to the task!

Not Only Digitally But Also Culturally You Can Transform

Perhaps, digital transformation is inevitable as the competitive nature of the market would push every organization to partly or entirely digitize its business operations. Plus, business growth in the digital economy can depend on the successful adaptation of the latest technologies, i.e., cloud, automation, AI, hybrid work, e-payments, online customer engagements, etc.

While observing, a myriad of information technology (IT) solution providers is recently flocked into the industry – a pandemic phenomenon – to take virtue out of the digital transformation ambitions of businesses. Some are advocating the essentialness of transforming businesses, digitally, to mitigate any crisis in the occurrence of a pandemic-like situation. Getting digitally transformed is a sustainable choice that enterprises, of all sizes, should subscribe to if they wish to chase the newest growth standards. However, it should be done only after defining digitalization goals clearly.

If the goals are not perceivable to any of the department – that handles resources, data, implementation, employees, end-user experience, and, most importantly, coordination – the results could not just be unsatisfactory but also irretrievably disastrous. Thus, digital transformation should be introduced and enforced as a new culture in the organization.

Uncertainties to Opportunities

Despite acquiring momentum – at least a decade ago, the idea of a full-fledged digital transformation had not achieved major space in tech discourses. But today, it is a hot topic that invites huge participation of tech experts, researchers, academics, and students – even critics. It is not a surprise, most often we hear the word resilience tags along with digital transformation and it has a rationale.

When the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic struck the world order, the affected parties, including individuals, corporates, and governments, had to look for feasible options to overcome the crisis. Finally, decision-makers of private and state entities concluded that the intensification and reorientation of technology in all possible sectors could help resolve most of the issues.

Crawford Del Prete, global president at International Data Corporation (IDC), appears to have objectively analyzed the pandemic situation and commented, “the COVID-19 pandemic has thrust us into a digital-first world, where new digital habits are reshaping consumer behavior.” Further continued, “at the same time, end-user organizations are taking a digital-first approach to products, services, customer and employee experiences, and operations.”

Relentless and Cautious Journey for Future Growth and Benefit

Ram Narayanan, Country Manager at Check Point Software Technologies – ME, observes, “digital transformation empowers organizations to expand business opportunities, and increase profitability and efficiency while reducing operational costs.”

Most new-era enterprises are excited about the business opportunities and revenue generation prospects encompass upon adopting the latest technologies or classy solutions available in the market. At the same time, not all of them can identify the deficits of these technologies – until they detect severe vulnerabilities in their system.

The frenzy of digital transformation is somehow perceived as an urgency by many organizations – especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs/SMBs). When economies started to open up, the business-continuity narrators barged into the doors of enterprises with unusual cacophony and advised them to opt for next-level, pandemic-ready systems. Even though there is a sustainable need for pandemic-ready IT systems, the confusion that has created compelled businesses to choose anything bordering the philosophy of digital transformation.

Consequently, even before businesses fully understand the significance of threat intelligence and (or) the legal mandate of data sovereignty and privacy, compliances, and cyber laws, the jeopardy would have taken place in the systems. Ram Narayanan precisely articulates it, “digital transformation can also expose enterprises to a variety of vulnerabilities and challenges that if not properly addressed could result in financial loss, identity theft, and leakage of private and sensitive information.”

Cloud Shows the Way

If institutions choose to embrace the idea of digital transformation, they could ideally begin with moving data to the cloud, investing in cloud-based infrastructure, and installing cloud-native solutions. Uday Shankar Kizhepat, VP and GM – MEA, WSO2 rightly points out, “the cloud has rapidly become an enabler in today’s digital transformation initiatives and plays a crucial role in an organization’s ability to build and implement scalable solutions faster than ever before.”

Besides getting low-cost infrastructure and zero maintenance burden – compared with on-premises data centers- the cloud is limitless as it allows the enterprises to:

• react to the fluctuations in demand
• scale up or down depending on their needs.
• save cost significantly, and
• quickly respond and adapt to changing requirements

Middle East’s Billion Dollar Vision
Shibapriya Saha, Program Manager at Frost & Sullivan precisely points out, “as enterprises in the Middle East move to the cloud-based model, the region will become one of the most profitable markets for global cloud and data center providers. Industry and technology convergence is redefining organizational boundaries, and the focus is on developing innovative, cross-industry business models, such as fintech, edtech, and martech (marketing).”

Similarly, the global technology research firm, IDC also forecasts that the digital transformation spending in the Middle East will accelerate at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.6% over the five years, topping $58 billion in 2025.

The Middle East regions are known for their futuristic approach toward infrastructure and reliance on technology. Evaluating the standards while recovering from the pandemic hit, the region appears to be reshaping the technological paradigm. 5G networks, AI, IoT, future classrooms, and smart cities are clear examples of the growing phenomenon.

The post [COVER STORY] CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION appeared first on The Integrator.

Why does that happen? The answer is that it was not observed as a cultural transformation!

The Integrator comes up with an issue on digital transformation and it discusses several aspects of the topic. Not only engaging but also thought-provoking descriptions encompass the edition as a cover story, features, columns, and a handful of expert interviews join the narrative. Refer to the latest issue.

Celebrating the winning streak, The Integrator is planning to host “Virtual Roundtable Sessions 2022” on the topic “SECURITY THREAT FOR BFSI SECTOR IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ERA.” The sessions will participate information security professionals (i.e., CIOs, CISOs, CSOs) of reputed banks in the Middle East and senior executives/spokespersons from tech enterprises, and security solution service providers to discuss all such matters of security concern in BFSIs.

We are thrilled to get you to participate in the sessions and listen to your views on the subject. Simply write to us, showing your interest, if you are bearing any of these roles or capacities.

Thank you!

Read and recommend – as always!

Murali Margassery
Assistant Editor

The post DIGITAL, CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION appeared first on The Integrator.