Premier Inn, which currently has 11 hotels across the UAE and Qatar, is also planning further expansion in its existing markets and elsewhere in the region as part of its long-term Middle East growth strategy.

Simon Leigh, Managing Director, Premier Inn MENA, said: “Premier Inn’s focus for 2023 is to further evolve our brand and footprint in the region – on our existing ‘home grounds’ of the UAE and Qatar, elsewhere in the GCC and in other markets in the wider Middle East.

“With its huge investment in tourism under Vision 2030, a bid to host EXPO 2030 and world-class developments in full swing across the country, Saudi Arabia offers excellent opportunities for Premier Inn.  We would be immensely proud to bring our much-loved brand to the Kingdom and be part of its ever-growing tourism and hospitality sector. Fruitful discussions are continuing, and we are confident that Premier Inn will make its KSA debut this year.”

Premier Inn also plans to launch a new, higher-grade room category in the Middle East, as well as more enhancements at its existing properties this year, reinforcing its commitment to the region and to maintaining its position as MENA’s hotel brand of choice for high-quality, high-value accommodation.

“2022 was a record year for Premier Inn MENA in terms of trading and growth, fueled by large-scale events such as Expo 2020 and the World Cup, the continued post-pandemic bounce-back, and the opening of our 11^th property, Premier Inn Barsha Heights. With the peak travel season in full swing and a surge of visitors from China since borders reopened, it’s been an equally superb start to 2023 – a year in which we plan to continue to trade brilliantly, invest in our business, harness new technology and attract – and retain – great talent,” said Simon Leigh.

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“Companies in KSA and Africa are keen to exploit the potential of digitisation but continue to grapple with the cyber security challenges emerging in this newly interconnected environment. These challenges will likely increase with growing connectivity and the bourgeoning population of digital natives,” notes Mazen Dohaji, regional director for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa at LogRhythm. “But there are heavy risks associate with breaches, including financial as well as reputational risks.”

Saudi Arabia, in particular, has been in the news for an increased spate of cyber attacks. The nation’s authorities have recently warned businesses against the recurrence of a variant of the 2012 virus that crippled tens of thousands of computers at oil giant Saudi Aramco.

“LogRhythm’s Security Intelligence Platform helps organisations rapidly detect, respond to and neutralise such threats before they become incidents or major data breaches such as the ones being reported recently. Early detection and response requires efficiency of operations and a well-enabled team, which the LogRhythm platform facilitates by delivering end-to-end Threat Lifecycle Management, including the ability to see into the IT environment and the ability to quickly mitigate and recover from a security incident,” says Dohaji. “We’ve decided to get closer to the organisations in KSA and Africa that need our solution through dedicated professional cyber security teams in the regions.”

LogRhythm is scaling up its presence in both regions through pre-existing value added distributors Stralink, Exclusive Networks and Spectrami, all of which have a local presence in KSA and Africa. The firm is also installing two experienced cyber security professionals in each of the regions to share their expertise with its existing and prospective customers.

Dohaji adds: “The aim is to boost customer satisfaction by delivering high quality post-deployment technical support through local support engineers. A strong product accompanied by state-of-the-art support gives us a competitive edge. We also provide quarterly training to ensure that our partners’ technical capabilities meet our standards, and we have recently relaunched our partner portal to provide partners with crucial information and online training.”

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According to the vendor, the move to appoint Brightstar Communications is in line with its strategy to grow Unify’s footprint in the SMB segment in Saudi Arabia.

In terms of the deal, Brightstar Communications is the authorised distributor in Saudi Arabia and will supply the channel with Unify’s entire UC and collaboration solutions and help the vendor to recruit new solutions providers and systems integrators (SIs) in the Kingdom.

Feras Zeidan, Vice President, Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Unify, said the company is delighted to have signed Brightstar Communications as its distribution partner in Saudi Arabia. “Brightstar Communications is well-known within the IT and telecommunication services sector focusing on providing integrated IT and telecoms services to channel partners in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “We look forward to working with the distributor in developing the SMB business and channel partners in the market.

Zeidan said the appointment of Brightstar Communications demonstrates the commitment Unify has to growing the business in KSA. “As part of our commitment to growing our presence and strengthening the business in the SMB space in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “We will jointly together with Brightstar Communications develop the business so that partners increase their share of business.”

Zeidan added that Unify wants to help channel partners to unlock the emerging opportunities in the SMB space with the company’s end-to-end collaboration solutions,” he added.

Zeidan said the alliance with Brightstar Communications, opens up huge opportunities for channel partners to create subscription-based revenue streams on top of existing CAPEX models.

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Well-known in North and Latin America as regular gatherings of ESET security experts and independent IT professionals, business people and members of the public, more than five thousand people around the world have already attended ESET Security Days. And now the people of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, are about to get involved.

The Kingdom’s inaugural ESET Security Day is due to take place at the Novotel Riyadh Al Anoud on February 21st 2017 where IT security experts, including Dimitris Raekos, General Manager of ESET Middle East, and Mohamed Djenane, Technical & Sales Manager of ESET Middle East, will highlight the latest cyber-threats and data protection challenges affecting the current business environment.

“At ESET Security Days participants learn the latest news from our very own ESET kitchen. It’s not just about hearing about various products ESET offers to safeguard your business, far from it, guests receive valuable technology and security awareness insights along the way,” said Richard Marko, CEO of ESET.

“During the conference, attendees will receive detailed presentations and reports on all aspects of the cyber threat landscape, as well as new generation security software myths and marketing, malware detection technologies and ransomware and more.”

ESET is a pioneer of antivirus protection and the company’s goal is to ensure that users can safely enjoy opportunities offered by technology innovation. Today, ESET security solutions allow businesses and consumers in more than 180 countries to make the most of the digital world. The aim of the ESET Security Days project is to bring cutting-edge knowledge to everyone – especially the business user.

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With five service centres across UAE and KSA and trained and certified dedicated partners in Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon and Qatar, experienced technicians provide world class service within hours of a customer reporting a fault.

David Whitton, Kodak Alaris’ regional sales director for the Middle East and Africa, says, “Given the volume of production scanners we sell today, increasing our service footprint countrywide is vital to support customers when they make significant hardware purchases. We offer 8 hours service response time to solve problems quickly using only original manufacturer parts. Our biggest advantage is to be able to provide preventative maintenance to ensure equipment availability and maximum uptime. One supplier of service for Kodak Scanners as well as other manufacturers’ scanner and storage equipment, eliminates the inconvenience of dealing with multiple service providers. It’s the ‘one-call-gets-it-all’ philosophy.”

From on-site service and Advanced Unit Replacement, to 24x7x4 hour response and preventive maintenance, Kodak Alaris delivers fast, expert, reliable service to keep operations running at maximum efficiency. Skilled service engineers provide over-the-phone, remote expertise to solve problems fast and if an on-site call is necessary, one of the many strategically located field engineers (FEs) will be visit the site to take care of the issue.

“Only our field engineers are extensively trained on the intricacies of Kodak Alaris’ solutions by the technical team that designs and builds the products. This means we have access to tools, knowledge and updates that others do not. Only while employed at Kodak Alaris do field engineers have access to key equipment information and diagnostic software and firmware updates. Other firms simply can’t utilize these critically important tools,” continues Whitton.

Kodak Alaris is the only service provider using 100%-certified, original equipment replacement parts to repair equipment from Kodak Alaris. Other service providers cannot access these genuine components and can only use after-market substitutes for manufacturer-discontinued parts. The company also has the distinction of its service achieving the ISO 9001:2008 certification among scanner service organizations. So customers can feel confident that Kodak Alaris’ quality service management meets the most stringent requirements of this global standard.

From installation, tech support and field repairs to consultancy services, the company helps streamline the document management processes, extend the useful life of hardware and software investments and reduce total cost of ownership.

With parts, labour and travel included, service contracts help organizations avoid budget-breaking ‘surprise’ expenses. Kodak Alaris’ multi-year contracts provide additional discounts and price increase protection as well. Various service packages are available including four and eight-hour break/fix response times in addition to bespoke service level agreements based on individual customer requirements.

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According to the maker of Wireless, ADSL, Switches, IP Cameras, Powerline Adapters, Print Servers, Media Converters and Network Adapters, the agreement with Jarir Bookstore will not only reinforce TP-LINK’s presence in the KSA retail sector, but will open avenues for its products to be sold in more than 30 retail outlets across Saudi Arabia.

According to TP-LINK, the deal to sign Jarir Bookstore has been finalised together with its distribution partner Redington Gulf.

Conrad Yang, Country Manager, KSA at TP-LINK Middle East, said the company is delighted to have partnered with Jarir Bookstore because it is known in the Saudi Arabia market for providing the best quality IT and consumer networking products and services.

Yang said currently Jarir Bookstore has more than 30 stores across KSA and has influenced consumers a lot in their lives through the wide range of IT, networking and wireless products and consumer electronics it sells through its shops.

“TP-LINK, as a leading SOHO and SMB product brand for networking solutions is glad to work with Jarir Bookstore. We believe with a good cooperation, we both can have good profit from this alliance,” Yang added.

Yang said Jarir Bookstore now has the opportunity to resell networking products to the consumers and TP-LINK will help the retailer to develop its store in the store concept and further push the company’s products in the Saudi market. “We are hoping, TP-LINK becomes the top selling networking brand in KSA retail stores just like in the UAE,” he remarked. “With the good quality products, excellent after-sales service and good product training to promoters, we should be able to help Jarir to develop the business in the retail segment across the country.”

Yang said the biggest challenge in KSA is that most retail chain stores don’t have enough shelf space for presenting the products. “In addition, we have done research in the local market and selected the most suitable items from our wide range of products to assure these fit in with the consumers’ desire in the market,” he said.

Yang explained that ever since TP-LINK appointed Redington Gulf as it distributor for Saudi Arabia, the two companies have been working closely to develop the retail and traditional reseller business in Saudi Arabia. “Although currently, the company has only entered Jarir Bookstore and is providing consumers through this partnership several models, the company is also looking forward to working with other consumer electronics retail outlets and power retailers.

“We have decided to focus on developing the business in the power retailer sector and having Jarir as one of our main power retailers augurs well for our strategy of growing presence in the KSA retail segment together with our distribution partner Redington,” he said. “We are now working closely with Jarir and TP-LINK is lining up a rich array of networking and wirless solutions. “Eventually, we are hoping consumers enjoy the experience with the convenience provided by TP-LINK products in the KSA market.” Yang added.

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