The pandemic has rewritten the rules of
business survival in modern times and
exposed the so-called digital divide. As a
result of the crisis, digital transformation
has gained steam in many enterprises, and those
companies that have invested in digital technologies
stand a good chance to come out stronger when
the economy recovers. As I have emphasised in my
previous column, business continuity is the name
of the game today. For this, companies will have to
rethink their technology investments and plan for a
much more resilient infrastructure and supply chain
communications.

As COVID-19 continues to rattle
businesses around the world, forcing
millions to work from home, CIOs
have no option but to change their
game plans. With remote work here to stay, IT
decisions makers are starting to rethink their
priorities, especially around capacity planning
and security. The analyst firm McKinsey says the
time is now for the CIO to work with the CEO and
C-suite to “unlock savings that ensure the business
continuity and be redirected into investments to
fit new business priorities.”

Covid-19 is a human tragedy of
mammoth proportions, forcing cities
around the world into lock-down. Life,
as we know it, has come to a standstill.
The global economic impact of Covid-19 is a
staggering $2.7 trillion in lost output, and world
GDP is estimated to shrink by around 7 percent in
H1 2020.

Last month, we hosted the second edition
of our CXO 50 Awards, which in a short
time, has already become the benchmark
for IT excellence in the region. The
winners were picked from a pool of 100 odd
shortlisted entries after rigorous scrutiny by an
external judging panel and our editorial team.
What struck me most about this year’s winners
was the fact that digital transformation is not
just a buzzword in the region– it is already
deeply rooted in many organisations. Though
maturity curves may vary, all of our winners are
driving digital change in their organisations with
new technologies. Be it the cloud, blockchain,
AI, or RPA, many of these visionary leaders
are riding the crest of this new wave to take
their businesses to new heights, and what is
heartening to see is that most of them have a
a seat at the table now. We will bring their success
stories to you in the forthcoming issues of CXO
Insight ME because these are worth emulating
if you are an IT or security leader looking to
reshape your business into a digital one. These
smart leaders are not treating DX projects as a
side project for IT and have metamorphosized
into digital strategy agents in their organisations.

You must have heard the news already.
This year’s MWC, considered as
a bellwether for emerging mobile
industry trends, was cancelled over
coronavirus health concerns. This is the first
time the show has been called off ever since it
started in 2006, and I have been a regular visitor.
I was particularly looking forward to this year’s
edition, which was going to showcase all the new
development around 5G – right from the new
wave of smartphones and advances in networks.

This year could prove a pivotal one for
many countries in the region. This is the
year of Expo in Dubai, which is going
to give a massive fillip to the country’s
economy and attract around 25 million visitors.
There are scores of technology companies
coming to Dubai as part of their country
pavilions, showcasing solutions that have the
potential to transform our lives and work.

As 2019 draws to a close, it is time to ponder
the year that was. Without a doubt, 2019
will go down in the annals of history as a
time that tested the mettle of many IT
leaders. The prevailing economic conditions in the
region put the onus on CIOs to understand and adopt
drivers of innovation to sustain business growth. With
shrinking IT budgets, they had to find that delicate
balance between spending on innovation and keeping
the lights on. It is estimated that only 20 percent of IT
budgets are spent on innovation, while the rest goes
to meet core business needs. In the coming years, I
would expect CIOs to turn to AI and automation to
get a handle on the maintenance part and free up
resources.

Last month, we hosted a roundtable event to
discuss the state of cloud adoption in the
region. After speaking to CIOs from a wide
range of verticals, including government,
banking, and healthcare, I was quite surprised
to learn that cloud is finally having its moment
in the region. The fact that hyperscalers have a
local presence now has instilled confidence, and
the number of companies looking to move their
whole IT stack to the cloud is quite high. Also, the
increased competition has resulted in a price war,
and the users have a lot more choice now – from
mega cloud providers to local service providers.
Has the cloud era truly dawned upon us now?
Maybe not because there are still some issues that
need to be ironed out by the industry. When the
cloud hype was cranked up to maximum, one of
its biggest selling points was cost. However, now
many users have realized the cloud is not always
exactly cheaper, and it is time the cloud industry
stopped marketing cost efficiency as the leading
factor. Instead, what the cloud providers need to
focus is on the kind of operational efficiencies and
flexibility it offers to users, and it is almost always
better than an on-prem alternative.

It’s that time of the year – when Dubai literally
becomes the tech capital of the world for five
days. For me, this is going to be my 15th edition
of Gitex Technology Week, and I consider
myself lucky to have gotten an opportunity to
chronicle the evolution and growth of the high-tech
industry in this region. Not surprisingly, this year’s
show is going to be all about artificial intelligence,
robotics, 5G, blockchain with a healthy dose of
cybersecurity. What I am really looking forward is
to experience first-hand some exciting use cases
of these new technologies.

This month’s cover story is about managed
security services, which is finding
favour among enterprises of all sizes in
the region. Until recently, outsourcing
security to a third-party provider was unthinkable
for many of these organisations. But, with the daily
barrage of attacks and lack of expertise in-house
to tackle these threats, the pendulum is slowly
swinging towards MSSPs. For SMEs in particular,
managed security makes more sense because
they can outsource all basic security functions and
don’t have to invest in security staff. As for large
enterprises, the value proposition of an MSSP
model is that they can spend more time on serious
stuff such as threat hunting and vulnerability
management instead of being bogged down by
day-to-day security operations. So, why isn’t
everyone ceding their security control to thirdparty
providers? The fact of the matter is CISOs are
still struggling to sell the managed services story to
their boards because there are no clear metrics to
gauge RoI. To address this, MSSPs in the region will
have to do a better job of packaging their offerings
with a compelling business case, and not just harp
on the cost factor.

If you flip through this month’s edition, you
will find many guest articles on artificial
intelligence. How it is impacting the future
of work, ERP and transforming the customer
experience for telcos, among other things. AI
has become pervasive in a short span of time.
The UAE, which is leading this space along with
Singapore and Shanghai, is all set to open the
world’s first AI-powered café this month, where
robots will replace humans. It is a sign of things
to come. No doubt, AI can solve some of the
world’s pressing problems, and change the way
we live and work. Some of the key industries
such as healthcare, transport, manufacturing,
retail, and banking are already reaping massive
benefits from AI capabilities. What is AI? At the
very basic level, it can be defined as creating
machines which reflect human intelligence
and do a task that we can do. Humanity has
been using technology to better our lives for a
very long time now, and every technology has
its pros and cons. How about AI? Is there a
downside to all of this? I think the current state
of AI is very poorly understood and it’s time to
broaden the conversation. We still don’t have
reliable standards and governance models for
AI, and it sure needs a reality check. Recently,
Singapore has announced an AI governance
framework to ensure ethical and responsible
use of the technology. The EU is also working
on similar guidelines related to AI governance.
Who is ultimately responsible for AI and its
related technologies? Some of the prominent
tech leaders have already warned us of the
downside, and Elon Musk has famously remarked
that machines with super AI could become ‘an
immortal dictator from which we would never
escape.’ I think governments and policymakers
will have to address this urgently given the
far-reaching social and economic impact of the
technology. Could we be opening a Pandora’s
Box? Time will tell.

In this age of technology-enabled businesses,
do CIOs have an edge over their C -suite
colleagues to sit in the CEO’s hot seat? I have
had this debate with so many people, and my
argument always has been that that CIOs can step
up to the plate if they think differently and see the
bigger picture about their businesses. Still, I can’t
really think of many CIOs who have made that
successful transition to the top role. This could
be because many of them lack the key attribute
that characterises the head honcho – leadership.

Artificial intelligence is the new flavour
of the season. If you go to any tech
conference these days, chances are
you’d hear about AI and robotics being
discussed with almost evangelical zeal as a
panacea for all IT woes. Is AI a new technology?
If you look at its history, in 1950, famous English
mathematician Alan Turing – yes, the same
guy who broke the Enigma code – published a
paper, which discussed for the first time what
would come to be known as AI. Since then, AI has
been relegated mainly to the realm of science
fiction till early 2000, when we witnessed the
emergence of robots for homes and space
exploration, followed by autonomous cars and
virtual voice assistants on smartphones that
understand natural language.

We are gearing up for this year’s
edition of GISEC, where security
vendors of various hues and colours
will exhibit their wares. This year,
the show boasts of some world-famous hackers
such as Kevin Mitnick and Jamie Woodruff as
speakers. And for the first time, GISEC also
features an open forum to delve deep into the dark
web and will host live hacks for visitors.

At this year’s Mobile World Congress
all the big announcements were
around 5G. My association with
this annual jamboree of the mobile
industry goes back to 2006 - the year the show
shifted to Barcelona from Cannes. It was a
world before Android and iOS, where operators
ruled the roost and Nokia was perched right on
the top. The mobile industry landscape looks
markedly different today, and this year, all the
announcements that came out of the show were
invariably about 5G – big equipment vendors such
as Ericsson and Nokia announced a slew of new 5G
customers; smartphone vendors offered a sneak
preview of 5G phones, and silicon manufacturers
showcased 5G-ready chips. In the Middle East,
major telecom operators have already announced
their plans to roll out 5G commercial services this
year or by early 2020.

Last month, I’d the opportunity to host
a CIO roundtable on what is digital
transformation is all about. For me, digital
transformation is like that particular
teenage problem – everyone is talking about it,
but no one has actually done it. The real problem
with this hottest buzzword in our industry is that it
is very hard to define what digital transformation
really entails. It means different things to different
people, and we are still trying to pare the fat to
reach a common definition. If you ask me, what we
need to do is to separate the wheat from the chaff
- digitisation and digital are two different things.
If you automate an existing business process, it
is digitisation, and on the other hand, digital is all
about transforming the culture of an organisation.

As customary, in the beginning of the
year, there is a blizzard of predictions
from vendors and self-styled industry
experts about the trends that will shape
the tech landscape – some bold, some outlandish.
It is always a tricky business to predict what is likely
to happen over the next 12 months, especially in an
industry as dynamic as ours. However, I am going
to stick my neck out and weigh in with my own
predictions for this year.
First off, I don’t think the technology landscape
is going to be radically different from last year. The
biggest challenge facing IT leaders this year would
be to do a balancing act and find the resources
to execute on their vision in the face of shrinking
IT budgets. Last year, the hype around digital
transformation has reached a crescendo and I think
it’s time for the industry to define what digital really
is; it goes far beyond just technology updates and it’s
not just about enhancing customer experience or the
front-end. The real McCoy is transforming the backend,
streamlining operational processes and creating
a culture of innovation across the enterprise. Now,
that is easier said than done.

Last month, I’d the opportunity to attend
two major tech conferences in Europe,
where two topics dominated the agenda
– cloud computing and cyber security.
Cloud has been a bit of a non-starter in the
Middle East due to a number of reasons,
including data residency. I think 2019 will be the
year of cloud in the region with major service
providers setting up presence in this part of
the world, which will go a long way in instilling
confidence among users that their data will not
leave the geographical boundaries as mandated
by regulators. CIOs who have already tested the
waters with non-differentiating workloads will
now have a compelling business case to revisit
this area and move some of their mission-critical
systems out of their on-premise data centres to
multi-cloud environments to achieve cost and
operational efficiencies.

Recently, I’d the opportunity to anchor a roundtable with some of the high profile C-level executives, discussing cloud strategies for digital transformation. I was surprised by the fact that cloud has gained steam in our region and many of those IT leaders who participated in the discussion have move a significant chunk of their workloads to cloud environments. This is in stark contrast to a roundtable discussion I led a few years ago, where cloud was viewed askance by some mainly because of security reasons.

As Gitex returns for its 38th edition,
all roads will lead to Dubai World
Trade Centre for the largest tech
bonanza in the region. For me,
this is going to be my 13th Gitex, and when
I reminisce, I am amazed at how this show
has accurately reflected the tectonic shifts in
technology over the last decade or so.
This year, Gitex is going to shine the
spotlight on digital technologies including AI,
5G, robotics, virtual and augmented reality
and will feature more than 4000 exhibitors.
Visitors can expect to see some real-world
applications and use cases for AI from tech
giants such as Huawei, SAP as well as startups
in this domain. The organisers claim this Gitex
will be the Middle East’s largest AI gathering
to date, and I am looking forward to seeing AI
and next-generation robots in action.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of
CXO Insight Middle East.
With a digital-first approach,
our mission is to uncover stories
of business transformation in the Middle East.
The rapid uptake of digital technologies such as
AI, blockchain and cloud computing is helping
countries in the region to wean themselves off oilbased
economies and reshape the future. Artificial
intelligence is a case in point. The UAE has set up
probably the world’s first ministry dedicated to
AI. Not far away, Saudi Arabia is building a $500
billion digital city named NEOM. This AI-infused
digital city will have more robots than humans
and run entirely on renewable energy. Saudi’s
neighbour Bahrain is aiming to be a regional fintech
powerhouse and has already set up a hub to foster
startups in this domain. On the connectivity front,
5G is being piloted by major telecom operators
in almost all Middle Eastern countries and we are
likely to see commercial launches as early as next
year. This new generation of mobile technology is
expected to accelerate the adoption of the Internet
of Things and Smart City initiatives.

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CXO Insight Middle East is the most trusted source of strategic intelligence for IT decision
makers in the Middle East. Backed by media experts of the highest order, CXO Insight ME
offers incisive perspectives on current and emerging trends shaping the regional technology
landscape.

We deliver unmatched news coverage and in-depth analysis of the technologies and
opportunities that should be on the radar of IT professionals and decision makers looking to
address today’s business problems.

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