Business Transformation Asia Issue 16

Amit Jain CEO and Co-founder

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Tushar Sahoo tushar@gecmediagroup.com

CHIEF EDITOR

Arun Shankar arun@gecmediagroup.com

CO-FOUNDER & CEO

Ronak Samantaray ronak@gecmediagroup.com

GLOBAL HEAD, CONTENT AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

Anushree Dixit anushree@gecmediagroup.com

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GEC MEDIA GROUP CO-FOUNDER, BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION ASIA Sundip Sibal Sundip@gecmediagroup.com

GROUP SALES HEAD

Richa S richa@gecmediagroup.com

PROJECT LEAD

Jennefer Lorraine Mendoza jennefer@gecmdiagroup.com

SALES AND ADVERTISING

Ronak Samantaray ronak@gecmediagroup.com

DIGITAL TEAM

Vijay Bakshi - IT Manager

DESIGNED BY Creative Lead

Ajay Arya Designer

Rahul Arya

Assistant Designer

Vikas Chandra

PRODUCTION, CIRCULATION, SUBSCRIPTIONS info@gecmediagroup.com

Online repurchase and selling

In this month’s lead feature, we look at how an online portal has been able to build a long term business model around the buy and sell of used cars in India. Set up in 2008 by brothers Amit and Anurag Jain, CarDekho has evolved to become a unicorn in October 2021.

It all started after we visited the Auto Expo in 2008, says Anurag Jain, COO and Co-founder of the group, adding that they realised that there was a clear lack of information on cars and their features.

Today, the CarDekho Group currently operates auto portals such as CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com, ZigWheels.com, BikeDekho.com, and PowerDrift.com. Besides, it offers customers avenues for selling and buying used cars and provides financial services, including car and health insurance and automobile finance.

Our vision is to construct a complete ecosystem for consumers and car manufacturers, dealers, and related businesses such that consumers have easy and complete access to not only buying and selling cars but also manage their entire ownership experience, says Anurag.

Moving ahead in this edition, we present a selection of what IT industry executives think about 2023, around forecasts, trends, predictions.

There is a new emphasis on location of people, assets, applications says Aruba HPE’s David Hughes. The focus is shifting to the location of work activity and assets, identity of people and machines, realtime applications being used and by whom or what.

The large number of IP based surveillance cameras deployed regionally are now also powerful sensors for a variety of uses cases say Johan Paulsson at Axis Communications. The focus is shifting from pure analytics to insights meant for specific use cases, telling you something is wrong, and helping you decide what action to take.

Chris Stephens at Callsign feels that security shortcomings in social media will be amplified inside the Metaverse. Everything wrong from a security perspective with social platforms will become worse in metaverse. How are people going to be protected inside the Metaverse from digital compromise? 2023 will see a new population of people who have never fallen victim to fraud before.

Deep fake technology fraud will escalate because there are few tools on the market that can stop these frauds.

John Engates and Matthew Prince at Cloudflare, feel that passwords may come to an end and FIDO Alliance passkey may become standard in 2023. Cloud platforms will add built-in compliance standards to reduce the challenges for majority of enterprises.

PRINTED BY Kaizen Offset 3, DSIDC Complex, Okhla, Phase - I New Delhi - 110020

While the migration to cloud has provided benefits to enterprise CIOs, Greg Day at Cybereason feels the big shift to SaaS has fragmented more than a decade’s worth of work to simplify and consolidate corporate Identity and Access Management.

The accelerated cloud adoption during pandemic has now lost sight of where sensitive data lives. 73% organisations suffered at least one ransomware attack in 2022, compared with just 55% in 2021.

Turn these pages to read more about what 2023 holds in store.

Best wishes for the back to business months ahead.

ADDING SUSTAINABILITY TO NETWORK AS A SERVICE

Channel partners have an important role to play in connecting the dots between sustainable vendors and customers seeking to deliver green IT.

BY SHERIFA HADY Vice President Channel Aruba HPE.

In recent years, sustainability has soared to the top of the business agenda for most organisations. Channel partners have an important role to play in connecting the dots between sustainable vendors and customers seeking to deliver green IT.

If the IT industry were a country, it would be the fifth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. What is more, around fifty million tonnes of electronic-waste, e-waste is generated globally every year, and this figure only looks set to rise.

Tackling this environmental crisis requires a collaborative effort across the entire technology ecosystem, from vendors to consumers themselves. From a channel perspective, partners must now play a crucial role in helping their customers navigate sustainability challenges.

Channel analyst Canalys recently stated that for partners, being able to position sustainability as a part of your IT-as-a-service offers is going to be key to your resale success. Canalys also confirmed that for partners the environmental accountability of IT investments will be one of customers’ top priorities within the next two to three years.

But what exactly does a sustainable IT-as-a-service offer look like?

Network-as-a-Service, NaaS is a great place to start. Recent research from Aruba has shown a clear appetite for this new network consumption model amongst end-users across EMEA. Already recognised by potential customers as a key enabler of financial flexibility and business agility, here’s how NaaS can also pull those allimportant sustainability levers.

Optimising energy consumption

NaaS provides end-customers with innovative and sustainable networks that they can rent from the experts on a subscription basis. By partnering with an experienced NaaS vendor, channel companies can combine their unique understanding of their customer’s business with the vendor’s depth and breadth of product and solution knowledge to provide a network configuration that optimises energy consumption.

To further reduce the customer’s carbon footprint, modern network vendors also help deliver greener IT by sourcing electricity from renewables and utilising artificial intelligence, ML-based models to bring down power consumption.

Channel partners need to reassure their customers they are working with certified sustainable vendors to ensure climate-conscious initiatives are embedded at the very top of the value chain.

Reusing hardware

Today’s NaaS offerings are increasingly accompanied by IT asset disposition, that is ITAD services, a practice built around reusing, recycling or disposing of unwanted IT equipment in a safe and environmentally responsible way. In fact, 77% of businesses view ITAD assistance and e-waste services as an essential element of a NaaS offer according to IDC. By factoring asset

77%

of businesses view IT asset disposition and e-waste services as an essential element of a NaaS offer according to IDC

decommissioning strategies into their NaaS offering, channel partners can enable customers to participate in the circular economy, ensuring the life cycle of products is extended for as long as possible and reducing waste to a minimum.

Upcycling and remarketing idle equipment can give functional assets a second useful life, and in turn provide money back to the business for customers. Choosing pre-owned equipment where appropriate can help to expand budget for innovation projects where new technology is paramount.

Delivering data

As sustainability requirements increase, and with the eyes of the world watching, organisations will be challenged to deliver more sustainability and environmental reporting than ever before. But with networking skills a scarce resource and existing IT teams stretched to capacity trying to deliver against the continued demands of digital transformation, help is desperately needed to deliver back the necessary data.

With NaaS, organisations can again buy in this expertise – and rely on their channel partner to provide them with key metrics around power usage, carbon emissions, and end-of-life disposal.

THREE OBSTACLES THAT SMBs FACE IN CLOUD ADOPTION

As SMBs adopt more technology, they can supercharge productivity, strengthen their resilience, enabling them to thrive through future challenges.

For the past few years, small and mid-sized businesses, SMBs have felt pressure from every direction. A global pandemic followed by the war in Ukraine, high inflation as well as widespread supply chain disruption. SMBs are turning to digital technology, specifically cloud-based business solutions, to grow, stabilise, and future-proof their businesses in this difficult context.

Digital technologies create better employee experiences

that drive satisfaction, helping SMBs improve retention and attract the best talent. They also enable companies to reach new customers and enhance relationships with existing customers, employees, and suppliers. They allow businesses to transform and streamline how they operate daily.

The cloud is a good enabler, allowing SMBs to access real-time data anywhere and anytime. Moving towards asa-service consumption gives SMBs access to technology

that is as flexible, scalable and reliable as the solution’s large enterprises use. It liberates SMBs from capital expenditure on technology and the treadmill of updates and refreshes while allowing them to benefit from the latest solutions.

We are already seeing this with the rise of automation, artificial intelligence, and an ongoing trend of businesses moving their on-premise financial and enterprise resource planning, ERP systems to the cloud. These cloud-based business solutions provide fast and easy

BY PJ BISHOP

access to real-time financial data, which SMBs can use to make decisions. In addition to ensuring compliance, these tools must allow them to access financial and operational data with automated alerts and capabilities such as scenario planning. Yet, embracing technology is not as simple as deciding to do so. There are several barriers that can slow an SMB’s journey to a digital utopia. The good news is most of these are knowledge-based and behavioural, which means there are practical ways to break them. Here are three obstacles to digital transformation and how to tackle them:

#1 WHICH SOLUTION TO USE

Digital technologies create better employee experiences that drive satisfaction

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Moving towards as-aservice consumption gives SMBs access to technology that is flexible, scalable and reliable.

Yet, embracing technology is not as simple as deciding to do so.

There are several barriers that can slow an SMB’s journey to a digital utopia.

The rapid evolution of technology and the abundance of products and vendors can lead to decision paralysis. It is also hard to decide when you do not know what measures to consider when weighing up your options. To break this barrier, internal stakeholders should consider what is important to the business in the short and long term. Factors to consider include price, the potential return on investment, ROI, and the complexity of implementation.

#2 VALUE OF DATA

SMBs can access rich data from various internal systems and external sources like social media platforms. But many lack the expertise to effectively use this to drive business decisions, understand current performance, or impact customer relationships. This is a good reason to consider investing in software that lets the business tap into and make better use of its data. Look for solutions that automate reporting and offer out-of-

the-box dashboards to turn data into insight.

#3 PRODUCTIVITY AND ADOPTION

Even if a business has already adopted some shiny new technology, enabling people to use it effectively is a challenge in itself. If they do not know how to use a new system, they may revert to old ways or struggle to become productive. It is key to dedicate time and effort to train employees to use the technology and follow new processes.

Businesses stood up to a global pandemic and more recent economic challenges, which proves how critical digital technologies have become. As SMBs adopt more technology, they can supercharge productivity and strengthen their resilience, enabling them to thrive, whatever future challenges the market throws at them.

Vice-President Services Sage.

ZERO TRUST MODEL IN THE ENTERPRISE

A zero-trust security model is deployed to ensure end to end cyber and cloud security and for internal as well as external stakeholders.

BY DAVE RUSSELL Vice President of Enterprise Strategy, Veeam Software.

technologies and its impact, we need to tread carefully when using these technologies.

So, what exactly is Zero trust? Is it a new product? Is it a certification or a mere buzzword within the cybersecurity industry?

One of the latest buzzwords in the cyber security industry is a zero-trust security model. In short, a zero-trust model basically means you do not leave any room for errors at all and do not trust anyone or anything.

Owing to a hybrid workplace led by the aftereffects of the pandemic and several emerging technologies such as the Metaverse, Web 3.0, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, the cybersecurity industry is working hard as usual to be as future-ready as possible. But since we are yet to see the evolution of these

Some organisations are mistaking zero-trust for an actual product or certification. A zero-trust model is not an actual product or new certification in the cyber security industry. A zero-trust security model is deployed to ensure end to end cyber and cloud security. It is deployed for the security of our internal as well as external stakeholders.

One of the most important concepts it lives by is never trust, always verify. It also includes enabling of multifactor authentication in order to grant access to any application or platform. Additionally, it is also about embracing microsegmentation of security perimeters to avoid any security breach.

Any new security features or model is not completely risk-free without building compliance and good habits among the employees. Similarly, zero trust is all about building good habits within your employees. It is also about ensuring that your employees enable multi-factor authentication when accessing any apps or platforms.

authentication. It also requires all the users to be authenticated, authorised and have their security configurations continuously validated to access any kind of application or data. This is done as an additional layer of security. This model does have various benefits such as remote authentication and verification by your employees. This will allow them to work peacefully in a remote or a hybrid situation.

It is also about embracing microsegmentation of security perimeters to avoid any security breach

It is an added form of compliance layer which should not be bypassed by the IT Admin, someone at the top level or even the deployer. There should be a top to bottom approach and a must for all employees to authenticated and validated continuously to build a better security posture within the organisation.

A zero-trust model is not just about multi-factor

So, can you adopt the zero-trust model whenever you want?

Before deploying any new security model, we need to understand the return on investment. We need to know whether we really need it. We need to understand that while zero trust is an approach to secure the most important assets of the business, it is equally as important to know whether the juice is worth the squeeze.

Any new model is not completely risk-free without building compliance and good habits among the employees

LUXURY COUPÉ THAT TURNS INTO A PICKUP

Kilowatts and kmph are no longer at the top of the design specifications for this new generation of cars. Instead, the starting point is the interior, the occupants’ living and experience sphere whilst traveling. Their needs and desires shape the space, the architecture, and the functions. With that reassessment, the design process itself changes. High-tech headsets provide a view of the real environment and the route, while simultaneously displaying 3D content and interactive elements – individually configurable for drivers and passengers. This means all driver-relevant information, such as driving status and navigation, can be displayed. And in the interior, headset users can see control panels and other virtual displays in a tidy, minimalist design that remains hidden to the unaided eye. Mixed reality optics gives users the ability to interact precisely with these real, yet invisible, touch-sensitive zones, as the headsets display and carry out functions by reacting in real time when users touch them.

The centrepiece of the new system is innovative mixed reality headsets – available individually for each driver and passenger. Users also have access to a comprehensive digital ecosystem while they are in the Audi activesphere.

Alibaba Cloud launches Apsara Developer Community at developer summit in Jakarta

Alibaba Cloud announced the launch of Apsara Developer Community, a new hub created to support global developers through an enhanced provision of diverse developer tools and resources. It aims to support the continuous growth of the developer community, while facilitating the further progress of the digital economy across markets.

Unveiled at Alibaba Cloud’s Global Developer Summit at Jakarta, The Apsara Developer Community offers global developers resources and insights into the rising technology trends ranging from Web3, AI to digital intelligence. These resources include access to a slew of new development tools and latest projects, training materials and tutorials, forums and blogs, community events and competitions to showcase their application development, and other upskilling and networking opportunities.

The cloud leader also announced its latest competition, PolarDB Global Hackathon 2023, to encourage developers to explore cloud-native database innovations. From now until February 28,

Global unmanned aerial vehicles to reach $72,320 Million by 2028 with 14.4% CAGR

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global Unmanned Aerial Vehicle market size is estimated to be worth $32,350 million in 2022 and is forecast to be a readjusted size of $72,320 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 14.4% during the review period.

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle market is expanding as a result

participants can submit their projects and winners will be awarded with a total of $30,000 in cash prizes. In addition, Alibaba Cloud also unveiled the Alibaba SMART Scholarship, which aims to encourage students to join the developer community with cloud-based technologies and become local digital talents. During the first year of this annual scholarship program, 20 interns from universities will be recruited to join Alibaba Cloud’s local offices to gain more field experience.

of factors including the increased use of UAVs in commercial and civil applications, increased use of UAVs for border patrol and counterterrorism operations, and exemptions granted by regulatory bodies around the world to allow the use of UAVs in a variety of industries. Additionally, expanding defence budgets in key countries and greater use of UAVs for aerial remote sensing offer numerous prospects for

the various market participants for unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Global UAV Market is Segmented by Type Small UAV, Tactical UAV, Special Purpose UAV, Strategic UAV, by Application Military Application, Civil and Commercial, Homeland Security: Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2022–2028. It is published in Valuates Reports under the Military Category.

Vietnam based CloudVerse launches global multicloud management platform

VNG-backed CloudVerse introduces intelligent SaaS platform for businesses using cloud services, with the aim of simplifying, securing and optimising the multicloud services; to help save significant costs. On the journey of digital transformation and market expansion, many businesses are using more than one public cloud service provider to meet their business needs – thus adopting multicloud strategies. However, the adoption of multicloud computing causes challenges in governance, cost, security, and data management.

CloudVerse, the Multicloud Management Platform, will provide a centralised view of multicloud resources, while making cost optimisation and security compliance recommendations. Being the first multicloud management platform developed in

Vietnam, CloudVerse’s machine learning algorithms confidently meets these urgent needs.

CloudVerse has integrated with seven public cloud service providers: Amazon Web Services, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, GCP, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Huawei Cloud and Digital Ocean. In 2023, the platform expects to integrate with many more cloud service providers including VNG Cloud. Besides the Vietnamese market, CloudVerse also targets Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and India.

Australian enterprise asset management solution Hardcat Lebosi now hosted on Yotta

Yotta Data Services, formerly Yotta Infrastructure, has partnered with Melbourne-based Hardcat Pty to launch its enterprise asset management platform, Hardcat Lebosi, in India. With this partnership, Hardcat will leverage Yotta’s infrastructure platforms and service delivery capabilities to help a broad segment of enterprise and government organisations with simplified management of their complex high-value asset footprint throughout its lifecycle.

Hardcat is trusted by over 2,000 organisations, including BAE Systems, Boeing, 3M, Shell, Sydney Opera House, Airbus, Siemens, Honda, Toyota, CAT, Ford, Victorian Police, Avon Fire & Rescue Service, to name a few. Hardcat Lebosi is used by several industry verticals, such as Defence, Law Enforcement, Emergency Services, Healthcare, Manufacturing, etc, in over 120 countries, delivering accountability and significantly improving profitability by offering real-time visibility of all types of assets.

SUNIL GUPTA Co-founder and CEO, Yotta Data Services.

Rockwell Automation, Sensia to supply control and safety system for Petrobras vessel

Rockwell Automation, dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, announced that it has been chosen to supply the automation and Integrated Control and Safety Systems for P-79, an FPSO vessel in the Petrobras fleet. Through close support from Sensia – Rockwell’s joint venture with SLB – and cooperation with the

P-79 vessel’s builder Saipem, DSME, Rockwell Automation technology and Sensia solutions were selected for their proven track records in the oil and gas industry, as well as for their robust interconnectivity.

The P-79 project win follows the similar P-78 FPSO project, which also has Rockwell Automation at the core of its automation and ICSS.

Azentio Software’s Islamic core banking iMAL R14.6 awarded AAOIFI’s compliance certificate

Azentio Software Singapore-headquartered technology firm owned by funds advised by Apax Partners, announced that iMAL R14.6, the latest version of the company’s Islamic core banking platform, has successfully gone through the annual compliance exercise and received the certification for the year 2023 from the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions – AAOIFI, the world’s leading Islamic finance standard-setting body.

This certification reflects the adherence of iMAL R14.6 to existing as well as the newly issued AAOIFI’s Shariah and Financial Accounting Standards.

Both new standards relate to financial reporting with the objective to make the financial statements of institutions transparent, fair, understandable and comparable. This certification proves yet again that iMAL’s dynamic reporting system fully complies with these standards.

iMAL R14.6 focuses on taxation, reporting, dashboards, access privileges and automating manual processes. It includes enhancements to improve operational turnaround times by optimising technical processes, making them more efficient and secure.

Taichung China Medical University wins 22 awards for usage of AI, smart healthcare

In the 2022 Healthcare+ Expo, one of the largest international healthcare fairs in Taiwan, was being held at the Nangang Exhibition Centre in December. Of note was the exhibition from Taichung’s China Medical University and its related healthcare system. It showed off innovations reflecting six major themes including artificial intelligence and smart medical care. Overall, the university has won 22 national awards for innovation, the highest number in Taiwan.

Among them is a big data platform that utilizes environmental and clinical data from over 3 million people, and a smart anti-germ platform that can effectively combat super viruses in hospitals and also save patients from septicaemia. So far, it has served more than 100,000 people.

The university will promote its findings and inventions in the 18 nations that are part of the government’s New Southbound Policy so that the world can see Taiwan’s innovative capabilities. The

T-Mobile sponsors

200 drones, fireworks, light display for new Year show at Space Needle

For the first time ever, 200 drones were launched and projected off the Space Needle and synchronised with fireworks and light displays to create captivating formations. Ringing in 2023, T-Mobile New Year’s at the Needle is one of the largest structurally-launched fireworks shows in the world. These new choreographed elements produced a cohesive and innovative New Year’s spectacular, using hundreds of drones, explosive pyrotechnics, and elaborate lighting effects simultaneously throughout the 11-minute show.

At 11:59PM, cutting-edge drones burst into the sky to provide a numerical countdown to the big show, which

university will promote its findings and inventions in the 18 nations that are part of the government’s New Southbound Policy so that the world can see Taiwan’s innovative capabilities.

The CMUH’s AI healthcare system also demonstrated how AI can save lives in ambulances. A medical personnel put a patch on a patient’s chest and installed a special instrument. An electrocardiogram can be performed directly on a smart phone via Bluetooth. The CMUH has developed a heart attack remote diagnosis system using AI, which greatly shortens the process of patient checkups upon arrival at hospitals. It’s already used by ambulance staff for 14 fire brigades in Taiwan’s Central cities, including Taichung and Nantou.

was synced to an all-star playlist celebrating some of the biggest music and pop culture moments of the year. Show highlights included:

The soundtrack was crafted to bring together local and global artists and reach across generations. Other artists featured in this year’s show included Lizzo, Harry Styles, ODESZA, Doja Cat, OneRepublic, and Whitney Houston.

Alongside drone specialists Sky Elements, Pyro Spectaculars by Souza and Illuminate Production Service returned as the fireworks and lighting specialists, respectively.

Zinnov Zones recognises Tata Technologies as leader in 2022 engineering R&D services

Tata Technologies, announced that it has been recognised as a global leader in the Zinnov Zones for ER&D services ratings for the sixth consecutive year. The company has been showcased as the electrification partner of choice for global OEMs by being positioned as 1st among all India-based Global ER&D Electrification specialists and 2nd globally. It has also been positioned as 1st among all India-based global Automotive ER&D engineering service providers and 3rd globally.

Tata Technologies’ vision of Engineering a better world embodies a commitment to offering sustainable engineering and digital transformation solutions across the product value chain. The 2022 Zinnov Zones study acknowledged that Tata Technologies has made impressive gains across all the key areas of the product value chain. It has been positioned as a Global Leader in Automotive ER&D, Electrification services, Digital Engineering, Industry 4.0, and Aerospace ER&D services.

The broad-based improvement in ratings is a testament to its compelling solutions across the product engineering and manufacturing value chain, turnkey electric vehicle capabilities, embedded software solutions, digital transformation services,

MediaTek announces octacore Genio 700 for smart home, smart retail, industrial IoT products

MediaTek announced the latest chipset in the Genio platform for IoT devices, the octa-core Genio 700 designed for smart home, smart retail, and industrial IoT products. With a focus on power efficiency, the MediaTek Genio 700 is a N6, 6nm IoT chipset that boasts two ARM A78 cores running at 2.2GHz and six ARM A55 cores at 2.0GHz while providing 4.0 TOPs AI

digital manufacturing solutions, diversified global client base, and large deal wins over the last year. Additionally, its custom offerings around MRO, tooling design and simulation, and aftermarket solutions for the Aerospace industry have been recognised for their value creation.

accelerator. It comes with support for FHD60+4K60 display, as well as an ISP for better images.

The Genio 700 SDK allows designers to customise products using Yocto Linux, Ubuntu, and Android. With this support, customers can easily develop their own products with a minimal amount of effort, regardless of application type.

Pudu Robotics ships 53,000 units to 600 cities in 60 countries in 2022

Pudu Robotics, a commercial service robot manufacturer, successfully deployed its robotic solutions in more than 600 cities around the world as of the end of 2022. The company aims to expand its services and use cases in 2023, as PUDU continues to ramp up its international presence and step up its game in offering the best service robots.

As of the end of 2022, PUDU’s robots were exported to over 60 countries and regions, serving customers in more than 600 cities. Additionally, the robot maker secured shipments of more than 53,000 devices in 2022, achieving a dominant industry market share.

In a bid to bring its robots to more industries, PUDU has partnered with a number of world-known brands and companies, including McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Carrefour, Marriott, Hilton, Shell plc, MediaMarkt and Accenture. In addition to catering businesses, PUDU’s robots have been put to use at hotels, shopping malls, convenience stores and office buildings. Through these collaborations, the Company has become a trustworthy technology partner on the international stage.

The International Federation of Robotics, a nonprofit industry association, predicts that the global service robot market is expected to reach a size of

Chocolate manufacturer Barry Callebaut opens technology excellence centre in Malaysia

Barry Callebaut, manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products, announced the official opening of its Asia Pacific Business Excellence Centre located in Petaling Jaya, in Greater Kuala Lumpur area, Malaysia.

The APAC BEC will function as a centre of excellence, providing support across the company’s financial and accounting services, information management and technology, customer service, and other corporate and shared service functions. The Centre will also help to improve customer experience through standardisation and scalability of processes.

The new APAC BEC in Malaysia represents a significant investment by Barry Callebaut in Malaysia and builds on more than 30 years of successful presence in the country. At present, Barry Callebaut employs more than 600 employees across its two manufacturing sites and R&D centres in Pasir Gudang and Port Klang. In addition to that, the APAC BEC has already over

around $20.2 billion in 2023.

Especially in restaurants and hotels, more owners are looking to automate parts of workflows with service robots, and PUDU’s robotic solutions can tick that box. To some degree, the deployment of such service robots can also ease the recruitment pressure many companies are facing as labour shortages persist.

PUDU intends to develop better robotics in line with this trend and its multi-functional and multiscene strategy. The Company anticipates that its smart service robots will continue to improve work efficiency and quality for its clients. More importantly, it will better meet customers’ needs by optimising the user experience of its smart service robots. Meanwhile, PUDU will continue to expand its business into new markets and increase its market share in existing markets, to consolidate its position as an industry leader.

100 employees and it aims to scale up to 150 in the coming months.

The company also imports premium European chocolate for artisanal and professional users of chocolate, such as chocolatiers, bakers, pastry chefs, hotels and restaurants. These gourmet products have fuelled the business growth of Barry Callebaut in Malaysia.

Barry Callebaut, as a leader in the area of innovation, introduced several of its innovative chocolate products to customers in Malaysia, including its first dairy-free, plant-based chocolate and WholeFruit chocolate, which is made from 100% cacao fruit.

104 colocation datacentres in Japan, 75% in Tokyo, Osaka finds ResearchAndMarkets.com

The Japan Data Centre Market – Investment Analysis and Growth Opportunities 2022-2027 report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s offering. This report analyses the Japan data centre market share. It elaboratively analyses the existing and upcoming facilities and investments in IT, electrical, mechanical infrastructure, general construction, and tier standards. It discusses market sizing and investment estimation for different segments.

Japan is among the top data centre market in the APAC region, after China and Australia, in terms of investment. The high internet and social media penetration across the country is driven by the deployment of 5G services, better and improved inland connectivity, availability of renewable energy and free cooling solutions, and others, making Japan an attractive market for investors.

The Japan data centre market is primarily concentrated in the Tokyo and Osaka regions, that house over 75% of the existing capacity. The country has a presence of local and global data centre operators such as Equinix, Colt Data Centre Services, Telehouse, NTT Communications, AT TOKYO, Fujitsu, ARTERIA Networks, and SCSK Corporation, netXDC, among

others. The region is the most expensive country to build a data centre facility. As per Turner and Townsend in Tokyo in 2021, the construction costs were around $ 12.50 per watt.

Acquisitions and joint ventures enable new players to enter the Japanese market, attract customers, and capture a more significant market share. Global businesses in the country, such as Toyota Motor Corporation, SoftBank, Japan Post, Sony, Honda Motor Company, are driving higher data usage due to the increased use of the applications and platforms such as big data and artificial intelligence.

Infosys Compaz to enable transformation at Singapore’s StarHub using Infosys Cobalt

Infosys Compaz, a joint venture between Infosys and Temasek, announced a collaboration with Singapore-based communications, entertainment and digital services provider StarHub, to enable their IT transformation, while strengthening their technology operations, service management and cybersecurity. Through this engagement, Infosys Compaz will boost the quality, performance, availability, responsiveness, and cost efficiency of StarHub’s foundational technology platform, while improving customer satisfaction and minimizing cyber risks.

Infosys Compaz will work with StarHub to execute largescale IT operations management projects, while bringing strong digital capabilities, depth of solutions, robust cybersecurity, and the ability to drive business innovation powered by Infosys Cobalt. As part of this collaboration, Infosys Compaz will help StarHub enhance their sourcing strategy for IT services, to support their changing business needs while establishing a variable cost structure. Additionally, Infosys Compaz will work alongside StarHub to restructure their service management and governance models to improve control and delivery management while updating their security infrastructure to maintain high levels of security.

BQSR awards Zero Code SaaS platform Manch with ISO 27001 security certification

Manch, the Zero Code SaaS platform to manage enterprise external stakeholders, is now ISO 27001 certified. ISO 27001 provides guidelines for a comprehensive Information Security Management System and is considered to be the gold standard when it comes to information security. The certification is a testimony to the meticulous security process and practices which the company and employees have been following ever since its inception.

The auditing team evaluated the entire organisation—to certify that the systems, facilities, people, and infrastructure uphold the best practices established by the ISO. Such certifications allow Manch to deepen the trust and security factor when it comes to dealing with privacy and risk in enterprises.

With over 40+ clients in the Indian market, Manch today is revolutionising the way organisations interact

with their external stakeholders. Manch complements the ERP, CRM, HR or any other enterprise application by providing a seamless interaction of the external world with the organisation’s internal ecosystem. Apart from the world’s leading beverages company, Manch works closely with other industry leaders like Dunzo, NetAmbit, Paytm Money, PharmEasy, Swiggy, Xiaomi and many more.

The certification was performed by BQSR – a globally recognised ISO Certification body with a specialised wide pool of auditors and technical experts to conduct audits.

TETHER Connected Vehicle

fuel efficiency monitoring. In addition, they enable secure and selective access to the platform and relevant data with its wider partner ecosystem, including dealers, and suppliers, to enrich customer experience.

TATA Elxsi, a global design and technology services company, extends its heartiest congratulations to Tata Motors Limited on crossing a significant milestone of onboarding 500,000 vehicles onto the Connected Vehicle Platform that caters to its entire range of Commercial, Passenger and Electric Vehicles.

In early 2019, Tata Motors collaborated with TATA Elxsi to adopt and adapt the TETHER Connected Vehicle Platform towards a common standard technology stack to deliver scalability, differentiated features, high performance and expandable to Industry 4.0 to transform their internal operations.

Tata Motors deployed the TETHER CVP under the brands of Fleet Edge for CV, iRA for PV and Zconnect for EV, which offer features like track and trace, geo-fencing and alerts, driver behaviour monitoring, and

TETHER CVP was built as a modular platform, which can be scaled up to offer a wide range of solutions with third-party applications through APIs. In addition, it is a 5G-ready platform with capabilities to handle hype scalar traffic, massive FOTA, and digital twin capabilities catering to the SDV roadmap of the OEM.

The TETHER CVP roadmap elevates the platform capabilities by extending use cases for 2- and 3-wheelers and adding support for 5G MEC use cases, edge computing for autonomous driving and an AI-driven analytics layer. This will help OEMs convert data and insights into enhanced customer experience, lower costs, and in monetisation.

500,000 vehicles now on

Platform built by Tata Motors, Tata Elxsi

Accops and C-DAC build Accops BioAuth, a modern facial authentication solution

Accops, an Indian-origin provider of remote access products and solutions, has partnered with Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, a premier R&D organisation under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Govt of India, to build and deliver Accops BioAuth, a modern facial authentication solution with continuous user environment monitoring.

The state-of-the-art solution enables enterprises and government organisations to create a trusted work environment on demand and empower users of critical applications to be securely productive from wherever they are.

Built with the facial recognition technology developed by C-DAC, Accops BioAuth helps highly regulated businesses, such as BFSI, Pharma, BPO KPO, and critical government departments and PSUs, prevent identity impersonation, shoulder surfing, credential sharing and

authentication-related cyberattacks. Additionally, it may be useful for educational institutions as a remote proctoring solution. With an easy-to-integrate attribute, Accops’ facial authentication solution works with any cameras pre-installed in all laptops, PCs, and tablets today, to capture a user’s face and validate it against a pre-registered face template of the user. The user’s face template is securely stored in the centralised Accops BioAuth server installed in the organisation’s datacentre.

When enabled, Accops BioAuth can continuously monitor the user’s work environment at pre-determined intervals to check for the authorised user’s presence, identity impersonation and shoulder surfing. It locks out the user if any anomaly is detected and the incident is reported to the organisation for audit.

Timex partners with Bored Ape Yacht Club to launch collection of 30,000 watches and NFTs

Timex is going bananas over its partnership with select community members involved in one of the world’s biggest NFT projects, the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Timex, the watch of the metaverse, enters Web3, with a first-ever collection of ultra-rare one-of-one timepieces and corresponding digital twin NFTs, exclusively available to members of the Bored Ape and Mutant Ape community.

Developed in partnership with long-term ape holders, each stunning,

custom created digital collectible and hand assembled watch is based on the iconic Timex Waterbury Classic design to showcase the Ape or Mutant on full display. With 30,000 possible Apes and over 17 customisable attributes, each watch is unique and personalised with the holder’s Ape and selected customisations such as case, strap, and etching selections. Five hundred watches and digital twin NFTs will be available exclusively to holders of Bored Apes and Mutant Ape NFTs. Creative direction, design and Web3 utility for the Timex Goes Ape project was consulted by Josh Ong, CryptoVonDoom, The Miami Ape, LOGIK, BaronVonHustle and Zeneca, long-time Bored Ape holders who have been in the club since the beginning, when Yuga Labs first launched the collection.

All-Electric Kia EV6 recognised as 2023 North American utility vehicle of the year

The all-electric Kia EV6 was named North American Utility Vehicle of the Year by the North American Car of the Year jury. This is the second occasion in three years that the NACTOY jury has named a Kia vehicle as its top choice in the category, and the first win for a Kia electric vehicle.

The EV6 was selected by 50 automotive experts from print, online, radio, and broadcast media. As part of the evaluation process, NACTOY jurors tested vehicles ranging from sports cars to pickup trucks, and assessed criteria including automotive innovation, design, safety features, performance, technology, driver satisfaction, user experience, and value.

The EV6 delivers exceptional performance, ultra-fast DC charging compatibility, available onboard power, and a flat-floor interior that utilises innovative materials throughout the cabin.

Crypto exchange Bitget launches dedicated wallets for protection of customer funds

Crypto exchange Bitget has launched a Fund Custody service for professional investors and institutions to increase digital asset security globally. The service provides dedicated wallets to eligible accounts to maximise protection of customers’ funds on the platform. Financial institutions and professional traders qualified for the service are assigned with a separate custodial wallet, with its own dedicated address to check and withdraw funds separated from the main reserve. Storing the asset in a separate wallet prevents users’ funds from being affected in case of emergencies of loss, theft and other cybersecurity threats.

The wallet assets will be rounded on a daily basis to make sure the user still meets the required conditions.

Recently, Bitget updated its Merkle tree snapshot which shows that the latest reserve ratio of Bitcoin is held at 650%, USDT at 185% and ETH reserves are held at 237%. The exchange is committed to be fully reserved holding customers’ assets on the platform at least on a 1:1 reserves ratio.

In 2022, Bitget launched multiple security layers to its ecosystem including a $300M Protection Fund, $5M for FTX users and Proof-of-reserve transparent tracking for its user asset reserves.

GWM launches intelligent new energy vehicles in

Thailand, South Africa, Brazil, Australia

GWM released the latest sales report that its global sales reached 1,067,523 units in 2022, exceeding one million for seven years in a row. A total of 173,180 vehicles were sold in markets out of China, up 21.28% year on year, hitting a record high. Being one of the world’s leading automakers, GWM consolidated its advantages of new energy and intelligence in 2022. The proportion of new energy models increased steadily. GWM has laid a solid foundation for achieving higher sales by expanding its global network and optimising vehicles.

GWM HAVAL has rapidly expanded into the new energy market, with total sales exceeding 610,000 vehicles, as the product line-up continuously improved. HAVAL launched H6 HEV, PHEV and JOLION

Surge on Trip.com from China to

Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, Singapore

Trip.com Group, the global travel service provider, has seen mainland Chinese demand for travel continue to surge in the run-up to the Lunar New Year holiday season. This comes after the decision last month by mainland China to officially abolish all quarantine restrictions for inbound visitors from 8 January. Since the announcement on 26 December 2022, Trip.com Group has subsequently seen a huge increase in searches and the volume of travel bookings.

On Trip.com Group’s leading Chinese language travel service platform Ctrip, between 26 December 2022 and 5 January 2023, search interest for outbound flights from

HEV in 2022. The new energy vehicles have been launched in Thailand, South Africa, Brazil, Australia and other markets, and attracted consumers with their outstanding performance and environmentally friendly experience. In Thailand, GWM has delivered more than 13,000 vehicles to consumers, and HAVAL H6 HEV has maintained a leading position in the sales of the Class C SUV market for 15 months.

mainland China increased by 83% compared to the two-week period prior, with outbound flight bookings increasing by 59% over the same period. Bookings show the most popular cross-border destinations include: Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, the United States, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia.

With the adjustment of mainland China’s entry and exit policy, the cross-border travel market is also picking up with embassies and tourism boards across the world targeting Chinese tourists aiming to attract them back to visit their countries.

One example is The Tourism Authority of Thailand who launched a campaign called ‘CHINA IS BACK’, to welcome the return of Chinese tourists. They expect more than 300,000 Chinese tourists to visit Thailand in the first three months of 2023 alone.

Bit.Store integrates with OKC, second largest global exchange by volume

Bit.Store, a global social cryptocurrency investment platform announced its integration with OKC- an EVM-compatible, Cosmos-based L1 chain powered by OKX- the second largest global exchange by trading volume. This latest integration with OKC supports users to experience OKC swap through Bit. Store Swap feature.

Bit.Store was launched in 2020 as a way for people new to crypto to start trading Bitcoin and a small basket of other cryptocurrencies with easy access to education and a community of other traders. The platform gained momentum as a popular gateway to crypto adoption, adding partners along the way among payment processors and trade facilitators like Alchemy Pay, Paytend, Unlimint, Nganluong, and Payby.

Bit.Store’s latest integration with OKC, OKX Chain allows users to enjoy swap, staking, airdrop and other features of OKC though Bit.Store Swap, with more features under development and will be added in the future. In addition, Bit.Store App will be soon integrated with OKX Web3 wallet, which enables users to purchase OKT via fiat deposits with Visa and MasterCard.

When it first started in 2020, Bit.Store entered a market exclusively serving technically advanced crypto traders. The market for crypto-curious was impeded by the complex challenges of private keys, public keys, wallet addresses, digital signatures, seed phrases, and a host of other esoterica that made the blockchain an exclusive club of technocrats. These issues discouraged average consumers from participating in crypto trading, despite the popularity of crypto in the media.

Bit.Store’s dedicated asset allocation manager is a key feature of the Bit.Store platform, serving a group of investors who are automatically classified into a membership club based on the net value of their accounts. The manager offers educational resources, news, investment analysis, and other services that are tailored to the manager’s assigned class.

Bit.Store currently allows fiat payments from 40 different services from all over the globe, including Visa, MasterCard and American Express, among many other local providers.

LG Electronics’ home appliance manufacturing plant in the United States has been selected as a world-leading Lighthouse Factory by the World Economic Forum, WEF.

The million-square-foot factory in Clarksville, Tennessee – the US production base for LG’s awardwinning washers and dryers – is the industry’s first home appliance plant in the United States to join the WEF’s

global network. It also is the company’s second Lighthouse Factory, following on the heels of the LG Smart Park in Changwon, South Korea, which was selected by the WEF last year.

A Lighthouse Factory is recognised by the WEF for its role in shaping the future of manufacturing through the integration of Internet of Things, IoT, big data, artificial intelligence, AI, robots and other Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. Since 2018, the WEF has selected and added global factories to its network twice a year.

LG’s world-class autonomous factory in Tennessee, utilizes advanced digital technologies from AI and big data to IoT and robots. Completed at the end of 2018, the facility now operates three production lines for frontload and top-load washing machines and dryers. With an annual production capacity of 1.2 million washers and 600,000 dryers, the plant proactively responds to changing North American demand through local production. More than 900 people work at the LG home appliance factory in Montgomery County, Tenn.

LG’s US appliance manufacturing factory recognised for shaping future of manufacturing

China private sector expands from 35M companies in 2020 to 47M companies in 2022

China’s top leaders have pledged unwavering support for the private sector to boost the COVID-19-hit economy, as the fast-growing private sector has played a big role in creating new jobs, promoting technological innovations and stabilizing economic growth.

The Central Economic Work Conference, which was held in mid-December to set economic priorities for 2023, called for the equal treatment of private enterprises and stressed law-based protection for the property rights of private enterprises and the interests of entrepreneurs.

The conference expected an overall improvement in the economy and a strong boost to the market

conference next year, and it encouraged more private capital to participate in the construction of key national projects.

The private economy has continued to see strong growth despite challenges posed by COVID-19. From January 2020 to August 2022, the number of Chinese private enterprises expanded from 35.2 million to 47.0 million. In 2021, they accounted for 92.1 percent of all enterprises.

In 2021, the private sector contributed 48.6 percent of foreign trade, 56.5 percent of fixed-asset investment, 59.6 percent of tax revenue, over 60 percent of GDP, over 70 percent of technological innovations and more than 80 percent of urban employment.

980 employees attend Hytech’s global Metaverse event redeeming 3,910 NFTs

International management consultancy firm, Hytech, has launched its new brand at its first global dinner and dance event in the Metaverse, which broke Decentraland’s record for the most visitors in an hour. Hytech provides management consultancy services to fintech firms globally. The move consolidates its teams across different verticals –including operations, cybersecurity, human resources, data analytics, and app development support – under a single umbrella.

The virtual event was conceptualised by Sara Zhang, Head of Global HR at Hytech, and the launch was disguised as a Christmas

party for maximum brand impact. The purpose-built space also included videos, games, lucky draw, and exclusive wearable non-fungible tokens.

Over 980 employees attended the virtual event and 3,910 units of NFTs were redeemed. The surge in visitors broke Decentraland’s record for the greatest number of visitors within an hour, and was one of the most popular events of the day.

SARA ZHANG Head of Global HR, Hytech.

JioGames partners with Ubitus to showcase cloud gaming services in India

JioGames has collaborated with Ubitus KK to showcase cloud gaming service in India. JioGamesCloud, India’s own cloud gaming platform, stands to make console-quality like gaming easily accessible across devices.

JioGamesCloud is currently available on Jio Set Top Box, smartphones Android and web browsers. Harnessing the power of Jio’s massive digital network, JioGamesCloud is set to revolutionise the standards for gaming.

Ubitus has been providing technology to top-tier gaming companies, and licensing famous and popular titles from game companies. Ubitus cloud gaming solution supports the partners to provide high-quality gameplay to gamers by eliminating the capacity and computing power limitations of the end devices.

With Jio True 5G network, all previous generation’s network limitations like high-latency and lags have also been removed. Gamers will be excited to play their favourite games by navigating through JioGamesCloud’s intuitive user interface and its comprehensive game library on devices of their choice.

Tech Mahindra, Retalon to offer unified analytic platform to help unlock value

Tech Mahindra announced a global strategic partnership with Retalon, a leader in retail AI and predictive analytics solutions. The partnership will enable Retail and CPG organisations to gain better customer insights, improve decision-making, and enhance operational efficiency.

Tech Mahindra and Retalon will offer a unified common analytic platform to help enterprises unlock significant value in end-to-end planning, inventory management, supply chain network strategy, pricing, and promotion optimisation. The joint efforts will also offer an integrated solution to make smarter inventory and fulfilment decisions, which will result in improved gross margins from 9-12% annually.

The partnership will bring together Tech Mahindra’s expertise in Retail and Consumer Goods, RCG and Digital Services with Retalon’s Artificial Intelligence, AI and Predictive Analytics tools to provide superior customer experiences.

This strategic partnership will further strengthen Tech Mahindra’s market position and expand its global retail portfolio to cater to the evolving and dynamic needs of its customers. The partnership also underlines the company’s focus on digital growth under the NXT. NOW framework, which is focused on leveraging nextgeneration technologies to deliver disruptive solutions today and further enable digital transformation.

UST named Microsoft Azure, expert managed service provider

UST has been named a Microsoft Azure, Expert Managed Service Provider. This achievement from Microsoft is the latest in a long line of recognitions that UST has earned from partners for its commitment to industryleading performance and service. Microsoft presents Azure Expert MSP designation to partners in recognition of their commitment to creating dynamic, user-friendly Azure solutions.

To earn this designation, Microsoft partners undergo a thorough auditing process ensuring they demonstrate industry-leading technical capabilities and offer comprehensive end-to-end support across Azure environments.

Azure Expert MSP is awarded only to the most capable and high-fidelity Azure Managed Service Providers. Microsoft ensures that all Azure Expert MSPs have consistently demonstrated their ability to meet user needs on everything from mission-critical apps to entire datacentre footprints or hybrid environments.

Great Place to Work surveys 250+ companies, certifies 92 in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan

This year, Great Place to Work surveyed more than 250 companies, out of which, the following 92 were awarded; representing more than 140,000 employees in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This survey assesses employees’ perceptions of leadership, organisational culture and trust. In 2022 we registered an amazing average score of 89.3%.

Considering the tough times and difficult challenges that organisations and its leadership lived together with their employees due to COVID consequences; being able to keep a great working culture, innovative teams and profitable business is a great accomplishment. And this year it’s a whooping number of 92 great workplaces.

It is clear that leadership everywhere was confronted with seriously tough situations where the TRUST played a key role in overcoming successfully so many complications. That is the one of the many good reasons to shout to the market about the great

accomplishment of these outstanding organisations. Going through our global research information, what has been called new normal, where flex schemes are trending, where higher importance for purpose, D&I and ESG cultures are picking up; TRUST seems to be making the trick to drive things in the best way.

This year, Great Place to Work surveyed more than 250 companies, out of which, the following 92 were awarded; representing more than 140,000 employees in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This survey assesses employees’ perceptions of leadership, organisational culture and trust. In 2022 we registered an amazing average score of 89.3%.

LONGi donates scholarships and computer rooms to schools in Vietnam

LONGi has donated VND 50 million in scholarships and computer rooms worth over VND 200 million to three Vietnamese schools, each of which received 20 new computers. Duohu Zhao, General Manager for LONGi Vietnam, represented the company at each of the schools – Tran Nguyen Han, Nham Bien so 1 and Phuc sơn 1 – during the donation ceremonies, with the respective school principals expressing their gratitude for the company’s support.

LONGi’s donations are actively supported by local government, with the company having a track record of supporting local education in Vietnam, previously donating modules for a 20.2 kWp rooftop solar system at Vo Thi Sau High School in 2021.

Video solutions provider Pixelworks Semiconductor receives Chinese investment

Pixelworks, a provider of innovative video and display processing solutions, announced the company’s majority owned subsidiary, Pixelworks Semiconductor Technology, entered into an agreement with a group of private equity and strategic investors based in China, as well as with entities owned by PWSH employees, under which committed investments will be made in exchange for equity interest in PWSH.

In aggregate, the capital increase agreements consist of the commitment by employee entities to pay amounts in RMB equating to approximately $1.4 million in exchange for total equity interest of 0.54% in PWSH, reflecting a pre-money valuation of the

RMB equivalent of approximately $250.7 million, and by non-employee investors to pay amounts in RMB equivalent to approximately $14.3 million in exchange for total equity interest of 2.76% in PWSH, reflecting a pre-money valuation of the RMB-equivalent of approximately $501.4 million. Following the anticipated closing of these transactions, Pixelworks, Inc. will continue to hold an approximately 78.2% equity interest in PWSH.

Additionally, the Company reaffirmed its previously provided financial guidance for fourth quarter total revenue of between $16 million and $18 million.

Blockchain loyalty platform MiL.k joins Boost Rewards 2 No End campaign targeting Malaysia

Milk Partners, CEO Jayden Jo operating the blockchainbased reward integration platform ‘MiL.k’, has sped up its global expansion in 2023 by joining the Rewards 2 No End campaign by Southeast Asia’s leading full spectrum fintech player, Boost.

In January 9th, Milk Partners announced its first new year co-marketing activity with Boost, the full spectrum fintech arm of Axiata with a holistic fintech ecosystem –one of which is its all-in-one fintech app that has over 10 million users.

MiL.k is collaborating with Boost by joining the ‘Boost Rewards 2 No End campaign’ that offers Malaysian users exclusive prizes and offers. Through the campaign, users will receive 1,500 Boost Stars and stand the chance to win much-sought-after exclusive prizes when successfully downloading and registering as a MiL.k user using the referral code BOOSTNMILK, then submitting the relevant details to the dedicated event page.

The Boost Stars earned can be utilised to redeem even more amazing discounts and rewards, such as ‘Partner Wallet’ credits, ‘Pay With Stars’, ‘Pick and Win’, and more on the Boost app.

Through this collaboration, MiL.k is expected to increase its brand awareness and recruit new global users in Malaysia. MiL.k is also expected to generate marketing synergy of global expansion with its first global partnership with ariasia since MiL.k had partnered with airasia in last September and opened the point exchange service on MiL.k app in December 2022.

Tata Sons, New York Academy Sciences announce INR 2Cr transformation prize

Tata Sons and the New York Academy of Sciences announced the Tata Transformation Prize to recognise and support promising scientists in India who are developing innovative technological solutions to critical societal challenges. The new prize will be awarded each year to three scientists for innovations in each of three areas: food security, sustainability, and healthcare. Each winner will each receive INR 2 crores, and will be honoured at a ceremony in India in December.

Applicants for the prize must be active researchers with a doctoral degree, or equivalent, and be employed by an eligible university, institute, or other research organisation in India. Applicants must propose technologies addressing food security, sustainability, or healthcare

challenges with a focus on digital and technological transformation. Prize winners will be scientists whose proposed innovations re-imagine traditional practices and business models, transform technological paradigms, improve public trust, and promote an open and connected world.

The Tata Transformation Prize is the latest in a series of prominent awards and scholarship programs

the Academy and its partners present each year to accomplished early-career and established scientists around the world. These initiatives, along with education and professional development programs for students and young scientists, reflect the Academy’s broader commitment to strengthening and diversifying the pipeline for skilled and talented scientists globally.

Korea based Samyang

develops eco-friendly plastic containing 90%+ of recycled polycarbonate

Samyang Corporation, a chemical and food affiliate of the Samyang Group, announced that it developed Korea’s first eco-friendly PC containing more than 90% of Post-Consumer Recycled Polycarbonate. PC is an engineering plastic that is transparent and resistant to impact and heat, so it is mainly used as interior and exterior materials for automobiles, home appliances, soundproof walls and parts for medical devices.

PCR PC is made through a compounding process in which a certain ratio of recycled PC is mixed with new PC raw material, and this requires a high level of technology and expertise. When manufacturing PC, flame retardants, reinforcing agents, dyes, are added to enhance the performance of the polymer and improve their aesthetic effects.

Within two years, Samyang Corporation succeeded in developing a PCR PC that contains more than 90% of recycled PC material while retaining the inherent physical properties of PC, such as heat resistance, transparency, and impact resistance. This is the result of years of efforts and expertise in redesigning and optimising the ratio of recycled material and additives during the compounding process. Securing suppliers of quality recycled PC material that closely monitor the degree of contamination and foreign substances was also effective.

PCR PC is considered environmentally friendly as it reduces plastic waste. It also has an effect of reducing carbon emissions from lowered energy consumption.

Samyang Corporation explained that the newly developed PCR PC has the effect of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 6,200 tons based on production of 1,000 tons compared to general PC. This is an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by 3,200 cars per year.

Samyang Corporation plans to first apply PCR PC to small electrical home appliances such as laptops, then expand its application extensively in various areas in the future, namely electronics and decorative gadgets. Meanwhile, the company plans to continue expanding the scope of application by applying PCR PC to various plastic resins such as ABS and PBT.

Acer’s Vero line built with recycled materials shows 41% growth QoQ in 4Q

Acer announced consolidated revenues for December 2022 at NT$22.89 billion, up 21.1% month-on-month. Preliminary consolidated revenues for Q4’22 ended at NT$59.85 billion and for the full year 2022 ended at NT$275.43 billion.

Business highlights include:

l The Vero line built with recycled materials continues to be well accepted with Q4 revenues up 41.3% quarter-on-quarter

l Businesses other than PCs and displays contributed 26.3% of total revenues in Q4; for preliminary full year 2022 they

contributed 21.7% with 11.9% growth year-on-year, YoY

Acer’s public subsidiaries have announced their Q4 and 2022 revenues showing growth. Businesses under incubation continue to show strong progress:

l Altos Computing preliminary 2022 revenues grew 133.5% YoY

l AcerPure preliminary 2022 revenues grew 24.2% YoY

Transforming

the automobile trade

CarDekho Group is changing the way cars are bought and sold and has been seeding ideas for future growth, which has helped achieve CAGR of 70% YoY for the last ten years.

CarDekho Group

(Lefttoright)TheCarDekhoGroupLeaders:AmitJain, CEOandCo-founderandAnuragJain,COOandCo-founder.

Set up in 2008 by brothers Amit and Anurag Jain under Grinar Software, an IT outsourcing company they had founded a year before, CarDekho has evolved to become a unicorn in October 2021.

The Series E funding of $250 Million was led by private investment firm LeapFrog Investments, along with South Korea’s Mirae Asset Group and other existing investors. The overall valuation of CarDekho Group is now $1.2 Billion.

“It all started after we visited the Auto Expo in 2008,” says Anurag Jain, COO and Cofounder of the group, adding that they realised that there was a clear lack of information on cars and their features, which made it difficult for consumers to research and take an informed buying decision.

“The early version of CarDekho focused on providing content that was easy to navigate and enabled enthusiasts to research different cars. This also made it easy for buyers to find cars to suit their needs and budget. This unlocked a lot of businesses as we gained eyeballs, enabling us to monetise through classifieds, B2C campaigns, and lead generation initiatives,” he explains.

The CarDekho Group currently operates auto portals such as CarDekho.com, Gaadi. com, ZigWheels.com, BikeDekho.com, and PowerDrift.com. Besides, it offers customers avenues for selling and buying used cars and provides financial services, including car and health insurance and automobile finance.

CarDekho was one of the first companies to design and offer products for financing pre-owned cars, which traditionally has been an unstructured market with a low focus on financial institutions due to the hassles of product valuation and paperwork.

Enabling the ecosystem

As part of its initiative to provide an immersive online experience to users, CarDekho offers a 360-degree interior and exterior view with the sound of the car and explanations of features with videos through its Feel the Car tool. Its website and app provide expert reviews, and tools for search and comparison of vehicles by make, model, price, and features of all car brands and models available in India.

It also enables the selling of used cars through classifieds. The CarDekho classified allows users to upload their cars for sale, and find used cars for buying from individuals and used car dealers. The company has tie-ups

with several auto manufacturers, including over 4,000 car dealers and several financial institutions to facilitate the purchase of vehicles. This also helps the company provide live offers and promotions across cities.

Having developed solutions and innovative processes for inspection and evaluation of cars to the assessment of buyers’ financial capabilities and inventory management, CarDekho provides techenabled tools to manufacturers and car dealers.

These include apps for dealer sales executives to manage leads, cloud services for tracking sales performance, call tracker solutions, digital marketing support, a virtual online showroom, and outsourced lead management operational processes for taking consumers from inquiry to sale.

The platform also provides tools like chatbots and virtual assistants to help dealers address consumer queries.

“Our vision is to construct a complete ecosystem for consumers and car manufacturers, dealers, and related businesses such that consumers have easy and complete access to not only buying and selling cars but also manage their entire ownership experience, be it accessories, tyres, batteries, insurance or roadside assistance,” says Anurag.

As a group, CarDekho has been proactive in seeding ideas for future growth. “This is what has made us deliver a CAGR of 70% YoY for the last 10 years. We have been early entrants into Fintech and Insurtech specific to the auto industry which has led us closer to the unicorn milestone,” he points out.

Adding AI power

Technology is at the core of everything that CarDekho does and how it offers it. “What you see on the website is just the tip of the iceberg. Under the hood, we have built many technologies over the years to ease the car buying and owning experience. We have achieved this through analysis of the data points of users that come on the website,” says Anurag.

To begin with, the platform uses predictive analytics to analyse online browsing behaviour to provide relevant information and personalised offerings to improve the car buying experience. “A user generates over 70-80 signals that are absorbed by our personalisation engine to create our data lakes that help precisely understand consumer’s objectives and needs; it helps discover what is a better way for the user to consume content,” he informs.

The platform relies on leveraging big data that is analysed using artificial intelligence or AIenabled algorithm that takes into account different parameters and filters used by the consumer while

APPLICATIONS AND TOOLS

Feel the Car tool

It provides an immersive online experience to users, including a 360-degree interior and exterior view with the sound of the car and videos explaining its features.

Chatbots and virtual assistants

These tools aim to help dealers and OEMs address consumer queries.

Connecto

It is a device-agnostic tool that helps create user profiles by tracking consumer behaviour in real-time.

Apps for OEMs and dealers

These include apps for managing leads, cloud services for tracking sales performance, call tracker solutions, digital marketing support, and virtual showroom.

scrawling through the website.

The adoption of AI and ML tools has been a game changer, enabling us to provide a personalised experience to consumers Anurag Jain, COO and Co-founder, CarDekho Group.

“Our AI algorithms have made the buy-sell experience seamless and enabled decision-making by combining the most important transaction events in one place. From one-click price to sell a car to one-click loan disbursal online, the CarDekho group is bringing experience to consumer’s fingertips. Our collaborative platform connected with banks, insurance companies, and original equipment manufacturers, has bought it all together for a great consumer experience,” feels Anurag.

Big data analytics also helps CarDekho in lead generation. Search criteria like price, mileage, technical features, and servicing requirements used during browsing are captured in the platform’s Dealer Management System which enables the AI to understand customer behaviour.

The information helps the platform strategize product positioning and marketing communication, thereby strengthening the lead-generation and transaction facilitation services to used car dealers selling cars to end users on its platform. It also enables the company to provide advertising and digital marketing solutions to OEMs and car dealers. Overall, the company generated

nearly nine million leads during FY22.

To consume and process extensive data at a web-scale with reliability, CarDekho is further enhancing its scalability using the modern technology stack than the traditional linear approach by transitioning to a messaging and event-based architecture using Kafka, an event streaming platform that enables scalability in realtime messaging, storage, processing, and integration with no downtime or data loss.

It is also focusing on continuously refining its product strategy to create a full-stake ecosystem for the auto industry and create better value for the end consumer.

Connecto-driven personalisation

In April 2016 CarDekho acquired Connecto, a software-as-a-service start-up that had built device-agnostic tools to help product managers communicate efficiently with the target audience. The SaaS platform offered services such as a notification engine, A/B testing, custom integrations, and automatic user profiles creator to product managers and marketers, to improve the user interface or UI on websites and apps. The acquisition helped CarDekho leverage Connecto’s tools to improve user experience across all its websites and apps.

Explaining the rationale behind the purchase Amit Jain, CEO and Co-founder of CarDekho said in a statement: “Being a tech-intensive company, we are always on the lookout for more hi-tech start-ups to augment our tech expertise. Connecto will help us create user profiles by tracking user behaviour in real-time These user

Being a tech-intensive company, we are always on the look-out for more hi-tech start-ups to augment our tech expertise

Amit Jain, CEO and Co-founder, CarDekho Group.

segments can then be interacted with in a personalised manner via web notifications, specific emails, in-app notifications, and chrome notifications.”

Based on the customer’s behaviour on the platform, using machine learning, the platform also recommends the cars that the customer would love to buy from the list of cars on the website.

Sharing details of other technology platforms, solutions, and frameworks used by the group in improving service delivery, Anurag says that the adoption of AI and ML tools for handling big data projects has been a game changer. “We have

been able to provide a personalised experience to consumers and offer the right product and services at the apt time. Cloud computing has helped us to go to market with highly stable products with agility,” he added.

Smart inventory and pricing

While understanding user needs and offering the best option is the key to CarDekho’s business, inventory management across the dealer network, especially in the used-car segment and a transparent pricing mechanism are other critical factors that can impact online car sales business. This is another area where AI- and ML-powered tools have been of

Technology operations

CarDekho was an early entrant into fintech and insurtech for the auto industry, leading it closer to the unicorn milestone.

CarDekho relies on leveraging big data analysed using AI that takes into account filters used by the consumer while scrawling through the website.

CarDekho uses predictive analytics to analyse online browsing behaviour to provide personalised offerings to improve car buying experience.

CarDekho classified allows users to upload their cars for sale, and find used cars for buying from individuals and used car dealers.

of CarDekho.com

CarDekho provides tools like chatbots and virtual assistants to help dealers address consumer queries.

CarDekho provides tech-enabled tools for manufacturers and car dealers.

Big data analytics helps CarDekho in lead generation.

CarDekho is focusing on refining its product strategy to create a full-stake ecosystem for the auto industry.

CarDekho operates auto portals Gaadi. com, ZigWheels. com, BikeDekho.com, PowerDrift.com.

BUSINESS INITIATIVES

l Providing customised content, product information, and comparison of cars based on price, mileage, technical features, and servicing requirements.

l Launching of mobile app and acquiring Gaadi. com to strengthen the management team and gain a foothold in the used car segment.

l Acquiring Zigwheels from Times Internet to enhance content quality and transactional capabilities.

l Acquired Buying IQ, a comparative shopping portal.

l Acquisition of India’s automotive YouTube channel Powerdrift to gain access to more than two million subscribers.

l Foray into the motor and health insurance sector by launching InsuranceDekho, an online insurance platform.

l Merging financial services business to launch fintech platform Rupyy to provide auto financing and secondhand car loans.

great help to the platform. The company has over 3,500 used car dealers across India.

CarDekho also uses AI and ML tools and predictive analysis to keep track of the storage of cars across sites. This helps reduce the maintenance cost and reduces inventory size as per the demand from each location. “The AI and ML predictive analysis helps us in inventory management. Inventory across sites is managed and only the correct number of cars are stored based on location and necessity. AI has helped us bring down the maintenance cost,” Anurag says adding that the adoption has increased the CarDekho platform’s efficiency on the cost by over 50%.

In the used car segment, the company has implemented AI automobile inspection procedures and ML tools that automatically detect defects, thereby ensuring that the company can meet its promise of high-quality standards. The platform uses advanced AIenhanced automobile inspection procedures and meta-information listing to identify the car’s condition in detail.

This helps in creating an inspection report that is shared with the customers to help them make a purchase decision. It also uses computer vision and ML tools to determine the value and condition of a car. The ML-enabled solution monitors the video and detects defects like dents and scratches to automatically modify

the cost for that specific vehicle.

On the pricing front, CarDekho uses a proprietary algorithm to create a selection of cars that are most soughtafter by customers. The AI-enabled tool has an autopricing system that ascertains the best rate for the cars as well as the ideal procurement rate for the sellers. This insures a stable and transparent pricing mechanism. The intelligent pricing model along with the use of a neural network helps the platform evaluate the pricing predictability of a vehicle, enabling it to recommend the best price for buyers.

Explains Anurag: “The AI tool brings in standardisation

and consistency in pricing thereby enabling us to mitigate the chance of fluctuation of prices. The consistency in pricing has helped us gain user trust and ensure customer loyalty.”

The story of CarDekho’s success is that of organic and inorganic growth strategies, driven by rich content and a focus on using cutting-edge technologies to enhance the consumer experience. This included acquisitions to gain market- and mind-share and technologies to offer innovative products and services to disrupt the automobile sector and create an ecosystem for online auto purchases, in an otherwise driveand-experience business.

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION

l Use of predictive analytics tools to provide information and personalised offerings to users.

l Leveraging big data to understand customer behaviour for product positioning and marketing strategies.

l Adopting event-based architecture to scale realtime messaging, storage, processing, and integration with no downtime or data loss.

l Use of AI-enabled automobile inspection tool and meta-information listing to identify condition of used cars.

l Adoption of ML-enabled solution to detect defects like dents and scratches on cars and modify selling price.

l Use of predictive analytics tools to estimate inventory of cars based on location and requirement.

l Launch of QR-based loan platform to provide disbursements via video KYC and digital agreements.

Shubhendu Parth is a contributor to Business Transformation Asia

Launched in October 2021, CarDekho Mall is one of India’s largest used car showrooms set up by the group at Poddar Circle, Sitapura in Jaipur.

GRAND FINALE

22-24 NOV 2022

THE GRAND FOURWINGS CONVENTION HOTEL BANGKOK, THAILAND

CIO 200 GRAND FINALE

NOW ON

FLICKR

GLIMPSE OF DAY 1

BX OUTLOOK ANNUAL

Top executives share their thoughts on the business transformation and sustainability road map ahead.

NEW EMPHASIS ON LOCATION OF PEOPLE, ASSETS, APPS

A focus will be placed on location of work activity and assets, identity of people and machines, real-time applications being used and by whom or what.

Tight control of network performance is no longer sufficient. Being able to identify and troubleshoot application response time and performance issues rapidly and remotely will be essential to ensure a seamless end user digital experience no matter

where users connect.

Identifying the clustering of similar error symptoms across a full-stack network is leading to orchestrated workflows that will more readily give IT organisations the option to allow solutions to automatically remediate an issue.

BY DAVID HUGHES Chief Product and Technology Officer, Aruba HPE.

BY END 2023, 20% ORGANISATIONS WILL HAVE ADOPTED NAAS STRATEGY

With tightening economic conditions, IT requires flexibility in how network infrastructure is acquired, deployed, and operated to enable network teams to deliver business outcomes rather than just managing devices. Migration to a network-asa-service, NaaS framework enables IT to accelerate network modernisation yet stay within budget, IT resource, and schedule constraints.

In addition, adopting a NaaS strategy will help organisations meet sustainability objectives since leading NaaS suppliers have adopted carbon-neutral and recycling manufacturing strategies.

BUILT-IN SECURITY REPLACES BOLTON

Reducing cybersecurity risk has become a core operational concern. Transformation to a more automated security architecture is an IT imperative. No longer can organisations bolt-on perimeter firewalls around the network to protect against threats and vulnerabilities. Security must be built-in to every aspect of

the network infrastructure from Wi-Fi Access Points to LAN, campus and datacentre switches, WAN gateways, and extending into the cloud.

LOCATION SERVICES ENABLE NEW BUSINESS MODELS

Challenging skilled labour markets and recurring supply chain issues will force companies to become more efficient, productive, and resourceful. Pivoting towards achieving situational awareness of assets, inventories, work in process, workers, customers, contractors, and supply chains will enable better control of costs, resources, quality, and intellectual property. This will require merging information technology, IT, Internet of Things, IoT, and operational technology, OT data with contextual information about the environment.

IT WILL CONSOLIDATE OPERATIONS ONTO A SINGLE NETWORK

More diverse digital technology, IoT is being deployed by enterprises to improve user experiences and to streamline IT operations. At the same time, employees and customers expect a better integrated real life, digital experience no matter what the enterprises’ business model is. These dynamics have added complexity to both the network and security and have made managing the infrastructure more complex. IT will look to a single centralised management system with visibility across the network and the ability to configure edge-to-cloud QoS and security policies.

SLA MEASUREMENTS WILL BE BASED ON USER EXPERIENCE

IT must optimise their networks to meet hybrid working requirements. Businesses will have dedicated teams whose priority is to ensure a seamless end user digital experience

Identifying clustering of similar error symptoms across a fullstack network is leading to orchestrated workflows

for employees and customers. Adapting to a client-based view rather than a network view requires complete end-to-end visibility and application-level insights to know if the quality of experience is meeting end user expectations or not.

AIOPS SHIFTS TO AUTOMATED REMEDIATION

With AI, cloud adoption, and access to vast amounts of data now common in enterprise-class network management solutions, automation takes centre stage. Identifying the clustering of similar error symptoms across a full-stack network is leading to orchestrated workflows that will more readily give IT organisations the option to allow solutions to automatically remediate an issue. The need to streamline IT efficiency and do more with less is driving human-assisted workflows, which will enable administrators to examine recommended changes and their impact, and then enable remediation of on-going occurrences into production.

FROM ANALYTICS TO INTELLIGENT INSIGHTS

The focus will move from analytics to insights they deliver in specific use cases, telling you something is wrong, and helping you decide what action to take.

There are multiple technology trends that we believe will affect the security sector in 2023.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS

The increasing application of AI and machine learning have seen a focus on the opportunity for advanced analytics in recent years. Moving forward, the shift in focus will move from the analytics themselves, to the actionable insights they deliver in specific use cases. It’s less about telling you something is wrong, and more about helping you decide what action to take.

A key driver for employing analytics to deliver actionable insights is the huge increase in data being generated by surveillance cameras, along with other sensors integrated into a solution. The data, and metadata being created would be impossible for human operators to interpret and act upon quickly enough, even with huge and costly increases in resources.

The use of analytics can drive real-time actions which support safety, security, and operational efficiency. From prompts to call emergency services in the case of incidents, to redirecting traffic in cities to alleviate jams, to redeploying staff in busy

BY JOHAN PAULSSON CTO Axis Communications.

retail outlets, to saving energy in buildings through more efficient lighting and heating, analytics are recommending, prompting, and even starting to take the actions that support human operators.

HYBRID ARCHITECTURES

It is now commonly accepted that a hybrid technology architecture is best-suited for security systems, mixing on-premise servers, cloud-based compute, and powerful edge devices.

No one architecture fits all scenarios, however. But here lies the solution: first assess what needs to be addressed in your specific use case, and then define the hybrid solution that will meet your needs. A number of factors need to be considered.

Undoubtedly the advantages of advanced analytics embedded in surveillance cameras on the edge of the network are clear to see. Analysis of the highestquality images the instant they are captured gives organisations the best chance to react in realtime. Equally, the data generated by surveillance cameras is now useful beyond the real-time view. Analysis of trends over time can deliver insights leading to operational efficiencies. This analysis often demands the processing power found in onpremise servers or the cloud.

What is essential is not to tie yourself to a single architecture. Remain open, give yourself the flexibility to create the hybrid architecture best suited to your specific needs.

BEYOND SECURITY

Surveillance cameras have become powerful sensors. The quality of video information they capture, in all conditions, has increased year-on-year for decades. They also create metadata – information about the video data – which adds another layer of detail and value.

This of course improves and

enhances their ability to support safety and operational efficiency use cases in addition to security. The opportunity now exists to combine the data created by surveillance cameras with that from other sensors – monitoring temperature, noise, air and water quality, vibration, weather, and more - creating an advanced datadriven sensory network.

REGULATORY FOCUS

The technology sector as a whole and specific technologies are coming under more regulatory and policy maker scrutiny. We still believe that the focus should always be on regulation of the use cases for technology, not technology itself, and will always comply with local, regional, and international regulation. But it can be a complicated picture.

The European Commission is one of the most active in looking to regulate technology in an ongoing effort to protect the privacy and rights of citizens. Its proposed AI Act, part of the Commission’s European AI Strategy, aims to assign specific risk categories to uses of AI and would be the first legal framework on AI. Like the Commission’s AI Liability Directive, the AI Act will no doubt be the subject much debate before it becomes law.

It is commonly accepted that hybrid technology architecture is best-suited for security systems

Analysis of the highestquality images the instant they are captured gives organisations the best chance to react in real-time

SECURITY WORSE IN METAVERSE THAN SOCIAL MEDIA

Everything wrong from a security perspective with social platforms will become worse in metaverse and how are people going to be protected from digital compromise.

Callsign has predicted 2023 will be another year of fraud with emerging fraud vectors causing a further erosion of digital trust in banks, telecoms, social media, ecommerce platforms and other digital providers.

Despite fraudsters running rampant across all industries with a large scam playbook, 2023

will see a new population of people who have never fallen victim to fraud before. These could be people moving into environments where security is lax or those who are the subject of sophisticated and personalised attacks.

DORMANT ACCOUNT TAKEOVERS BECOME MULE ACCOUNTS

Dormant accounts occur when consumers do not

BY CHRIS STEPHENS Solutions Engineering, Callsign.

access or close their online accounts for an extended period of time. These dormant accounts are exactly what fraudsters seek to utilise to launder funds obtained through unlawful activities.

These dormant accounts are then used for illegal purposes by recruiting mules through deceptive social media posts and adverts, phishing, and easy money scams.

Fraudsters manipulate mules by asking them to receive money and make purchases or send funds to other accounts. Bank accounts that suddenly switch from being inactive to active do raise red flags, but it is the account holder who will be punished if caught rather than the perpetrator in most cases.

RISE OF BUY NOW, PAY LATER FRAUD

The Buy Now, Pay Later, model has become increasingly popular in the Middle East. Buy Now, Pay Later, companies around the region share similar characteristics, such as offering convenience, interestfree payments, encouraging purchases, flexible repayments, and quick account opening approval. Nonetheless, they are all vulnerable to fraud in the retail sector.

In the race to attract customers and win market share, some BNPL companies have forgone standard security protocols to the extent that crypto exchanges have better controls as a whole. 2023 will begin to see BNPL exposed to friendly and refund frauds, accounts opened with stolen credentials, bot attacks and more.

DEEP FAKE TECHNOLOGY GROWTH

Scammers are already using Deep Fake technology to convince consumers to buy products through impersonation, visual identification, and other means. Sadly, we predict deep fake technology fraud will escalate

will see a new population of people who have never fallen victim to fraud before

partly because there are few tools on the market that can identify, counter, and stop these frauds. The technology is rapidly evolving, and the prediction is that it will be used to defraud the public on a scale similar to other sophisticated frauds.

DODGY IDENTITY IN METAVERSE

Web 3.0’s seamless connectivity across platforms, hardware, and networks has the potential to enable people to connect, collaborate, and interact for learning, socialising, and conducting business in the metaverse. Unfortunately, it has all the potential to mirror the current online world, which is rife with fraud and fakes.

Everything wrong from a security perspective with social platforms today will be considerably worse in the metaverse of tomorrow. If the metaverse is open to all-in-one giant decentralised world, how are people going to be protected from digital compromise?

CLOUD COMPLIANCE, DEATH OF PASSWORD LIKELY IN 2023

Cloud services will soon come with compliance built in and passwordless login using FIDO Alliance passkey may soon become standard in 2023.

Over the last several years, ransomware, data breaches, and other cyber campaigns have been hugely disruptive and cost organisations and governments millions. In response, the Biden administration issued an executive order in May of 2021 to implement a Zero Trust security architecture across the federal government. While recent reports from the US Government Accountability Office, GAO show some agencies are on track, others appear to be falling behind.

When governments need to move quickly and cut across organisational boundaries, they often appoint a czar to take charge of a particular program and see it through to implementation or execution.

The challenge however is that in many organisations, responsibility for networking and security live in different parts of the organisation and these groups often rely on different vendors in their respective areas. Breaking down the silos between security and networking teams and

choosing the right tools, products, and vendors to align with desired business outcomes is critical to implement zero trust in larger enterprises. Some of the biggest highlights from 2022 include:

l Google was the #1 most popular service of the year according to Cloudflare data. The search giant beat out Facebook, #2, Apple and TikTok, tied at #3 and YouTube, #5.

l Facebook was the most popular social media service of 2022, followed by TikTok in the #2 position. Instagram, #3 overtook Twitter, #4 in the Social Media category: the photo and video sharing app knocked Twitter from 3rd place in August.

l Worldwide Internet traffic surged in late November as the FIFA World Cup got under way and holiday shoppers made Black Friday the busiest day online in 2022.

l In 2022, more phishing emails originated from the United States than the next 22 countries combined.

l Iran shut down the Internet more than any other

CLOUDFLARE

BY JOHN ENGATES Field CTO, Cloudflare.

all data sovereignty laws. Storage services should inherently comply with data residency regulations. And processing should adhere to relevant data localisation standards.

DEATH OF THE PASSWORD

Username and password authentication even when combined with common forms of multi-factor authentication is just not enough anymore. Enterprises can enable stronger FIDO2compliant security keys along with zero trust access today.

BY MATTHEW PRINCE Co-founder and CEO, Cloudflare.

country with 60 observed Internet blackouts this year, accounting for one third of all Internet shutdowns that Cloudflare analysed.

CLOUD WILL CARRY COMPLIANCE Companies must now understand and comply with this patchwork of regulations as they do business globally. How can organisations hope to stay current and build compliance into their applications and IT systems?

Majority of cloud services will soon come with compliance features built in. The cloud itself should take the compliance burden off companies. Developers shouldn’t be required to know exactly how and where their data can be legally stored or processed. The burden of compliance should largely be handled by the cloud services and tools developers are building with.

Networking services should route traffic efficiently and securely while complying with

But the best way to protect most users and their credentials may be to remove the burden on the end user altogether. The FIDO alliance envisions passwordless sign-in everywhere. Logins will use your face or fingerprint instead of the old username-password combo. A FIDO sign-in credential, sometimes called a passkey, will make it easier on users and harder on the attackers.

If there is no password to steal, hackers will not be able to harvest credentials to carry out their attacks. Many websites and applications will adopt passwordless login using the FIDO Alliance passkey standard beginning in 2023.

REMOTE BROWSERS

Browser Isolation is a clever piece of technology that essentially provides security through physical isolation. This technique creates a gap between a user’s web browser and the endpoint device thereby protecting the device, and the enterprise network from exploits and attacks. Remote browser isolation takes this a step further by moving the browser to a remote service in the cloud. Cloud-based remote browsing isolates the enduser device from the enterprise’s network while fully enabling IT control and compliance solutions.

Some say in this remote browsing model that the browser is the device. Instead of BYOD, it might be appropriate to call this BYOB or Bring Your Own Browser. Most

If resistance is encountered, the zerotrust czar should have the backing of senior leadership

companies are looking to better balance the security and privacy needs of the company with the user experience and convenience for employees. Remote browser isolation will be embraced broadly as IT leaders become more aware of the benefit and just how well it works.

CHIEF ZERO TRUST OFFICER

As pressure to implement zero trust intensifies, a role analogous to a Chief Zero Trust Officer will emerge within some large organisations. This person will be the zero-trust czar for the enterprise and will be the individual responsible for driving a company on its zero-trust journey. Their job will be to bring together siloed organisations and vendors and ensure that all teams and departments are aligned and working toward the same goal.

If resistance is encountered, the zero-trust czar should have the backing of senior leadership, CIO, CISO, CEO, Board of Directors to make decisions quickly and cut across organisational boundaries to keep the process moving ahead. Whether the very bold title of Chief Zero Trust Officer becomes reality or not, an empowered individual with a clear mandate and a singular focus may just be the key to getting zero trust across the finish line in 2023.

CYBEREASON

SHIFT TO SAAS FRAGMENTS IDENTITY MANAGEMENT

The big shift to SaaS has fragmented more than a decade’s worth of work to simplify and consolidate corporate Identity and Access Management.

The big shift to SaaS has fragmented more than a decade’s worth of work to simplify and consolidate corporate Identity and Access Management, IAM systems. What’s more, many new SaaS applications do not integrate with organisations’ existing single sign-on, SSO solutions, yet

organisations continue to accelerate adoption of new SaaS software, even without the security controls of SSO.

BY GREG DAY VP Europe Middle East and Africa, Field CISO, Cybereason.

DEEPFAKES CONTINUING

In recent years, we have seen the increased success of blended attacks that combine social engineering tactics with malicious links, for example. With end users becoming more aware of social engineering, we can expect more sophisticated attackers will increasingly turn to deepfakes to trick end users into clicking on malicious links, downloading infected files, and the like.

FIFTH GENERATION RANSOMWARE

A recent report by Cybereason found that 73% of organisations suffered at least one ransomware attack in 2022, compared with just 55% in 2021. As the world reaches saturation of ransomware, adversaries will explore new methods to get money from the same victims. This will be the fifth generation of ransomware.

RANSOMWARE WILL TEST CLOUD

Cloud storage can give organisations a significant data protection advantage, along with more flexible recovery options. But as ransomware moves from the endpoint to target cloudonly spaces, it creates new risks for organisations, especially those that accelerated cloud adoption during the pandemic and lost sight of where sensitive data lives and who has access to it. This creates weaker credential management, leaving room for ransomware to infiltrate.

CYBERATTACKS ARE TRANSFERABLE

The typical cyberattack moves from hacker to device, but 2023 may bring the first cyberattack that jumps between smart devices, including smart cars. We have not seen the in-smart environment replication just yet, but with the pace of innovation, a smart car attack could be riding shotgun to the vehicle next to you.

73%

of organisations suffered at least one ransomware attack in 2022, compared with just 55% in 2021

CRITICAL NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

As both direct and indirect cyber warfare domains grow, so too does the potential for a substantial cyberattack, most likely in an area such as the energy space. This risk is most presently in EMEA, but it’s certainly top of mind among cybersecurity and national defence experts globally.

BURNOUT WILL IMPACT CYBER RESILIENCE

Security teams around the world have been working long hours from home, adapting their organisation’s security posture to support all the shifts in key business systems. In an industry that is still facing a massive skills shortage, we should not be surprised if burnout impacts security teams’ ability to maintain the round-the-clock coverage required to respond to a crisis in a timely fashion.

Defenders don’t have to face an uphill fight in the battle to fend off cyberattacks. The cybersecurity industry as a whole should reexamine its threat posture and adjust its readiness footing by seeking out the right partners and implementing best practices.

WEB3 AND METAVERSE INSEPARABLY LINKED TO EACH OTHER

Metaverse can create huge potential for privacy violations and data breaches that can compromise an individual, decentralised identity will play a role in ensuring safety.

Whether people realise it or not, we spend the majority of our time in the cloud. Managing and tracking everything across multiple cloud environments makes proper management and cost control very complex. Do you even know all of the workloads, VMs, containers, keys, crypto you have? What clouds it is located in? Who has access to it? Are lifecycle management policies in place across data, employees and departments? Do you have a handle on what is stored where? Do you have a handle on your overall costs?

The IT sector continues to experience a skills and resources gap. And, as enterprises add more cloud environments, compliance becomes a challenge. Automation can help manage users, machines applications and data across these cloud environments more efficiently and costeffectively.

METAVERSE AND WEB3

Web3 and the metaverse are inseparably linked

to each other, and both are still in their early stages of development. As the technology behind them continues to grow in scale, governments are taking the opportunity to develop their own metaverse economies, and this will become more mainstream in 2023.

In 2023 Trusted Identity will be at the core of making this goal a reality. While the Metaverse can pose huge potential for privacy violations and data breaches that can compromise an individual’s personally identifiable information, PII, decentralised identity will play a key role in ensuring its safety.

With more companies hopping on the Metaverse and Web3 in 2023, decentralised identity will enable digital identities for individuals and corporations without handing over control of their data to third parties. Users will have control of their identities and can enter different worlds in the metaverse and interact with various companies or entities by establishing trust using verifiable credentials to prove their identity without handing over personal data.

BY ANUDEEP PARHAR Chief Operating Officer of Digital, Entrust.

POST-QUANTUM READINESS

Quantum computers pose an inevitable threat to digital security. We are about to enter an era where the available computing power can and will break conventional cryptography.

The migration to quantumsafe algorithms is much more involved than one might think and will take years to achieve. This will take detailed and careful work that is time consuming and requires specific skills. And, with the skills and resources challenge in the tech and cybersecurity space, this will be tricky to navigate for organisations.

Threat actors are harvesting data today to decrypt later,

organisations should be working today to adopt quantum-safe protocols to ensure they cannot. We are now seeing multiple sources making the call for organisations to migrate to quantum-safe algorithms immediately. Mastercard has already announced it has launched a contactless card for the quantum computing era.

SECURITY POSTURE IS BOARD-LEVEL PRIORITY

It is not just the IT team that needs to be aware of and involved in enterprise security posture anymore. As the threat landscape grows and continues to evolve, boards are increasingly concerned and want to hold leadership accountable for the security of sensitive data. C-suite performance and compensation will become tied to cyber risk profile regardless of functional domain. Increasingly CISO, CIO is an integral part, leader of strategic decisionmaking process.

CHIEF RISK OFFICER BUYER

Key decision makers and influencers are changing. Those involved in buying decisions to secure core business, enterprise infrastructure is expanding and shifting from what would have been considered the traditional key decision makers. Most of these buying groups will avoid engaging with a vendor until they already know that vendor has a solution that meets their requirements. This is one reason we are seeing an emergence of the Chief Risk Officer buyer persona.

DIGITAL PAYMENTS

The global transformation of banking and payments has only accelerated over the past few years, and between web trends and a global pandemic, the industry has seen disruption from all angles. Contactless payment methods have become a go-to

payment method for consumers around the globe.

In 2023, consumer banking will be all about digital interactions first, but this digital experience needs to have security at its foundation. ‘The Great Payment’s Campaign’, a recent global study by Entrust, revealed that 94% of respondents in UAE and 91% of respondents in Saudi Arabia said they were concerned about the potential of banking or credit fraud as banking and credit become more digital.

CLOUD MARKETPLACES

This is the consumerisation of IT. People want to shop for cloud solutions much like they do in their personal lives because they are looking to speed up and simplify the buying journey.

VENDOR CONSOLIDATION

Business leaders are looking at using as few vendors as possible to simplify vendor management and mitigate costs. There is data from Gartner’s 2021 IT Security trends on number of security vendors at the average organisation, and the desire to consolidate. A 2022 Gartner survey of CISOs found 75% are pursuing a vendor consolidation strategy, up from 29% in 2020.

CISO, CIO are an integral part of strategic decisionmaking process

SECURITY PROFESSIONALS LOOKING TO IMPROVE PHYSICAL SECURITY

Security leaders are re-evaluating their technology stack seeking solutions that help streamline tasks, automate processes, and enhance team efficiency.

BY PERVEZ SIDDIQUI Vice-President of Offerings and Transformation, Genetec.

of the physical security tech investment list. Modern ACS include built-in cyber defences and health monitoring tools, and higher levels of automation.

Upgrading to a modern, open ACS will help organisations eliminate the weak points of legacy systems and better defend against cybersecurity threats, as well as enable new capabilities like mobile credentials, biometrics, and cloud-connected controllers and services, to implement over time.

Hybrid-cloud deployments are gaining traction, with some organisations opting to conserve security devices and infrastructure investments that are not cloud-ready, and others having bandwidth limitations or the need to keep some data processing and storage on site.

67%

organisations planning to invest in access control system modernisation in 2023, putting it at the top of the physical security investment list

In the Genetec 2022 State of Physical Security Report, 50% of respondents said their physical security team experienced human resource challenges last year. For 2023, security leaders are re-evaluating their technology stack seeking solutions that help streamline tasks, automate processes, and enhance team efficiency.

Unifying video surveillance, access control, automatic license plate recognition, communications technology, and other valuable functions can make an operator’s job easier and reduce costs and training. Built-in analytics or decision support features can further streamline operations.

The report also showed that 67% of organisations are planning to invest in access control system, ACS modernisation in 2023, putting it at the top

As businesses rationalise costs, concerns, and approach to cloud migration, we can expect an increase in demand for ready-to-deploy hybrid-cloud appliances. This infrastructure will support edge-computing workloads and make existing devices cloud-compatible, and help centralise access to systems and data across many sites.

Research by Genetec shows that 36% of IT and security professionals are looking to invest in cybersecurity-related tools to improve physical security in 2023. While a more holistic, automated approach to defending against threats will take precedence, so too will proactive security architecture planning and procurement.

These measures may include:

l replacing legacy equipment before succumbing to end-point failures to better mitigate risks

l using intelligent maintenance tracking tools and metrics to improve forecasting

l relying on external expertise

to adapt security architecture planning as supply chain lags

l standardizing on solutions built with cybersecurity and privacy in mind to enhance resilience across the partner ecosystem

This take-charge mindset will help organisations better defend against cyberattacks and become an essential factor in preserving business resilience and continuity.

Other notable trends Genetec anticipates impacting the industry in 2023 are the extraction of physical security data pushing digital transformation forward, growing collaboration and convergence of IT and physical security teams, and the continuation of remote work driving increased need for space utilisation data.

These predictions are informed by a Genetec report including insights from 3,700 security leaders worldwide.

GENESYS

RESHAPING EMPLOYEE AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES

Company resilience in 2023 will be determined by two main factors: using advanced analytics and AI-orchestration to reshape employee and customer experience.

022 was filled with both highs and lows. From rising consumer and employee expectations to the promise of a new normal following a pandemic to a worsening economy, the year 2022 has presented everyone with anticipated and unanticipated obstacles. As a result, companies will emphasize and continue to invest in digital transformation in 2023. Rising operational expenses will fuel the expansion of artificial intelligence AI and digital

automation for employee and consumer satisfaction.

As consumer expectations and demands increase, organisations will attempt to orchestrate experiences with greater consistency. However, realising the importance of empowering employees in the current business scenario, organisations will also place employee experience at the centre of CX strategy and corporate objectives.

The days when a one-size-fits-all customer experience could help a business succeed in the

BY EVREN AKER Director of Partnerships, Genesys, META and France.

marketplace are over. Customers believe that a firm is only as excellent as its service as their product offerings.

AI will enhance the coordination of customer journeys, leading to a culture shift toward empathy. Using advanced, AIdriven systems of listening, understanding, predicting, acting, and learning, businesses will choreograph customer journeys across marketing, sales, and service to create unified, empathetic experiences at scale.

Success in the experience economy necessitates a people-centric and agile approach to technology that takes into account both customers and employees

KEY TAKEAWAYS

l The days when a one-size-fits-all customer experience could help a business succeed in the marketplace are over.

l Customers believe that a firm is only as excellent as its service as their product offerings.

l AI will enhance the coordination of customer journeys, leading to a culture shift toward empathy.

l Businesses will move toward cloud platforms that enable real-time assembly and orchestration of individual customer and employee experience capabilities.

In addition, businesses will move toward cloud platforms that enable real-time assembly and orchestration of individual customer and employee experience capabilities across four major building blocks: product, marketplace, ecosystem, and development, in order to keep up with the rapid pace of change and use CX for competitive differentiation.

Success in the experience economy necessitates a peoplecentric and agile approach to technology that takes into account both customers and employees. To engage modern teams, it is time for a new perspective on employee experience. In 2023, an increasing number of businesses will understand that enhancing their agent labour force with the appropriate AI technologies and digital automation will prove to be a good investment, not only for CX, but also for staff engagement and the whole employee experience.

Instead of merely automating more service contacts, businesses will employ AI to improve the human elements of both selfservice and agent-assisted experiences. This will enable them to provide enhanced customer happiness, agent empowerment, and a positive return on investment.

Overall, company resilience in 2023 will be determined by two main factors: using

advanced analytics and AIpowered orchestration to reshape the employee and customer experience and leveraging transformative technology to deliver unprecedented simplicity, efficiency, and agility, and this cannot happen without the power of Cloud computing and the reinvention of traditional IT structures.

Organisations in the Middle East are reinventing customer experiences by adopting Cloud technologies to be competitive and agile for their customer offerings, and Genesys is committed to becoming a partner in their digital transformation initiatives. Cloud born platforms bring flexibility and modernisation to digital infrastructures and allow businesses to create interactive and innovative customer experiences, thereby improving loyalty and enhancing performance.

NO MORE BOLT-ON AND AFTERTHOUGHT IN SERVICES

Regardless of the model, and how service is designed and delivered, the success depends on consistent, positive customer experience, end to end.

Companies are pressured to continue to develop superior service offers to differentiate their brands, increase margins and secure customer loyalty, while at the same time seeking to embrace the circular economy and under pressure to demonstrate progress against increasingly ambitious ESG goals.

SERVICE SUPPORTS SUSTAINABILITY

Facts support the idea that service and maintenance support sustainability: keeping products and assets running for their maximum viable lifetime has a positive impact on sustainability. Even in times of recession, the service sector remains inherently resilient; consumers and businesses alike want to retain products and equipment for longer.

The key service tenets within the 9R circular economy framework - refurbish, repair, remanufacture and recycle – sit squarely within any ESG corporate remit. The first two eliminate

the need for new manufacturing production, and the attendant consumption of resources, and the last two minimise waste and landfill.

A leading consumer goods supplier has calculated that for every three refrigerators they repair, the environmental savings made equate to taking a combustion-engine car off the road. When managing 65,000 product repairs a week, that’s a significant saving.

The move towards electric vehicles in field service operations is also challenging. With the need to ensure sufficient battery capacity, routing and scheduling needs to factor in availability of charge points, the schedule, and range. Excess van stock, including obsolete and excess stock and even colder weather can also significantly reduce range.

PREDICTIVE SERVICE

The use of predictive intelligence will become even more far reaching. Everything from when a device might be likely to fail, to the parts that might be needed, to skill proficiency and therefore time-to-

BY MARK BREWER VP Service Industries, IFS.

fix when allocating different engineers, is all within the scope of predictive adoption.

Two factors underpin successfully adopting these competences: the first is the availability of data. And the second is the presence of effective Artificial Intelligence, AI and machine learning capabilities to interpret the findings, detect anomalies and create predictive service insights. Increasingly, we can expect AI insights and analyses to augment and support human engineers.

For example, based on the analysis of historic fault patterns, symptoms and resolutions, AI can suggest the most likely parts an engineer will require as standard to secure a fix.

Insightful service is effectively data-driven prescriptive diagnosis combined with intelligent service. At the same time, this real time connectivity to assets and devices also enables asset performance management, and ultimately asset optimisation, both directly linked to customer experience and a successful delivered service first business model.

EX

Customer experience, CX, has hogged the spotlight now for several years. Post pandemic, things have changed. Now,

facing a global skills shortage and The Great Resignation, the service sector is also rapidly recognising the importance of the employee experience, EX.

A staggering 40% of field workers are due to retire within the next ten years. Unless we can attract new talent, this invaluable knowledge and insight will be lost. Ignoring the need to create an AI-powered intelligent knowledgebase could well prove a costly oversight.

80% of the global workforce –some 2.7 billion people – are employed on the front line, deskless. The pandemic taught us just how important some of these workers are and, in many cases, how poorly equipped they are. In the absence of a consumer UX-style mobile-first strategy by many employers, with simple and efficient onboarding, they remain woefully forgotten and, in many cases, disconnected.

If organisations want to retain and engage with this workforce, they need to emulate the focus and experience given to more traditional desk-based staff, both office-based and remote.

A shift to a mobile-first focus, and embracing concepts such as gamification, turns mobile devices in the field into a powerful and pervasive technicianenablement platform – and a compelling way to attract and retain new talent. Over the coming year we can expect to see EX increasingly becoming an equal citizen to CX.

SHORT AND LONG CYCLE

There is a difference between high volume, break-fix service regimes for products, and servicing major high value asset investments, where service or modernisation programmes may span many months or years. Historically, companies have deployed separate distinct workforces to fulfil short-cycle break-fix requirements versus the long-

Real time connectivity to assets enables asset performance management and ultimately asset optimisation

cycle service planning required for strategic assets and projects. However, these boundaries are beginning to blur, with a shift towards a multidisciplined blended workforce. The skills shortage means companies want to develop multi-skilled technicians who can perform both a 30-minute fix and also a day-long full asset overhaul. There’s also a transition from the traditional fixed periodic maintenance model to condition and usage-based service. But managing schedules and maintenance plans for multiple geographically dispersed assets in this way is complex.

Since the pandemic, remote service is no longer a bolt on and is now an integral part of any service offering. Now a service model in its own right, remote monitoring and diagnostics are increasingly working hand-in-hand with remote, virtual assistance.

Regardless of the model, and how service is designed and delivered, the success depends on delivering a consistent, positive customer experience – end to end: whether that’s when calling to book an engineer, using online resources, rescheduling an appointment, or being guided on the phone. Nothing should present itself to a customer as a bolt-on or afterthought.

MANAGEENGINE

REGULATION OF AI, ENTERPRISE-WIDE IT SOON

EU’s AI Act could be enforced as early as 2024, while enterprises will soon have IT personnel throughout the organisational chart for business-driven needs.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been significant changes in how employees interact with IT tools and teams. Across the board, enterprises are seeing more collaboration between nonIT employees and IT personnel, and this collaboration can be, at least in part, attributed to IT decentralisation and democratisation.

In the increasingly digital-first, hybrid work environment, there are five predictions that are likely to come to fruition.

In the current digital-first, hybrid work

environment, more employees than ever are deciding for themselves how their technologies will be chosen, deployed, and used, which has led to an increase in the use of low, no-code solutions. Also, AI models will continue to evolve; scalable platforms will be preferable to individual tools, and enterprises will make some tough hiring decisions in 2023.

continue to influence hiring decisions. Continuing to train, educate, and foster the careers of existing employees is the best course of action. That said, enterprises will have to choose for themselves how best to proceed.

AI MODELS WILL CONTINUE TO EVOLVE

that each department will have its own IT team in the next five years.

THE TOOL VERSUS PLATFORM DEBATE WILL BE LAID TO REST

BY RAJESH GANESAN President ManageEngine.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

l In the wake of the Great Resignation, some companies assumed it would be easy to find new talent, but that really has not been the case.

l Continuing to train, educate, foster the careers of existing employees is the best course of action.

l Set to become law in 2023, EU’s AI Act could start being enforced as early as 2024.

l As technological expertise continues to permeate throughout enterprises, nonIT employees will use low, no-code platforms.

l The platform option is far more efficient and having a tool for every problem does not help enterprises.

In 2023, there will be AI models with better precision, being built with a limited amount of training data. Techniques like few shots learning and transfer learning will see increased adoption, and the gap between natural language processing and computer vision will continue to blur. As an example, we are already seeing applications that allow us to search through a recording for a particular topic; then, by conversing with a chatbot, we are brought to the relevant timestamps.

AI regulation is also on the horizon. Just like the data privacy legislation, this regulation will come from the European Union. Set to become law in 2023, the EU’s AI Act could start being enforced as early as 2024.

ENTERPRISE-IT WILL EVOLVE INTO ENTERPRISE-WIDE IT

The decentralisation of IT personnel will continue. Not only will most enterprises have a centralised IT group to handle requirements like systems deployment, cybersecurity, compliance, and threat detection, but these enterprises will also have IT personnel throughout the organisational chart, addressing specialised business-driven needs as they arise.

As technological expertise continues to permeate throughout enterprises, nonIT employees and IT-adjacent service delivery teams will use low, no-code platforms to build and deploy simple applications. According to a recent ManageEngine study - IT at Work: 2022 and Beyond, 42% of global IT decision makers believe

Enterprises of varying sizes and maturity have made different choices, especially in regard to the management of their technology infrastructure. Some opted to go with a specialised tool for every problem; others invested in a platform that could expand to solve problems as they arose.

The platform option is far more efficient. Having a tool for every problem doesn’t help enterprises keep pace with changing demands. More and more enterprises will opt for the holistic, scalable platform approach to managing their technology infrastructure.

UNIFIED SERVICE DELIVERY DESIGNED FOR REMOTE-FIRST EMPLOYEES

Organisations will consolidate enterprise services on a unified service management platform, facilitating remote-first employees with a productive workspace—wherever these employees choose to work. In addition to IT knowledge resources commonly accessed from a single enterprise selfservice portal, employees will increasingly be able to access and request services.

For example, the capacity to onboard remote employees, confirm corporate bookings, and submit travel expenses.

TECHNOLOGY TALENT WILL CONTINUE TO BE A CHALLENGE

The rapid evolution of technology and the changing business landscape has put pressure on businesses to find and retain talent; the question of whether enterprises should find fresh talent or reskill existing employees is one that enterprises will have to make.

CYBER RISK IS BUSINESS RISK

Good fundamental security practices must be in place to reduce vulnerabilities, and security teams need to evaluate crisis planning to understand the real consequences of an attack.

Mimecast, has released its latest State of Ransomware Readiness 2 report, revealing that ransomware has become a primary threat to organisations worldwide, with Middle Eastern companies not spared from the devastating impact of ransomware attacks.

The report found that 59% of cybersecurity leaders in the UAE have seen the number of cybersecurity attacks increase or stay the same over the past year, with 39% saying they’ve experienced significant downtime due to a ransomware attack.

Mimecast’s State of Ransomware Readiness 2 report is based on insights from 1100 cybersecurity

BY WERNO GEVERS

decision-makers in Australia, France, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordics, Singapore, South Africa, the UAE, UK and US.

Business and security leaders

75%

of businesses in UAE reported they experienced a ransomware attack in the past year

in the past twelve months. This may partly explain why nearly half, 46% of cybersecurity professionals in the UAE are considering leaving their role in the next two years due to stress or burnout, with 73% of cybersecurity leaders in the region saying their role gets more stressful every year.

The research also found that 94% of global cybersecurity leaders believe more budget is required to combat ransomware, with 24% of UAE organisations seeking an increase of 11% to 20% in their annual cybersecurity budgets.

see ransomware attacks as virtually inevitable. Seventyfive percent of businesses in the UAE reported they experienced a ransomware attack in the past year, ahead of a global average of 64%. The consequences can be devastating: a third of UAE cybersecurity teams have experienced an increase in the number of absences due to burnout following an attack, while 23% have seen changes in the C-suite due to a successful ransomware attack.

The report further found that 44% of UAE organisations have experienced a loss in revenue due to a ransomware attack

Cybersecurity leaders need to focus on proactively reducing the chances of a ransomware attack causing disruption. Organisations need integrated security tools to improve threat detection capabilities and relieve pressure on busy security teams. Good fundamental security practices must be in place to reduce vulnerabilities, and security teams need to evaluate crisis planning to understand the real consequences of an attack.

It is also essential that leaders acknowledge that cyber risk is business risk, and not leave the financial and personnel resource burden to only IT teams.

Cybersecurity Expert, Mimecast.

CHANGE DRIVEN BY LESSONS OF RECENT PAST

From supply chains to the choice of Opex over Capex, the year ahead will encompass change driven by the lessons of the recent past.

While the Gulf region is undergoing steady recovery, the past few years of turmoil have forced executives to inspect every aspect of their operations. Supply-chain issues, despite some encouraging improvements, continue to cast a shadow in some industries. Inflation rates are creeping ever upwards.

In the UK, improvement is expected around mid2023, whereas in some quarters in the US, inflation is feared to be a longer-term problem. While in Gulf countries the highest inflation rates are around half those in the US and Europe, we expect all these factors and more to keep regional business leaders on their toes in 2023.

Energy costs will be of significant concern and the

BY JAMES PETTER VP and GM International, Pure Storage.

entire C-suite will start to take an interest in economics as external issues continue to impact budgets and operations. From supply chains to the choice of Opex over Capex, the year ahead will encompass change driven by the lessons of the recent past.

While historically large enterprises have worked with different cloud providers for different use cases, this creates cloud lock-in which customers are sick and tired of. Next year we will see an increase in customers building cloud neutrality into their design to avoid this lock-in even if it’s only to prepare for the future.

BY FRED LHERAULT

To do so, companies will rely heavily on containerising applications, making them portable across private, public and hybrid cloud infrastructure, regardless of the cloud providers at play. There will also be a push to consolidate management of applications through Kubernetes platforms with all the flexibility, speed, cost effectiveness and security needed to ensure success in a cloud neutral environment.

Realistically, the CFO will dictate the agenda over the next twelve months, and likely beyond. C-suite officers rarely take their eye off the bottom line, but next year will see them staring at it more intently, which obviously means the CFO will steer budgets even more than usual. In the technology sector, we will hear plenty more conversations about TCO and in-year ROI. And, given the spend control that they offer, I think that means a more concerted move towards subscription services for many organisations.

Many finance teams favour a general Capex-before-Opex approach. Writing off depreciation for physical assets like IT hardware is a helpful mechanism for improving the health of corporate books, after all—especially for cash-rich companies.

But unpredictable energy and infrastructure costs mean fixedcost subscriptions look very

Subscription services that can deliver savings, not just in year one but year two and beyond, could sway CFOs

appealing, especially when coupled with the fact that new services can be brought on without massive initial investments. And those subscription services that can deliver savings, not just in year one but well into year two and beyond, could sway CFOs and budget holders in 2023.

With sustainability being a priority for many organisations, efficient technologies which use less energy and have a better carbon footprint will be on many board’s agenda. Today’s businesses are much more environmentally conscious, but volatile energy costs have forced the issue in many countries around the world and in the next year we will see green and sustainability credentials at the tip of the spear in conversations between vendors, service providers and customers.

Many groups within organisations will develop a much greater understanding of sustainability metrics and methodologies and will start applying them when making technology choices.

Field CTO EMEA and Emerging Markets, Pure Storage.

From supply chains to the choice of Opex over Capex, the year ahead will encompass change driven by the lessons of the past

BY COLIN PRESLY

SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY

DATA MANAGEMENT DRIVING STORAGE INNOVATION

Hardware-based acceleration, convergence of interfaces, mass capacity hard drives, heat-assisted magnetic recording, will surface in 2023 and ahead.

In an era when businesses are deluged with data, a lot is going on in the industry to optimise data movement around a system. Data movement can be optimised in two major ways: via data reduction technology and

through data awareness methods. While softwarebased techniques have primarily addressed this issue, hardware-based technologies are now growing in popularity.

Examples of techniques increasingly being

Senior Director, Office of the CTO, Seagate Technology.

Heat-assisted magnetic recording technology will power the latest inflection in mass-capacity devices

implemented in hardware include encryption, compression, and dedupe. Data awareness tools that have a great deal of momentum going into 2023 are AI- and MLbased methods. Companies should be aware of hardware-based acceleration and offload as they increase their storage deployment. Emerging interfaces will continue to reduce complexity of storage systems. CXL and NVMe have gotten a lot of traction in 2022. In 2023 that traction will give way to a more simplified deployment. Increasingly, NVMe over fabric is being used to mesh end devices together.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

l Companies should be aware of hardware-based acceleration and offload as they increase their storage deployment.

l Convergence of interfaces allows for simplification of solutions as well as expansion of composability use cases.

l Businesses will be able to spend less on connectivity and hardware.

CXL will be key to extending memory as systems continue to become disaggregated.

Convergence of interfaces allows for simplification of solutions as well as expansion of composability use cases. Thanks to this trend, businesses will be able to spend less on connectivity and hardware.

Heat-assisted magnetic recording technology will power the latest inflection in masscapacity devices. The HAMRenabled boost in areal density will help fuel next-generation hard drive development and growth through the next decade. HAMR technology will enable the first-generation of 30TB+ hard drives, which will ship in 2023. HAMR will enable the new trajectory of capacity growth, providing businesses more room for their data.

SERVICENOW

INTELLIGENT DIGITAL INVESTMENTS CAN BE DEFLATIONARY

Business leaders are shifting investment to technologies that will deliver outcomes faster and 95% CEOs are pursuing a digital-first strategy according to IDC.

Organisations are facing an incredibly complex and volatile macro environment – and as they manage in this environment of uncertainty, decision making and business strategy is being put under the magnifying glass. A focus on business

transformation for efficiency and ROI – more than what is new will be top of mind for the coming year.

BY CATHY MAUZAIZE VP

BY MARK ACKERMAN

deliver outcomes faster. Going into 2023, technology will become increasingly central to business success - in fact, 95% of CEOs are already pursuing a digitalfirst strategy according to IDC’s CEO survey, as digital companies deliver revenue growth far faster than non-digital ones.

Business transformation also requires talent transformation, and employers will continually need to upskill their employees to get to grips with the technologies that will drive success. Boosting digital skills as part of digital transformation is a win-win for organisations as closing the digital skills gap could add $11.5 trillion to global GDP by 2028, according to the World Economic Forum.

In crisis, everyone looks around for reassurance. Businesses look around for ways of getting through the crisis and becoming immune to the next one. Resilience has been the word of the day for countless months. It remains so because of the aftershocks of the pandemic — supply-chain issues and inflation being just two examples.

AI-powered analytics does not just allow real-time insights into the efficiency of processes and the profitability of business models; it clears the way for predictive analyses that show a path to longterm success.

When technology stacks

BY ULRIK NEHAMMER President EMEA, ServiceNow.

include mechanisms for extracting meaningful, useful data from structured and unstructured sources and categorizing it for presentation and review, decision makers get access to valuable knowledge.

In 2023, we expect to see an innovation cycle, as the positive ROI from these technologies encourages yet more investment.

In 2023, we should expect regional business leaders to demand more ROI on technology investments. Inflation rates may be lower in the GCC than they are in the Americas or Europe, but they are still of concern. The right digital investments could have a corrective impact on the bottom line.

2023 will be primarily focused on companies continuing to implement technologies that will enable them to prioritise business agility. This year, we will see that investment in solutions to address emerging ESG challenges will continue to be a business priority, as well as a focus on implementing technologies that will continue to transform the way we work to retain talent and continue on the path of growth.

In addition, the focus on introducing new technologies, such as the metaverse, will continue to grow, to help cultivate and maintain employee engagement in an increasingly challenging and hybrid macro-environment.

South EMEA, ServiceNow.

Area VP for Middle East and Africa, ServiceNow.

We should expect regional business leaders to demand more ROI on technology investments

ARIS FOR SUSTAINABILITY LAUNCHED IN 2022

Launched to aid organisations measure emissions using data from devices, identify root causes and contributing factors, while using ML and AI to manage them.

Given the fact that the pandemic is only just behind us while the threat of recession is looming ahead, organisations are expected to be cautious in their human capital investments by elevating and promoting deserving and competent workforce while limiting new hires or team expansions to the bare minimum. The key will lie in being agile in responding to social, political and economic external changes that could shake up a country, region or the entire world.

This can be simply achieved by focusing on core capabilities, core processes with the right organisational support while relying on thirdparty support in areas that are not strategic or where suitable and cost-effective, to not increase head count that leads to additional

overheads. Adhering to these cautionary measures will keep the company resilient in 2023.

Businesses have faced huge challenges and have undergone incredible amount of change over the past few years. While in 2023, businesses will have to deal with the aftereffects of the pandemic, the year will continue to witness innovations and developments for businesses to optimise and consolidate to create smarter enterprises through business and technology transformations.

Moreover, given the political changes and global economic outlook, ongoing inflation and subdued economic growth, companies need to continue elevating their resilience and future proofing to stay afloat as they constantly look to gain cost and business efficiencies for the long-term.

As businesses continue to accelerate digital transformation and technologies such as AI,

BY CEZMI EROGLU Director Transformation Solutions, Software AG.

IoT, cloud, blockchain, will see continued adoption and boundaries blurring. The focus of transformation in 2023 will lie on technologies that will support optimisation and sustainability objectives and strengthen existing organisational capabilities. For this, businesses will need to ensure the right technologies are adopted throughout processes in every area of operations across the business.

Speaking of sustainability, as the world is increasingly waking up to the fact that climate disaster will pose a huge challenge, companies will have to ensure creating sustainable business models by integrating systems seamlessly and running processes efficiently to facilitate free flow of information and insights to drive transformational growth.

board that identify root causes and contributing factors using ML and AI and recommend ways to best manage them; either alter or eliminate those areas from the business to make them more sustainable.

Additionally, integration solutions software webMethods from Software AG aids organisations in merging duplicate processes using analytics thereby making the organisation overall efficient.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

l Focusing on core capabilities and core processes while relying on third-party support in areas that are not strategic.

l Adhering to these cautionary measures will keep the company resilient in 2023.

l Businesses have faced huge challenges and have undergone incredible amount of change over the past few years,

l Companies will have to create sustainable business models by integrating systems seamlessly and running processes efficiently.

Solutions that will see significant growth, amongst others are, solutions around security, data governance and the adoption of agile and scalable integration with increasing cloud adoption for optimum impact on IT and business operations and the overall infrastructure of a business.

In present times, most enterprises are becoming aware that carbon emissions are not a result of certain activities or some processes of an organisation alone. For instance, it is no longer limited to manufacturing companies which were known to contribute to carbon emissions directly. Executive travel, for instance is becoming one of the big contributors to this and organisations are consciously reducing employee travel thereby consciously contributing towards building a sustainable future.

Having said, a thorough evaluation of organisation wide processes is important to consolidate and optimise processes that help in monitoring carbon emissions. ARIS for Sustainability from Software AG was launched earlier in 2022 to aid organisations to monitor and measure emissions using data from devices across the

ARIS from Software AG supports business process analysis and management, enables organisations to embrace digital transformation, helping them identify and improve business inefficiencies and is the key to operational excellence. Its process mining capabilities allows businesses to identify bottlenecks and opportunities and execute processes in a more efficient manner while also enabling a comparison between identified as-is situations and to-be standards to drive process standardisation.

On the other side, the company’s Enterprise Architecture Management and IT planning and portfolio tool Alfabet, enables technology executives to analyse their IT landscape from a capability and financial perspective. This allows organisations to wisely manage their current IT portfolio and collaboratively plan, through consolidation of applications, cloud migration etc.

As more organisations move to cloud in the region, an increased need for hybrid integration is being witnessed. A platform like Software AG’s Hybrid Integration and API management platform, webMethods is built to connect cloud and on-premise data and applications and takes into account everyone and everything that needs to work together to make modern enterprises run like a well-oiled machine – to create a truly ‘hybrid’ approach.

SOPHOS

PRIORITY FOR SECURITY MUST MATCH CLOUD ADOPTION

It is imperative that security is prioritised as organisations continue to adopt cloud services and includes threat-based protections and risk-based mitigations.

Sophos has published findings of a new survey, The Reality of SMB Cloud Security in 2022. The survey found that, among Infrastructure as a Service, IaaS users, 56% experienced an increase in the volume of attacks on their organisation when compared to

the previous year, and 67% were hit by ransomware. In addition, 59% experienced an increase in complexity of attacks.

For many of these users, a lack of visibility into their infrastructure, unpatched vulnerabilities and resource misconfigurations make them susceptible

BY JOHN SHIER

65%

to various types of attacks, including ransomware. Of those surveyed, only 37% track and detect resource misconfigurations and only 43% routinely scan IaaS resources for software vulnerabilities.

What is more, 65% of cloud users reported not having visibility of all resources and their configurations, and only 33% said their organisation has the resources to continuously detect, investigate and remove threats in their IaaS infrastructure.

It is imperative that security is prioritised as organisations continue to adopt cloud services.

This includes implementing traditional threat-based protections, as well as riskbased mitigations. Unpatched vulnerabilities and misconfigured resources are both preventable mistakes and avoidable risks that make life easier for attackers.

Most attackers are not unstoppable criminal masterminds, but rather opportunistic cyberthugs looking for an easy payday. However, the survey also found that more advanced IaaS users are twice as likely to report a decrease in attack impact than beginners, suggesting the appropriate defence mechanisms can go a long way in deterring threat actors.

of cloud users reported not having visibility of resources and configurations

Senior Security Advisor, Sophos.

ANTICIPATE BREACH OF SAAS PROVIDER IN 2023

Given the adoption rates of SaaS applications, the shared responsibility model and limited monitoring, this attack surface is ripe for compromise.

Challenging macroeconomic conditions will cause companies to re-evaluate traditional IT cybersecurity spending, however these same companies will prioritise and proportionally increase security spending on their much more critical Operational Technology systems. The consequences of high-profile events like Colonial Pipeline have demonstrated that the risk to OT is higher and boardroom cybersecurity discussions almost

always include securing OT.

Nation states will begin to target cloud service provider, CSP managed services as companies migrate more of their attack surface to these managed services. Cloud adoption continues to rapidly rise, in fact, CSP managed service market is projected to grow to $117.65 billion by 2028, a 14.5% spike from 2020. While there are numerous benefits to cloud adoption and outsourcing cloud services to an MSP, the opportunities for exposure increases

BY BOB HUBER Chief Security Officer, Tenable.

BY MARTY EDWARDS Deputy CTO OT and IoT, Tenable.

significantly, which attackers will without a doubt capitalise on.

We can anticipate a significant breach of a SaaS provider in 2023. Given the adoption rates of SaaS applications, the shared responsibility model and limited monitoring, this attack surface is ripe for compromise.

Extortion will be an increasingly disruptive force to enterprises

BY CLAIRE TILLS Senior Research Engineer, Tenable.

in all industries in 2023. In the past year, we have seen threat actors of all motivations moving to extortion-only attacks and forgoing the more complex tactics like data-encrypting malware, ransomware. The notoriety and success of extortion groups like Lapsus$ means that other groups will continue to mimic their tactics.

Nation states will begin to target cloud service provide managed services

TRELLIX

GEOPOLITICS, HACKTIVISM, OPPOSING POLITICS WILL DRIVE CYBERATTACKS

As stress continues to weigh on the global economy, organisations should expect increased activity from threat actors looking to advance their own agenda.

We started 2022 with an industrywidevulnerability in Log4J, which was closely followed by cyber and physical war targeting Ukraine. We are closing the year observing hacktivists taking matters into their own hands, new actors in operation, and a changed but increasingly active ransomware landscape.

Forecasts from the Trellix Advanced Research Centre anticipate spikes in geopolitically motivated attacks across Asia and Europe, hacktivism fuelled by tensions from opposing political parties, and vulnerabilities in core software supply chains. l Geopolitical factors will continue to be a high motivation for misinformation campaigns and cyberattacks timed with kinetic military activity.

BY VIBIN SHAJU VP EMEA,

l As groups of loosely organised individuals fuelled by propaganda align for a common cause, they will ramp up their use of cyber tools to voice their anger and cause disruption across the globe.

l Both threat actors and security researchers will heighten their study of underlying software frameworks and libraries resulting in an increase in breaches related to software supply chain issues.

l Teens and young adults will engage at increasing levels in cybercrime – everything from large-scale attacks on enterprises and governments to low-level crimes that target family, friends, peers, and strangers.

Weaponised phishing attacks will increase across commonly used business communication services

BY JOHN FOKKER Head of Threat Intelligence,

l The outsourcing of malware creation and operation, diversification of malware development, and use of leaked source code will make attribution of cyberthreats to specific threat actors increasingly challenging.

l A significant rise in advanced cyberactors causing disruptions to critical infrastructure in vulnerable targets will be observed.

l Weaponised phishing attacks will increase across commonly used business communication services and apps, like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and others.

l The advanced capabilities of consumer and enterprise IoT devices will be leveraged by hackers to mine cryptocurrencies.

l The compromise of satellites and other space assets will increase and become more public in 2023.

l There will be a huge jump in reverse-vishing, or voice phishing attacks, with less tech-aware users being the primary target.

l More domain privilege escalation vulnerabilities will be discovered as well as more real-world attacks against Microsoft Windows with the explicit goal of complete network takeover. As stress continues to weigh on the global economy, as we head into the new year, organisations should expect increased activity from threat actors looking to advance their own agenda, whether for political or financial gain.

Analysing current trends is necessary but being predictive in cybersecurity is vital. While organisations focus on nearterm threats, we advise all to look beyond the horizon to ensure a proactive posture. Global political events and the adoption of new technology will breed novel threats from more innovative threat actors.

Solutions Engineering, Trellix.

Trellix.

Geopolitical factors will continue to be a high motivation for misinformation campaigns

CYBER WARFARE REMAINS A REAL THREAT

Leaders of organisations will start to pay attention, investing more in the incident response and speed to limit the blast radius of such a cyber weapon.

Organisations will face more unknown cyber threats targeting on-premises systems, cloud infrastructure, and SaaS applications. The skills shortage is worsening too, causing analysts to becoming overloaded and burnt-out. Combined, this is creating a perfect storm, leaving organisations more vulnerable to a breach.

Organisations must adopt an effective detection and response strategy that reduces the burden on analysts, prioritising the most high-risk alerts. This means using tools that can identify the suspicious behaviours that an adversary will exhibit as part of an unfolding attack, flagging up these signals so organisations can stop an attack before it becomes a breach.

Supply chain attacks will continue but hackers

will look beyond the ‘usual suspects’ to cause havoc. Attackers will continue to cause maximum disruption in the form of supply chain attacks, but instead of targeting key suppliers, they will look beyond the ‘usual suspects’ to gain access into networks. For instance, this could include legal or accounting firms.

A holistic approach may help turn the tables on the matter: supply chain means partnership, partnership means collaboration and supporting each other. Only as a ‘mesh’ interconnected structure with consistent resiliency can companies thrive in the digital economy. This includes ensuring that they review the security policies of all those in the chain.

Traditional restoration procedures following a ransomware attack are both costly and time consuming for organisations; this is why in 2023 we will see organisations look to automation, via

BY BRIAN NEUHAUS CTO Americas, Vectra AI.

Meanwhile, organisations must ensure they have tools in place to detect suspicious login activity and stop it in its tracks.

Advances in quantum computing will force the hand of security leaders in 2023 to start thinking about this sensitive encrypted data in a post-quantum world. However, this approach will also grab the attention of attackers, and instead of bypassing encrypted data that was previously safeguarded, they will attempt to grab the data and keep it stored for sale or to be later decrypted.

Defenders should not rest on the laurels of encryption and start to take note of what NIST is doing in post quantum encryption this year for action in the coming years.

Supply chain attacks will continue but hackers will look beyond the usual suspects to cause havoc

BY CHRISTIAN BORST

infrastructure as code, to reduce downtime.

Through infrastructure as code, organisations can develop scripts that enable key infrastructure to self-heal so they can automatically return to action. Ultimately rebuilding broken infrastructure from scratch is a far quicker process than restoring as a result of automation.

With identity attacks on the rise, in 2023 attackers will continue to take advantage of vulnerable MFA methods. As companies continue to roll out MFA, attackers will continue to take advantage, either by flooding end users with requests to brute-force their way in, or by skilled phishing campaigns. End users will be the ones directly targeted by attackers.

This means not just organisations, but also consumers will need to be more aware than ever of the risks to their digital identities.

As an industry that is no stranger to burnout and stress, cybersecurity companies will have to ensure they can demonstrate they are an attractive outfit to work for. This is in order to fend off competition from tech companies that can often offer lucrative salaries and superior work-life balance. To achieve this, cybersecurity companies must adopt a more forwardthinking approach, this could include offering flexible working arrangements, performance incentives and health and wellness policies.

Increased analyst fatigue and resignation will see the tides turn away from protecting the castle walls to detection and response. Attackers are continuing to breach the castle walls, creating fatigue and eventual resignations amongst cybersecurity professionals. Instead of working on preventing these attacks from happening and to prevent employee burnout, we will see a needed shift to focus on reducing the impact of an attack.

This means building resilience within the organisation covering people, process and technology and focusing on early detection and sound response as opposed to protection and prevention.

Cyber warfare will remain a real

threat in 2023, from a broader use of known TTPs to an unknown equity of zero days just waiting for the strategically right moment to deploy against one’s foes. Leaders of private and public sector organisations will start to really pay attention, investing more in the incident response and speed at which vulnerabilities are being handled in the coming year to limit the blast radius of such a cyber weapon. Posture, detection, and quick response will be paramount this coming year.

Labels should state clear facts about the privacy and information security parameters of the product and organisation. One key piece of information on labels should be how long a company will support its software, because a physical device may outlast the time a product is supported.

Regional SOCs need to introduce AI into their security mix. AI that eliminates the noise found in most of today’s IT environments, Neuhaus added. The right data, analysed the right way, will open the door to a new era of visibility and control for security teams. In this Attack Signal Intelligence framework, cyber actors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures become more obvious and allow security professionals to be more effective threat hunters.

EMEA CTO, Vectra AI.

CROSS-CLOUD DATA MOBILITY TO BECOME MAINSTREAM

The UAE is a global hub for digital transformation and is leading the charge when it comes to public cloud adoption globally. Yet, as each new solution is introduced into an organisation’s technology stack, it adds more complexity and if not managed properly, cost.

According to Veritas research, 99% of UAE organisations are overspending on cloud and are going over their allocated cloud budgets by an average of 45%. As the amount of data continues to grow year over year, so does the cost of storing it in the cloud, which is becoming harder to justify. Though most companies have realised advanced business strategies through cloud adoption, CEOs and boards will increasingly demand transparency surrounding the ROI of cloud spend.

With many economists predicting a continued downturn next year, we expect scrutiny on IT spending to intensify further in 2023, which will put pressure on IT leaders to justify their cloud budgets while identifying new ways to reduce data volumes. This could lead to more effective data storage and management strategies, such as deduplication techniques to ensure reduced storage consumption.

According to recent research, the average UAE

business currently using three different public cloud providers to meet their storage needs. While there are countless benefits to a multi-cloud strategy, such as flexibility and agility, interoperability continues to be a challenge for data managers – not only is it expensive to move data from cloud to cloud, but when clouds do not work together seamlessly, this creates silos within an organisation and can introduce major security vulnerabilities.

To keep up with the pace of cloud offerings and achieve business-driven cloud goals, businesses will start leveraging AI, ML and autonomous solutions to help mitigate the challenges of siloed workloads and enhance cloud interoperability through data portability. As organisations work to address interoperability challenges and gain more control in the cloud, cross-cloud data mobility will become more mainstream in 2023.

Gartner predicts that by 2025, more than 50% of enterprise-managed data will be created and processed outside the datacentre or cloud. As more data processing moves to the edge, it complicates IT architecture and increases the attack surface. Enterprises often do not apply the same level of protection to the edge as they do in the datacentre or the cloud, often due to skills and staffing shortages.

To fully protect the enterprise, each of these

As organisations work to address interoperability challenges and gain more control in the cloud, cross-cloud data mobility will become mainstream in 2023.

BY YUDUM YONAK

Channel Director of International Emerging Region, Veritas Technologies.

made without significant influence from the CIO or IT leadership team.

Yet now, ownership of these containers and the protection of them has become more complex, creating silos and confusion over if it’s the backup admin or the DevOps admin that’s responsible. At the same time, organisations are struggling to identify which containers to back up and how to do so, which will likely lead to more investment in training to help close the Kubernetes skills gap. In 2023, IT departments will continue to navigate how to adequately protect and backup their Kubernetes environments.

Channel adapts to reality of 2023

99%

BY JOHNNY KARAM Managing Director and Vice President, International Emerging Region, Veritas Technologies.

edge devices needs to be protected and backed up. On top of that, organisations need to determine what data coming from edge devices is critical versus non-critical to maintain storage and protection costs, understanding the added scrutiny on IT budgets.

Over the last 24 months, Kubernetes has become mainstream. Containers are now being adopted in mission critical environments, meaning that the application environment and the underlying data in these environments now needs protection. Over a third of UAE organisations, 32% have already deployed Kubernetes for mission critical applications but this is often being driven at the project level, with 51% of Kubernetes adoption decisions being

According to recent data, 89% of global cloud decision makers have a multi-cloud strategy. And although businesses can now track, manage and provision cloud data in once place with cloud data management tools, they are still having to manage relationships with multiple cloud providers, which can be time consuming and complex.

In 2023, organisations will be looking to offload this responsibility to channel partners to help simplify the process and have one person to turn to for all things multi-cloud. Partners are poised to play a critical role as trusted advisors, helping their customers successfully evolve and adapt on their multi-cloud journeys by enabling them to modernise workloads while minimising costs.

The role of sourcing available equipment and solutions will become much more important for resellers in 2023. In order to be successful, they will need to be able to offer practical, affordable and, most importantly, available alternatives to their customers while helping them thoughtfully navigate their on-prem and multi-cloud environments. This will mean getting to grips with the appliances and cloud-based offerings from their vendors and

ensuring constant communications with them about their stock levels. Value-added services have historically been the key to profit making for most resellers, but the relentless march towards SaaS takes a bigger bite out of the market each year. As traditional businesses continue to decline – 28 companies dropped out of the Fortune Global 2000 this year – they are being replaced by younger companies born in the cloud and who are more inclined to SaaS adoption. As this trend continues in 2023, resellers will need to provide more strategic services beyond just ongoing management as the march towards SaaS continues.

With increased demand to provide organisations with managed data protection, MSPs will look to increase efficiency by deploying autonomous solutions that leverage AI, ML to deliver data management that is selfhealing and self-optimising while eliminating some of the manual day-to-day tasks.

In 2023, look for MSPs to help fill the cybersecurity talent shortage by implementing autonomous data management solutions to ensure their customers’ data is always available and resilient from ransomware and other cyber threats.

Looking Looking 2022 2022 back at back at

ARRIVAL OF THE SUCCESSFUL LOW-CODE DEVELOPERS

If we are to achieve diversity amongst developers and help ease the talent crisis, we need to completely break these down so that true inclusion can be achieved.

UAE businesses, and many of their GCC peers, now operate in an ecosystem of pressures. Customers want the best digital experiences right now, and more tomorrow. Regulators insist on the highest standards of privacy and security. And governments want innovation that will shine on the world stage for all to see. The future, it seems, is made for those that can deliver trusted, quality digital experiences at breakneck speed.

Regional technology leaders faced with this challenge must deliver against a backdrop of skills gaps. More and more software from a talent pool that does not have the knowledge to deliver it seems like an unrealistic demand.

Even if the skills are there to meet some of the demand, the CIO may not have enough coders to meet all of it.

As you read this, the UAE’s National Programme for Coders is in full swing, aiming to attract 100,000 software professionals and plug the country’s IT skills gaps. But the initiative, bold and visionary as it is, will take time to achieve its goals. Meanwhile, businesses have customers to appease, and the burden will fall on the IT department to produce the digital goods. Under normal circumstances, IT would farm at least some of the work out to a contractor, but today that is unnecessary.

Tools now exist to allow non-coders to build solutions without writing much, if any, code. A combination of cumulative industry knowledge and the advent of cloud computing has given us the low-code development platform, LDP, an intuitive work environment made for business-oriented users where point-and-click and drag-and-drop replace hours of syntax-aligned typing and debugging.

Low-code and even no-code tools have been around for a while and are already proving to be effective accelerants for digital transformation. When non-technical staff can code, it opens several avenues of operational enhancement. Non-coders learn new skills and get to perform more

BY JAD KHALIFE Director of Sales Engineering, Dataiku.

challenging tasks. Professional coders, to whom these tasks were humdrum, get to concentrate on more complex problems. The projects that are undertaken by non-coders have a quicker time to production and a greater success rate because the developer is also the end user, which means requirements do not get lost in translation during laborious requirements-gathering exercises. Additionally, as more and more people across the organisation get to access and innovate with data, ideation and innovation increase. Low code even works with advanced technologies such as AI. Technology leaders who become aware of the benefits of low code can discard the traditional trade-off between off-the-shelf AI products and pure-build solutions, where they had to choose between empowering business analysts at the risk of losing competitive edge and empowering data scientists at the risk of poor production outcomes.

When non-technical staff can code, it opens several avenues of operational enhancement

But today we know a little more about the upsides and downsides of such choices. We have come to realise that a culture of collaboration, involving people from different parts of the enterprise, is necessary for the success of an AI project. Business analysts, data scientists, IT administrators, and business users all have a role to play in introducing Everyday AI.

For low code to work, especially in an Everyday AI setting, the technology space must be easy to understand for the non-technology professional. IT should engage in a springcleaning venture that eliminates data silos and establishes a unified analytics-ready environment. Next, stakeholders need to have a meeting of minds to uncover the most appropriate internal use cases.

No- and low-code platforms are not just for citizen developers. Professional coders can use them to speed up development of solutions too complex to assign to a non-coder. Each use case can be assigned a developer whose skills are appropriate to the challenge.

Sometimes data science projects will be resource-heavy and citizen developers can work on parts of the solution where it makes sense. This is an immensely effective use of resources and with the right resource strategy, can accelerate development of even the most complex projects. Such tasks include smart data ingestion, data cleaning, and dataset merging.

In some instances, the citizen developer may even have the opportunity to create new machine learning models, apply model assertions to capture and test known use cases, and conduct what-if analyses to interactively test model sensitivity. All of these activities can be significant boosts to job satisfaction for business users and subsequently to talentretention rates.

Meanwhile data scientists,

software developers and other IT roles will have room to innovate, applying their skillsets in more value-adding areas. Low-code tools not only help citizen developers to alleviate the burden on technical staff. Technical staff can use them directly in a number of ways.

For example, LDPs can help data scientists with model maintenance. Visual, collaborative interfaces for data pipelining and preparation, as well as model training and support for MLOps, allow data scientists to scale their models more easily. LDPs can deliver transparency and traceability and reduce the likelihood of failure or disruptions to operations. When it comes to Everyday AI, LDPs deliver the visibility needed to gather clear performance metrics for models and draw a clear line between design and production environments.

Another boon to the data scientist is code reuse. Lowand no-code tools all but eliminate the repetition that

Non-coders learn new skills and get to perform more challenging tasks

would normally plague their daily schedule, especially where code silos obfuscate workflows and tasks are unnecessarily duplicated. LDPs can be repositories and catalogues for code that allow data scientists to see at a glance what tasks have been completed and which are pending.

On the quick march to digital transformation and Everyday AI, low-code and no-code development are indispensable elements of a larger strategy — one in which each skillset, technical and non, is utilised to the fullest.

RUNNING CODE AND INFINITE SCALING THROUGH SUPERCLOUD

Foundations of Supercloud are compute and data services that make running any size application efficient and infinitely scalable without the baggage of cloud.

performance and privacy.

BY JOHN GRAHAMCUMMING CTO, Cloudflare.

By its nature the cloud was a virtualisation of the older real-world infrastructure and not a radical rethink of what computing should look like to meet the demands of Internetscale businesses. It’s as if steam locomotives were replaced with efficient electric engines but still required a chimney on top and stopped to take on water every two hundred miles.

The Internet was not built for what it has become. The cloud was not designed for what it must become.

That sentence expresses the idea that the Internet, which started as an experiment, has blossomed into something we all need to rely upon for our daily lives and work. And that more is needed than just the Internet as was designed; it needed security and

The cloud replaced the rituals of buying servers and installing operating systems with new and now familiar rituals of choosing regions, and provisioning virtual machines, and keeping code artificially warm.

But along the way glimpses of light are seen through the cloud in the form of lambdas, or edges, or functions, or serverless. All are trying to give a name to a model of cloud computing that promises to make developers highly productive at scaling from one to Internet-scale. It is a model that rather than virtualising machines or disks or wrapping things in containers says: write code, we will run it, do not sweat the details like scaling or location.

We are calling that the Supercloud.

The foundations of the Supercloud are compute and data services that make running any size application efficient and infinitely scalable without the baggage of the cloud as it exists today.

Just as programmers did not always want to think in databasesized chunks, they should not have to think about VM- or containersized chunks. It is inefficient and has nothing to do with the actual job of writing code to create a service. It is unnecessary work that distracts from the real value of programming something into existence.

The theory of computing points away from dedicated machines, virtual or real and to code and data that run on the Supercloud handling the details of code execution and data locality automatically and efficiently. So, whether you write your code by breaking it up into functions or ship large pieces of functionality or entire programs, the foundations of the Supercloud means that your code benefits from its efficiency. The Supercloud makes scaling easy because no one has to think about how many VMs to provision, no one has to keep hot standby VMs in case there’s a flood of visitors. Just as MapReduce, which traces its heritage to the lambda calculus scales up and down, so should general purpose computing. And it’s not just about scaling. In the Supercloud both code and data are mobile and move around the network. Attach data to the code, such as with Durable Objects; hello Actor model and you have a foundation for applications that can scale to any size and move close to users as needed to provide the best performance.

Alternatively, if your data is immovable, we move your code closer to it, no matter how many

In the Supercloud both code and data are mobile and move around the network

times you need to access it.

Not only that but working at this level of flexibility means that code enforcing a data privacy or data residence law about where data can be processed or stored can operate at the level of individual users or objects. The same code can behave differently and even be executed in a completely different country based on where its associated data is stored.

A Supercloud has two interesting effects on the cost of running a programme. Firstly, it makes it more economical because you only run what you need. There’s never any need for committed VMs waiting for work, or idle machines you are paying for just in case. Code either runs or it does not, it scales up and down as needed. You only pay for precisely what you need.

Secondly, it creates a more efficient compute platform which is better for everyone. It forces the compute platform, us to be as efficient as possible. We have to be able to start code quickly

for performance and scale up reasons. We need to efficiently use CPUs because no customer is paying us to keep idle CPUs around.

And it is better for the environment because cloud machines run at very high levels of utilisation. This level of efficiency is what allows our platform to scale to 10 million requests.

And this compute platform scales well beyond a machine, or a datacentre, or a country, it scales to the size of the Internet. Software allocates resources automatically across the globe, moving connections, data and processing around for high efficiency and optimal end user experience.

The Supercloud is performant, scalable, available, private, and cost-efficient. Choosing a region for your application, or provisioning virtual machines, or working out how to auto-scale containers, or worrying about cold starts seems ridiculous,

You have a foundation for applications that can scale to any size and move close to users

hard, anachronistic, a waste of time, rigid and expensive. There are over a million developers building on the Supercloud.

Each of those developers wants to get code running on one machine and perfect it. It is so much easier to work that way. We just happen to have one machine that scales to the size of the Internet: a global, distributed supercomputer.

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ANANTARA VELI MALDIVES RESORT REOPENS

Offering a reimagined adult-only experience set amid lagoon waters, Anantara Veli Maldives Resort reopened in December 2022 following nine months of extensive renovations. With revamped accommodations, including stylish new beach pool villas, a new villa host service for all guests, newly redesigned restaurants and a hammam added to the wellness-focused spa, the Maldivian playground is all set to cradle couples into vacation mode. Set on a natural island in the South Male Atoll, surrounded by a pristine lagoon, Anantara Veli Maldives Resort boasts an unspoiled setting.

The resort’s beach pool villas are set on soft white sands and come with sliding glass doors that open onto a private pool flanked by a cushioned daybed, an open-air living and dining space, and an island-style bedroom surrounded by tropical foliage. The most exclusive of Anantara Veli’s villa categories, each of the six new beach pool villas offers 148 square metres of luxurious space, with direct beach access and the utmost in privacy.

The relaunch of Anantara Veli also sees the introduction of a new wellness concept which allows guests to book a personalised wellness villa experience. Enhanced with light, sound and scent therapy that changes the ambience from day to night, the villa comes with Ayurvedic spa amenities, an earthing mat for meditation, and a wellness minibar with herbal teas, healthy shakes and wholefood snacks.

DH Park moves from Hyundai Motor India to Head Middle East and Africa Regional HQ

Hyundai Motor Company announced appointment of DH Park as its new Head of Hyundai Motor Company Middle East and Africa Regional HQ. With HMC, Park has assumed his duties at the regional headquarters in Dubai as of this week. He is to oversee operations across the Middle East Africa region.

During his career at HMC, Park has worked in nearly every role related to Marketing and Sales and has extensive work experience in numerous countries across Canada and Australia, as well as Spain where he served as President of Hyundai Motor in the country.

Later, he went back to Hyundai HQ as the Head of the Asia & MEA Group. Park’s previous position was at Hyundai Motor in India where he was the Executive Director of Sales, Marketing, and Services. Park brings over 27 years of automobile experience with global leadership roles in various positions at Hyundai Motor Company.

Aiken Group announced several key appointments to its leadership team. Dominic Koh was appointed as CEO of Aiken Digital Vietnam and Global Account Director. Joshua Ooi, who was previously Project Management Office Lead at Aiken Digital, has recently been appointed as General Manager of Aiken Digital APAC and Onyx Island. He will be reporting to Joseph Chua, CEO of Aiken Group. Kenneth Chiew, who was previously General Manager of Aiken Digital, has taken on a new role as General Manager of Velocity 678, an integrated live commerce arm of Aiken Group. Meanwhile, Jan Ong, pictured on left has been appointed as Business Director of Aiken Digital’s Mastercard account, reporting to Dominic Koh.

Joshua Ooi brings over 15 years of experience in developing insights-led digital campaigns and strong client relationships to his new role as General Manager. He will lead Aiken Digital’s strategic planning, business growth and talent development, and act as a thought leader in new business and client partnerships.

In his previous role as Partner of Onyx Island, a digital marketing agency, Joshua played an instrumental role in leading the Business team, growing the client portfolio, and expanding the agency’s MarTech capabilities.

Jan Ong has been appointed as Business Director, overseeing the Mastercard account of Aiken Digital. Jan has extensive industry expertise, including experience in financial institutions and various merchant verticals, travel, retail, F&B.

SK bioscience recruits Kenneth Lee as VP Biologic Business Development in South Korea

SK bioscience has recruited Kenneth Lee, former Head of Commercial Division, Americas of GenScript Probio, as Vice President of Biologic Business Development Department at R&D Centre in Pangyo, South Korea. Starting at Gilead Sciences, Lee worked at various Korean and international biopharmaceutical companies. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Cell Biology at the University of California Berkeley and an MBA at INSEAD.

Lee will be in charge of developing new biopharmaceutical-driven strategies beyond the vaccine business including a Cellular & Gene Therapy field

SK bioscience, announced that Richard Kensinger, PhD, former Director and Head of Drug Substance Process Development in Sanofi Pasteur and former Executive Director of Process Development and Protein Sciences at Affinivax has joined in SK bioscience USA as Vice President of R&D Project Management.

(Lefttoright)JanOng,BusinessDirectorofAiken Digital’sMastercard;andJoshuaOoi,General ManagerofAikenDigitalAPACandOnyxIsland.

(Leftandright)RichardKensinger,VicePresident ofR&DProjectManagement,SKbioscienceand KennethLee,VicePresident,BiologicBusiness DevelopmentDepartmentatR&DCentrein Pangyo,SKbioscience.

Dominic Koh, Joshua Ooi, Kenneth Chiew, Jan Ong join Aiken’s leadership team

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