Computer News Middle East November 2017

ISSUE 310 | NOVEMBER 2017 WWW.TAHAWULTECH.COM

ICT ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 2017 HUAWEI ULTRABROADBAND FORUM, HANGZHOU WHY DOES MOBILITY LAG IN GCC ENTERPRISES?

INAUGURAL EVOLVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FORUM CHINA CONSTRUCTION BANK WORD OF MOUTH: VOICE ASSISTANTS

THE BIGGER PICTURE HSBC MENAT CIO Ghinwa Baradhi converts global strategy into local technology

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EDITORIAL

Exciting times It’s been a busy month here at CNME. GITEX Technology Week was busy as ever for our team, but the event – as ever – served as a fantastic chance for us to reconnect with a lot of familiar faces from across the industry.

It’s opening day, October 8th, saw us host our eighth annual ICT Achievement Awards at the Conrad Hotel, this time with new categories for technology innovation and strategy by industry, and the chief digital officer of the year accolade. Those named the Middle East’s outstanding technology leaders can be found on page 42.

Tahawul Tech also hosted its first ever Evolve Digital Transformation GITEX served as Forum, which saw The Entertainer a fantastic chance founder and CEO Donna Benton for us to reconnect frame how the firm has completely with a lot of transitioned into an online world. familiar faces Learn what Donna and Evolve's other from across the speakers think the Middle East needs industry. to do next on page 16.

I had the privilege of hearing HSBC Middle East, North Africa and Turkey CIO Ghinwa Baradhi’s story of how she is shaping regional technology projects for one of the world’s most recognised brands. Ghinwa is putting her considerable skill to good use beyond her day-to-day role, and is not only helping to support technology entrepreneurs in Dubai, but is also working across the HSBC group to encourage equal opportunities for women in technology. More on page 20.

I also made the trip to Hangzhou, China for Huawei’s fourth annual Ultra-Broadband Forum, where global telecom heavyweights discussed their next steps in delivering the technology that consumers crave and businesses demand.

Talk to us:

E-mail: james.dartnell@ cpimediagroup.com

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Contents

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Strategic Innovation Partner

ISSUE 310 | NOVEMBER 2017

10

HUAWEI UBBF FORUM HANGZHOU

42 14

16

CPI MEDIA GROUP'S EVOLVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FORUM

ICT ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 2017

Beyond the hype CNME partnered with TransSys Solutions to bring together experienced CIOs from around the region to dispel the common myths surrounding digital transformation.

26 New build

China Construction Bank CIO Jin Panshi on technologically transforming one of the world’s 30 biggest companies by revenue into a cloud-led, ultra-broadband-driven era of AI and innovation.

30 Standing still

20

CIO SPOTLIGHT: HSBC MENAT CIO GHINWA BARADHI

What can CIOs do to accelerate the adoption of mainstream enterprise applications on mobile devices?

38 Money where your mouth is

The world’s biggest technology players are all staking their claim in the use of voice-based interfaces, but when can we expect this technology to significantly impact the enterprise?

60 Why the 'retail apocalypse' is a myth

Mike Elgan explores why splashy headlines and anecdotal observations that physical retail in the United States is set to die are blown out of proportion.

62

Real problems, artificial solution The exceptional opportunity of AI makes it imperative for enterprises to plan for change, says Gartner’s Mike Rollings.

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2017 State of Enterprise Communications

What technologies are hot? What problems are pressing? In a June survey, No Jitter Research asked 175 IT professionals about the biggest issues in enterprise communications. We learned that team collaboration is poised to pop, while cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), and speech technologies are coming on strong. Within the organisation, corporate management direction is the most important factor, while budget represents the biggest challenge to moving forward.

THE BASICS When asked to rate the importance of technologies to their organisations today, respondents indicated that email is significantly more important and audio conferencing almost as important as telephony. (164 responses)

82%

91%

79%

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IoT and speech technologies are about equal in terms of perceived importance today and within 24 months (more than 60% total say each will be critical to their organisations within 24 months). About half say Artificial Intelligence (AI) is either critical today, or will be within 24 months, while in contrast, more than half say that Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be at least 24 months away from importance, if ever (160 responses) Important today

Speech Technologies

Not critical today but in 24 months

(Natural Language, Speech Recognition/Text to Speech)

28%

36%

IoT

27%

38%

Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality

11%

26%

AI

14%

36%

49% 27% 8%

Considering it but haven’t done it yet Embarked on a strategy for integration Completed their integration

8%

Won’t consider it

INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS When it comes to integrating communications and vertical business apps, only a small fraction of respondents said they won't consider doing so.

(156 responses)

CLOUD ROLLING IN?

What is your organisation’s attitude toward using communications functions in the cloud?

(159 responses)

More than half (53%) have at least begun moving some communication functions to the cloud. Just 13% won’t consider it.

13%

34%

Won’t consider it

38%

Considering but haven’t done it yet

Moving some functions

TEAM COLLABORATION RISING

45% Team Collaboration

S MONTH

4%

Have completed full migration

ORGANISATIONAL FACTORS

53% UC

Management direction or lack thereof is more important than budget in driving the pace of communications technology strategy (Top 3 answers; multiple answers allowed / 174 responses)

45% 43%

24

11%

Have embarked on strategy for full migration

In comparing team collaboration to UC, team collaboration is almost as important as UC today, and within 24 months will essentially be just as important.

(164 responses)

34%

80%

Team Collaboration

UC

Management direction/lack of direction Budget Perceived maturity of the technology

However, budget still ranks as the #1 challenge to moving forward with communications technologies (“choose top 2 challenges” / 155 responses)

57%

78%

?

38% 35%

Budget Integrating disparate systems/interoperability Organisational/Staffing

Sony VAIO PCV-90

I

t was the summer of 1996. Chicago Bulls claimed their fourth NBA Championship, Will Smith’s ‘Independence Day’ premiered in cinemas worldwide, while 130,000 corporate computer users descended on Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Convention Centre for Sony’s annual three-day PC Expo event.

The hot topic of discussion during the exhibition was whether the personal computer was on its last legs – an idea that Sony soon dispelled when the firm reentered the PC market with the launch of its inaugural VAIO computer – the PCV90.

The first VAIO was a desktop computer, running on Windows 95’s operating system but with an additional 3D interface on top. It combined a 166MHz processor with 16MB of RAM, a 2.1GB HDD, and a 28.8-kbps modem. It was released in the US one year prior to hitting the Japanese market, and was succeeded by VAIO’s first PCG laptop series which followed in 1997.

The first model of the PCG series was the PCG-505. Designed to be easily transportable and lightweight, it sported a “super-slim” magnesium body – noted as one of the most significant features of a laptop device at the time.

The VAIO line of computers that followed were best known for having communication and audio-video capabilities at the forefront, including innovative designs that incorporated TV and radio tuners, web cameras, and handwriting recognition.

The line was discontinued when Sony sold their PC business with VAOI to Japan Industrial Partners in 2014.

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www.tahawultech.com

ANALYSIS

Huawei Ultra-Broadband Forum, Hangzhou

BROAD VIEW

Huawei used its fourth annual Ultra-Broadband Forum at the Hangzhou International Expo Centre in China to announce a new strategy for how telecom carriers can transform their services in the era of the “all-cloud” network. A selection of the firm’s globally-recognised customers and industry experts descended on the site of the 2016 G20 summit. James Dartnell reports.

There’s still a gap between enterprise expectations and what carriers deliver. A network alone is not enough.

Eric Xu, Huawei rotating CEO

I

f one thing was clear from the 2017 Ultra-Broadband Forum, it’s that work is needed in the telecoms industry. Not because services are inadequate, but that the onslaught of artificial intelligence, video and Big Data will completely move the goal posts for telcos in the coming years. Even some of the world’s household brands and gatekeepers for China’s critical infrastructure, present at UBBF, 10

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acknowledged the stern challenges that lie ahead.

Huawei research shows that government and enterprise customers have three major requirements for leased line services: on-demand, flexible services at competitive prices; rapid, easy service provisioning with bandwidth on-demand; and SLAs that can be visualised, checked and assured.

UBBF made perfectly clear that work

would have to be done to deliver these objectives in the coming 10 years.

Huawei’s rotating CEO Eric Xu kicked off the event by highlighting how the firm’s research indicates that businesses are generally unsatisfied in terms of what telco providers can offer. “Enterprise customers feel that carriers are not responsive,” he said. “Pricing models are rigid, and processes within are inadequate.

Whenever it comes to customers, www.tahawultech.com

models should be flexible. There’s still a gap between enterprise expectations and what carriers deliver. A network alone is not enough.”

He went on to highlight the need for carriers to re-position their leased line business. “Huawei is committed to working with carriers to build compelling leased line services for the B2B segment, to navigate challenges and to seize opportunities from the increasing adoption of cloud services,” he said. “One of the most prominent challenges comes from cloud service providers: they are eyeing the B2B market, too.”

Xu underlined how cloud-based private lines would be see increasing demand in the coming years, with B2B cloud services becoming a prominent model. “Fiber to the enterprise is a must,” he said. “Cloud is becoming a new opportunity for carriers going forward. They need to increase their adoption so that they can give themselves momentum. Cloud service providers are building more data centres and infrastructure, and moving data centres closer to end users. If they continue like this, lease line businesses could be cannibalised.”

Executive director and president of Huawei’s Carrier Business Group, Ryan Ding, also highlighted the criticality of providing “quality broadband”. According to statistics from the International Telecommunication Union, global broadband penetration increased from 18 percent in 2006 to 52 percent by the end of 2016. Ding said that as a result of this increase, experience is becoming a bottleneck that plagues broadband development, and that operators need to provide a better experience to meet the needs of individuals and enterprises. By increasing the efficiency of broadband investment and shortening its www.tahawultech.com

Now that we’re experiencing huge traffic volumes and upgrading to the gigabit era, the network is critical in promoting the development of our industry.

Gao Tongqing, executive vice president, China Telecom

payback period, operators can achieve sustainable development, Ding said.

Following Xu’s and Ding’s remarks, Huawei’s president of products and solutions David Wang launched the firm’s ‘All-Intelligent Network’. By integrating network managers and controllers, the AllIntelligent Network connects new SDN networks and traditional networks, which enables “one-click” services and end-to-end automatic service provisioning. The Network is able to automatically generate and optimise policies based on service and network SLAs, enabling networks to evolve from open-loop configuration to closed-loop optimisation. It decouples networks into two layers – an elastic

transport layer, and a flexible and agile service layer. Latency is also set to be reduced from “30 to 5 milliseconds.”

“The All-Intelligent Network is the focus of our investment and innovation when it comes to future networks,” Wang said.

“We are confident that it will help carriers better seize the strategic opportunities in video, enterprise cloud adoption, and 5G, and unleash the power of ultra-broadband to enable ultimate business success.”

With a total of 596 million customers across its mobile, fixed broadband, fixed phones and IPTV businesses, China Telecom has some of the highest bandwidth demands in the world. However, even executive vice president Gao Tongqing, a guest speaker on day one of UBBF, was willing to admit that a firm with such a large customer base would be forced to evaluate how it could enhance the quality of its service. “We need to transform ourselves to face the new era,” Gao said. “If we can build a network that provides the best possible user experience, then we have much better chance of succeeding.

Gaming, entertainment and a new world driven by Big Data and artificial intelligence means that we have to focus on network intelligence.”

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11

ANALYSIS

Huawei Ultra-Broadband Forum, Hangzhou

Gao went on to add that networks would be the key to the future success of telcos. “We need to leverage our strength as operators – which lies in connectivity – to accelerate our strength in technology. Now that we’re in the huge traffic volumes, upgrading to the gigabit era, the network is critical in promoting the development of our industry.”

One of Europe’s biggest markets was next on the agenda, and Deutsche Telekom’s senior vice president of group technology innovation and deputy chief technology officer, Arash Ashouriha, discussed the challenges the German firm is facing in developing connectivity that can cater for the demands of the future. The firm has recently demoed its first 5G standard, but Ashouriha believes its official release will depend on other technologies. “We’re working with the industry on building the next Internet,” he said. “The Internet of today was built in the 80s and 90s.

The next Internet will comprise people, things, everything.”

He went on to discuss how telcos were under increasing pressure to innovate, but that need had to be balanced with smart economics.

“As 4K video and video on-demand become more popular, the challenge for us is keeping ahead of the curve, while also making money,” he said.

“We need to completely transform our production model, and for that we need a lightsabre, but our tools feel stone age. Our main competitor is OTT players; we spend money, do the hard work and they build something fast and smooth on top of it. Although fiber is the ultimate game, we need to look at the economics of it. In Germany, building it is complicated and expensive. Delivering FTTH to every household would cost €80 billion.”

Industry expert Wei Leping, executive director of the Science and 12

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David Wang, president of products and solutions, Huawei

Ryan Ding, executive director and President of Huawei's Carrier Business Group

Technology Committee of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, used his session to highlight the need for networks to transform, and said that realistic targets would have to be set in order to see improvement. “There are four problems with existing networks,” he said. “It’s hard to change networks to adapt to Internet applications; closed networks with black boxes are prevalent; services are siloed, making it hard to share resources; and multiple-vendor environments are common. Network transformation is like moving from spaghetti to lasagna – they’ll move from vertical siloes to a horizontal, three-layer architecture.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but the road is tortuous; 2025 is a realistic blueprint for the future.”

UBBF also drew one of the world’s most renowned entertainment companies to Hangzhou. Chief telecom officer of 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, Hanno Basse,

highlighted how the world-renowned Titanic and Avatar producer expects to see hugely increasing bandwidth demands as a result of the increasing realism and quality of its future media products. The firm is currently working on delivering virtual reality experiences for its Kingsman 2 and War of the Planet of the Apes VR films, among others, but Basse conceded there work was still to be done if viewers were to get the most thrilling cinematic experience possible. “For virtual and augmented reality, the headset image quality still needs to improve,” he said. “In terms of video quality, meanwhile, additional resolution alone is not enough. We need 4k high dynamic range, which gives a more vibrant, sharper experience. We want to deliver 4k HDR releases for all 20th Century Fox releases, but it requires very high bandwidth.” www.tahawultech.com

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ROUNDTABLE

Digital transformation: the next steps

BEYOND THE HYPE As a warm-up to CNME’s eighth annual ICT Achievement Awards, technology decision-makers gathered to discuss what digital transformation means to their businesses and the next steps they need to take in making their technological ambitions a reality.

D

igital transformation means different things to different people. Very often, defining what digital transformation is and laying out a roadmap to get there remains one of the most significant conundrums for organisations in the Middle East.

Though technology remains an integral part of this change, digital transformation means creating new business models, and identifying new opportunities to enhance revenue streams and customer experience.

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NOVEMBER 2017

To clear up numerous misconceptions about what digital transformation is and to touch base on expectations, CNME partnered with TransSys Solutions to bring together a selection of experienced CIOs to dispel the common myths surrounding digital transformation and share their success stories.

Meraas Holding CIO and CDO Ajay Rathi got the discussion underway by explaining how businesses are no longer leading technological changes.

“Digital transformation is all about

customers,” he said. “Organisations are being forced to adopt digital technologies because the end-user has gone digital. Everything that IT does today should be focused on customers, and the move from automation to analytics has given us the ability to understand consumer behaviour. We see new business models emerging because of the understanding of data.

Data-driven decision-making power is crucial today.”

Digital transformation isn’t necessarily about fundamentally www.tahawultech.com

Organisations are being forced to adopt digital technologies because the end-user has gone digital.

Ajay Rathi, CIO and CDO, Meraas Holding

transforming businesses, but rather leveraging technology to improve customer experience. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of banks, which have embraced digitalisation more than any other vertical.

“Banks have been using digital technologies for a while now, right from straight-through processing to automation,” said Shabeer Mohammed, head of technology operations at Mashreq Bank. “Online and mobile banking have been around for more than a decade now, and the focus now is on digital transformation inside the business. At Mashreq, we are now automating back-end systems and self-service channels to transform our branches into digital ones and empower the customer.”

Vinay Sharma, head of IT at international logistics firm Gultainer, pointed out that digital experience is not about a single project or initiative, but about investing in the right evolving technologies to stay competitive.

“I agree that digital transformation goes beyond technology,” he said.

“Every technology won’t fit into every www.tahawultech.com

business, and it is about picking the rights one to create a better customer experience and reduce the cost of doing business. We are exploring the option of using blockchain to automate our supply chain, and invest in machine learning and IoT platforms to get into new businesses and revenue streams.”

Ahmed Al Ahmed, CIO of Nakheel, shared the story of his organisation’s digital transformation progress, which started in 2012. “It was a long journey for us, as our ability to offer digital services was hampered by the fact that IT systems were shared with Dubai World,” he said. “We moved core IT systems into our own data centre, and taking advantage of virtualisation eliminated many physical servers. The next step was to move from paper-based workflow systems to digital and integrate different systems to offer our employees a unified view of customers on a single platform.”

Although many aspects of digital transformation are driven

by IT organisations, it is critical

to get the right buy-in from a business’s management. “IT has to build credibility and educate the business and leadership to go along with you on this journey,” said Kumar Prasoon, CIO of Al Safeer Group. “It takes the whole trio – CIO, business teams and vendors – to get digital transformation right and requires end-to-end business process alignment.”

Prabhu Balasubramanyan, executive director of TransSys Solutions, echoed similar sentiments, “CIOs who want to transform their organisations need to have a vision and address internal challenges,” he said. “It is not about investing in the right technologies, but about driving process improvements. If your internal processes don’t realign and people don’t change, your digital experience initiative is bound to fail.”

Other IT leaders who participated in the discussion included: Ashith Piriyatthiath, CIO of Al Masah Capital; Ahmed Askar, CIO of Al Sahraa Group; and Akbar Jaffar Al Khabouri, head of IT at National Bank of Oman.

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15

EVENT

Evolve Digital Transformation Forum 2017

THE NEXT STEPS CPI Media Group and Tahawul Tech hosted the first ever Evolve Digital Transformation Forum at Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai, gathering regional executives to discuss how the race to innovate, e-commerce and the need to invest in technology will all shape the region in the years to come. Panelists and speakers explored what the Middle East must now do to succeed in its digital journey.

I

n 2011, technologist Marc Andreessen famously said that “software is eating the world”. In the years since, the Middle East has understood the pertinence of those words.

Since then, there has been an increasing realisation within the GCC that this region will have to change its attitude to technology. Few deny that the raw materials are there to build the Middle East into a global 16

NOVEMBER 2017

technology hub. Dubai Internet City was established in 1999 to give a regional home to some of the world’s top technology companies, but 18 years later, the focus is now shifting to how the Middle East not only imports technology, but develops it organically within its own borders.

The inaugural Evolve Digital Transformation Forum focused on these main objectives, and the top three priorities around the Middle

East’s technology agenda: the government’s race to innovate, the transformation of online purchasing and the need for investment in regional technology.

Gathering 300 c-level executives and business and technology decisionmakers, Evolve framed how the GCC now finds itself at a crossroads in its overall approach to technology.

Evolve kicked off with a one-onone interview with founder, chairman www.tahawultech.com

and CEO of The Entertainer, Donna Benton, who discussed how the company she launched in 2001 has transitioned from being a paperbased book of two-for-one vouchers into a purely digital platform that is keeping customers across the world hooked with tailor-made offers.

Benton described how she started the firm having been inspired by restaurant and attraction adverts displayed along Sheikh Zayed Road that “lacked the incentive” for customers to take action. The Entertainer’s initial reputation grew through “word of mouth”, and after fortifying its reputation over the next decade, Benton launched a digital app to accompany the published book in 2013.

She discussed how The Entertainer has since become an information-driven company that is committed to gaining a better understanding of its customers. The firm recently announced that it is set to become a purely digital brand in 2018. “Data is absolutely critical to us,” she said. “We’re always looking at new ways that we can enhance our platform in order to benefit our customers across all the markets we serve.”

Benton was followed by MENA Catalysts CEO and Google’s former www.tahawultech.com

head of public policy for the GCC region, Sam Blatteis, who discussed the “changing rules of the game” in the Middle East and North Africa’s technology industry. “The Middle East has 170 million Internet users – more than the population of Russia,” Blatteis said. “The region’s e-commerce industry has reached the $20 billion mark, which is more than in India.”

He went on to say that the UAE is only at the beginning of its technological journey, and must look to enhance several key areas if it is to take the next crucial steps in its development as not only a regional technology hub, but also as a global one. “The main factors for success in a high-tech ecosystem are human capital, infrastructure, SMEs, R&D and the appropriate laws,” Blatteis added. “The UAE needs to focus on developing these key areas.”

Evolve then moved into its first panel discussion of the day – which explored the next steps the government needed to take in its race to innovate. Comprising Blatteis, Wajdi Ghoussoub, associate director, Middle East Venture Partners; Daniel Dos Reis, senior portfolio manager, Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority; Heba Bilal Al Shehhi, head of user support,

We’re always looking at new ways that we can enhance our platform in order to benefit our customers across all the markets we serve.

Donna Benton, CEO and founder, The Entertainer Dubai Municipality and Bernd Ludwig, business technologist, Micro Focus EMEA. The discussion tackled the issues of how public sector organisations can enable a culture of innovation, and how they can successfully adopt new technologies without exposing themselves to unnecessary risk.

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EVENT

Evolve Digital Transformation Forum 2017

The discussion was followed Ulrich Pfeiffer, Micro Focus EMEA’s regional chief technologist, who discussed what he believed were the four crucial areas that organisations needed to home in on in order to successfully digitally transform.

“Organisations need to focus on several areas,” he said. “Digital user experience and service assurance, agile enterprise service delivery on

hybrid clouds, end-to-end application and data security and Big Data analytics and predictive ‘anything.’”

The day’s agenda then confronted arguably the hottest topic of Middle East technology in 2017 – e-commerce. Following Amazon’s acquisition of Souq.com and the successful launch of $1 billion platform Noon, the region has experienced increasing excitement around the rise of online purchasing, but work is still to be done. Bayt.com co-founder and CTO Akram Assaf; Yallacompare CFO Jonathan Rawling; MBME CEO Ali Kassab; Sellanyhome. com co-founder and CEO Omar Chihane and Telr.com co-founder and CEO Sirish Kumar combined on the day’s second panel discussion.

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Chihane said, “The real differentiator in the coming years will be the ways that e-commerce platforms drive experience across physical and digital channels. Brick and mortar retail will not die out, but online platforms have the power to access a global audience, which represents a massive opportunity.”

The day rounded off with a third panel discussion, which focused on the region’s technology investment industry, and what needed to be done to encourage homegrown technology within the Middle East.

The panel featured Steve Mayne, managing director, Creative Zone; Erkki Aaltonen, executive director, startAD; Fathi Al Sharaf, CTO, Geeks and Trukkin CEO Janardan Dalmia.

Brick and mortar retail will not die out, but online platforms have the power to access a global audience, which represents a massive opportunity.

Omar Chihane, co-founder and CEO, Sellanyhome.com Aaltonen highlighted how regional investment was focusing on alternative industries, and that startups were often left short of funds as a result. “There’s a serious lack of funding for tech start-ups,” he said.

“There’s only a handful of venture capital firms in the Middle East that invest in technology.” www.tahawultech.com

CIO SPOTLIGHT

HSBC

Ghinwa Baradhi, CIO, HSBC MENAT

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www.tahawultech.com

THE BIGGER PICTURE Since moving to the UAE at the turn of the Millennium, Ghinwa Baradhi has fortified her position as a global thought leader in technology and equal opportunity. HSBC’s CIO for the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey is now championing the bank’s digital transformation for the region, and is committed to seeing more women succeed in IT.

O

ne of the first five students in Lebanon to graduate with a Master’s degree in computer science, Ghinwa Baradhi has come a long way in her journey to becoming one of the Middle East’s most globally-minded technology leaders. HSBC’s CIO for the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey has gone on to become an advocate not only of technological transformation, but also of enhancing the role of women within the IT space across the world.

“When I reached university, computer science was still very new; mainframes were the cutting-edge technology back then,” Baradhi says.

“I quickly learnt that the hastening pace of advancement was creating a new landscape that would be based around technology. This is what drove my attraction to the subject – the journey of change." Beginning her career with Arab Bank in the 1990s, www.tahawultech.com

Baradhi was largely responsible for the firm’s regulatory portfolio, as well as the Central Bank’s risk repository for over five years.

As the turn of the Millennium neared, Baradhi joined Emirates Bank in Dubai. For the next seven years, she would fortify her experience in a range of specialist areas, including business intelligence, data warehousing, application integration, CRM and trade finance.

In 2006, Baradhi joined HSBC UAE as the regional head of IT operations.

Her arrival at the company coincided with her completion of an executive MBA from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, the course testing her ability to juggle her studies and family life alongside her burgeoning career.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support and encouragement from my husband and two children,” she says. “They are

my primary source of inspiration for doing what I do. I know many women struggle to find their rhythm with work-life balance; I initially did too.”

Much of Baradhi’s early work at HSBC revolved around divestitures and migrating businesses to new buyers in the financial sector, her record of success catching the eye of the firm’s regional management, who made her CIO for the MENAT region in August 2015. Two years into the role, Baradhi is committed to enabling business transformation enabled by digital technology. “HSBC is a global organisation with a local presence,” she says. “In my role I work to shape and translate the group strategy into a regional-local roadmap, which supports our business and serves our customers on a country-by-country basis.”Baradhi concedes that serving the broad range of markets under her remit is far from straightforward.

“When you have to work across Egypt, NOVEMBER 2017

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CIO SPOTLIGHT

HSBC

HSBC's office in DIFC

UAE and Turkey, not to mention the range of other countries, it’s not like being the CIO of one bank in a country-specific company,” she says.

"All the countries I oversee have different opportunities, challenges and cultures and I have to ensure I encompass all these nuances into our strategy and output while maintaining HSBC’s proposition consistently around the world.” The importance of Baradhi’s role is evident when it comes to meeting the specificities of each country. “The ‘why’ and ‘what’ behind our digital strategy comes from HSBC Group , but when we want to execute something at a regional level, we have to take into consideration all compliance and 22

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I work to shape and translate the global group strategy into a regional-local roadmap.

regulatory requirements to ensure market demands are met,” she says.

“At the same time, we are working to maintain momentum and meet and exceed the modern banking needs of our customers in the digital age across the region. The reality is that customer expectations around banking have transformed and my IT team has to deliver the digital solutions to match.”

Baradhi’s main KPI for success is ensuring that customers get what they need, when they need it.

Recently, HSBC UAE has simplified its mobile banking app through Touch ID on Apple devices, and has implemented Samsung Pay and Apple Pay services. Customers in the UAE www.tahawultech.com

VOTE NOW! 29th January 2018 Safinah Ballroom, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai, UAE

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For the first time, CPI Media Group and Tahawul Tech present the Masters of Tech Awards 2018.

The Masters of Tech Awards will honour one of the most important parts of our global technology ecosystem - that of vendors and providers.

CPI Media Group and Tahawul Tech have nominated the companies that they believe comprise the top 10 vendors for each category. The final decision will come down to the results of an online public vote, which is open now.

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CIO SPOTLIGHT

HSBC

can also apply for a personal loan online and receive approval within minutes, rather than days. Soon, they will be able to submit identification documents electronically rather than physically coming into a branch. “Customers need quick applications and practicality; they deserve a seamless experience,” Baradhi says. “It’s about embracing disruptive technologies and putting the customer at the centre of process and product development to ensure the end-to-end journey is frictionless, pleasant and secure.”

With technology lifecycles evershrinking, operating in an industry as competitive as banking requires approaches that can deliver services quickly whilst staving off disruptive threats. “Technology is moving extremely fast,” she says. “A couple of years ago, businesses had to submit requirements to IT and would be told in turn what specs they could get and at what cost. By the time you released something, you were already behind.

Today, we have evolved our working styles to be more agile and continue to leverage advanced technology so we can deliver simpler, better and faster services.” One way HSBC ensures it stays on the cusp of disruptive trends is by working in partnership with FinTech firms, who Baradhi believes are leading the way in real-time digital solutions. Baradhi is the HSBC executive sponsor of DIFC’s FinTech Hive initiative. The programme enables startups and early-stage companies to develop and test their products and solutions with the UAE’s top banks. She is currently mentoring shortlisted entrants by providing valuable insight and expertise into the banking industry.

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Technology has to be relevant, tested, secure and meaningful to both our customers and our businesses.

In spite of her passion for emerging technology, Baradhi cautions that the promise of transformation should not tempt organisations into getting carried away with underdeveloped or experimental technology. “You need to be careful with adopting technology for the sake of it,” she says. “It needs to meet customer requirements as well as give an improved customer experience. Yes, technology is an enabler to the business, but we shouldn’t jump into it just because it’s there. It has to be relevant, tested, secure and meaningful to both our customers and our businesses.”

Regionally, HSBC is taking a tentative approach to Blockchain.

“We’ve done the proof of concept for Blockchain for trade, but to implement it at a broader and global scale, it needs agreements from various parties involved in such transactions,” she says.

Beyond the technicalities of transformative projects, Baradhi is playing a significant role in

transforming the modern workforce to be more representative. She currently serves as regional co-chair for HSBC’s Balance programme, which helps promote “gender intelligence” and she is part of the Diversity and Inclusion programme for IT across the entire HSBC group.

Within Baradhi’s team, 50 percent of line of business CIOs are women.

However, she has no doubt that more needs to be done to give women the opportunities they deserve. “It is well known that IT is a male-dominated industry, both globally and regionally,” she says. “There is still a perception that women aren’t as capable as men in IT but it’s been proven wrong by the movers and shakers shaping our industry, such as Ginni Rometty, Meg Whitman and Sheryl Sandberg.

Things are changing.”Back on home soil, Baradhi believes that although there is work to be done in increasing the number of women in IT, the UAE is on the right track in levelling the playing field.

“Women like Her Excellency Sarah Al Amiri, the minster of Advanced Sciences and Her Excellency Dr. Aisha Bin Bishr, the director general of Smart Dubai, are playing a huge part in this change,” she says.

Reflecting on her career, Baradhi acknowledges that her ascendance to a global platform was not something she had initially strived for. “I’d never intended to leave Lebanon," Baradhi says. “I was happy with life there. But my move to the UAE was the best thing that I’ve ever done.

I don’t think I would have had the chance to advance my career and get the exposure and experience if I didn’t expand my comfort zone both geographically and personally.” www.tahawultech.com

.

CASE STUDY

China Construction Bank

NEW BUILD

C

One of the world’s 30 biggest companies by revenue, China Construction Bank is determined to expand its global customer base of 693 million through its MENA Dubai hub.

CIO Jin Panshi has technologically transformed the bank over the last seven years, decreasing the reliance on costly mainframe computing, and moving CCB into a cloud-led, ultra-broadband-driven era of AI and innovation.

A bank is like a large, complex building, and to manage it, you need to assemble parts and construct a system.

Jin Panshi, CIO, China Construction Bank

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hina Construction Bank's name may not be a household one in the Middle East, but the stats speak for themselves in evoking the bank’s vast resources and influence within China, and across the world.

With 363,000 employees on its books, CCB is consistently ranked in the top 30 of the Global Fortune 500 and currently has over $3 trillion worth of assets. In 2015, it was the second largest bank in the world by market capitalisation, and the sixth largest company in the world by revenue.

The firm’s regional headquarters is in DIFC, an office which manages the assets, liabilities and business of CCB for the Middle East and North Africa region. In line with China’s national strategy of ‘one belt, one road’, combined with Dubai’s strategic position as a centre of crossborder trade and finance in the MENA region, CCB’s DIFC base aims to provide financial services to Chinese customers, and aims to extend the firm’s services through the “bridge” of Dubai, connecting China, the Middle East and North Africa region.

The strategy behind these vast expansion plans is the result of the firm’s decision to remodel its entire business processes around technology. “When you look at the development of a bank, it is an enterprise, but has financial institutions within that have their own products,” China Construction Bank’s CIO Jin Panshi says. “A bank is like a large, complex building, and to manage it, you need to assemble parts and construct a system.” In the age of digitalisation, this is now more complex than ever. “We see systems becoming increasingly integrated, and that’s why we encourage enterprise innovation,” Jin says. www.tahawultech.com

Over the last few years, as its vast customer base has continued to expand, CCB acknowledged that it needed to enhance its technology infrastructure if it was to effectively deliver the technologically-driven services that its customers craved.

“There are lots of undercurrents to the way we deliver our technology – behind-the-scenes work that is crucial to the way we develop new services,” Jin says. “Six or seven years ago, we said that if we didn’t build a new era of IT systems, then we wouldn’t be ready for digital disruption. We needed new systems and talent to build the right workforce. We work tirelessly on delivering innovation, and in our customer-centric evolution, we’ve never stopped or looked back.”

The first priority that Jin sought to address was CCB’s connectivity, www.tahawultech.com

as this would be crucial in delivering bandwidth-intensive applications and services to its customers. “I think the market is in urgent need for ultra-broadband, particularly in traditional banking activities,” Jin says.

“In this day and age, there’s a real need for apps that rely heavily on broadband. Fintech is creating a new ecosystem for CCB. If the benefits of technology can be realised as soon as possible, then I think banks will be able to give customers a better allround experience.”

A key part of this improved experience would be technologies that are set to put unprecedented demands on networks. “We felt that our network bandwidth was not enough for what we needed,” Jin says. “We don’t just need bandwidth for 4K or HD video, but we also felt that AI capabilities, including voice and facial recognition, were urgently needed. Wherever there is a demand for these kinds of technologies, we have to be able to deliver a service.

It comes down to the fact that we

want efficient, effective, customercentric service so that our clients are satisfied, and that their needs are tailored to.”

Jin enlisted Huawei as a partner to enhance the quality of CCB’s connectivity, and the move has served as a springboard for widespread innovation within the company. “Our evolution has moved in tandem with our increasing bandwidth; a boost to our bandwidth has always meant a boost for our technology,” he says. “It’s helped us to gain impetus for the new normal.

CCB’s development has a lot to do with moving towards a company-wide culture of technology development.”

Put simply, the partnership has been transformative for CCB, and has allowed it to deliver a “consistent” IT experience via a new core system from its Beijing HQ to the 29 locations in which it operates around the world.

CCB’s branches and offices are able to share IT resources through integrated support that is accessible from the Dubai office.

Like any bank, CCB has had to adapt the ways it develops technology, and enables a culture that can open up new business models in order to grow within these new markets.

Central to this has been the design of a new IT architecture that consists of seven layers – channel, channel integration, customer service integration, application integration, external integration, product service, data integration and management analysis layers – and 12 platforms.

This new model has been critical in establishing new workflows that enable product innovation. “CCB sticks to proprietary innovation, and has carried out enterprise-level transformation in its business models, technology and deployment processes,” Jin says. “Our digital transformation strategy revolves around business transformation, NOVEMBER 2017

27

CASE STUDY

China Construction Bank

technology transformation and knowledge transformation.”

CCB has now migrated “83 percent” of its distributed applications to a cloud environment, which has had a significant knock-on effect on its mainframe utilisation rate, dropping from 90 percent to 70. “This has saved us $150 million a year,” Jin says. “CCB’s cloud is the biggest in China’s domestic market, and if the service requirements are high for our 683 million global customers, we can scale on-demand.”

The move to the cloud has not been without some reliance on legacy technology, however. CCB still depends on mainframes for transaction processing, but the shift away from what constitutes an expensive operational model is well underway. “For historical reasons, banks in China have been reliant on mainframe technologies,” Jin says.

“Mainframes are useful for liability and scalability, but have become too expensive. Our strategy is to run our core transactions on a mainframe, and use cloud for others.”

CCB has also strived to introduce customer-facing technologies that can not only deliver improved service, but have also eased the burden on backend operations. Xiao Wei, CCB’s smart customer service assistant, has proved to be a game-changer in the way the Bank deals with clients. Largely used via voice activation through China’s hugely popular WeChat ecosystem, Xiao Wei already has an average of 5 million daily interactions with customers, and has freed up 10,000 manual tellers to focus on other areas of customer service, while the service delivers response accuracy levels of 93 percent.

IT security is naturally a major concern for any bank, meanwhile, and with such a vast global presence, the risk CCB faces on a daily basis is one 28

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Our evolution has moved in tandem with our increasing bandwidth; a boost to our bandwidth has always meant a boost for our technology.

that comes at a huge scale. CCB has introduced a digital signature service and facial recognition technology to reduce the risk of fraud. “Over $40 million worth of transactions have been voided as a result of this new system,” Jin says.

CCB is also working with telecom carriers to increase the security levels around mobile banking. The bank has rolled out a service that sends alerts to the Chinese authorities if cybercriminals attempt to install trojans on customers’ mobile devices.

“Working with carriers to make mobile banking safer is a top priority for us,”

Jin says. “I’m very confident that CCB has very safe systems. As long as we can ensure that cybercriminals are not within our network, CCB can ensure the bank is secure.”

Reflecting on the transformative change that he has initiated over the last few years, Jin believes that the ability to enhance CCB’s network proved pivotal in the way that it could deliver new technology services.

“Carriers give us useful services, and CCB is happy to spend money in this area,” he says. “We’ve still got a long way to go with ultra-broadband. In the context of this transition, we think it’s very important to work with the industry in order to help us transform to mobile networks. At this critical juncture, CCB trying to move ahead, and in order for us to do that we want finance and technology to be integrated. This is the conclusion of one part of our journey but the start of another.” www.tahawultech.com

PRESENTS

NOMINATE NOW

Monday, 29th January 2018 Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai

#CIO100ME www.tahawultech.com/cio100/2018/

CELEBRATING TECH INNOVATION CNME is now accepting nominations for its 2018 CIO 100 Awards.

As IT becomes the driver of digital change in the Middle East, the region’s chief information officers have the opportunity to put themselves at the core of business decision-making.

The CIO 100 Awards 2018 celebrates leaders who are grabbing this opportunity with both hands, and constantly striving for innovative practices.

CIO 100 winners will receive their awards at our annual CIO 100 Symposium & Awards Ceremony, and will also be featured in the February 2018 issue of CNME magazine.

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FEATURE

Why does mobile enterprise app use lag in the GCC?

STANDING STILL Despite the availability of most mainstream enterprise applications on mobile devices, their uptake within the GCC region has been relatively low. What can CIOs do to accelerate this cultural shift, and why is there such hesitance to do so in a region that is so fond of smartphones?

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E

mployees across the UAE could be forgiven for scratching their heads at the ways they are expected to work in 2017. A country that is known for having a young, techsavvy population – not to mention a relatively small physical size – would surely be one that would encourage flexible use of software across professional and personal devices.

Mobile phone usage in the UAE increased to 228.3 phones per 100 people in the first quarter of 2017, according to Telecommunications Regulatory Authority statistics.

According to Gartner, meanwhile, spending on devices in the Middle East and North Africa region is set to hit $25.9 billion this year, the second-highest source of IT spend behind communication services at $108.6 billion.

However, despite the Middle East’s clear affection for mobile devices, their use in the enterprise

is still relatively low. The MENA enterprise application software market is expected to hit $719.4 million this year, according to IDC, representing a year-on-year increase of 5 percent on 2016, but the general feeling is that these apps are destined to be used within the four walls of the enterprise.

Prabu Balasubramanyan, executive director, TransSys Solutions, acknowledges that the sharp uptake of mobile devices within the Middle East is at odds with the levels of mobile application usage.

“The region has been at the forefront of the smartphone revolution, but the enterprise applications market that addresses the specific needs of users has been slow to emerge,” he says.

“The workforce in the Middle East is predominantly expat-driven, and organisations expect their employees to operate from offices, which acts as an inhibitor for true mobility adoption. This is an issue, along with other factors such as the successful integration of mobile apps with diverse existing and legacy systems.”

Balasubramanyan adds that one of the most important issues in shifting

The region has been at the forefront of the smartphone revolution, but the enterprise applications market that addresses the specific needs of users has been slow to emerge.

Prabu Balasubramanyan, executive director, TransSys Solutions www.tahawultech.com

enterprise app usage to mobile devices will be the human touch, if new strategies are to flourish. “The employer-employee trust factor must improve, which will promote BYOD and work-from-home facilities, and that in turn will improve the adoption of enterprise mobility applications,” he says. He adds that large numbers of employees already fall into the category of ‘remote workers’. “An organisational mindset shift is the need of the hour in the region.

Remote working is a cultural shift for many organisations. To an extent, they are willing to leverage offshore IT support, which is remote working in a sense. But business functions' outsourcing, remote working and working from home are still not encouraged in the Middle East.”

Dimension Data’s Middle East managing director Mechelle Buys Du Plessis, meanwhile, believes that a lack of clear strategy is currently holding organisations back from reaping the rewards of mobile-friendly technology. “To gain the benefits of mobility, or rather end-user computing – including flexibility, increased productivity and better staff engagement at a lower cost – it is important to ensure that the support exists for anytime access to services, application and data, not just from mobile phones, but from a multitude of devices,” she says. “A key contributor to low adoption is the absence of planning against identified business problems and applying the right technology solution to solve them.”

Perhaps the biggest driver for organisations to take action in increasing mobile enterprise apps is the positive effect it can have on employees. As staff increasingly expect the same experience from their business apps as what they receive in consumer software, NOVEMBER 2017

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FEATURE

Why does mobile enterprise app use lag in the GCC?

allowing them the flexibility to use enterprise software through a device and location of their choosing is becoming a more necessary prospect. Offering remote work options reduces employee turnover, and leads job attrition rates to fall by over 50 percent, according to a study published by Stanford University. The report, based on stats about remote work from a China-based firm listed on NASDAQ with 16,000 employees, described the work-from-home arrangement as “highly profitable” for the company.

While many CIOs may take the stance that employees will get what they’re given in terms of technology experience, others may look to deliver a more accommodating approach – and in many cases, to the benefit of their organisations. “Employees have the right to expect the same usability on their work apps as in the case of social media applications,” Du Plessis says. “However, different organisations are at different maturity levels, and this needs to be assessed and understood to deliver the right adoption and experience. Some organisations may be at a nonexistent maturity level, whereas others have moved through the initial, repeatable, defined, managed and optimised cycle. It is important to understand where the organisation is across its users, applications, operational excellence, devices, infrastructure and security.”

Balasubramanyan goes one further, and says that empowering staff with flexible software usage should not be underestimated.

“Employees’ user experience should be a strategic priority, as they want applications that are intuitive and easy to work with through an engaging user interface,” he says. “This helps boosts employee productivity and saves costs 32

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A key contributor to low mobility adoption is the absence of planning against identified business problems and applying the right technology solution to solve them.

Mechelle Buys Du Plessis, managing director, Middle East, Dimension Data by reducing the need for training and support. It goes without saying that enterprise apps have catching up to do in terms of meeting this expectation.”

Above all else, the main factor underpinning the relative lack of enterprise app usage on mobile devices in this region is security.

Until mobile security concerns are addressed, the reality is that most organisations will be unable to transition to a remote working culture, as the threat of mobile malware looms large. The lack of clear strategy and policy is the biggest factor in dealing with this threat, according to Du Plessis. “This extends beyond smartphones, tablets, laptops to smart watches, security devices,” she says. “Identifying the right starting point is key to the roadmap for transformation. Although mobile enterprise applications are available, selecting the right applications, with round-the-clock support for access is important.”

Balasubramanyan acknowledges that “The fear of failure on account

of security risks is one of the biggest inhibitors for regional CIO’s in adopting mobility,” he says. “Factors such as unknown risks, potentially inadequate investments made in security aspects like networks and peripheral security, inhibit many CIO’s from extensively adopting enterprise mobility.”

He goes on to add that a fundamental change in attitude to the role of mobility is needed if enterprises are to empower employees with the tools they need to work from anywhere. “Currently, mobility is seen more as an upper management tool for approvals, and one that allows them to access information while they are travelling, rather than being seen as an overall working culture,” he says. “Most organisations are driven by policies that dictate what device should be used and its configuration. This also act as an inhibitor in adopting mobility, as a large-scale change of devices can involve additional CAPEX, as most organisations in the region don’t really have a BYOD policy.” www.tahawultech.com

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BEST OF BOTH WORLDS F ollowing the completion of its spin-off and merger with HPE’s software business at the beginning of September, Micro Focus is now the seventh largest pure-play software company in the world, and the biggest in IT operations management. With a portfolio spanning across hybrid IT, enterprise security, information management and governance and Big Data, the $4.5 billion company has 40,000 customers.

“We have around 18,000 employees and more than 230 products, and the merger has given us massive scale and a rich portfolio," says Gonzalo Usandizaga, VP and GM of emerging markets, Micro Focus. "One third of our employees are engineers with another 3,000 for support delivery alone. This unique position gives us the ability to deliver end-to-end solutions to help our customers embrace innovation – from mainframe to mobile to cloud."

Having recently opened new offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Micro Focus is currently introducing the new business to partners and customers in roadshows. Usandizaga says HPE’s software assets are complimentary to Micro Focus’ own palette of offerings, and the combined portfolio offers new cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

L - R: Anas E. Jwaied, Samer Zein, Neeti Rodrigues, Gonzalo Usandizaga, Marwan Shanti and Mohammed Arafat

“The good news is that we don’t have much overlap, and partners don’t need to worry about the portfolio of products they are currently selling," says Anas E. Jwaied, MD of Middle East and Africa, Micro Focus. "In Micro Focus’ long history of mergers and acquisitions we have never stopped providing support to any product.

We will continue to take both these product portfolios to market, and through continuous development and investment, add the best of one to the other and vice versa."

Micro Focus has also been getting the channel up to speed on the value they can drive out of the new company.

“Around 75 percent of our business comes from the channel, and we rely on partners to empower our brand," Usandizaga says. "Thanks to the complimentary nature of our combined product offerings, partners can expand their business into the new product areas. We are planning to bring the best of both partner programmes together by the end of next year without demoting any partners from their existing partnership level."

As part of its go-to-market plan, Micro Focus is expanding its presales capabilities as it gears up to offer a wide range

of solutions to help its customers solve business problems. “We have a level of focus on presales that other tech companies don’t have," says Mohammed Arafat, director, presales and business development, Micro Focus. "Our strategy is to pursue every opportunity with top-notch presales and technical consultants. We have three layers of presales engine – technical consultants who primarily work on PoC demonstrations, solutions consultants who offer a broader view our platforms, and business consultants who engage with CXOs." Customer support is another area where Micro Focus is ramping up its capabilities, with an arsenal of tools aimed at increasing efficiency and improving customer relations. “The legacy HPE had one of the highest ranks in the customer satisfaction index, and we are committed to providing the same level of quality and customer experience," says Samer Zein, Director, support sales and operations, Micro Focus. "We are investing heavily in tools, systems and processes to listen to what our customers want, and our customer care will be a catalyst for future growth,” Designed from the ground up to build, sell and support software, Micro Focus is bringing together a powerful combination of technology and talent to solve the most complex technology problems for its customers with world-class, enterprise-scale solutions addressing all key areas of IT.

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THE NEW BUZZ

Shan Abdul Salam, Chief Technology Officer, Bebuzzd, discusses the firm’s hugely successful outing at GITEX Technology Week 2017, and why its digital customer loyalty programme will open up a whole host of opportunities for UAE’s customer focused businesses.

What is Bebuzzd?

Bebuzzd is a one-stop loyalty and rewards marketplace for customers, as well as a customer engagement and acquisition platform for businesses. Bebuzzd combines outlets from various industry sectors under one platform to provide loyalty and rewards to its users. We present our solution through different channels, which are completely digital and seamless.

Can you tell us more about the loyalty challenge that you recently won?

Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, has selected Bebuzzd as The Loyalty Challenge winner of its Everywhere Initiative 2017 concluded in Dubai on 11th October during GITEX Technology Week. Bebuzzd was selected from 190 entrants to emerge as winners in the first ever Middle East and North Africa edition of Visa’s Everywhere Initiative.

Visa presented us with the award at their pavilion, and that was the icing on the cake.

What was the primary focus of your participation at this year’s GITEX Technology Week?

Being a technology startup, our focus at GITEX this year was to use the forum to showcase this solution, meet with industry experts, interact with prospective investors and increase our brand awareness. It was also a forum to meet up with prospective business partners from the rest of the GCC. Our business philosophy has been to use technology as an enabler to bring a world-class loyalty solution to the UAE market, with features that are usually available only in developed markets. Bebuzzd realised that customer loyalty programs needed to be reimagined to go beyond traditional loyalty concepts, in order to dramatically extend its value and increase participation among consumers. We adopted the best of what existing solutions had to offer, and

added some unique features, keeping the UAE consumer in mind. Combining this cutting-edge app with a network of participating merchants has created a digital ecosystem of unique brands and independent businesses. Bebuzzd customers enjoy a unique mix of loyalty rewards and special deals across eight industry verticals, giving them the choice of picking up loyalty programs that range from dining, beauty, wellness, retail and entertainment.

What was the relevance of this show to your business in the region?

GITEX is the gold standard for the region for tech start-ups to find the right audience. For our business, it was an ideal forum to spread brand awareness and to understand the trending technology innovations in the region. With GITEX attracting the right kind of visitors, it gave us much-needed exposure with prospective SME clients, and gave us the opportunity to showcase our technology-driven solutions. GITEX also gave us an opportunity to interact with visitors from the rest of the GCC, where we are looking at establishing a franchisee network. The investors lounge was a good forum for us to meet and interact with prospective investors who shared their experiences with technology startups from across the world. It also gave us an insight into the technology trends that global markets are demanding.

What kind of products and solutions did you showcase at the event?

We showcased our entire product portfolio of Bebuzzd at GITEX. With Bebuzzd, a digital loyalty program is no longer a luxury afforded only to large businesses. SME’s now have access to a global ecosystem of digital loyalty that gives their business a wider reach to customers, powered by robust technology at the back-end to better understand customer preferences and shopping patterns. For businesses, we are a digital marketplace for loyalty, rewards and customer engagement, with the Bebuzzd app as a user interface. For our enterprise customers, we are a rewards platform to engage their employees and vendors.

What kind of IT trends do you see impacting the regional ICT industry in the next two years?

The pace of change towards cloud-oriented solutions for corporate companies is going to get 100% accelerated. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are also two other disciplines that we feel will impact the region’s IT landscape in the near future.

Shan Abdul Salam, Chief Technology Officer, Bebuzzd

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FEATURE

Voice-based interfaces: are they all talk?

Money where your mouth is The world’s biggest technology players are all staking their claim in the use of voice-based interfaces, with digital assistants now a staple feature in all the latest consumer devices on the market. According to comScore, 200 billion searches per month will be done with voice by 2020, but when can we expect this technology to significantly impact the enterprise?

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onversing with a machine may have once been widely accepted as a concept confined to science fiction. But now, in 2017, it’s commonplace to encounter talking machines that we willingly greet on a first-name basis.

Whether they’re built into our smartphones or stationed in our desktops, the growing presence of voice-based interfaces is rapidly altering the way consumers and businesses alike operate in their day-to-day lives.

According to research firm Social Media Today, nearly 50 percent of people using voice search tools are researching products. In addition, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) estimates approximately 5 million voice-activated digital assistants have been sold to date, and the company expects this figure to double by the end of 2017.

But is the technology behind these devices now advanced enough to add real value to our everyday lives? Necip Ozyucel, Microsoft Gulf’s cloud and enterprise business solutions lead, believes that while recent developments in automation have given rise to digital assistants that can help our lives “run just a little more smoothly,” there is still work to be done.

“Speech recognition is one area for development and improvement, particularly when it comes to accents, as these are especially difficult for the technology to comprehend,” he explains. “But primarily, the crux of the matter is social: our digital assistants need to be able to read our conversational www.tahawultech.com

The crux of the matter is social: our digital assistants need to be able to read our conversational cues and draw on an ongoing relationship for context.

Necip Ozyucel, cloud and enterprise business solutions lead, Microsoft Gulf cues and draw on an ongoing relationship for context.”

Despite this, the adoption of digital assistants within various industries – from healthcare and telecommunications, to the military and personal computing – is on the rise. “This technology is no longer seen as a research science project,” adds Ozyucel. “Instead, the demand for voice recognition technology is surging, and a host of opportunities for SMBs are opening up as a result, as organisations release development boards, processors and low power microphones to meet that demand.”

Here in the Middle East, the growing presence of artificial intelligence-driven projects happening on the ground in the region – particularly in the UAE, is creating even more of a platform for certain voice-based initiatives to take a firm hold within businesses.

While research firm IDC suggests

that the use of cognitive and AI systems will increase across all sectors, they see the biggest opportunities in the financial sector – where an estimated $28.32 million will be spent on solutions in 2021, accounting for a quarter of overall spending.

Megha Kumar, IDC’s research director for software in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, is already beginning to see the impact.

“Cognitive systems will increasingly utilise natural language processing, content aggregation, and machine learning to enable applications for a wide range of use cases,” she says. “At the consumer level, we are already seeing this with the likes of Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google Now, and such intelligent agents will become increasingly common in the enterprise setting as well.”

Emirates NBD has already laid the foundations to ensure it NOVEMBER 2017

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FEATURE

Voice-based interfaces: are they all talk?

continues to stay one step ahead in anticipating customer’s needs and offering simpler banking solutions by leveraging digital innovation. The bank’s voice-based chatbot, EVA, is set to “transform the traditional way that customers interact with the bank,” and is eventually said to offer a “true omnichannel experience,” allowing customers to start a conversation over chatbot and continue via voice across multiple devices at their convenience.

Likewise, Dubai’s Department of Economic Development has also integrated artificial intelligence into operations via ‘Rashid’ – a voiceenabled service on hand to answer customer questions and provide them with the necessary procedures, steps, documents and requirements to conduct transactions.

This surge in AI-led assistants being used in such a way begs the question as to how prevalent these digital assistants will become in replacing the need for human employees in customer service roles in the future.

Yaser Alzubaidi, Avaya’s digital engagement solutions sales leader, believes in re-routing tasks such as information processing and assigning customers to appropriate

resources will shift onto the responsibilities of digital assistants, as this can free up employees for more business-critical endeavours.

“Ultimately, whatever happens, one element is going to remain human: the customer,” he says.

“We are all unique individuals, even if we do have similar issues and queries. But the best service – the kind that boosts CSAT scores, inspires word-of-mouth reporting,

Ultimately, whatever happens, one element is going to remain human: the customer.

Yaser Alzubaidi, digital engagement solutions sales leader, Avaya

and ensures loyal and happy customers – will therefore likely require a unique, human response.”

With Gartner predicting that 85 percent of customer relationships will be conducted through AIpowered services by 2020, Ozyucel believes that the cost-efficient aspect of these devices will be a sure-fire pull in their establishment within the enterprise. “There’s no doubt that chatbots and their real-world counterparts – robots – are pervading the customer service industry,” he says. “As virtual assistants become more knowledgeable and easier to implement, more businesses will begin to use them to assist with advanced questions that a customer or interested party may have.”

Research firm Tractica has forecast that the number of active virtual digital assistant (VDA) users, from a consumer perspective, will grow from 390 million in 2015 to

1.8 billion worldwide by the end of 2021. During the same period, enterprise VDA users will rise from 155 million to 843 million. And while smartphone-based consumer VDAs are currently the best-known, and most-used offerings, virtual assistant technologies are also beginning to penetrate other device types, including smart watches, fitness trackers and smart home systems.

With all of these devices actively involved in creating a knowledgeable assistant with intelligent conversational capabilities, the need to collate and store a critical portfolio of advanced data becomes crucial in this process.

And while Alzubaidi agrees that “data is everything,” he believes that there are specific capabilities that a next-generation platform must have in order for companies to realise the full benefits of advanced data analytics. “This includes eliminating silos around data within the organisation, automating the management of data across an increasing number of connected devices, and building an open data system that allows multiple businesses or governments to share information for the benefit of their shared stakeholders,” he says.

To this end, it’s clear that measuring the success of these

devices going forward will not simply be tied to the volumes of hardware shipped. Instead, the focus is homed in on whether or not these assistants can effectively utilise this data to keep their users engaged and transacting – even when they’re not actively using a device.

While it appears that the current crop of devices on the market are not quite at the level of being able to sustain contextual, human-like conversations, the ever-changing development of AI-driven technology and the clear drive for its adoption here in the region is as good a prediction as any that such an interface will surface in years to come.

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ICT ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 2017 42

NOVEMBER 2017

www.tahawultech.com

R

eturning for its eighth annual outing, the ICT Achievement Awards 2017 once again highlighted the stand-out IT players in the region that have demonstrated real business value through the use of innovative technology over the last 12 months.

For the first time ever, CNME put the power in the hands of its readers to decide who would ultimately be crowned the winners on the night, after nominations were put to a public vote.

There were also some exciting new additions to the awards roster this year. CNME's editorial team added categories for Technology Innovation and Strategy across industries, to acknowledge the importance that IT strategies and longterm plans are now having on business. We also felt it was only fitting to recognise the crucial role that CDOs are now increasingly playing, which was highlighted by our new Chief Digital Officer of the Year accolade.

With nominees spanning across 29 categories, the winners of the ICT Achievement Awards 2017 all demonstrated the ability to deliver outstanding business value through technology.

On behalf of CPI Media Group, congratulations to all our winners, who constitute some of the brightest technological and business minds in the Middle East.

www.tahawultech.com

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43

CIO of the Year WINNER:

Ashith Piriyattiath, Al Masah Capital

Nominees: Ahmed Kajoor - Dubai Municipality Aliasgar Bohari - Zulekha Hospitals Anthony Tomai - AECOM Middle East Damian O’Gara - OSN Gopi Krishnan - Al Hilal Bank Herbert Fuchs - Al Shafar General Contracting Imad Taha - Belhasa International Kumar Prasoon - Al Safeer Mohammad Khaled Al Hassan Regulation & Supervision Bureau Abu Dhabi Sanjay Khanna - RAK Bank Shailesh Mani - Life Pharma Sivakumar Venkatraman - Dubai First Sultan AlDeghaither - Zain KSA Surendra Shetty - UAE Exchange Vinay Sharma - Gulftainer

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www.tahawultech.com

End-user awards

Chief Digital Officer of the Year WINNER:

Ajay Rathi, Meraas Holding

Nominees: Dr Mustafa Hassan Qurban, King Fahd Military Medical Complex Gopi Krishnan, Al Hilal Bank Tariq Al-Usaimi, National Bank of Kuwait

Future CIO of the Year WINNER:

Emily Tantau, AECOM EMEAI Nominees: Abdulaziz Al-Ghufaili - Mobily Aditya Kaushik - Interserve Ahmad Al Emadi - Dubai Municipality Ahmed Askar - Al Sahraa Group Fadhel Mandani - Air Arabia Zaheer Kazi - Liberty Investment Company www.tahawultech.com

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45

End-user awards

Editor’s Choice WINNER:

DIFC Courts In an industry that has otherwise seldom adopted innovative technology, DIFC Courts has made it its mission to make legal proceedings as user-friendly and digitally-driven as possible, and has received global recognition for its efforts in creating an open, internationally accessible courtroom.

Editor’s Choice WINNER:

Mashreq Having put robotics and automating back-end processes at the core of its digital strategy, Mashreq is prioritising smooth internal operations that will deliver a seamless customer experience.

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www.tahawultech.com

Deployment of the Year

Aviation Deployment of the Year WINNER:

National Aviation Services

Nominees: dnata Flydubai

Banking & Finance Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Emirates NBD

Nominees: Ajman Bank Al Mawarid Bank Dubai First

Makhzoumi National Bank of Kuwait

Construction Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Aldar Properties Nominees: Alfanar ASGC Havelock AHI Nakheel 48

NOVEMBER 2017

www.tahawultech.com

Deployment of the Year

Education Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Al Najah Education Group

Nominees: King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology Makhzoumi

Energy Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation

Nominees: Kuwait National Petroleum Company Saudi Aramco Shell Refinery

Government Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Smart Dubai Nominees: Dubai Customs Dubai Electricity and Water Authority Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Dubai Municipality Health Authority Abu Dhabi

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Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Rashid Housing Establishment Monitoring and Control Centre Roads and Transport Authority Dubai www.tahawultech.com

Healthcare Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Zulekha Hospitals

Nominees: King Fahd Military Medical Complex Makhzoumi Thumbay Group

Hospitality Deployment of the Year WINNER:

dnata

Nominees: Accor Hotels Middle East Jumeirah Group

Logistics Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Gulftainer

Nominees: Al Sahraa Group Port of Fujairah 52

NOVEMBER 2017

www.tahawultech.com

Deployment of the Year

Retail Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Landmark Group

Nominees: Al Safeer Group Jaidah Group

Telecommunications Deployment of the Year WINNER:

Zain Saudi Arabia

Nominees: Connect Mobily

www.tahawultech.com

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53

Aviation Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

Emirates

Nominees: Gulf Air National Aviation Services Oman Air

Banking & Finance Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

National Bank of Oman

Nominees: Al Hilal Bank Al Mawarid Bank Emirates NBD

Islamic Development Bank Mashreq National Bank of Kuwait

Construction Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

Deyaar

Nominees: AECOM Middle East Aldar Properties Alfanar

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ASGC ETA Melco

www.tahawultech.com

Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year

Energy Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

Saudi Aramco

Nominees: Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation Kuwait National Petroleum Company

Government Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

Monitoring & Control Centre, Abu Dhabi

Nominees: DIFC Courts Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority Expo 2020

Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Saudi Arabia Sharjah Electricity & Water Authority

Healthcare Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi

Nominees: Medcare Zulekha Hospitals

www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2017

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Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year

Hospitality Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

Jumeirah Group-Dubai Holding

Nominees: Accor Hotels Middle East The Entertainer

Logistics Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

Tristar

Nominees: Port of Fujairah Truebell

Retail Technology & Innovation Strategy of the Year WINNER:

Al Safeer Group

Nominees: Jaidah Mars Hypermarket 56

NOVEMBER 2017

www.tahawultech.com

Software Vendor of the Year WINNER:

Avaya

Nominees: Dell EMC Epicor HPE SAP Oracle

Enterprise Mobility Vendor of the Year WINNER:

Aruba Networks

Nominees: Citrix Huawei Samsung

Systems Integrator of the Year WINNER:

STME

Nominees: Condo Protego GBM Integra 58

NOVEMBER 2017

www.tahawultech.com

Vendors of the Year

Hardware Vendor of the Year WINNER:

Dell EMC

Nominees: Huawei Infinet Wireless Lenovo Data Centre Group Pure Storage Oracle

Networking Vendor of the Year WINNER:

Huawei

Nominees: F5 Networks Hitachi Data Systems VMware

www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2017

59

INSIGHT

Mike Elgan, Computerworld

Why the ‘retail apocalypse’ is a myth Mike Elgan explores why stories that United States physical retail is set to die are blown out of proportion.

I

f you look at the headlines, it sounds like brick-and-mortar retail stores are dying. Around 8,600 stores could close in the U.S. this year, according to a report from brokerage firm Credit Suisse.

Some even speculate that America has built its last major mall.

At least a dozen major retailers have declared bankruptcy this year.

Toys “R” Us, which is $4.9 billion in debt, filed for bankruptcy last month, although its roughly 1,600 retail stores are still open.

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners has revealed that Amazon now has 90 million US Prime members, and 63 percent of Amazon customers are Prime members, according to the report. That’s billions of dollars in revenue just from the membership. On top of that, according to CIRP, Prime members spend an average of around $1,300 per year on Amazon.

Amazon dominates online shopping. So why does it also want physical stores? Amazon this year bought grocery giant Whole Foods for $13.7 billion — stores and all. And in the last two years, Amazon has opened a smattering of 60

NOVEMBER 2017

physical bookstores, a few campus bookstores and an experimental grocery story called Amazon Go. However, the ‘retail apocalypse’ narrative results from splashy headlines and anecdotal observations about big-name closures and bankruptcies. But the data tells another story. The National Retail Federation expects total retail sales to grow around 4 percent this year. And, yes, e-commerce is growing faster than brick-and-mortar. But crucially, physical stores are still growing - at a rate of nearly 3 percent.

Despite the headlines, the fact is that physical stores represent the overwhelming majority of all sales, and will continue to do so for decades. In fact, only around 10 percent of all sales are from online stores. The rest is good oldfashioned stores.

Part of the story is that the retail industry is correcting for past mistakes. The biggest of these is wild over-construction of malls in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s. Currently, the U.S. has some 1,200 malls, which is simply too many. U.S. rates of shopping space per capita

is many times more than other wealthy countries. Mall closures are a correction - the U.S. economy is moving from “too many” to “just the right number” of malls, and it looks like the mall idea is dying. It’s not.

The innovative malls and retailers are learning from the e-commerce companies, and embracing datadriven retailing, personalisation, apps and unique experiences.

What’s happening above all is that retailers embracing omnichannel retailing are tending to find the most success. Retailers embracing omnichannel, stores like H&M and Forever 21, are growing fast.

The bottom line is that there is no ‘retail apocalypse.’ That’s based on an obsolete dichotomy between online and physical retail. The real division is between data-driven, app-centric, flexible and omnichannel retailing on the one hand, and old and stale retailing on the other.

What’s emerging is a new understanding of how to sell goods and services to consumers. They want online. They want brick-andmortar locations. They want choice.

They want experiences. They want personalisation. www.tahawultech.com

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INSIGHT

Mike Rollings, research vice president, Gartner

REAL PROBLEMS, ARTIFICIAL SOLUTION The exceptional opportunity of AI makes it imperative for enterprises to plan for change, says Gartner’s Mike Rollings.

A

rtificial intelligence technology promises to solve problems that organisations had no hope of tacking before, because it delivers benefits that no humans could legitimately perform. AI offers the means to maintain optimum efficiency and proficiency to meet customer demands. CIOs, chief data officers (CDOs), application development leaders and enterprise architects, among others, must be willing to explore, experiment with, and implement AI capabilities to pursue new value generating opportunities.

AI is becoming more common. In fact, by 2021, Gartner projects that 40 percent of new enterprise applications implemented by service providers will include AI technologies.

AI is not defined by a single technology. Rather, it includes many areas of study and technologies behind capabilities, such as voice recognition, natural-language processing and image processing. These technologies and capabilities benefit from advances in algorithms, abundant computation power, and advanced analytical methods like machine learning and deep learning.

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CDOs will immediately recognise that in order for AI to reach its full potential, they must develop greater organisational competency in data sciences and assure that data and analytics can be relied upon for various insights. This includes involvement in the assessment of frameworks, software and services claiming AI capabilities. They will also need to work with application development leaders to enable applications that can change behaviour based on the flow of data and events.

Right now, the industry that is the most excited about AI implementation is the financial services sector. CDOs in this industry are dealing with a very large amount of data in the form of financial transactions that must be analysed for fraud, or customer behaviours that provide insight into what type of financial advice would be most beneficial. Another industry is healthcare, where insights generated from machine learning are improving discovery, diagnosis, care delivery and patient engagement.

For AI to be effective within an organisation, CDOs must help establish a data-driven culture –

information as a second language, if you will. They may also be faced with impacts in the areas of talent sourcing; skills development and training; organisational structure; analytical methodologies; analytical tools; data acquisition and monetisation; algorithm acquisition/ creation; analytical modelling; analytical model training and maintenance; and process adaptation.

They may also need to create a skilled team of data scientists, data engineers, statisticians and domain experts who can manage the complexity of data, analytical methods and iteratively improve machine learning results associated with AI, as well as help apply it with workers, customers and constituents.

The skills gap can be massive based on the aspirations of the enterprise, and most likely ways AI will be used. To avoid the pitfalls of the skills gap, CDOs should work with their HR partners to develop recruiting plans and workforce enablement plans that include investing into their existing employees to develop both their creative and analytical thinking skills as AI implementation requires both. www.tahawultech.com

PRODUCTS

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

Launches and releases

Brand: Huawei Product: Mate 10 Series

Brand: Samsung Product: Gear Sport The Gear Sport has a 1.2-inch Super AMOLED display, heart-rate monitor, water resistance, and a caffeine intake recorder. The device runs Tizen instead of Android Wear, is compatible with Android 4.4 or later and iPhone 5 or later, running at least iOS 9. It sports a 1GHz dual-core processor. with 768MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage.

The device’s screen has a 360x360 at 302ppi resolution with Super AMOLED technology. The Gear Sport has NFC, GPS, an accelerometer, barometer, gyro and an ambient light sensor.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: Samsung has collaborated with Speedo to develop the Speedo On-app, which monitors synced strokes and lap records. Gear Sport has a water resistance rating of 50 meters under the ISO standard 22810:2010.

However, it is not suitable for diving or high-pressure water activities.

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Huawei has unveiled its AI-powered flagship smartphones – the Mate 10 series.

The series includes the new Mate 10, Mate 10 Pro and Porsche design Mate 10, which are all powered by the Kirin 970, Huawei’s new smartphone System-on-aChip (SoC).

The SoC combines an 8-core CPU, a new generation 12-core GPU, and a

dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to power the devices’ AI capabilities.

The series features a new Leica SUMMILUX-H camera with f/1.6 aperture for low-light photography. It is also powered by Kirin 970’s dual ISP and Snapshot with AI Motion Detection.

The smartphones are also integrated with Dubai Font, which has been implemented in line with Huawei’s partnership with The Executive Council.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: The Huawei Mate 10 Series devices support 4.5V/5A low-voltage fast charging. A 10-minute charge powers the battery to 20 percent, while a 30-minute charge powers the battery to 58 percent. The battery remains at a low temperature during fast charging to ensure safety. The smartphones are also equipped with the “world’s first” TÜV Safety Certified Huawei SuperCharge technology, the “strictest” certification of its kind in the world.

Brand: HP Product: ZBook x2 The HP ZBook x2 is a 14-inch touchscreen detachable PC, and operates in four modes – laptop, detached, docked and tablet.

ZBook x2 comes with a quad-core i7 Intel Core processor with 4.2 GHz Intel Turbo Boost. According to HP, the PC has been designed to address the performance and mobility needs of artists, designers and digital imaging professionals who utilise Adobe Creative Cloud and other similar professional applications.

The device also features HP Sure Start Gen3 for BIOS protection, TPM 2.0 for hardware-based encryption to secure credentials, secure authentication methods through the Smart Card Reader and HP’s Client Security Suite Gen3 to

protect data, device and identity, including facial recognition and fingerprint reader.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: HP ZBook x2 comes with a battery-less, HP-designed pen with Wacom EMR technology. The pen is responsoive to the detachable’s 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and includes a dedicated eraser.

HP ZBook x2 is scheduled to be available in the UAE in December starting at AED 8,435. www.tahawultech.com

Dubai’s BIGGEST Events Are Now Accessible On Your Smart Phone Devices

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COLUMN

Glesni Holland, Deputy Editor, CNME

SETTING THE BAR A

mbition is not something that the GCC is short of, and Saudi Arabia’s latest vision for its future under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has clearly demonstrated the momentum the Kingdom is gathering in becoming a global tech hub of the future.

The latest headline-grabber is the $500 billion plan to create a mega-city from scratch on the Egypt-SaudiJordan border, dubbed ‘NEOM’ and powered by renewable energy. The new city, upon its predicted 2030 completion, is slated to comprise more robots than people.

In the immediate wake of the NEOM announcement, Saudi Arabia once again hit headlines across the globe, when the Public Investment Fund’s Future Investment Initiative conference 66

NOVEMBER 2017

carried out a world-first and granted a humanoid robot, Sophia, Saudi citizenship.

Amidst global criticism around the move, it does beg the question as to whether it is right to award a machine human-like status.

Owning real estate and being able to vote in elections are just two of the many rights a citizen can be granted.

While no one is disputing the fact that Sophia is able to demonstrate humanlike tendencies through her advanced conversational skills and somewhat awkward facial expressions, artificial intelligence still has a long way to go before robots reach the stage of comprehending complicated concepts such as politic systems.

However, perhaps this anthropomorphic – a non-human

object displaying human traits – age that we now seem to find ourselves in, whereby we deem it necessary to assign these machines a role in society, is just the beginning. If this latest development isn’t enough to convince you that robots will, and have already begun redefining industries across the world, SoftBank’s humanoid robot, Pepper, was made available for hire as a Buddhist priest for funerals earlier this year in Japan.

While some may argue that Saudi’s citizenship exercise was merely a well-staged marketing ploy to lure Silicon Valley tech investors into plugging funds into “city of the future” NEOM, it certainly got people listening, and has earned the country’s IT-focused roadmap column inches across the world. www.tahawultech.com

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