INFRAINSIGHT October GITEX Special 2022

hybrid

Proliferation of niche vendors

The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital transformation solutions to support remote working, online business, e-commerce and collaboration. Enterprises and businesses that were not enabled scrambled to find the right solutions, the right experts, and rapid fire implementations.

Initially caught on the wrong foot, due to complicated supply chain credit terms and cash rotation, regional channel partners recovered and by the end of both 2021 and 2022 calendar years, reported their best ever years of IT solution sell outs.

The pandemic was a velocity accelerator for sell out of IT products and solutions both for the global and regional IT industry. This rapid adoption of digital transformation solu tions has also helped to spawn out and differentiate broadline and niche IT product and solution vendors.

In every region, the top 20-30 global vendors tend to dominate at the top of the value chain IT pyramid. However, moving down the value chain of IT offerings, the number of players increase and so do the offerings.

In this year’s special edition of Infra Insights we look at the extended pyramid of IT vendors who play an increasingly specialized role whether for business applications, IT management, security, and other areas. Being cloud agile, enabled, scalable and secure is now a minimum condition within vendor SLAs and performance. Moreover cloud is the platform for interoperability making private cloud a viable option of co-existence sup porting multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud strategy.

In the pages ahead, we present the product and solution plays of another thirty regional vendors and the top executives driving their regional business. These include Bespin Global, Board International, Ciena , Cloud Box Technologies, Cohesity , Confluent, Delinea, F5, Forcepoint, Nutanix, Jedox, Khazna Data Centers, Kissflow, Liferay, Look out, MediaTek, Netskope, Omnix, Palo Alto Networks, PFU, Siemon, Sitecore, Snowflake, Vectra AI, Qualys, Hisense, and Veeam.

In the Gitex 2022 week ahead we look forward to seeing this publication and the rest of our portfolio being read by yourself, delegates and visitors.

Happy networking and best wishes for successful business returns during Gitex 2022 in Dubai. ë

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BUSINESS MAKES DECISIONS EVERYDAY THAT IMPACTS SECURITY

CIOs must rebalance accountability for cybersecurity so that it is shared with business and enterprise leaders.

PAUL PROCTOR

Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner.

Checklist to assess state of cybersecurity as a business issue

#1 Can the organisation make risk-informed decisions without facilitation from security personnel?

#2 Can IT explain the business value of each security control?

#3 What do the metrics related to the organ isation’s security controls reflect?

We past two years have seen a dras tic uptick in major cybersecurity events, from Colonial Pipeline and SolarWinds to the JBS meat pro duction company. Given the high cost and high frequency of cyberbreaches, 88% of boards of directors now acknowledge that cybersecurity is a business risk and not just an IT problem — up from 58% just five years ago.

Yet organisations have not changed the cul ture of accountability to reflect these updated views. The CIO or CISO still carry primary responsibility for cybersecurity in 85% of organisations that responded to the Gartner View From the Board of Directors Survey 2022.

CIOs must rebalance accountability for cybersecurity so that it is shared with business and enterprise leaders. They are thought of as the ultimate decision maker and authority for protecting the enterprise’s security, but really, business leaders make decisions every day that impact the organisation’s security. They should share accountability.

To facilitate the shift toward a shared respon sibility model for cybersecurity, be proactive and work with your board to establish gov

88%

ernance models that share responsibility, and with business leaders to create a program of controls that balances protection with business needs.

Begin with a short-term exercise of assessing the current state of cybersecurity as a business issue, followed by a longer-term set of actions to define a new shared-accountability gover nance model.

#4 What proportion of time on security deci sion making is spent on fear, uncertainty, doubt compared with business goals?

# Is the security programme defensible with shareholders and regulators?

Action plan to involve business in security decision making

#1 Share cybersecurity decisions

Present the available options related to cybersecurity approaches and investments, and include the risks and costs associated with each. Providing information and involving business leaders in the decision makes them more likely to accept responsibility.

#2 Communicate optimal balance of risk, value, cost

Help prioritise cybersecurity investments by measuring the amount of value each business unit produces in relation to their readiness to address known risks, as well as the cost of doing so. Create a visual matrix to enable fast, crossbusiness-unit comparisons.

#3 Use credibility and reputation, not fear to motivate accountability

Focusing on shared goals will go far in fos tering communication and collaboration with business side partners. ë

board of directors acknowledge that cybersecurity is a business risk and not just an IT problem

OPENTELEMETRY FIRST STEP TOWARDS ENTERPRISE OBSERVABILITY

JOE BYRNE Executive CTO, Cisco AppDynamics.

events, logs, traces, MELT, that turns the collec tion of telemetry into a commodity.

Rather than having to deploy agents to mon itor availability and performance, once applica tions are deployed in production, developers can now also code health and performance telemetry data collection into their application to generate even more precise data once run ning in production.

The advantages for the organisations are considerable. OpenTelemetry is the standard that unlocks 360-degree visibility into any IT environment and, when combined with advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning, it unlocks the potential of full-stack observabil ity. With OpenTelemetry and advanced ana lytics, technologists can get real-time insights into performance right up and down the IT stack — compute, storage, network and public Internet — from customer-facing applications all the way to the back end.

Organisations in all sectors have begun to see the importance of full and unified visibility into IT availability and performance across their technology environments. They have come to realise that this is the only way to address the soaring levels of complexity that their IT departments are encountering across an ever more dynamic and fragmented IT estate.

The emergence of OpenTelemetry is a major opportunity for businesses of all sizes, giving them visibility into availability and performance across every single technical element of their IT environment. OpenTelemetry is a vendoragnostic and portable standard for metrics,

Technologists are aware that today’s custom ers have zero tolerance for poor digital experi ence. IT leaders know that a single slip-up in performance delivery could lead a customer to switch to an alternative brand and likely never return. As a result, full-stack observabil ity has become a business-critical priority for organisations.

OpenTelemetry will play a role in accelerating transition to full-stack observability over the next 12 months, providing a straightforward, cost-effective way.

Technologists are aware that today’s customers have zero tolerance for poor digital experience

The latest AppDynamics report, The Journey to Observability, revealed that more than half of the businesses surveyed have already begun their transition to full-stack observability. And 36% plan to do so in the next 12 months. Meaning that, 90% of organisations will be somewhere along their journey to full-stack observability in 2022.

OpenTelemetry is set to play a role in acceler ating this transition to full-stack observability over the next 12 months and beyond, provid ing a straightforward, cost-effective way for technologists to generate greater visibility into their IT environments. But not only can Open Telemetry transform the way organisations optimise IT performance and deliver seamless digital experiences, but it can also transform the way IT departments themselves operate.

Here are three such changes:

#1 Development team concern about production times

To date, the critical focus for development teams was to build functionality within the given application as intuitive, engaging, and easy to use as possible. But OpenTelemetry

often calls on them to integrate code to deliver critical telemetry data on performance in a live production environment.

This is a significant shift in developers’ responsibilities, and requires that they take a broader approach, ensuring new applications and digital services have the capabilities to col lect the required information consistently and accurately.

#2 Teams can choose the tools they need OpenTelemetry gives individual teams whether they be ITOps, CloudOps or SRE more free dom to choose the tools they want to use when managing availability and performance while working from the same telemetry data. OpenTelemetry prevents vendor lock-in and delivers data freedom, to be duplicated and sent to multiple places at once. So, data can go to specific open-source tools such as Jaeger for some teams, as well as to enterprise-grade observability solutions such as AppDynamics for others.

Teams can pick the best tool for their own specific requirements in an easy, flexible, cost-

effective way, and are no longer restricted to monitoring tools that may not provide the vis ibility required for a given project.

#3 Processing and correlation of OpenTelemetry data OpenTelemetry can collect data from right across the IT stack, but it does not group data together and deliver more holistic insights into availability and performance issues and causes. So, for IT departments to reap the benefits of OpenTelemetry, they must find a way to con sume and process the raw telemetry data and correlate it with other sources to gain businessfocused insights and take prioritised actions.

Most organisations will continue to deploy agent-driven observability to monitor and optimise performance on mission-critical applications. Today, these solutions provide deeper insight than OpenTelemetry can for now. Also, whereas OpenTelemetry is focused purely on the tech domain, the best full-stack observability solutions provide real-time insights at a user and business level, enabling technologists to make decisions and pri oritise actions based on customer and business impacts.

So, IT departments must ensure they have the right full-stack observability platform in place to integrate the vast volumes of Open Telemetry data they will be generating, and to provide the advanced analytics required to make business-focused decisions.

According to our recent research, 85% of technologists believe 2022 will be a pivotal year in their journey towards full-stack observ ability. They know they must continue to expand their monitoring capabilities over the next 12 months in order to generate greater visibility across their IT estate, particularly within microservices, container and server less environments. OpenTelemetry is now key to accelerating this shift towards full-stack observability, providing a level of visibility into the IT estate that simply has not been viable for most organisations until now.

Those IT departments that can successfully integrate OpenTelemetry into their observ ability strategies have a unique opportunity to deliver game-changing impact for their organisations.

90% of organisations will be somewhere along their journey to full-stack observability in 2022

Half of the businesses surveyed have already begun their transition to full-stack observability

Metadata Technologies to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM at Ellington Properties

Ellington Properties, Dubai’s leading and award-winning design-led boutique developer, has signed agreements with Microsoft to upgrade its systems and technology in order to enhance support for customers and further enable the company’s growth.

The investment in a new technology comes as Ellington Properties has grown from launching

10% sport and art events will offer participation in metaverse by 2028 says Gartner

Six trends are driving the use of metaverse technologies today and will continue to drive its use over the next three to five years, accord ing to Gartner. “While widescale adoption of metaverse technologies is more than 10 years away, there are practical ways organizations are harnessing them now, for example, in employee onboarding, sales enablement, higher educa tion, medical and military training and immer sive shopping experiences,” said Marty Resnick.

Today, emergent metaverses are in their infancy. But technology trends, with proven use cases and business outcomes, are just the begin ning of the value technology innovation brings to the enterprise,” Resnick said. “The longer-

term bets are the true differentiators that could disrupt an entire industry, and the metaverse is one of those bets.

Gartner defines a metaverse as “the next level of interaction in the virtual and physical worlds.” Metaverse technologies allow people to replicate or enhance their physical activities, by transporting or extending physical activities to a virtual world, or by transforming the physical one.

Despite the hype, the adoption of metaverse technologies is nascent and fragmented. Gart ner recommends caution when investing in a specific metaverse, as it is too early to determine which investments will be viable in the long

one or two projects per year to launching six projects within the first eight months of the year.

Ellington Properties has signed an agreement to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE CRM and Property-xRM with the support of Metadata Technologies, a Gold Microsoft Partner who will be implementing the solution. This initiative will boost Ellington’s sales and service features with improved customercentricity. The property management solution provides complete automation, minimising manual processes and human interference thereby ensuring faster processes and enhanced service for customers.

MARTY RESNICK,

Research Director, Gartner

term, and the ethical, financial and reputational risks of early investments are not fully known.

“Use this time for learning, exploring and preparing for a metaverse with limited imple mentation,” Resnick said. “Review these six trends for opportunities that could benefit your organization.”

Majid Al Futtaim Retail adopts Azure Analytics to automate financial reporting

across 16 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia – has transformed its financial plan ning and analysis FP&A capabilities through the power of the trusted, intelligent, versatile Microsoft Azure Data Platform. Majid Al Fut taim Retail’s finance team leveraged Azure Analytics Platform to fully automate financial and operational reporting and create a single source of truth for decision-makers.

RAHUL BHANDARI,

Chief Financial Officer at Majid Al Futtaim Retail.

Microsoft announced that Majid Al Futtaim Retail – operator of the Carrefour retail brand

Majid Al Futtaim Retail faced the significant challenge of data silos. Waiting periods for reports were long, as data had to be manually extracted and modified using Excel. Reporting needs of the organization were subsequently skewed depending upon which function had requested information.

Through Azure Synapse and PowerBI, Majid Al Futtaim Retail was able to fully automate its

UAE-Qatar oil field Bunduq adopts Nutanix Prism, Cloud, AHV to manage Veeam, SAP

Nutanix announced that Bunduq Company has been migrating from a legacy infrastructure to the Nutanix Cloud platform and Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor to power its mission-critical applications and services. The implementation has improved application performance by over 50%, resulted in nearly 40% savings in datacenter costs, and has created a seamless infrastructure ensuring reliability, resilience, security and flexibility.

With the earlier infrastructure, the company had 3 racks in the datacenter. Nutanix has helped with datacenter consolidation, with a resulting 40% estimated cost savings due to the datacenter space reduced to half.

With a move from a physical to a virtualized environment, along with the Nutanix solution, the IT team at Bunduq also deployed Veeam software for modern data protection and SAP HANA multi‐model database. Both Veeam and SAP HANA have certified integra tions with Nutanix.

After the Nutanix implementation, the first benefit seen was enhanced application performance. The various oil related simu lation applications and software that were sluggish in the earlier environment saw a 50% performance increase with Nutanix due to the latest processor being used, and all the data reading happening through SSD drives.

Flexibility was another big benefit. Simulation applications require

financial and operational reporting, eliminat ing human intervention. The transition enabled faster, deeper insights for stakeholders. While creating a unified view of the business for all division leaders, Majid Al Futtaim Retail’s auto mation of Excel reporting has saved a calculated annual minimum of 6,530 labour-hours. The company now intends to incorporate Microsoft Azure Machine Learning into its technology mix, to drive AI use cases within its finance function.

By increasing efficiencies in finance, Majid Al Futtaim Retail was able to significantly acceler ate its digital transformation journey. Addi tionally, the organisation’s new information ecosystem allows its commercial team to gain insights in seconds, through a few clicks, from more than 35 million records of daily data.

huge amounts of data and processing power. With Nutanix, the IT team can easily increase the RAM for clients, workstations as needed. Or in the case of VDI, the CPU performance can be quickly increased.

With strict data compliance regulations, backups were a challenging proposition for the company earlier, taking over a day for completion, sometimes failing completely. With Veeam directly integrating with Nuta nix through AHV, backup of virtual machines now happens in less than an hour.

Similar to the challenges with backups, the company also faced issues relating to database testing. With the earlier physical servers, sometimes it was necessary to copy the entire database which was around 122GB for testing, which would take over a day and a half. Now in the same scenario, after the SAP HANA implementation on the Nutanix platform, copying a 170Gb database takes only a maximum of 5 hours.

Bunduq’s oil production platform

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how Prisma Access secures today’s hybrid workforce without compromising performance, backed by industry-leading SLAs to ensure exceptional user experiences.

Ministry of Health and Prevention certified for Security Management, IT Service Management

The Ministry of Health and Prevention announced it is now certified to ISMS ISO 27001, for its Security Management System, and ISO 20000 IT Service Management, after success fully meeting the highest standards approved to obtain these two certificates and fulfilling all necessary requirements.

This comes following comprehensive and rigorous audits conducted by a team of international experts and arbitrators to ensure that MoHAP’s procedures being followed comply fully with international quality standards in the field of information technology security.

The ministry said it will spare no effort to implement global best practices in information security management systems, while also adopting comprehensive quality standards to improve customer experience, protect data, and enhance cybersecurity.

du and Injazat select Software

AG’s Cumulocity IoT platform for Hassantuk Safety systems

In a bid to make UAE the safest country in the world, du, and Injazat selected Software AG’s Cumulocity IoT platform for the Ministry of Interior’s ‘Has santuk’ Fire and Life Safety systems in the UAE to speed up response time and maintain highest standards of fire safety. With the upgraded platform, buildings and properties will continue to be monitored for smoke and fire detection 24×7. This is in line with the country’s smart city initiatives which incorporates public safety, building protection and citizen-centric experiences to enhance safety and quality of life in the country.

The newly enhanced solution connects more than 25,000 buildings to the Hassantuk Alarm Receiving Center via the Alarm Transmission Equipment, which is installed in all the buildings. In case of a fire or a life threating event, the ATE will immediately send the alarm to the Hassantuk IoT Platform, which will provide all the communication to Hassantuk Command and Control Center, enabling them to act and pass on to the Civil Defence Command and Control Center if required. The system will strengthen emergency responses and management providing added protection to lives, property and the environment in the country.

50% respondents say outdated backup and recovery protecting data reveals Cohesity research

New global research commissioned by Cohesity, a leader in next-gen data management, reveals that nearly half of respondents say their company depends on outdated, legacy backup and recovery infrastructure to manage and protect their data. In some cases, this tech nology is more than 20 years old and was designed long before today’s multicloud era and onslaught of sophisti cated cyberattacks plaguing enterprises globally.

organization relies on primary backup and recovery infrastructure that was designed in, or before, 2010. Nearly 100 respondents 94 out of 2011 revealed that their organization relies on backup and recovery infrastructure that was built before the new millennium — in the 1990s.

BRIAN SPANSWICK,

Chief Information Security officer, Cohesity.

Challenges pertaining to outdated infrastructure could easily be compounded by the fact that many IT and security teams don’t seem to have a plan in place to mobilize if and when a cyber ttack occurs. Nearly 60% of respondents expressed some level of concern that their IT and security teams would be able to mobilize efficiently to respond to an attack.

Forty-six percent of respondents said that their

Enterprises are utilizing this legacy technology despite the fact that managing and securing data environments has become much more complex, not just because of the exponential growth in structured and unstructured data, but because of the vast array of locations where that data is stored. Forty-one percent of respondents stated that they store data on-premises, 43% rely on public cloud storage, 53% utilize a private cloud, and 44% have adopted a hybrid model some respondents are using more than one option.

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Egypt Post will build an SAP private cloud, integrating with non-SAP and financial applications

The Egyptian National Postal Organization and SAP signed an agreement to establish a RISE with SAP Private Cloud, in addition to mod ernizing software applications and introducing best global practices of postal services.

The agreement will also provide a holistic view of ENPO performance and key indica tors, and enable ENPO to study, analyze and develop current business cycles in a practical way, and to inform agile decision-making. In addition, some steps in standard processes can be automated to reduce human error and inter action, which in turn improves efficiency and reduces cost of ownership.

The contract was signed by Dr Sherif Farouk, Chairman of ENPO, and Sergio Maccotta, Senior Vice President and General Manager, SAP Middle East South.

(Left to right) Martin Bradley, Chief Financial Officer, DULSCO with Rahul Misra, Vice President Business Applications, Gulf and South Africa, Oracle.

DULSCO to implement Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP, SCM, HCM, CX, HR applications

DULSCO Group, one of the largest manpower, environmental and talent solutions providers in the country, will implement Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite as a part of its digital transformation program to enhance customer and employee experience, automate processes and improve operational efficiencies.

DULSCO will implement Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning ERP, Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing SCM, Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management HCM, and Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience CX. With Oracle Fusion Applications for finance, supply chain, HR, and customer service, the

company will be able to standardize business processes on a single plat form to enable its teams to unlock new efficiencies and successfully posi tion itself for future growth.

As the company grew and diversified rapidly in the last few years, it needed to reevaluate how it manages its core business processes so it can improve the customer experience and scale services to meet grow ing demand. After careful evaluation, DULSCO decided to upgrade its IT systems by selecting Oracle Fusion Applications as a partner of choice.

DULSCO Group has more than 14,000 employees across the country to help operate its 2500+ client portfolio of more than 70 service sectors.

(Left to right) Dr Sherif Farouk, Chairman of the ENPO, and Sergio Maccotta, Senior Vice President and General Manager, SAP Middle East South.

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COVER STORY

ANGELOS STEFANIDIS

Head of B2B Emerging Markets, Video Collaboration and Personal Workspace, Logitech.

Predicting a sustainable technology strategy may appear to be a difficult task

PROVIDING WORKERS

HYBRID WORK RIGHT TOOLS FOR

With hybrid work being adopted by the digital workforce, Logitech is reinventing touch points inside the workspace to reduce pain and fatigue and improve worker productivity.

Everything we knew about how we work and where we are meant to work changed in an instant. However, despite the initial shock of the pandemic, workers displayed remarkable adapt ability to the demands of remote and, conse quently, hybrid work. Recent research data supports this.

According to our recent UAE-focused research on Meeting Equity, 55% of respondents prefer hybrid working and 54% of the workforce feel they have more flexibility and control of their time when working from home. Yet, today’s state of remote and hybrid work is far from perfect. More can be done to empower team col laboration such as equipping teams with the right tools.

Based on our experience, the workers that reaped the

greatest benefits were those who were better equipped. Con sider digital nomads as an example. Employees whose pro fessions allowed them to embrace the work-from-anywhere philosophy, even before the pandemic, had an undisputable advantage.

Furthermore, organizations who actively assisted their remote workers in equipping their personal workspaces with the right tools, enjoyed the best possible outcome for their business – and, of course, contributed to their workforce’s happiness.

Workers in the earlier stages of their careers need to share in a workplace experience, form friendships and have direct access to mentors and they will need to find the right balance in a hybrid work situation. In addition, according to our own

GUIDELINES FOR SUCCESSFUL HYBRID WORKPLACE

55% of respondents prefer hybrid working and 54% of the workforce feel they have more flexibility and control of their time when working from home.

Most remote or hybrid employees are underequipped in early years of hybrid work.

48% of respondents said that connectivity issues are significant challenge in hybrid meetings and poor audio quality at 42%.

According to research in the US, employees new to the work from home model suffer the most, due to imperfect work setups, almost 50% of them suffer neck or back pain.

Organizations who actively assisted remote workers in equipping their personal workspaces with the right tools, enjoyed the best possible outcome for their business.

Redesigned workspaces that promote employee well-being, physical and mental, are a clear path to long-term productivity and success.

research in the US, employees new to the work from home model suffer the most. Due to imperfect work setups, almost 50% of them suffer neck or back pain.

Our workplace has certainly changed and there are no fixed addresses, assigned seats or designated shifts. The job now needs to get done around the clock, wherever people are.

Our research shows that 48% of respondents said that connectivity issues is a significant challenge in hybrid meetings. This is closely followed by poor audio quality at 42%. The result is that most remote or hybrid employees are underequipped in these early years of hybrid work.

Consequently, it is crucial to rethink and establish new standards for video-first collaboration. Logitech’s response to the challenge of rebuilding the hybrid workspace is what we call “The New Logic of Work”. By deploying cutting-edge collaboration solutions, we help enterprises to empower their

employees to do business regardless of time and place, students to work and learn outside of the classroom, and artists to develop their ideas outside of the studio.

Logitech has already raised the bar on video conferencing solutions, and our products have become synonymous with frictionless user experiences and scalable deployments for every meeting space. But the newest wave of Logitech products is designed to enhance the personal workspace experience.

Logitech Brio 505 is a next-generation web camera, offering superior video quality, Logitech’s exclusive HDR technology, a special “Show Mode” to boost productivity, as well as a lens cover to safeguard user’s privacy. Another noteworthy release is the Logitech Zone Vibe Wire less headset. Certified for Google Meet, Google Voice, and Zoom and compatible with major video platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zone Vibe Wireless makes joining any meeting simple and easy.

Today’s evolving business landscape has placed many new demands on the way we collaborate and work. As a result, predicting a sustain able technology strategy may appear to be a difficult task.

However, redesigned workspaces that promote employee well-being — both physical and mental — are a clear path to long-term productiv ity and business success. To achieve this new standard in the future of work, we should keep in mind that one size does not fit all.

Logitech will continue to support every organization in the evolu tion of work and workspace transformation. From healthcare and education to large enterprises, our extensive portfolio of solutions can facilitate seamless remote collaboration and flawless communication.

Logitech empowers a mobile, desk-hopping, around-the-clock workforce to create and collaborate effectively from anywhere using reliable, secure, portable, and ergonomic devices that foster productiv ity and equity.

To achieve this new standard in the future of work, we should keep in mind that one size does not fit all

S TRY’ S

R MERS

INDU S TRY’ S

BESPIN

FORTE IN CLOUD PLATFORMS, APPLICATIONS, SECURITY

PERF O R MERS

Bespin Global is a Premier Tier Services partner with AWS and has been a pioneer in achieving the Managed Services Provider designation in the UAE.

The company has achieved gold security competency with Microsoft, along with other gold competencies

Bespin Global is a cloud consulting and management company that helps businesses accelerate cloud adop tion with industry-leading solutions and consulting expertise. Bespin has developed an automated cloud management OpsNow, which helps customers consolidate, visualise, and optimise distributed, multi-cloud assets in one platform, reducing their cloud costs by 30 per cent or more.

Bespin recently launched a Cloud Opera tions Centre, offering its customers Managed Services and Managed Security Services to monitor, manage their infrastructure, and instantly respond to threats on cloud work loads with AI-augmented analysis 24, 7. Bespin Academy also delivers authentic training courses to help tech seekers achieve their IT learning goals and match the market’s skills demands.

Supporting a customer-centric, multi-cloud approach, Bespin Global provides in-depth

expertise and global experience to help navigate the maze of services, solutions, and technologies offered by various Cloud Service Providers — including Amazon Web Services AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Huawei, and G42. Bespin Global services rely highly on automation, to accelerate processes and elimi nate human errors, and get businesses quicker to market through DevOps practices.

Bespin Global’s technology solutions include a state-of-the-art Cloud Operations Centre in Abu Dhabi, which helps all businesses includ ing government and highly regulated industries adopt cloud with elevated security strategies and approaches.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Office, ADIO chose Bespin Global to establish in the UAE capital because of its superior quality of ser vices when compared to alternatives. Bespin Global, unlike most of its competitors, has locally validated expertise with a broad portfo lio of services that incorporates the full-service lifecycle: from discovery and strategy to archi tecture and implementation, complemented by project management, knowledge sharing, and coaching.

Bespin Global’s cutting-edge solutions use innovative technology to boost efficiency and evaluate existing and emerging technologies, driving digital transformation across busi

nesses, and creating nimbler, more competitive organisations that can deliver a superior experience to their customers.

Bespin Global is a Premier Tier Services partner with AWS and has been a pioneer in achieving the Managed Services Provider designation in the UAE, in addition to being named AWS DevOps Partner of the Year for the MENA region for two consecutive years. The company has also achieved gold security competency with Microsoft, along with other gold competencies.

The company has also been selected as Fortinet’s first cloud specialised partner in the UAE. The local team of highly skilled cloud experts has more than 300 certifications across different CSPs, vendors, and security-based solution partners.

Bespin Global believes innovative IT ideas can never bring fruitful results unless security and safety are guaranteed for users. The organisation is committed to protecting businesses with value-driven threat intelligence, monitoring, and manage ment. Bespin Global’s broad portfolio of cloud consulting and managed security services allows it to deliver an integrated approach for identifying threats and implementing security strategies based on an organisation’s specific needs.

With the cloud becoming the mainstream of tomorrow’s digital future, Bespin Global is committed to shaping organisa tions where automation will fully support teams in monoto nous tasks in secure and reliable ways, leaving these teams the necessary time to direct their focus on higher-value tasks and opportunities to innovate.

From government entities to big enterprises, the list of valued customers in the Middle East spans more than a hun dred names, including Ibrahim Al Qurashi, Jarir Bookstore, BuKhatir Group, DubiCars, CofeApp, and many others.

As mentioned, Bespin Global was also named AWS DevOps Partner of the Year for the MENA region for two consecutive years and has achieved gold security competency with Micro soft, among others. ë

MOUTEIH CHAGHLIL

CEO, Bespin Global, Middle East and Africa.

TOP EXECUTIVE

After 10 years of experience in the IT field, Chaghlil founded his own company in 2015. Falcon 9 FZCO was, at the time, the region’s only cloud consultancy and management company to achieve the AWS Advanced Consulting partner. A few years later, Bespin Global acquired Falcon 9 and Chaghlil was appointed CEO of Middle East and Africa. Chaghlil has expanded Bespin Global’s footprints in the MEA region by establishing its HQ in Abu Dhabi follow ing a strategic partnership with Abu Dhabi Investment Office. In less than a year, he has helped the company grow exponentially to more than 100 employees and it is expected to further grow in headcount and operations expansion.

DREAM ROLE

Chaghlil’s future aspiration is to play a major role in enabling the upcoming generation of Middle East resi dents through technology and mentoring about safe business practices.

ROLE MODEL

Chaghlil says that when it comes to disruptive innova tion, the role model organisation would be Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk. For technology companies, he would select Apple.

OFFLINE

Chaghlil is a racing fanatic and has won five tourna ments in the Speed and Hill Climb Championship. While not zipping on the track, he enjoys reverse engineering software, machines, and other products, as well as travelling the world.

Bespin recently launched a Cloud Operations Centre, offering its customers Managed Services and Managed Security Services

IMPROVING DECISION MAKING PROCESSES TO ENHANCE BUSINESS

Board has a network of 150+ regional channel partners across 20 countries as well as strategic partnerships with global advisories such as Accenture, EY, KPMG and PwC.

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The majority of regional partners are experts in their industries and key to the success of mutual customer projects

Board International is an Intelligent Planning Platform, that offers smarter planning, actionable insights and better outcomes for over 2,000 com panies across the globe. Board allows leading enterprises to discover crucial insights which support in driving business decisions and unify strategy, finance and operations to plan smarter and achieve full control of performance.

Partnering with Board, global enterprises such as H&M, BASF, Burberry, Toyota, Coca-

Cola, KPMG, and HSBC have digitally trans formed their planning processes.

Founded in1994, and now with 25 offices worldwide, Board International has long been recognized by leading analysts and subject matter experts including Gartner, Nucleus, and Dresner.

Data is the new oil. The explosion of digital transformation projects has seen volumes of data on an unprecedented scale. Board’s Intelligent Planning Platform benefits from proprietary in-memory technology meaning enterprise accounts globally benefit from uncapped data volumes and the ability to ignore dark data and focus thought leadership on actionable insights to make better informed decisions.

Board’s Intelligent Planning Platform allows you to take data from any and multiple data sources and visualise this data with interac tive dashboards, then, with machine learning and predictive analytics move seamlessly into budgeting, planning and forecasting in a single environment. This differentiates from other point solutions to give enterprise organisations

Over the past 12 months

Board has had key wins with partners such as PwC Middle East and KPMG Saudi

a single version of the truth.

Speed of thought analysis to give insights from a historic perspective to gain foresight into what will happen. Uncapped data volumes and seamless two-way integration into familiar environments in the MS stack. Fast track appliances to get you operational and self-sufficient in weeks.

Board and its network of strategic partners share the same mission: improve decision making processes to enhance enter prise business. The strength of partnerships delivers paramount operational and cost benefits to customers.

We have a network of over 150 regional channel partners across 20 countries as well as strategic partnerships with leading global advisories such as Accenture, EY, KPMG and PwC. The majority of regional partners are experts in their industries and key to the success of mutual customer projects. We work with the best and are looking for new partners worldwide.

Over the past 12 months we have had key wins with core partners such as PwC Middle East and KPMG Saudi where they both implemented Board and the use of our solution which demonstrates value. In addition to these key engagements are with organisations such as Tadawul Saudi Stock Exchange, Apparel Group and further extensions with the likes of National Water Company and Bridgestone Middle East. ë

SANFORD BURLEY

Country Manager, Middle East and India, Board International.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Sanford Burley role is Country Manager for Board In ternational’s Middle East and India countries report ing to the Regional General Manager for Northern Europe and IMEA. We cover around 30 countries from the UAE hub with the team split between Dubai and Mumbai in India.

Burley has been in the decision making solution space for over 20 years, initially in London and then for the last 17 years here in the Middle East. He has worked for numerous smaller consulting firms and larger companies such as Oracle, SAP and Maersk. His focus has always been helping customers to overcome their issues through Technology solutions. The greatest achievement to date has been the suc cessful creation of a business unit across Middle East and India establishing ourselves as a key player in the territory for Decision Making needs across the Office of the CFO, Supply Chain and Retail.

DREAM ROLE

Board has huge potential in the region due to its unique ability to make the data for decision making simple and intuitive to use. The immediate aspira tion is to really establish Board as the leader in the market and drive value for customers.

OFFLINE

Most of my time outside of work is spent with my family and having retired from playing rugby in the last couple of years it is now about spending the time outside of work with them and enjoying time together.

PERF O R MERS

REDUCING POWER CONSUMPTION FROM SERVICE PROVIDERS

Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme and WaveLogic 5 Nano have reduced power consumption by more than 50%, helping to evolve into a greener network option.

sustaining price points for their consumers.

WaveLogic 5 Extreme has been perform ing extremely well with customers for three reasons; it offers more capacity, consumes less power, and is an environmentally friendly option. WaveLogic 5 Extreme delivers at least 50% more capacity per wavelength and a 30% increase in fibre capacity in comparison to pre vious technologies.

WaveLogic 5 has evolved into a greener network option, consuming less energy and space

With every passing day, we live in an increasingly digitalised world, which is true in terms of the quantity of time we spend on the internet and the quality of data we consume. Ciena’s focus over the next two years is to develop innovative solutions, and improve existing solutions, to meet the growing appe tite for data consumption in the metaverse, increasing number of IoT devices and cloud services. While these solutions are developed, Ciena aims to lower carbon emissions while

400GbE single-wave transport across long distances allows businesses to scale their net work at their own pace with less power, which further benefits them with reduced operating costs. Overall, WaveLogic 5 has evolved into a greener network option, consuming less energy and space.

The appetite for Internet consumption has been growing in the region, as well as the rate of carbon emissions that are released as a byproduct of internet connectivity. Global data centres and network operators are experienc ing an increasing amount of pressure to utilise renewable sources of energy to improve their sustainability efforts.

For them to truly be greener, they require

The appetite for Internet consumption has been growing in the region, as well as the rate of carbon emissions

storage devices and infrastructure that support the agenda. This is where Ciena comes in, the energy-efficient products reduce the carbon dioxide emission by 3 million metric tons. Specifi cally, Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Extreme and WaveLogic 5 Nano have reduced power consumption by more than 50%.

Ciena offers solutions where customers do not have to com promise on elements while customising their solution. For example, WaveLogic 5 offers the best of both worlds, maximum performance for optics and minimum footprint. Performanceoptimised coherent optics allows for greater capacity per wave length, longer unregenerated distance, and maximum fibre capacity.

Footprint-optimised coherent pluggable optics extends the capacity and photonic line simplification benefits of coherent technology to new access applications and reduced power, area benefits. In the upcoming months, Ciena will be launching a partner ecosystem program.

Globally, Ciena has been involved with a few key players in the telecoms industry; deploying an 800G network utilising Waveserver 5 for Polo Mobwire in Brazil, aiding in quadrupling Telstra’s optical network service capacity and upgrading EASSy submarine cable network with Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme to support digital transformation in the East Africa region. ë

PETE HALL Regional Managing Director, Ciena.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Pete Hall serves as Regional Managing Director for Ciena’s, Middle East, Israel and Africa business, as well as the subma rine business across EMEA. Hall is responsible for the go-tomarket strategy, customer relationships, market development and driving long-term value creation for customers and the company.

He started his career in sales and marketing for one of the fastest growing UK start-ups of the time. He went on to become Sales Director and then Vice President taking an increasingly International role. Hall moved to Dubai in 2010 and was Co-Founder of another start-up and is now Regional Managing Director at Ciena.

DREAM ROLE

Delivering richer, more connected experiences and enabling Ciena customers to adapt in existing and new markets. Sup porting an amazing team to ensure Ciena customers as they transform and expand their networks to be more agile and adaptive. Hall is passionate and fortunate to feel that each role and the performance or personal goals he has set, has deliv ered on ambition and those future aspirations, in the moment. Hall aspires to continue having the privilege of working with incredible, inspirational people that surround him today.

ROLE MODELS

Keri Gilder CEO and the organisation is Colt Technology Ser vices; Ameila Earhart, The most difficult thing is the ability to act, the rest is merely tenacity; Brian Cox Physicist, Musician and Teacher; Steve Jobs, your time is limited, so do not waste it living somebody else’s life.

OFFLINE

Hall’s passion and joy are centred around an incredible fam ily and close friends. They support, motivate and inspire him every day. Living in Dubai, Hall also gets a unique opportunity to enjoy a game of golf almost all year round.

ENABLING THE CLOUD TO DRIVE BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

PERF O R MERS

Known for its holistic approach to handling customer needs, CBT is helping its customers accelerate their digital transformation initiatives.

Cloud Box has partnered with several best-ofbreed vendors to help customers in scaling up digital transformation initiatives

C loud Box Technologies or CBT is a systems integrator with a unique set of solution offerings. It has been acknowledged for its outstanding consultation strength and in-house implementation skills which makes it stand apart from the competition.

CBT is known for its holistic approach to tackling customer needs. The company has its cloud offerings apart from its capability to offer end-to-end IT solutions such as IT infrastruc ture, data management including data backup, file and email archiving, data availability, and data insight.

It also offers information security and virtu alisation solutions, deployment and support of software and hardware solutions besides data centre, storage, server, backup, disaster recov

ery, network security, server management, and desktop virtualisation.

The company has been working towards providing customers with a range of offerings that help them accelerate their digital trans formation initiatives. In October 2021, CBT enhanced its offerings through a tie-up with vendors to provide digital transformations that are applicable in real and everyday situations. This business-centric range of applications is unique and the first of its kind in the industry, focusing on transforming organisations to be more sustainable and digitally adaptable.

CBT has partnered with several other best-of-breed vendors to support custom ers with hardware, software and applications that aid in scaling the digital transformation implementations.

The company, which is known for IT infra structure capabilities has recently developed an in-house NOC supported by very advanced Managed Detection and Response. This unique offering is a game changer for customers look ing to strengthen their security needs.

It has also built a strong pool of skilled professionals who can provide bespoke solu tions to suit individual customer needs within allocated budgets. The company partnerships are strengthened with the in-depth training programmes offered by vendor partners. CBT is extremely conscious of the importance of these certifications and the value it adds to the end customer.

As a systems integrator, CBT aims to pro vide a comprehensive and holistic approach to security. It also has a Private Cloud offering that provides a unique set of cutting-edge solutions to customers. It strives to build capabilities to manage the complete IT environment, prevent security threats, monitor the environment and manage solutions for its customers.

The company has had some major wins in the logistics and healthcare sectors. For the logistics integration, both the active and passive implementations were the core deliverables while the healthcare project focused on soft ware and hardware solutions to help the cus tomer strengthen their digital transformation goals.

RANJITH KAIPPADA Managing Director, Cloud Box Technologies.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As a leader of CBT, Ranjith Kaippada is passionate about driving the company’s vision. Building on its necessary strengths, he is focused on providing customers with the most advanced and innovative solutions that will help them achieve their business goals more effectively and efficiently.

He recognises the need for a strong team of skilled professionals who can understand customer pain points and strategically help them in their needs. He also believes that it is critical for each team member to use their core strength to their fullest and motivates them to reach for the stars. Having the right team in place has enabled the company to capture a significant market across several industries.

Ranjith started his career with a multi-national vendor organisation that helped shape his growth in the IT industry. He further strengthened his career working with enterprising distribution companies where he got a huge canvas to work. This helped him develop skills to handle custom ers across a variety of business sectors. These experiences were the stepping stones toward his journey to becoming a business leader and running a systems integration organisation.

DREAM ROLE

Ranjith envisages his role will help Cloud Box Technologies become one of the top systems integrators within a short period.

ROLE MODELS

Ranjith is inspired by people and organisations that are focused on in novation, research and development, and look far into the future. These include organisations such as Virgin Atlantic, Microsoft, and SpaceX that are always creating a buzz and a sense of excitement for the future.

OFFLINE

Always an outdoors person, Ranjith love to take long drives into new ter rains. He also dedicates a fair amount of time to mountain hiking. UAE has given him ample opportunity to enjoy food, which has sparked his interest in running restaurants. He also loves to spend time understand ing and knowing people and places.

The in-house NOC set up by CBT is a game changer for customers looking to strengthen their security needs

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HELPING BUSINESSES MANAGE FRAGMENTED DATA

Organisations must consolidate, analyse, repurpose and secure huge volumes of complex data to improve flexibility and business success.

To fuel digital transformation initiatives, data needs to be protected, consolidated, repurposed, and secured

C ohesity provides an end-to-end data protection portfolio that simplifies and consolidates complex and siloed data infrastructure. Delivered either via the self-service or SaaS models, Cohesity’s flagship Helios platform offers services like backup and recovery, files and objects, disaster recovery, data security and governance, development and test, and analyt ics and insight.

At a higher level, Helios comprises a distrib uted platform to support multiple workflows, one UI to easily manage the global environ ment, and the ability to run applications and services.

Data is at the heart of successful digital transformations and yet widely dispersed data keeps growing in terms of volume and com

plexity, making it hard to manage and even harder to protect. To fuel digital transforma tion initiatives, this data needs to be protected, consolidated, repurposed, secured, analysed, governed, and preserved throughout. Hence, staying current with the technologies used to support the data management life cycle con tinuum is paramount to digital transformation.

The company’s Next-Gen Data Management makes all these happen on a single platform which consolidates mass fragmented data and apps into a single hyperscale platform that dra matically improves business flexibility.

Cohesity sits at the intersection of cyberse curity, cloud, and data management, three of the highest priority business issues of the day. It is poised to become a major powerhouse with industry analyst firms naming the company a leader and one of the fastest growing in its cat egory. It has one of the best technologies in the

category and helps protects data for several big brands in the Fortune 500. With its single unified partner programme for all partner models including channel part ners, distributors, service providers, alliances and GSIs, the company offers three levels of participation. These include Associate, Pre ferred, and Premier partnerships. To meet the needs of its broad range of partners, the com pany supports two go-to-market models in the Cohesity Partner Programme: Resale and Service Provider. ë

GREGG PETERSEN

Regional Director, MEA, Cohesity.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As Regional Director for MEA, Gregg’s number one priority is to ensure that Cohesity can acquire and comprehensively serve the largest government and enterprise businesses in the region. To achieve this, he spends a lot of time engaging with customers and prospects, leading and expanding the regional team, building and empowering Cohesity’s chan nel, and strengthening its alliance partnerships.

A prominent figure in the MEA IT sector, Gregg has 15 years of experience in the IT industry. Before joining Cohesity, he served in various management and leadership roles at leading technology compa nies in the Middle East, including Rackspace.

While Gregg agrees that overachieving targets, ensuring growth and driving other key business outcomes are all great, he finds motivating un derachievers to become valuable members of his team most rewarding. He believes that when the underlying factors, personal or professional, are identified and addressed, the true potential of a team member can be unlocked which then proves immensely rewarding both personally and professionally.

OFFLINE

Petersen is a passionate outdoorsman who enjoys long-distance cycling, motocross biking, scuba div ing and participating in endurance challenges such as the Ironman triathlon.

Cohesity sits at the intersection of cybersecurity, cloud, and data management, three of the biggest business issues of the day

CONFLUENT

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BUILDING A CLOUD NATIVE PLATFORM FOR DATA IN MOTION

The platform serves as central nervous system that connects different parts of the enterprise together and makes data available to where it is needed.

Confluent has built a foundational platform for data in motion which empowers enterprises with the ability to be innovative

Confluent is the data streaming platform that is pioneering a fun damentally new category of data infrastructure that sets data in motion. Confluent’s cloud-native offering is the foundational platform for data in motion—designed to be the intelligent con nective tissue enabling real-time data, from multiple sources, to constantly stream across the organisation. With Confluent, organisa tions can meet the new business imperative of delivering rich, digital front-end customer

experiences and transitioning to sophisticated, real-time, software-driven backend operations.

Confluent has built a foundational platform for data in motion which empowers enterprises with the ability to be innovative and succeed in the new digital-first economy. The company’s platform serves as the central nervous system that connects different parts of the enterprise together and makes data available to where it is needed in real-time, so customers can deliver a better experience, and optimise their backend infrastructure.

Used by over 70% of the Fortune 500, Apache Kafka has become the foundational platform for data in motion. But self-supporting this open-source project puts organisations in the business of managing low-level data infrastruc ture. That’s why modern businesses choose Confluent, so they can keep their focus where it matters. With Kafka at its core, Confluent offers a more complete, cloud-native platform to set data in motion, making it available everywhere an organisation’s data and applications reside.

Confluent provides a truly cloud-native experience, completing Kafka with a holistic

With Kafka at its core, Confluent offers a more complete, cloudnative platform to set data in motion

set of enterprise-grade features. Underpinning the platform is Confluent’s 99.99% uptime SLA and committer-driven exper tise, providing support and services from the team with over one million hours of technical experience with Kafka.

We have made significant investments in completely rebuild ing our offering in the cloud to make it truly cloud-native. This has resulted in many enterprises starting their data streaming journey in Confluent Cloud, and existing customers adopting Confluent to manage hybrid and multicloud environments.

We believe data in motion is at the centre of the next major wave of technology innovation companies are undergoing. The ability to harness it will be a key factor in determining the com petitiveness of every company in the economy of the future, and we’re continuing to build a product that makes that possible for any company. ë

FRED CREHAN

Area Vice President, Emerging Markets, Confluent.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As the Area Vice President, Emerging Markets, Fred leads Confluent’s business and strategy across the Middle East, Turkey and Israel. His role spans key field facing teams such as sales, solution engineering, professional services, cus tomer success, and channel teams in the region. As he looks to grow the company’s regional footprint, he is focused on helping organisations recognise that unlocking the full po tential of real-time data will empower them to pioneer com pelling digital services for the discerning modern consumer.

Fred started his career in the Technology industry more than 20 years ago from his first experience in sales as an SDR to various account executive roles for more than 10 years and then in 2015, a move into sales leadership to continue devel oping his passion for coaching and supporting others.

DREAM ROLE

Fred is immensely proud of the world class team he has helped build for Confluent the region. This has resulted from a strong hiring strategy with strict criteria that enables the company to systematically hire outstanding people who make a difference. Life offers so much opportunity for continuous learning and personal growth - my list of aspirations and goals are too long to list here! That being said, I would love to share my experiences and help young start-ups grow as well as being involved in environmental projects.”

OFFLINE

Fred is a very keen sportsman who despite the ever-looming threat of injury enjoys regularly playing football, swimming, and squash. He also enjoys quality time with his wife and two girls, aged 11 and 8. He is a voracious reader and especially enjoys self-development books.

DELINEA

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ENHANCING SECURITY WITH PRIVILEGED ACCESS MANAGEMENT

Delinea empowers organisations to secure critical data, devices, code, and cloud infrastructure to ensure compliance and simplify security.

As organisations progress on their digital transformation journey, the challenge of growing complexity in IT environments cannot be ignored

As a privileged access management or PAM solutions provider, Delinea makes security seamless for the modern, hybrid enterprise. The com pany’s solutions empower organisa tions to secure critical data, devices, code, and cloud infrastructure to help reduce risk, ensure compliance and simplify security.

Delinea removes complexity and defines the boundaries of access for thousands of cus tomers worldwide. Its customers range from small businesses to the world’s largest financial institutions, intelligence agencies, and critical infrastructure companies.

As organisations progress along their digital

transformation journey, the challenge of grow ing complexity in IT environments cannot be ignored. Only a modern PAM approach with automated and context-aware access controls can properly support large-scale cloud trans formation initiatives and answer the needs of the current hybrid environments, which require external access to all services.

The company offers a comprehensive port folio of modern PAM solutions which provide the right users just-in-time and just-enough access to critical data, servers, and applications. It also provides end-to-end monitoring and reporting to identify abuse of privilege and quickly thwart attacks.

With a clear focus on customer needs, Delinea offers a comprehensive and competi tively priced set of solutions that are easy to use

and easy to implement by any organisation, from small- and medium-sized businesses to large enterprises. Providing a seamless integration and a seamless user experience to both end-users and administrators creates operational efficiencies and cost-saving opportunities as customers can avoid compli cated and lengthy IT deployment projects. No wonder then, the company has grown three times as fast as its closest competitor.

Remote work, hybrid IT environments, and new types of applications and endpoints continue to expand the privileged account attack surface. This has created an urgent need for a holistic vision, bringing together PAM capabilities that address traditional and emerging use cases from one unified interface, what Delinea terms an Extended PAM.

The extended PAM approach redefines PAM to treat all users as privileged users and address complex IT environments. It ensures scalability by treating identity as the common thread for authentication and applying policy-based authorisation controls to meet zero trust and least privilege best practices. ë

MOHAMMAD ISMAIL Regional Director, Middle East, Delinea.

TOP EXECUTIVE

In his role as Regional Director for the Middle East, Ismail leads Delinea’s regional sales and channel teams to fur ther strengthen the company’s positioning and increase market share. His leadership has also ensured that the company is strongly positioned to enable organisations in the region to leverage the full potential of its portfolio as they seek to harden their cybersecurity defences. A bachelor’s and master’s degree holder in electrical and computer engineering from the University of North Caro lina, Ismail is a business leader with substantial expertise in growing market shares for IT companies with interna tional footprints and global outreach. A certified CISSP, he has over 22 years of experience in the US, Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Earlier, he served as the VP of Sales at Shifra where he played a lead role in accelerating the company’s growth. He has also worked with compa nies such as Nortel Networks, Schlumberger, Check Point, and Utimaco and led the Identity and Access Management business for Gemalto across the META.

DREAM ROLE

Ismail is a firm believer in investing in human capital and giving back to the community. He aspires to be part of a group of like-minded individuals who share the same passion for building a regional academy that will focus on the development of skills needed for present and future cybersecurity needs.

OFFLINE

Ismail has a great passion for football and takes out time to play twice a week. He aspires to develop formal foot ball coaching skills and coach a young team in the future. Ismail also spends a significant amount of time reading about economics and technology, as well as Arabic litera ture and poetry.

PAM solution provides the right users with just-in-time and just-enough access to critical data, servers, and applications

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COMBATING THREATS AND DIGITAL WORLD CHALLENGES

F5 enables organisations to better handle the rising complexities and risks of distributed and heterogeneous application portfolios.

Digital transformation requires new approaches for managing telemetry, data, and application security across distributed architectures

F5 is a multi-cloud application services and security company committed to bringing a better digital world to life. The company partners with the world’s largest and most advanced organisa tions to optimise and secure every app and API anywhere. This includes on-premises, the cloud and at the edge.

Expanding its application security and deliv ery portfolio, the company recently launched F5 Distributed Cloud Services, which is a secu rity, multi-cloud networking, and edge-based solution on a unified SaaS platform. The plat form encompasses F5 Distributed Cloud Web Application and API Protection or WAAP, aug menting multiple security capabilities across F5 technologies in a single SaaS offering.

Nearly all organisations in the Middle East and beyond find themselves at the epicentre of

two significant trends: the evolution of applica tions as the centre of customers’ digital lives and the escalation of threats against them. F5 has transformed both its business and its port folio to meet these challenges. Its Distributed Cloud Services is central to this shift, offering a new approach to app security with SaaS-based solutions that are centrally managed but can be deployed anywhere the app needs to be. This maximises business impact and delivers a supe rior customer experience.

F5 is committed to unlocking a world where an organisation’s application portfolio adapts to any changing environment. This means it can automate redundant processes for greater efficiencies, expand and contract based on performance needs, and protect itself by secur ing points of vulnerability. It can also mine and analyse data to get smarter, become selfhealing, and evolve even faster.

Maintaining a healthy partner ecosystem is critical. F5’s goal has always been to enter longterm, strategic partnerships that are mutually beneficial and can successfully unlock new use cases and routes to market.

The Distributed Cloud Services enables SaaS-based app security solutions, centrally managed but deployable anywhere the app needs to be

The F5 partner programme, F5 Unity+, includes secure increased margins on its products; priority access to product announcements, promotions, and technical training; access to qualified leads; access to dedicated F5 partner resources; and eligibility for joint marketing funds.

Significant digital transformation progress requires new approaches for managing telemetry, data, and application secu rity and delivery technologies across distributed architectures. F5 is innovating in all these areas while helping organisations to extend app modernisation efforts from the front to the back office.

It is also enabling organisations to combat the rising com plexity and risk inherent in increasingly distributed and heterogeneous application portfolios; choose the best deploy ment model and location for application security and delivery; embrace the unique capabilities of the edge for both customerfacing and internal workloads, and modernise IT operations with SRE or site reliability engineering approaches.

F5’s portfolio of security, performance, automation and insight capabilities are empowering customers across all indus tries to create, secure, and operate adaptive applications that reduce costs, improve operations, and better protect users. Demand throughout the region is growing, with organisations becoming more application-centric as they adapt to increas ingly nuanced user demands. ë

NASSER EL ABDOULI Vice President, EMEA Channel Sales, F5.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Nasser is responsible for developing and growing F5’s channel partnerships across the diverse EMEA markets. He reports to Pierre Castelnau, SVP EMEA and has 10 direct reports across the region and more than 40 indirect reports.

He took on his current role in November 2021 after cutting his teeth as Director of channel sales for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa for more than five years, and channel manager for the Middle East for five. Before joining F5 he held different roles at Citrix and Nice Systems in France.

As the Vice President of Channel Sales, Nasser has made profound structural changes in F5’s EMEA channel organisa tion. He created a Channel Southern Europe Practice and has converted interns joining the company in 2021 as full-time employees. He along with his team plan to replicate this suc cess soon by welcoming another new cohort across EMEA.

On the business side, his team has launched F5’s XC solu tions, expanded its Routes to Market coverage, and delivered numerous enablement and demand generation activities to enable channel partners better serve the customers’ increas ing needs.

DREAM ROLE

Nasser considers himself to be in his dream role and likes to focus on the present.

ROLE MODELS

For Nasser, F5 CEO François Locoh-Donou is a role model in business. He is particularly impressed by how fast the CEO impacted F5’s core values and connected them with people’s values.

OFFLINE

When not playing with his young children, Nasser loves to read about political history. He enjoys sports including running, CrossFit, and squash. He is also a motorcycle enthusiast and enjoys travelling with his family.

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BUILDING A CLOUD-NATIVE SECURITY PLATFORM

Forcepoint helps innovative enterprises protect users, data, and networks while driving digital transformation and growth.

The shift to work-from-home has accelerated the transition to the cloud, where the network perimeter has dissolved

Forcepoint ONE is a cloud-native plat form for securing data and access on the web, in cloud apps, private applications, and internal datacentres. The platform makes it easier for organisations to implement Zero Trust with certainty, to stop ransomware and other malware in their tracks, and to know that data is safe.

Launched in 2022 by Forcepoint, this new approach is one of the industry’s first truly uni fied examples of what is now called Security Service Edge or SSE, the security half of Gart ner’s SASE model for networking and security.

The company enables enterprises to acceler ate digital transformation while lowering the risk of security incidents by giving remote and hybrid users seamless and safe access to busi ness resources anywhere while keeping their data safe everywhere.

The shift to work-from-home culture led to an increase in the use of multiple devices with

too much data to protect. This prompted an accelerated transition to the cloud, where the network perimeter has dissolved. Forcepoint ONE was launched by putting customer needs at the forefront.

Born in the cloud, it is an all-in-one console that contains everything essential related to security and can scale to meet upcoming needs. The platform routes traffic locally and secures all data from any device. Decryption, inspec tion, and blocking are constantly running in the background without impacting users.

This innovation simplifies security for global businesses and governments operating in the Middle East.

Forcepoint continues to work tirelessly to offer additional solutions simplifying security. However, simplifying security does not mean eliminating core elements such as SWG, CASB, or ZTNA, but instead unifying technologies into a single platform, providing one manage ment console to manage one set of security policies and one unified endpoint agent.

On the channel front, the company has unveiled new enhancements to the Forcepoint Global Partner Program including the creation

Forcepoint helps organisations implement Zero Trust with certainty and stop ransomware and other malware in their tracks

of an elite tier of Titanium partners to deliver the highest levels of technical skills and services. The company is also automat ing its support infrastructure and introducing a more efficient engagement model with broader incentives that make it easier to work with Forcepoint. It also enables partners of all levels to deliver greater customer value.

The company’s other program enhancements include new rebates and deal registration benefits, an enhanced partner portal, new enablement offerings, and technical guidance. It also offers a single program structure capable of supporting resellers, global SIs, services providers, OEMs, and technology partners.

As the region grows rapidly, Forcepoint needs to meet and exceed demand. To stay ahead of the curve, the organisation is focusing on investing in partnerships with different carri ers, service providers, system integrators, and cloud providers. Forcepoint is also focusing on critical infrastructure to help mitigate the rapid increase in attacks on hospitals, utilities, and power plants, which is a global concern. Forcepoint is working towards keeping these essential businesses secure and avoiding cyberattacks at all costs.

Forcepoint helps innovative enterprises protect users, data, and networks while enabling growth. The National Bank of Fujairah, QNB Finansbank, and Burger King are some of the leading organisations in the region that thrive securely with the company. ë

FADY ISKANDER

Regional VP Emerging Markets, Forcepoint.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Before joining Forcepoint, Fady worked with Symantec managing go-to-market strategies across 86 countries spanning Europe, Asia, and Africa for over a decade. Ear lier, he worked with Citrix for five years leading the channel and commercial business across the META region. One of Fady’s key achievements was working with the For cepoint leadership team to build and implement growth strategies, investing and capitalising on the market poten tial within the Gulf. This led to securing government and enterprise motions for digital transformation and cloud adoption. Fady has also overseen the opening of Force point offices in Saudi Arabia and the re-launch of a chan nel program that is both tailored and profitable.

DREAM ROLE

Playing an active role in supporting innovation and digitali sation of the MEA region while working alongside govern ments and enterprises as they solidify their presence in cyberspace would be a dream come true for Fady.

ROLE MODEL

Fady draws his inspiration from Jeff Bezos who has man aged to re-invent a traditional trading business and create an industry that caters to online shopping while creatively reselling Amazon computing infrastructure. Fady looks up to Bezos’ leadership principles, creativity, and the impact he has had on the world.

OFFLINE

In his spare time, Fady enjoys water sports and spending time in the sea. Being a scuba diving instructor, Fady can often be found taking people out on the open sea or har nessing coastal winds while kitesurfing.

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SIMPLIFYING HYBRID MULTI-CLOUD BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

A hybrid multi-cloud player, Nutanix helps organisations simplify cloud complexity with an open, software-defined platform.

Nutanix Cloud

Infrastructure provides a complete software solution including virtual compute, storage, and networking

N utanix is an established leader in hybrid multi-cloud computing. Over the past year, the company has repackaged its solutions to make them even more simple, to offer a consistent operating model across the public, private, and hybrid cloud. It has also created an easyto-consume set of solutions to support digital transformation initiatives. The new portfolio removes the complexity often associated with offering a full range of hybrid cloud services.

The simplification of packaging, metering, and pricing enables customers to easily plan for their changing needs. Customers can acceler ate their cloud journey by taking advantage of Nutanix validated designs and deployment best practices for five common use cases around

which the company has designed its solution portfolio.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure or NCI: This provides a complete software solution including virtual compute, storage and networking for virtual machines and containers, that can be deployed in private datacentres on the hardware of the organ isation’s choice or in public clouds

Nutanix Cloud Manager or NCM: If an organ isation is managing multiple cloud deployments, Nutanix can support by driving consistent gov ernance across private and public clouds, helping customers accelerate their cloud journey.

Nutanix Unified Storage or NUS: Nutanix sup ports a variety of workloads deployed anywhere in the private, public or hybrid cloud by allowing software-defined storage for multiple protocols. This is a single point of management for all storage resources.

Nutanix end-user computing solutions: This speaks to running applications and workloads any where, on any device supporting the new normal of remote work and remote learning

Nutanix Database Service or NDB: It simplifies database management across hybrid multi-cloud environments for database engines like Post greSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle Database.

When it comes to the cloud, organisations want it all: affordability, simplicity, unified cloud management, reliable security protocols, guaranteed service levels, easy application and workload migration. This has led many busi nesses to move toward a hybrid multi-cloud computing model, with 83% of IT decisionmakers citing the model as their ideal in our fourth annual Enterprise Cloud Index survey.

Nevertheless, deploying and managing a hybrid multi-cloud is complicated and it is critical to look for factors like flexibility, sim plicity, and choice while evaluating options for deploying and managing one. Nutanix Cloud infrastructure ticks all these boxes. The com pany helps organisations simplify cloud com plexity with an open, software-defined hybrid multi-cloud platform so that they can focus on business outcomes and innovations.

Nutanix has evolved the Elevate programme focus to provide a better experience for the entire partner ecosystem and customers throughout the customer lifecycle staying true to the programme’s unified framework. The new updates to the Elevate Partner Programme include an enhanced and expanded incentives framework to reward the partner ecosystem throughout the customer lifecycle, new incen tives for partners that lead sales cycles autono mously, and a continued focus on building partner competencies through education and certifications.

MOHAMMAD ABULHOUF Senior Director and GM Emerging Markets, Nutanix.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Based in Saudi Arabia, Abulhouf is focused on developing the compa ny’s regional client base and driving hypergrowth for Nutanix, consid ering the wave of digital transformation taking place across the region.

Abulhouf is an IT veteran with over 16 years of experience in the indus try. He has worked in various sales leadership roles in reputed com panies like Oracle, EMC, HP and Sun Microsystems. He joined Nutanix in 2018 as a Sales Director for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain where he was instrumental in building a strong team and spearheading several major customer wins that helped consolidate Nutanix’s position as a leader in the cloud space.

For the first time in Elevate’s history, Nuta nix has extended programme incentives to include not only partner organisations, but individual sellers and SEs to ignite new cus tomer acquisition growth. The New Business Individual Incentive will reward individual sellers and systems engineers at eligible resell ers and services providers each time they sell Nutanix into net-new accounts.

In the coming months, Nutanix will begin to roll out a pilot for an Elevate Programme incentive designed to reward select partners for the delivery of consistent, on-time renewal rates with their Nutanix customers. The com pany has also launched a Channel Led Selling Rebate Incentive for Elevate, built to reward resellers who drive deals through the entire

sales cycle autonomously.

Nutanix is enabling partners to realise this selling motion through new tool sets like the recently revamped Sizer 6.0 capacity planning tool and enhancements to the performance plus deal registration programme. Besides, the Elevate programme requirements introduced a new Sizing Associate accreditation require ment for all levels, designed to enable partners to speed up sales cycles through rapid capac ity planning, quoting and order fulfilment.

The company has had some big wins and projects during the last year, including projects from Bunduq Company Limited, National Takaful Company, Abdul Latif Jameel Information Services, and Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Global. ë

When it comes to the cloud, organisations want it all: affordability, simplicity, unified management, and reliable security protocols

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JEDOX

STREAMLINING BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

EPM can help businesses streamline strategic planning processes and improve predictive analytics and performance monitoring.

Successful digital transformation requires better insight, not larger volumes of data

Jedox is a leader in Enterprise Perfor mance Management, EPM. Its key solutions include financial planning and analysis, sales performance man agement, sales and operations, and workforce planning.

Financial planning and analysis: The company’s unified software solution auto mates and integrates finance processes with a uniform data foundation that gives finance more time for analysis and supports a datadriven look ahead.

Sales performance management: The com pany helps achieve predictability, scalability, and transparency in the sales organisation by embracing one solution for all sales plan ning requirements.

Sales and operation: Jedox integrates sales and operations processes with a unified solu tion for sales, operations, and finance by link ing demand data with supply figures, inventory, procurement and others for more accurate sales planning and forecasting.

Workforce planning: With Jedox organisa tions can strategically align, integrate, and

accelerate personnel planning for greater trans parency and growth goals to be closely aligned with business strategy.

Successful digital transformation requires better insight, not larger volumes of data. Jedox empowers business professionals to capture data, share knowledge, and align on common goals across the organisation. Using its soft ware solutions, businesses can streamline any data-driven process, from strategic planning to complex predictive analytical models and operational performance monitoring.

In addition to offering industry-leading technologies, Jedox serves as a long-term busi ness partner, providing innovation and best practices that give its customers a sustainable advantage. It is designed to be easy, with indus try-leading fast implementation times.

Jedox’s big advantage is that it is an inde pendent EPM vendor which means that its solutions can integrate with every ERP system available in the market. This enables Jedox customers to utilise all their data from these systems for value creation.

Instead of having multiple modules that need to be interconnected, Jedox follows a highly flexible platform approach. All the com pany’s customers’ applications, such as those for sales planning, HR planning, procurement

planning, operations planning, etc. sit on top of a single platform. Updates on any of these applications lead to real-time updates to finan cial statements, P&L, and balance sheets. In this way, Jedox enables every department to be part of the financial planning, budgeting, and fore casting process.

Jedox has established a reputation for unmatched flexibility and ease of integration. Going ahead, the company aims to focus on strengthening its competitive differentiator by introducing additional integrations and con nectors to platforms.

The company is also at the forefront of AI and ML with highly effective out-of-the-box functionalities and powerful customisation capabilities. Aiming to build on this leadership, Jedox seeks to make its AI functionality acces sible to enable all users within the organisation to leverage it for their planning and budgeting requirements. It intends to make it possible for its AI solution to draw from internal company data and augment this with external data, thus enhancing decision-making.

Jedox has been steadily growing its market share in the Middle East with customer wins across the banking and finance, industrial, oil and gas, and retail sectors. Most recently, Shelf Drilling, a Dubai-based offshore drilling company that provides shallow water ser vices to the oil and gas industry, reduced the time spent on critical data operations by 98% using Jedox EPM. ë

ANDREAS SIMON Regional Director MEA, Jedox.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As the Director MEA for Jedox, a key area of focus for Andreas is to add new members to the company’s growing global network of partners, especially in the Middle East region. He is also tasked with growing the company’s footprint across the Middle East and Africa region. His commitment to the channel partners is ensuring joint success as they sell and implement the Jedox family of products. Andreas has over 27 years of business and technical experience and has worked in regional business and channel leadership roles at Jedox for over a decade. Before joining Jedox, he worked for 15 years in the business intelligence market for companies specialis ing in OLAP or online analytical processing systems. He has served as Senior Director of Development for an OLAP systems company, and COO at a business intelligence company with a focus on antimoney laundering tools for banks and insurance companies. From a two-person operation in the Middle East, when Andreas joined the company in 2019, he has been able to lead the company in capitalising on market opportunities the company’s Middle East presence was comprised of just two professionals. Despite the pan demic, Jedox reported rapid business growth and presently has a full team of professionals in the region, serving in business devel opment, pre-sales, sales, marketing, consulting, and channel roles.

ROLE MODEL

Given his focus on growing Jedox’s business in the Middle East, Andreas closely follows and draws inspiration from the company’s CEO, Florian Winterstein whom he believes has demonstrated an exceptional acumen for growing a technology company. He also closely follows developments at the Institute of Chartered Accoun tants of India since the aims to expand its footprint in the region. He also closely follows the International FP&A Board for insight.

OFFLINE

Andreas is a passionate swimmer and diver. He enjoys travelling and is particularly interested in learning about and understanding different cultures, especially when it can help his engagements and decision-making in professional life.

With Jedox, organisations can align, integrate, and accelerate personnel planning for greater transparency and growth goals

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ROLLING OUT DATACENTRES FOR FUTURE BUSINESS NEEDS

With a vision of enabling digital-economy businesses, Khazna is investing in ways to make its infrastructure more efficient and sustainable.

Khazna aims to create a more connected world by building and managing wholesale datacentres providing custom-made solutions

Khazna Data Centers enables businesses at the forefront of the digital economy to connect seamlessly with the global digital ecosystem. Managed by lead ing industry experts, Khazna aims to create a more connected world by building and managing superior and sustainable wholesale datacentres, providing custom-made solutions and optimum performance as data continues to proliferate at an enormous scale

Aligned with supporting the creation of a digital ecosystem in the UAE and beyond, it fully connects with the customer’s vision, helping them minimise their infrastruc ture investment and releasing capital to strengthen their core business offerings by providing secure, efficient, reliable, sustainable, and scalable facilities.

Through dynamic collaboration, Khazna’s data hosting solutions help drive the business forward, connecting today’s ambitions with tomorrow’s successes. Khazna’s wholesale data centre facilities are designed and built to meet international and regional environmental reg ulations and have proved themselves efficient, resilient, and flexible.

Khazna is carrier neutral and provides con

nectivity to leading UAE carriers. Since the company offers hosting solutions across a wide network of wholesale datacentres it delivers infrastructure and data technologies to cus tomers at a highly competitive market rate.

Driving down energy consumption, decreas ing costs and employing advances in cooling and heat management technologies, have shifted the way datacentres are being designed, managed, and operated. Khazna Data Centers is looking ahead and investing in ways to make its facilities more efficient and sustainable.

Innovative technologies have been adopted to maximise uptime, optimise energy usage, quickly detect potential risks, and defend against cyber-attacks. Khazna is working on using Artificial Intelligence in its upcoming unique Command Control Center to ease and support the day-to-day operations and predict infrastructure failures by analysing all records extracted from monitoring the infra structure behaviour.

The company has also installed solar PV panels in the parking as also LED lighting with motion sensors across all facilities. This ensures lesser consumption of electricity and generates less heat decreasing the need for air condition ing. It relies on pre-cooling and free cooling whenever the weather conditions allow lead ing to less utilisation of chillers, and hence less carbon emission.

The company’s wholesale datacentres are designed and built to meet international and regional environmental regulations

Khazna’s new design approaches and equipment and technology selections are continuously analysed and benchmarked against sustainability goals by exploring innovative solutions in every pillar of the datacentre infrastructure. The company aims to achieve an annual average PUE of less than 1.5 and better water usage efficiency. The new datacentres are constructed and certified to Estidama Pearl-4 (in AD) and LEED Gold standards for green buildings.

Khazna Data Centers has entered signifi cant collaborations and initiatives to meet the increasing demand for distributed digital infra structure. It has completed the G42 and e&, formerly Etisalat Group, datacentre offering. The agreement allows both to increase the value of their infrastructure assets contributed to the joint venture while also optimising process and resource utilisation, without impacting their respective commercial positioning, client rela tionships and leading market positions.

In September, Khazna and BEEAH Digi tal formed a joint venture to set up the first Tier 3 datacentre in Sharjah. The datacentre is designed and will be built in line with sus tainable credentials implementing renewable energy sources to meet the power require ments. The facility will also be constructed to achieve green building certifications from Estidama and LEED.

Earlier this year, Khazna announced plans with Dubai Internet City to establish two facili ties to further support enterprises by enabling the integration of technology across all busi ness functions. The company also kicked off the construction of various datacentre facilities across the UAE. ë

HASSAN ALNAQBI

Chief Executive Officer, Khazna Data Centers.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As the CEO at Khazna Data Centers, Hassan is focused on growing the business within the UAE and new global markets, whilst helping to position and promote UAE as a new international ICT data hub. As society’s depen dence on data continues to grow, this vision will become increasingly im portant to help the region thrive on the global stage. Under his leadership, Khazna has emerged as the leading datacentre company in the region. It also has the largest wholesale datacentre in the UAE and the MENA region. A professional with rich experience in managing the development and op erations of datacentres he has also helped in expanding the IP coverage to emerging markets and international hubs as well as enhancing Internet accessibility to contents within the region. Before joining Khazna, Hassan held various senior positions with du, the erstwhile Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company as a Senior Director of Business Support. During his time at du, Hassan was actively involved in positioning and promoting UAE as the new international data hub.

Hassan has also held various positions with TECOM and was a member of the UAE Armed Forces. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engi neering Management and a higher diploma in Computer Engineering.

DREAM ROLE

Hassan hopes to enthuse more interest and curiosity about digital oppor tunities and contribute toward the adoption and implementation of innova tive infrastructure. He also aspires to inspire, lead, and strive toward an innovative future.

ROLE MODEL

For Hassan, every leader driving digital transformation and every business that regards digital transformation as a priority and not a box to check is an inspiration.

OFFLINE

Hassan enjoys cooking and reading as well as travelling and exploring the world. He recently picked up sailing. Let us see how it goes and if this turns into a real passion, he says.

DEMOCRATISING IT FOR EASY WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT

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The Kissflow platform enables business users to create applications and automated workflows without the need for technical skill sets.

Enterprises cannot rely on complex, old-school technologies to unlock the full potential of their business users

Kissflow provides a unified work plat form for enterprises to fast-track digital transformation. This flagship platform brings together the entire spectrum of work management into a unified experience for enterprise-wide users ranging from end-users, teams, team manag ers, process experts, citizen developers and IT developers.

The Unified Work platform provides capa bilities for app development, process manage ment, task management, data management, integrations, analytics, and collaboration by embracing low-code and no-code.

In this new world, without an inclusive approach where business experts and IT teams

co-create, a holistic digital transformation is not possible. To unlock the full potential of these business users, enterprises cannot rely on complex, old-school technologies.

Recognising that globally, there are only 26 million developers but 500 million business users, Kissflow has championed the democra tisation of IT, enabling business users to create powerful applications and automated work flows without the need for technical skill sets.

While most low-code and no-code vendors claim that they have been built with busi ness users as their focus, a vast majority fail to empower business users to create apps without intervention by IT teams. In many cases, these products cater primarily to IT.

Kissflow has worked to ensure its single uni fied work platform is usable by all stakeholders, from business users and citizen developers to IT professionals. The unified platform has capabilities for app development, process man agement, task management, data management, integrations, analytics, and collaboration. The company has a unique positioning and value

Most low-code and no-code vendors fail to empower business users to create apps without intervention by IT teams

proposition since its offering is tailored to trans form operations whereas its competitors focus on customer-facing and core business applications.

The company has intentions of revamping its Partner Programme. Recognising that its part ners are extremely crucial to addressing customer requirements, the company has set developing a sustainable and profitable partner ecosystem as the number one priority. Under the soon-to-beannounced programme upgrades, Kissflow is look ing to take a focused approach which will ensure that every partner is rewarded proportionately for their investments and efforts.

Guided by its mission of empowering citizen developers, Kissflow is committed to simplifying work for business users. The company’s aim is for these users to be unrestricted by technical chal lenges so that they are capable of digitalising key aspects of their work and leading the transforma tion of their organisations.

With an intent to expand the scope and scale of its world-class support to enterprise customers in the Middle East, it is investing heavily in expanding its partner network. ë

SUJAY PATIL

Regional Director MEA, Kissflow.

TOP EXECUTIVE

In the new position at Kissflow that Sujay took on in September this year, he will be responsible for driving the company’s vision and revenue objectives in the MEA, championing digital transformation success for regional end customers and driving the sustainability and profitability of the company’s valued channel ecosystem. Sujay reports directly to company CEO Suresh Sambandam. Sujay has over 17 years of experience selling enterprise solutions in the Middle East and India. Having held senior leadership posi tions at leading value-add distributors such as Ingram Micro and Redington, he is especially well-versed in channel dynamics and the intricacies of partner onboarding and management. This is complemented by his expertise in developing go-to-market strate gies for a broad range of IT solutions and services. Sujay has hit the ground running with his new leadership position at Kissflow. He has recently worked to establish the company’s new regional headquarters in Dubai Internet City and has also ensured the company is actively engaging with the business community in the region by already participating in two key digital transformation summits in the UAE.

DREAM ROLE

Given the growing popularity and relevance of low-code and nocode solutions in the Middle East and Africa, Sujay aims to firmly establish Kissflow as the go-to vendor for organisations in the re gion to fulfil their digital transformation objectives.

ROLE MODEL

Sujay considers Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Pat Gelsinger and Kissflow’s CEO Suresh Sambandam to be his role models in the technology industry.

OFFLINE

Sujay is an avid fan of cricket and closely follows international tournaments. He is also pas sionate about travelling to explore new places and experience new cultures.

PARTNER & RESELLER’S

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EMPOWERING CUSTOMERS TO SOLVE ENTERPRISE CHALLENGES

Liferay products can seamlessly integrate with existing systems without disrupting current processes or businesses.

Liferay’s technology is scalable at any stage of business bringing to it the advantage of all SaaS platforms

Liferay is an open-source platform and is among the leaders of open-source technology companies. This is by far the biggest USP for Liferay products as it can seamlessly integrate within exist ing systems and enterprises without disrupt ing current processes or businesses. These are interactive and reliable solutions that are avail able via multiple platforms in which services and contents can be presented.

Additionally, Liferay’s technology is scalable at any stage of business bringing to it the advan tage of all SaaS platforms such as phase-wise upgradation and changes depending on pres ent and future business needs.

Liferay Digital Experience Platform or DXP is designed to work within existing business processes and technologies to build a custom solution that uniquely meets the customer’s needs. It aids companies to elevate customer experiences resulting in elevated customer satisfaction.

Liferay Experience Cloud is an all-in-one solution that unites the company’s agile digi

tal experience platform and cloud platform capabilities with built-in analytics and B2B commerce functionality. Launched earlier this year, it enables organisations to create a broad range of custom solutions, including customer experiences, employee portals, and solutions for suppliers, distributors, and retailers in a consumption-based model.

At Liferay, partners are true drivers of our success and its customised deployment at cus tomer locations through combined and sym biotic forces. Therefore, partner programmes at Liferay mean serious business and focus on enhancing partner knowledge along with the creation of business opportunities.

The company meets its partners locally, regionally as well as globally for face-to-face interactions that stimulate and foster growth for both parties. Knowledge is imparted and shared through Liferay Academy which is a learning programme dedicated to our partners in addition to select customers. The skills and training programmes are freely accessible to our partner community to ensure they are always abreast with all new developments in the DXP world and ahead of the curve.

The company has a robust network of 20 strong partners in the Middle East with recog nisable expertise and a trusted presence in their

territories and across different verticals. They also share Liferay’s commitment to garner optimum value for the customer and pursue excellence.

Looking at the future, the company is committed to empowering its customers to solve their challenges through flexible, easy-to-use digital tools. Hence, the new releases will focus on achieving reduced cost and increased efficiency through no code styling, compos able pages and scalable content permissions. It will be built to easily and quickly create and update experiences and processes with flexible journey builders, API man agement and add-ons. The company is also working to understand and optimise end-to-end journeys to better serve users using commerce insights and optimised product recommendations

Liferay Experience Cloud will be a focal point due to the immense advantages of a cloud-based platform. Organisation demand increased functionalities, features, etc. and so our platform will be apt for customers on the cloud in the region by making it simple and easy.

Additionally, open-source advantages have been endorsed globally and regionally and Liferay will con tinue to provide this flexibility to customers to create applications without the need for IT experts or tech ven dors for cost and time efficiencies.

Two distinctively successful implementations in recent times include the Qatar Stock Exchange and Gulf Insurance Group. While Qatar Stock Exchange is using Liferay for its modern and future-enabled website to support the heavy traffic required for investor trading, the Gulf Insurance Group project includes integration of their custom-built web portal, native mobile applica tions, and website. Liferay has helped in modernising these channels and enabling seamless data flow within all three platforms. ë

AHMAD SAAD

Country Manager, UAE and Qatar, Liferay.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Ahmad is focused on establishing Liferay as the premier topof-mind Digital Experience technology for the UAE and Qatari markets, demonstrated by a strong footprint and successful customer stories. Apart from maintaining strategic relation ships with many customers across multiple verticals, Ahmad is also responsible for developing committed, capable, and scal able channels within the Liferay partner’s ecosystem.

As a customer and partner-focused channel manager, Ahmad has had the opportunity to build the entire channel business from the ground up for Liferay Middle East. He was recently promoted to Country Manager of UAE and Qatar to bring more focus to the growing demand for Liferay technology. Early this year, Ahmad received his master’s degree from Quantic School of Business and Technology, Washington DC. Ahmad’s most significant achievement in Liferay so far is win ning a major project for a global sporting event that is taking place in the Middle East this year, putting Liferay as a major platform that will facilitate and enhance millions of users’ digital experiences.

DREAM ROLE

Ahmad aspires to a successful career in sales and channel management, but recently he has been attracted to the role of open-source community manager given the uniqueness of the role and its potential impact on the industry. Traditionally opensource community managers were the most code contributors or the person who created the open-source project; however, in the present times, the role is shifting toward the development of marketing partner and ecosystem, and product strategy that aligns with Ahmad’s interests, and skillsets.

ROLE MODEL

Ahmad considers Malcolm Gladwell as the most influential thinker of our times and every time he read Gladwell’s books, there is a change in his view of the business world. Mentioning always makes you question conventional thought, he says.

DXP is designed to work within existing business processes and technologies to build a custom solution

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SECURING ENTERPRISE DATA FROM ENDPOINT TO THE CLOUD

As an integrated endpoint-to-cloud security solution provider, Lookout helps businesses enforce security policies to protect data.

to ensure proper configuration.

Lookout SSE solution enables organisations to secure their data while supporting a modern, anywhere anytime workforce

The Lookout Cloud Security Platform, a Security Service Edge or SSE solu tion, consolidates cloud access secu rity broker CASB, zero trust network access ZTNA and secure web gateway SWG with mobile threat defence into one plat form that reduces cost and complexity while simplifying management of security and access across all endpoints, clouds, and on-premises infrastructures.

By combining Lookout data security, access control, threat protection, security monitoring and acceptable use control functionality into a single strategy, organisations can modify access and protect data using advanced DLP capabilities. This encrypts and restricts data sharing in real-time ensuring access only to the authorised users. It also delivers automated assessments of all cloud apps and infrastructure

The Lookout SSE solution enables organisa tions to secure their data while supporting a modern, anywhere anytime workforce with consistent cloud-delivered security policies regardless of where data is stored. Besides inte grating CASB, ZTNA, and SWG into a single platform, the solution integrates policy and data security enforcements deeply across web, SaaS and private applications. These include user and entity behaviour analytics or UEBA, data loss prevention or DLP, and enterprise digital rights management or EDRM. This helps Lookout deliver an easy-to-use unified user interface across SWG, CASB and ZTNA and simplify policy and reporting workflows.

Lookout was named a Visionary in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SSE. In the Gartner Critical Capabilities for SSE, Lookout ranked a top three vendor across four pre defined use cases. These reports provide pow erful validation of Lookout’s key differentiators.

By integrating the above SSE technologies, as well as DLP, EDRM, UEBA and the pioneering Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security, Lookout’s unified model offers unmatched security and

By 2025, nearly 80% of organisations seeking to procure SSE-related security services will purchase consolidated SSE solution

overall user experience.

SSE is a massive market opportunity for the channel and Lookout is helping partners cap ture their share of the growing global revenue demand. According to Gartner, by 2025, 80% of organisations seeking to procure SSE-related security services will purchase a consolidated SSE solution rather than stand-alone CASB, SSE, and ZTNA offerings, up from 15% in 2021.

Lookout has a hybrid channel and field mar keting model where the company’s field and channel teams work together as one without any silos. Lookout has one integrated market ing plan that lifts the whole business with and for its channel partners.

It plans to invest in cloud-delivered security to enable organisations to achieve their digital transformation goals. This is critical for the work-from-anywhere economy where consis tent security must be applied to all managed and unmanaged devices accessing cloud and enterprise apps. The company has made a longterm commitment with its employees, custom ers and partners in the Middle East, and looks forward to helping even more organisations in the region secure their most sensitive data. ë

BAHAA HUDAIRI Regional Sales Director META, Lookout.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Bahaa is responsible for setting and executing the GTM strategy for each country within the broad META region. Managing both, the i nternal team and the channel, Bahaa is laser-focused on growing Lookout’s footprint across the region and driving the adoption of Lookout technology among enterprises and public sector entities across the region.

He started his career as a technical engineer in 1998 but moved into cybersecurity sales engineering role within a year. After spending nearly eight years in sales engineering roles with some of the region’s leading SIs and cybersecurity vendors, Hudairi joined MobileIron in 2013 as Regional Director, where he was responsible for setting up and building the company’s operations in the region. After three successful years, Hudairi joined Lookout in his current role. Bahaa is very proud of having established Lookout’s presence in the region and building its reputation among customers, channel players and prospective employees. Under his stewardship, Lookout is now used by some of the largest enterprises across the GCC and Middle East.

DREAM ROLE

While the Middle East currently falls under Lookout’s broader EMEA region, Bahaa aspires to grow the team and the business to the point where he can run the region as a VP of standalone geography.

ROLE MODEL

Bahaa is inspired by organisations that operate in the cybersecurity sector and those that can offer niche technology to address a key customer pain point and quickly scale from challenger to established market leader. He believes that Lookout, with its technology, leadership and regional resources is well positioned to follow this blueprint and become a market leader, in the SSE space.

OFFLINE

He enjoys travelling to new destinations and exploring various cultures. Bahaa also enjoys watching and playing basketball and football. He is looking forward to the World Cup in Qatar this winter and plans on attending a few matches with his son.

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POWERING AN INCLUSIVE AND SUSTAINABLE DIGITAL WORLD

Chipset technology provider MediaTek is focused on enabling a connected and smart ecosystem across organisations and homes.

homes. As a global fabless semiconductor com pany enabling nearly two billion connected devices a year, it is at the forefront of developing innovative chips facilitating digital transforma tion and addressing the pain points of IT and businesses.

As a global fabless semiconductor company, MediaTek is enabling nearly two billion connected devices a year

MediaTek is a global leader in chipset technology, powering energyefficient and incredibly intelligent smartphones, smart devices, and connectivity solutions. Its portfo lio includes products, solutions, and services across a broad range of advanced multimedia products such as smartphones, Chromebook, tablets, digital televisions, 5G, Voice Assistant Devices, IoT solutions and wearables as well as automotive solutions.

The company offers chips for new-age smart phones including the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 and 9000+, which is a premium flagship product under the market-leading 5G Dimen sity family. In the smart visualisation segment, the company has recently launched the Medi aTek Pentonic 700 chipset for premium 120Hz 4K smart TVs.

MediaTek is focused on enabling a connected and smart ecosystem across organisations and

In the recent past, the company has been enabling digitisation through Mobile Point of Sales Android machines in South Africa, 5G routers at home and in cars in the GCC region, and home Wi-Fi and DSL migration projects in Egypt. Further, Android tablets and smart assistants, along with a wide range of smart home devices, are also contributing to the ongoing digital transformation in the region.

MediaTek is known for and is differentiated by a diverse portfolio comprising varied smart devices and connectivity solutions. Its major differentiator stems from the high value it offers to customers as a complete consumer electron ics company. It is focused on enabling technol ogy democratisation and is working to create an inclusive ecosystem facilitated by enhanced chipsets featuring boosted speed, quality, safety, and security. Another differentiator is the company’s ability to cross-leverage R&D capabilities between diverse product categories

It recently launched the MediaTek Pentonic 700 chipset for premium 120Hz 4K smart TVs

like smart TVs and smartphones, to provide superlative smart devices to customers.

The world is at the initial stage of the 5G era, a mile stone that will be marked by innovations revolving around disruptive technologies such as IoT, AI, and Edge Computing. With a focus on the scenario, MediaTek is building new-age technologies incorporating these trends and enabling varied use cases around them. It is striving to facilitate sectors such as smart home applica tions, industrial IoT, telemedicine, autonomous vehicles, and AR and VR applications over the short and medium term.

To enable these innovations, MediaTek will continue to invest in better and smarter technologies that will yield better results for the end users while fostering a world-class experience for our customers.

MediaTek believes in strongly empowering its partner network because, as a B2B company, it is fully dependent on them to reach out to the end consumers. The company has robust initiatives in place to guide and train them in MediaTek technology, while also offering them skilling certificates aimed at enhancing their capabilities. The company is constantly working towards amplifying the partner network with newer and stronger connections.

In terms of business, the company has impressive wins and projects to talk about. It is part of a substantial Internet connectivity project of Telecom Egypt which is providing wired connections to millions of households using MediaTek DSL and GPON chipsets. In Pan Africa, the telecom company RAIN is providing 5G wireless Internet to millions of people living in areas that have poor infrastructure through the MediaTek T750 chip set. Similarly, fintech company YOCO is revolutionis ing the way SMEs do business by providing merchants with affordable handheld Android POS machines using MediaTek’s AIOT chipsets. ë

RAMI OSMAN Director Corporate Sales MEA, MediaTek.

TOP EXECUTIVE

From a software developer and network engineer to manag ing business development, his journey with MediaTek MEA has been full of learnings. He also gained considerable ex perience working with Microsoft, as a Corporate Account Manager and Qualcomm, as the Country Manager focused on business development, for GCC and LEVANT, before joining MediaTek around eight years ago.

For him working in the technology field and building a region al commercial function out of Dubai is relatively easy due to the availability of human resources with skills that match the needs of a marketing or sales job. However technical knowhow is the real challenge, he says.

To deal with the challenge, he decided to try and keep some regional SW and HW design, development and testing locally in Dubai. He has also been successful in building a depart ment for Wi-Fi, TV and IOT SW and HW at the office in Dubai Internet City.

DREAM ROLE

The start-up scene in Dubai has spurred many success stories in the last decade, mainly in the Internet services field. Going ahead, MediaTek aims to be able to support and enable more start-ups specialising across the IoT, AI, metaverse, and 5G.

ROLE MODEL

Brands like 3M have amazing technologies that have an im pact across every aspect of our lives. Rami admires NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang since he is skilled at driving profitability and increasing the value of his firm by focusing on advanced R&D and complex manufacturing products.

OFFLINE

Rami enjoys spending time with nature. He prefers going into the Dubai Sea on Kayak. He also loves fishing and enjoys the tranquillity on such trips that allow him to get back to nature.

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REDEFINING CLOUD, DATA, AND NETWORK SECURITY

reality of how people are working, their location and how they share data. An average enterprise has more than 1,000 cloud apps running, 97% of which are shadow IT, unsanctioned and unmanaged by the IT department. Netskope enables organisations to secure data, wherever it goes without the con ventional performance trade-offs.

N etskope, a global cybersecurity leader, is redefining cloud, data, and network security to help organisations apply the zero trust principles to protect data. Fast and easy to use, the Nets kope platform provides optimised access and zero trust security for people, devices, and data anywhere they go. The company helps custom ers reduce risk, accelerate performance, and get unrivalled visibility into any cloud, web, and private application activity.

Thousands of customers, including more than 25 of the Fortune 100, trust Netskope and its powerful NewEdge network to address evolving threats, new risks, technology shifts, organisational and network changes, and new regulatory requirements.

Organisations cannot effectively secure their data in the cloud using appliances sitting onpremises. Doing so means ignoring the modern

The company promises to be different by focus ing on data, while other security companies focus on the application or the device. It believes that device and application-centric security will always leave holes because employees find workarounds in pursuit of productivity, setting security up as a department of limitations. For Netskope, the right security and networking architecture is an enabler that must allow enterprises to do what it needs to do in pursuit of business goals.

As a business leader, Netskope is also focused on supporting and nurturing channel partners. The company has a three-level partner programme. The new authorised level provides an entry point to address increased demand from new partners while the gold and platinum levels deliver greater advantages to committed partners.

It has also increased partner discounts and incentives using a new global discounting structure organised by programme level and opportunity type. Netskope also offers technical certification including two new paths to guide partners toward achieving top technical certifications like Certified Cloud Security Administrator and Certified Cloud Security Integrator certification through Pearson Vue. Its new services specialisation path for profes sionals recognises technical expertise, customer focus, and services scale.

Netskope helps reduce risk, accelerate performance, and get clear visibility into cloud, web, and private application activity

For Netskope, the right security and networking architecture must allow enterprises to do what it needs to do in pursuit of business goals.

Over 25 of the Fortune 100 companies trust Netskope’s NewEdge network to address evolving threats and technology shifts

Keeping in sync with the technology trends, Netskope recently launched endpoint data protection, eDLP, with a pathway to move beyond traditional office endpoints like printers and CCTV, etc. into broader IoT and OT to demonstrate its commitment to protecting data wherever it goes.

It recently acquired Infiot which brings Borderless SD-WAN into Netskope products. This will enable it to truly deliver a single vendor SASE solution, which is crucial for the com pany. Gartner predicts that by 2025, nearly 50% of SD-WAN purchases will be part of a single vendor SASE offer ing, up from less than 10% in 2021.

The year also saw Netskope’s NewEdge infrastructure becoming the most well-connected security network in the world, including five new data centres in the Middle East supporting local customers’ security and network transformation. The local infrastruc ture supports major customers across a variety of sectors including finance, telecom, and energy.

JONATHAN MEPSTED

VP Sales, Middle East, UK and Africa, Netskope.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Jonathan runs the Middle East region for Netskope and is responsible for the local team, investment, and sales and reports to the EMEA organisa tion. During his eight-year stint at Netskope, his career has grown alongside technology. Jonathan started with a focus on the UK but took up the re sponsibility for Africa, and recently relocated to the Middle East to focus on supporting and growing customers in the Gulf region.

Netskope has registered impressive growth and traction in the Gulf region. It now has five Gulf datacentres and has significantly expanded the local team, including in Saudi Arabia. Its customers include some of the largest and most successful organisations in the region.

DREAM ROLE

The level of infrastructural investment in the Gulf and the regional vision for the future makes it an exciting territory for Jonathan to work. He believes that the people in the region have an incredible sense of entrepreneurism and positivity, which makes this the ideal place to build a world-class team to service customers.

ROLE MODEL

Jonathan draws inspiration from organisations that promote sustainable excellence and innovation. He values the power of creativity and determina tion and admires those who have a plan to get things done regardless of any obstacle.

OFFLINE

Jonathan spends a lot of his free time travelling and exploring new cultures; the relocation has given him a great opportunity to explore this region in greater depth. He also enjoys art and music and tries to discover new artists during his travels.

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TURNING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION VISIONS INTO REALITY

A trusted provider of end-to-end solutions, Omnix is enabling enterprises to implement advanced, high-value and frontline technologies.

The Omnix digital transformation strategy revolves around remodelling the enterprise to incorporate digital technologies

O mnix International has pioneered the art of streamlining customer projects with the latest technologies. The company is a leading provider of Computer Aided Design tools from Autodesk, Adobe’s Graphics and Content cre ation, TeamViewer remote assistance solutions, Faro’s measuring and imaging technology and Unity from Unity Technology which is paving the path into metaverse and gamification.

The company has developed its in-house HOT Systems computing hardware solution for high-end computing and graphics. These products and solutions address the needs of the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, oil and gas, media, education, and entertainment industries.

The Omnix digital transformation strategy approach revolves around remodelling the enterprise to incorporate digital technology across appropriate facets to achieve everything from greater efficiencies and collaboration to improving delivery speed and customer satis faction. The solutions and products from 2D, 3D, and BIM are project-based and outcomefocused, with cross-functional teams col laborating to deliver incremental value through agile best practices.

The company’s goal as a supporter of the customer’s digital transformation journey is

to provide an accelerated path to deliver strategic initiatives by enabling teams with the latest and most innovative and advanced technologies. This is strengthened by ensuring that the teams are pro vided with job training to have successful project outcomes.

As an organisation that is focused on providing the right guidance in consulting as well as product and solutions delivery, Omnix has been support ing customers by understanding their challenges and needs and standing by them from the start to project delivery. This is fortified by the strong implementations being provided and supported with solid and vital training methodology.

Omnix has earned rich dividends by making crucial investments in R&D and being up to speed with customer and partner engagements via its in-house modern customer experience centre. Customer service is also extended with ongoing educational platforms such as talk shows, open house workshops at universities, engineering societies as well as prospective customers. This cus tomer-centric approach has been a game changer for business growth and success.

Omnix has been the guiding force for 35-plus years, bringing in new and latest technologies to the Middle East, investing time and recourses into partners to ensure that the region stands at par with the rest of the world. The channel partner com munity in the AEC, oil and gas and manufacturing space has an appetite to understand the advantage of the metaverse, digital twin and HOT Cloud in Box technology which is a huge advantage.

This has paved the way for stronger vendor and partner alliances to deliver successful implemen

tation with due alignment to vendor KPIs and ensuring all the required KPIs are addressed by the partner community. Omnix leadership is of the strong opinion that it is important to provide best-in-class solutions for a futuristic world that places people at the centre.

The company aims to take advan tage of Web3.0 technology. It will also look at making significant investments in deep learning which will be the key to the future to enable signifi cant study and analysis that will help predict human errors using AI and IoT technology. Omnix also aims to revolutionise the future with innova tive blockchain-based software and solutions, along with designing and developing Web3 projects for NFT marketplaces, eCommerce stores, crypto wallets, etc.

The Omnix Foundation technolo gies division under Omnix Engineer ing has catered to organisations in AEC to standardise BIM mandates for smart city and infrastructure projects. The company has built a digital twin for large oil and gas plants, and imple mented EPPM and Unifier across construction, contracting and consult ing firms resolving huge gaps in opera tion. It is also solving issues related to remote assistance using the latest IoT and head computing technology. ë

SIMRAN BAGGA Vice President, Omnix Engineering and Foundation Technologies.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Simran leads, manages, and drives the sales, marketing, and technical organ isation for the Omnix Engineering and Foundational Technologies team under the umbrella of Omnix International. The team comprises three vertical busi ness units, namely Value Added Distribution, Industry Support Solutions and BIM Drafting Services.

A professional with 27 years of experience Simran’s foray into the ICT universe started with Hewlett Packard India in 1995. Later she worked with Compaq, IBM, Microsoft, and Cambium Networks before joining Omnix. She has diverse experi ence across markets in India, the Middle East, Africa, Turkey, and the Asia Pacific in multiple roles comprising sales, marketing, distribution, cloud services and hosting, networking, and security. A 360 view of the business both internally and externally has been the key force driving her journey in the ever-evolving technol ogy world.

For Simran, simplifying a complex matrix organisation and setting each business unit for success by country was a major milestone after she joined Omnix in 2021. A cohesive marketing strategy followed by world-class execution has been instrumental in catapulting growth and success in the region.

DREAM ROLE

Simran’s career aspiration is to strive for leadership excellence that can generate sustainable, long-term value for the stakeholders of the company by driving the strategic growth agenda through high-performing cross-functional teams.

ROLE MODEL

Simran feels privileged and honoured to be mentored by multifaceted talented professionals all through her career of three decades. Working with HP, Compaq, IBM, Microsoft, and Cambium Networks has always inspired her to strive for perfection, deliver the best, and most importantly see things through a different lens, learn and grow.

OFFLINE

If you believe that the most important thing is to be happy in life, then you can always make time, says Simran. For her Dubai, which has a large expat and local population, provides an insight into diverse cultures. In her leisure time, she en joys retro music, does Pilates practice, yoga, meditation and goes on long walks. She also likes to take care of her home, meet friends and travel all over the globe.

The company supports customers by understanding their challenges and needs and standing by them throughout the project delivery

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SCALING UP ENTERPRISE SECURITY TO THE NEXT-GEN LEVEL

Using intelligent cutting-edge tools, Palo Alto Networks delivers the next in security, helping businesses get ahead of the threat landscape.

Cortex leverages AI and ML against its data lake to automate the detection, investigation, and response to cyber threats

Palo Alto Networks is the global cyber security leader with a vision of a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. Backed by industry-leading threat intelligence and strengthened by state-of-the-art automa tion, Palo Alto Networks provides next-gen cybersecurity to thousands of customers glob ally, across all sectors.

Customers visiting GITEX 2022 will be able to see live demos of the company’s best-inclass cybersecurity platforms representing its three main security pillars plus services. These include Strata networks security with NGFW and SASE, Cortex for endpoint security, SoC Automation, and Unit42 Incident Response. It also includes Prisma Cloud for cloud security and Palo Alto’s professional services.

The company’s mandate has always been to provide enterprises with innovative security solutions they need for both the present and future with their three security pillars.

The Strata helps to secure the enterprise by using an industry-leading network security suite, ensuring organisations can consistently secure users, applications, and data, wherever they reside. Cortex looks to secure the future with a specific focus on leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning against its data lake and auto mating the detection, investigation, and response to cyber threats. Prisma secures customers’ cloud journey including SaaS, public, and remote access for mobile users, and remote locations through a cloud-delivered architecture.

The company’s next-gen solutions help secure any cloud-native applications, automate security operations, stop zero-day threats using MLpowered network security, and secure hybrid workforces.

The pandemic has led to a massive shift toward the cloud with continued hybrid work and the accelerating shift to the cloud; the need for a cyber security partner has become an even bigger prior ity. Palo Alto Networks helps deliver what is next in security to help organisations get ahead of the threat landscape, with broad industry recognition of our best-of-breed platforms: network security, cloud security, and security operations.

Palo Alto Networks is the first and only vendor currently offering Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) 2.0, which helps secure connections for businesses with hybrid workforces. ZTNA 2.0 helps organisations protect all applications and data from any location, without compromising access for users.

As part of its commitment to enabling the

NextWave 3.0 is designed to strengthen Palo Alto Networks’ offerings and enable partners to differentiate their services

growth of our partners, Palo Alto Net works launched NextWave 3.0 in 2021, designed to strengthen its offerings to enable partners to differentiate their services, build new security expertise, and grow profitable businesses. Nex tWave 3.0 also enables digital trans formation for Palo Alto Networks’ partners while allowing them to dif ferentiate themselves in the security market.

In a time where businesses have changed the ways they operate from continued hybrid work and the accel erating shift to the cloud, Palo Alto Networks aims to create solutions to support and deliver a seamless experi ence for its customers.

Signature-based cybersecurity tools have become ineffective to guarantee security. In the future, Palo Alto Net works foresees both AI and ML tech nologies to be a must for enterprises. As many organisations face a sheer volume of attacks, this will help with faster detection and response, helping security teams focus on other pressing tasks. ë

ERCAN AYDIN

Regional Vice President, Palo Alto Networks, Middle East and Africa.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As the Regional Vice President at Palo Alto Networks for MEA and as a mem ber of the EMEA leadership team Ercan has his role cut out. Reporting di rectly to Helmut Reisinger, CEO of EMEA and LATAM, he is primarily focused on helping customers with digital transformation and secure cloud adoption, as well as leading the company’s sales operations across the emerging mar kets region.

Ercan has over 30 years of experience in technology, networking, cloud and cybersecurity space. After working with organisations such as Cisco Sys tems, Juniper Networks and Trend Micro, Ercan joined Palo Alto Networks in 2012. The same year he became a Professional Coach, certified by the International Coach Federation.

Ercan holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from Istanbul Bilgi University and a bachelor’s degree in Economic and Administrative Sci ences from the department of Political Science and Public Administration at Gazi University. He has a close working relationship with customers and business partners, which has led to a rich and in-depth understanding of the technology trends that impact businesses and shape organisational needs.

DREAM ROLE

Ercan is focused on achieving Palo Alto Networks’ vision of a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. The company invests in talent to increase the number of cybersecurity experts and create more jobs by utilising the Cyber Security Academy and Graduate Programmes.

ROLE MODEL

Ercan draws his inspiration from executives and team members at Palo Alto Networks who have pushed him towards further excellence, especially when it comes to levelling up with key customers through partnerships. On a personal level, he draws inspiration from the transformational leadership of Steve Jobs and Satya Nadella.

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PAVING THE WAY FOR ENTERPRISE DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

With a 32% market share in Q2 2022, PFU has emerged as the leading scanner manufacturer in the Middle East and Africa region.

PFU EMEA is a specialist company within the Ricoh family, which is dedicated to information manage ment solutions. The company offers advanced technology, intelligent soft ware, and consultancy services. Whether it is document management solutions, bringing galleries online, or small format keyboards for coders, PFU is committed to enabling the world’s flow of knowledge.

The company which operates in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, is responsible for the marketing and sales of Fujitsu document scan ners. The European company was established in the United Kingdom in 1981 and has offices in Germany, Italy and Spain and Knowledge Suites in London, France and Dubai.

Information capture and business process opti misation are key enablers for digital transforma tion, which is at the heart of what PFU does. The company describes it as the way organisations can leverage digital technology within their everyday functions and processes. This includes the ability to capture information and the capability to utilise it to further business interests.

PFU has over 50 years of experience, which means that it is well placed to help. It is the world’s leading scanner manufacturer with over 35% market share. Nearly all business applications are compatible with PFU products, and it is largely considered the scanner vendor of choice for more businesses than any other.

Ready to ensure a seamless experience, PFU has the largest global install base and people to support the customers. It has been conferred several inde pendent industry awards including the Company of the Year title three times at the Document Man ager Awards.

The company offers AIIM training courses through the PFU Imaging Rewards platform. Customers can redeem their PFU imaging reward points for AIIM+ training pro courses. AIIM is the world’s leading association dedicated to the infor mation management industry, providing excellent

Information capture and business process optimisation are key enablers for digital transformation

With over 50 years of experience and over 35% market share, PFU is one of the leading scanner manufacturers in the world

courses and resources to help the experts.

During the year PFU launched the fi-8000 Series redefining the bench mark for professional scanning with Clear Image Capture Technology. Preventing line distortion and colour shift, it delivers industry-leading OCR accuracy, while enabling reduced power consumption and increasing the range of items that can be scanned.

The year saw PFU registering considerable business growth in the region with some significant project wins across MEA. On the revenue and profitability front, the company has shown a constant quarter-onquarter increase. The company has also doubled its team and has an ongo ing recruitment campaign to grow in Dubai. Significantly ahead of its busi ness targets, PFU has also emerged as the leading scanner manufacturer in the region with a 32% market share in Q2 2022. ë

ADRIAN CAFFERKEY

Regional Head, Middle East and Africa, PFU EMEA.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Adrian Cafferkey, Regional Head, Middle East and Africa, PFU EMEA. Adrian leads the MEA team and is the custodian of key client relationships and revenue streams with local partners. He reports to London-based GM Sales, Brian Fortune.

A 20-year veteran in the imaging capture industry, Adrian started his career at Ricoh. He joined PFU in 2006 as a European Channel Manager and went on to become the Country Manager in South Africa and later the Regional Head for Africa. Earlier in 2022, he took over as the company’s Regional Head of MEA, one of our most vibrant markets for PFU.

DREAM ROLE

Adrian wants to continue on his upward trajectory, leading the team to achieve a 35% market share, grow revenue and profitability, expand the team and continue offering best-in-class technology to the customers.

ROLE MODEL

Adrian looks up to Elon Musk for what he has achieved with Tesla; from a concept brand a decade ago to becoming the leading car manufacturer today, having competed against legacy automotive brands.

OFFLINE

Adrian plays to stay fit. He loves cycling, working out at the gym, running, and playing golf and rugby. He is passionate about continuous education and has pursued two master’s degrees over the past couple of years. When he is not working, Adrian loves to spend time with his wife and daughter.

SIEMON

MIGRATING BUSINESSES TO HIGH-SPEED IT INFRASTRUCTURE

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Siemon offers comprehensive suites of cabling systems, racks, cable management, and intelligent infrastructure management solutions.

Siemon advanced cabling solutions comprise Z-MAX category 6A F/ UTP and TERA category 7A and 8.2 high-performance twisted-pair copper cabling systems. Fibre cabling includes BASE 8 and BASE 12 plug-and-play fibre systems that offer a seamless migration from duplex 10 GB per second to 40 and 100 GB per second applications.

LightWays is a fully enclosed, flexible duct ing system to protect, segregate and manage fibre optic cables in the most rigorous datacen tre conditions. Siemon is also leading the way in the adoption of 400 and 800 GB per second solutions and is acting as the technical knowl edge provider to the market.

ConvergeIT intelligent building solutions integrate critical data, voice, video, and low voltage building systems onto a single unified physical infrastructure that also delivers PoE, Power over Ethernet. Its datacentre services include comprehensive site surveys, the scope of work, thorough document review, detailed

floor plans, cabling and pathway layouts, bills of material, 2D drawings and 3D BIM modelling and expert guidance on deployment strate gies, standards compliance, topologies, and architectures.

Siemon solutions enable low-latency, highspeed data transmission for reliable support of today’s advanced applications. A robust fibre cabling infrastructure from Siemon with lowloss components will enable speeds of up to 400 GB per second for the datacentre backbone.

Pre-terminated cabling solutions from Siemon will help deploy IT infrastructure faster and support scaling as and when needed. To mitigate risk and increase IT security, Siemon’s Intelligent Infrastructure Management system monitors datacentre assets in real-time, and tracks move, adds and changes.

Siemon offers the most comprehensive suites of copper and optical fibre cabling systems, racks, cable management, and Intelligent Infra structure Management solutions and has more than 400 patents specific to structured cabling.

The company’s Category 6A Z-MAX system provides best-in-class performance with the highest performance margins across all criti cal transmission parameters. It offers the fast est Cat6A terminations in the industry and Z-MAX jacks deliver the industry’s most reli able jack-plug connection for superior support of the latest PoE applications.

TERA Category 7A cabling far exceeds all performance requirements for 10GBASE-T and enables cable-sharing that allows simul taneous support of multiple applications over

a single cable, in a single outlet. Siemon is also the first to demonstrate single-pair Ethernet over 400 meters of balanced twisted pair copper cabling. Besides, the company’s environmental sustainability benchmarks are unparalleled in the industry, including 179% global carbon negativity and zero-landfill status.

The company provides comprehensive training for installers in the areas of cabling system design, installation, and administration. Siemon Cabling System Certified Installers can offer an extended 25-year system warranty. Through this training, Siemon provides theo retical and practical knowledge for a duration of three full days to the trainees.

Siemon’s Registered Installer programme specifically serves the needs of integrators and installers of low voltage Intelligent Building applications. They receive industry-accredited training and knowledge to deliver best-in-class cabling solutions for IP-enabled devices and applications. Trained RIs are authorised to deploy Siemon solutions with the support of an extended 15-year RI product warranty.

Siemon’s Digital Lighting Partner pro gramme helps low-voltage cabling contractors leverage their IP infrastructure expertise to become go-to experts in the PoE lighting space. Similarly, the Project Assistance programme helps enterprise managers locate installers and consultants for their projects. Using Siemon Certified Installer companies ensures success ful and consistent network cabling projects, from concept through to implementation.

Siemon provides hands-on training to the

Z-MAX jacks deliver the industry’s most reliable jackplug connection for superior support of the latest PoE applications

engineers working on the project sites. The technical team members also audit the site and provide best prac tice recommendations and continu ous improvement suggestions. This training helps engineers to overcome difficulties they might be facing at the site and maintain standard installation practices.

The company plans to launch the high-density fibre infrastructure solu tion LightVerse, which will enable the datacentre or enterprise network to get operational quicker with higher reliability and enhanced installation flexibility.

Siemon recently launched Light Ways, a fully enclosed and flexible ducting system to protect, segregate and manage fibre optic cables in the most rigorous datacentre conditions.

It also plans to launch advanced Category 6A copper solutions under a new product line to meet the highdensity, high-efficiency copper cabling needs. The company is also working to improve the software of its automated infrastructure solutions MapIT and has plans to launch the new version soon. This will provide greater flex ibility, ease of use and insightful data to monitor the installed network infrastructure.

Globally, Siemon serves over 200 of the world’s top 500 companies across the education, healthcare, government, hospitality, financial services, and oil and gas sectors. It has also secured large datacentre passive infrastructure and integrated buildings projects. ë

PREM RODRIGUES

Director for Sales and Marketing IMEA, Siemon.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As the Director for Sales and Marketing for IMEA, Prem reports to the Global Sales Director. He is responsible for incubating new strategic business and inno vations across the region, along with leading the team and driving profitability. He has worked at various organisations in the Middle East region handling diverse roles and projects before joining Siemon in 2010.

As the region head, Prem and his team have been able to position Siemon as a leading provider of the datacentre, intelligent buildings, and network infrastruc ture products in the region. They have also been able to gather trust and satis faction from customers, which is a great testimony to Siemon’s innovation and quality of products. This has helped drive business growth over the last decade, which the company expects to continue.

DREAM ROLE

Prem aims to deliver Siemon’s ambitious plan to capture a large percentage of the market share and become the leading provider of the datacentre and intel ligent building solutions in the region.

ROLE MODEL

Prem finds Steve Jobs to be the most inspirational executive in business and Apple as an inspirational organisation. Prem also has been an ardent admirer of Carl Siemon’s successful years as the CEO of the company and as a mentor with whom he has been working closely for many years.

OFFLINE

Prem is a music aficionado and loves listening to different genres of music. He also loves watching biopics, documentaries, and docuseries. His involvement in charity and community service keeps him humble. Prem also loves travelling and exploring new places, meeting new people to learn about cultures across the world. At times, he unplugs completely by minimising screen time to zero. He also enjoys spending time and holidaying with kids, family, and friends.

Siemon solutions enable low-latency, high-speed data transmission for reliable support of advanced applications

INTEGRATING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE INTO DIGITAL BRANDS

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Sitecore provides a toolkit for compa nies looking to make unforgettable digital connections with their custom ers. The company offer a cloud-based, end-to-end composable digital experi ence platform that provides a range of different solutions to help brands integrate customer experience into every digital brand touch point simply and seamlessly.

More than 5,200 brands use Sitecore to power their experiences, either as a complete solution or with components incorporated into their existing systems. The composable plat forms amplify the impact of digital experiences by orchestrating content, personalisation, com merce, and customer data into insights that deliver the best possible experience.

As countries across the Middle East focus on digital transformation, nurturing the human connection becomes increasingly important. Digital transformation today is about empow ering organisations to create authentic engage ments and meet customer needs continuously. A digital-first strategy means understanding your customers, building relationships, and delivering memorable experiences.

Sitecore solutions aim to make the inte gration of customer experience into every digital brand touch point simple and seamless. Examples include personalisation tools to offer

a service tailored to individual customers based on their needs and wants, and an integrated commerce system built to simplify the payment process.

To meet the expectations of today’s digitally savvy and demanding consumers, brands need to be able to build experiences quickly, expand and scale easily, and always have the flexibility to rapidly adapt to changing market conditions. Sitecore’s fully composable digital experience ecosystem integrates seamlessly with many other martech tools, so teams can stay focused on optimising their core business.

Sitecore believes that the technology com panies adopt should never put them in a box. Instead, it should fuel innovation, allow for distinctive design, accelerate business trans formation, and deliver digital experiences that turn customers into fans. Sitecore provides cus tomers with the tools to rise above competitors and be ready for their next big move.

The company has unveiled a new partner programme to help partners set apart from others in the market. It has greater modularity, specialisations, more certifications and learn ing options, as well as differentiation within the market.

To help customers better understand the type of partner they need, Sitecore has a tiered system based on prerequisites and achievements: silver, gold, and platinum. As Sitecore partners achieve more wins and suc cessful implementations, they move up in classification.

Partners can also distinguish themselves by winning Sitecore Partner Awards designed to

As countries in the Middle East focus on digital transformation, nurturing human connection becomes critical

Sitecore’s composable platform integrates seamlessly with martech tools enabling brands to provide unforgettable customer experiences.

recognise the most deserving partners who have shown dedication, excel lence, and attainment in deploying the company’s products to meet customer requirements.

The Sitecore digital experience platform DXP is built on cuttingedge microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless architecture, so it is essentially ready for whatever the future brings. In addition, the devel opment team is constantly working with new technologies to ensure that the company is ready to use them on behalf of customers. The company also collaborates and innovates with cus tomers, enabling them to tailor their digital touchpoints to their audiences.

In addition to expanding the prod uct line, Sitecore is also on a strong growth trajectory having doubled in size since mid-2020. The company hopes to continue with the growth as it expands into the markets where it has recently made acquisitions.

In April this year, Sitecore announced that it has fully integrated the core products from the acquisitions of Boxever, Four51, Moosend and Reflektion into DXP. The completion of these integrations is a significant milestone that accelerates Sitecore’s delivery of SaaS-based DXP. Also, in July this year, Sitecore announced that it has become the first company to completely transition the core CMS solution, including personalisation and the content authoring experi ence, to a modern cloud architecture with the release of Sitecore Experience Manager Cloud. ë

MOHAMMED ALKHOTANI

Sitecore Area Vice President for Middle East and Africa.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Alkhotani is responsible for Sitecore’s presence and growth strategy in the Middle East and Africa, including sales and marketing operations. He works closely with the regional and global teams. Alkhotani began his career with ICT in Australia and later worked with Cisco Systems in The Netherlands and Saudi Arabia. He also spent a decade at SAP managing various divisions and projects. He was later appointed the Managing Director of SAP Saudi Arabia. He joined Sitecore in May last year.

Alkhotani feels that he has been fortunate to join Sitecore during a period of sig nificant expansion and with the region’s countries focused on digital transforma tion and cloud applications. He has been working closely with Sitecore regional and global teams to support the company’s expansion in the region, including extending its Dubai presence, opening a new office in Saudi Arabia, and success ful rollout of Sitecore’s $1.2 Billion global investment plan.

DREAM ROLE

A dream job for Alkhotani is a dynamic role that can enable him to help others negotiate change. Alkhotani says that he is fortunate to work for a company that is not afraid to push the envelope and encourages him to grow alongside the role, which is evolving as the market increasingly realises the value and potential of marketing technology. He enjoys working with people from diverse backgrounds and hoping to inspire and nurture their talent, while also being inspired and learning from them.

ROLE MODEL

He admires any company that keeps customers’ needs at the front and centre of everything that the company does. Alkhotani feels fortunate to have worked for many such companies and learned from both executives and team members.

OFFLINE

Alkhotani is passionate about technology and follows news and talks on a diverse range of topics, particularly as Saudi Arabia and countries in the Middle East are at the forefront of many remarkable new developments. He enjoys spending time with family and friends and tries to lead an active and healthy lifestyle.

To meet the expectations of digitally savvy and demanding consumers, brands need to build experiences quickly

INDU S TRY’ S

PERF O R MERS

SNOWFLAKE

PROVIDING SEAMLESS DATA ACCESS ACROSS THE CLOUD

Snowflake delivers a single data experience across multiple clouds, enabling businesses to drive data-driven insights across their organisations.

Snowflake was born in the cloud and this has been a game-changer in the market

Snowflake enables every organisation to mobilise data with their data cloud. Customers use the Snowflake Data Cloud to unite siloed data, discover and securely share data, and execute diverse analytic workloads, including appli cations, collaboration, cybersecurity, data engineering, data lake, data science, data ware housing, and unistore.

The company focuses on enabling governed access to near-infinite amounts of data, and cutting-edge tools, applications, and services. Wherever data or users reside, Snowflake deliv ers a single data experience that spans multiple clouds and geographies so users can drive datadriven insights across their organisations.

Solutions by Snowflake help break down data silos created by legacy on-premises and cloud applications, so users can integrate and

analyse data sets that were previously impossible to obtain. With Snowflake, users can also store and access structured, semi-structured, and unstruc tured data in one location, gaining seamless access to external data with scale and speed.

Snowflake Marketplace enables users to securely acquire third-party data sets, tools and applica tions, and complementary data services, all without having to move or copy that data. It also handles the maintenance, administration, and a host of auto mated services so users don’t have to deal with the operational burden.

Snowflake was born in the cloud, and this has been a game-changer in the market. The company is bringing near-unlimited scalability with an affordable price as we are billing our customers per second for their real usage. This consumption model puts it ahead of the competition and Snow flake has been successfully replacing legacy systems for companies across the world. It also has unique data sharing and collaboration capabilities, unlock ing business value that is not far from three trillion dollars according to McKinsey.

To strengthen the channel network, the company has a Snowflake Partner Network Programme. The initiative aims to build scalable offerings to meet the needs of partners, customers, and the wider data cloud ecosystem. The programme also helps the partners maximise their value and customer success with Snowflake. As partners increase their

impact, they can move up the tier and further differentiate themselves. It also helps them and to play an indispens able role in driving customer adop tion and value realisation on the Data Cloud.

Snowflake first transformed data analytics in 2014, then data collabora tion in 2018, and is now zeroed in on disrupting application development with the Data Cloud. With Snowflake as the platform for application devel opment, it is not only simple for users to unlock discovery and collaboration across their entire organisation, but with just a few more clicks, they can even externalise applications to the entire Data Cloud network and unlock new revenue streams.

The Snowflake solution also helps break the barriers that have inhibited enterprise collaboration, enabling organisations to embrace a new sharing economy. Since Snowflake launched its regional cloud deployment on Azure UAE, the company has seen increased adoption across many key customers in the UAE. These include adoption by Abu Dhabi Ports and Mubadala Investment Company. ë

MOHAMED ZOUARI

General Manager, Middle East,Turkey and Africa, Snowflake.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Mohamed leads a team of senior account executives helping Snowflake cus tomers mobilise the world’s data. The focus is on three core markets: UAE, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. The META region is part of one of the fastest growing regions for Snowflake, called growth markets.

Mohamed has over 20 years of software industry experience, including 10 years of experience with the software division of Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a Strategic Account Manager. He joined the Snowflake adventure in 2018 collaborating with local partners and customers in their data-driven trans formation journey using the cloud data platform.

He is credited with bringing Snowflake to UAE and setting up Snowflake Middle East and the office in Dubai Internet City. He is also credited with hiring a local team and successfully launching Snowflake on Azure UAE in collaboration with Microsoft in early 2022. He works with several government entities like Dubai Digital Authority to make the UAE the most advanced country when it comes to data and AI.

DREAM ROLE

While Snowflake just started operating in the META region, the company has already chalked out an expansion plan and is looking for double-digit growth year over year. Zouari’s dream role is to grow this region for Snowflake to $100 Million plus annual revenues in the next five years.

OFFLINE

Outside of work, Mohamed first love is to spend time with family and my four kids. He enjoys travelling across the world and the opportunity to discover new cultures.

The Snowflake Marketplace enables users to securely acquire third-party data sets, tools, and applications

INDU

S

PERF O R MERS

OPTIMISING AI-DRIVEN THREAT DETECTION AND RESPONSE

Vectra helps prioritise, investigate, and respond to modern, evasive, and sophisticated cyber threats early in the attack progression.

T he Vectra Threat Detection and Response platform combines com plete attack surface coverage across public cloud, SaaS, identity, and net work. By harnessing the Attack Signal Intelligence, organisations can get unmatched signal clarity that puts them in control of defending against modern, evasive, and sophis ticated cyberattacks.

Vectra delivers cyber threat detection and response with Attack Signal Intelligence. It opti mises Security AI to see and stop attacks across public cloud, SaaS, identity, and networks in a single platform. It goes beyond simple anomaly detection to understand attacker behaviour exposing the complete narrative of an attack. The resulting high-fidelity signal and contex tual intelligence enable security operations teams to prioritise, investigate and respond to attacks in progress faster. Organisations world

wide partner with Vectra to get ahead and stay ahead of modern attacks.

Vectra thinks like an attacker: AI-driven detec tions go beyond signatures and anomalies to understand attacker behaviour and expose the complete narrative of an attack.

Vectra focuses on the malicious: AI Triage reduces alert noise by distinguishing malicious from benign threat activity to expose malicious true positives while logging the benign.

Vectra knows what threats matter: AI-driven prioritisation reduces noise, automates alert triage and is 85% more effective at prioritising the threats that matter most to the business.

The Vectra global channel partner programme offers three categories based on the organisation’s market approach: sell and or resell Vectra, deliver Vectra services with partner solutions, and manage services by implementing its solutions as a man aged service.

The programme is further customised into tiers based on each partner’s level of commit ment, ensuring they can design the programme to fit their unique needs. Ambassador partners are industry-leading professionals who have demon strated higher levels of capability and performance. Authorised partners are in the early stages of their relationship with Vectra and will take part in the new sales accreditation and technical certification training.

AI-driven prioritisation reduces noise, automates alert triage and is 85% more effective at prioritising business threats

Going ahead, Vectra plans to continue investing and innovating around delivering the industry’s most effective and accurate Attack Signal Intelligence. The company is focusing on unifying attack signals across the public cloud, SaaS, identity, networks, and endpoints to automate the detec tion and prioritisation of threats in a single user interface.

It is also working towards unify ing attack remediation by integrating investigation processes, automating manual workflows, and delivering flexible but targeted response actions and attack management via a shared responsibility model fostering realtime collaboration between customer SecOps and Vectra MDR analysts. ë

TAJ EL-KHAYAT Managing Director South EMEA, Vectra AI.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As the Managing Director for the South EMEA area and part of the EMEA lead ership team, El-khayat is responsible for driving and executing the company’s global strategy and go-to-market initiatives in the region, by closely working with his teams in different countries to enable customers, partners, and cy bersecurity regulatory authorities to strengthen their cybersecurity strategy. El-khayat has over 25 years of experience working with some of the world’s largest global software, infrastructure, security, and networking companies with exposure to the US, European and emerging markets. He has built his ex perience working in sales, marketing, and channel. During the past 18 years, he had the opportunity to attract and develop talent within the organisations he worked for.

Having joined Vectra AI recently, El-khayat is focused on solidifying the founda tion on which his organisation is to be built and creating a structure that is scalable to support customers and partners alike. His mission is to ensure that Vectra AI is not only a technology platform but a contributor to the wellbeing of the community it belongs to, as well as a trusted security advisor to everyone.

DREAM ROLE

El-khayat aspires to a role where he can share his experience, knowledge, and learnings over the years with the young generations, encouraging them to be come active and make valuable contributions to their societies. Be it through coaching, teaching, or mentoring, this is where he finds happiness and a sense of fulfilment.

ROLE MODEL

El-khayat is fascinated by the amazing and well-structured development of the UAE. Having spent half of his life and almost his entire career in Dubai, he is inspired by the commitment, dedication, wisdom and more importantly humbleness of the leadership of this country. The UAE is a role model country, institution, and in terms of leadership in his view.

OFFLINE

Culinary arts is his interest and passion outside of work activities. When Elkhayat needs his personal space and time to disconnect, one can find him in the kitchen creating a dish or preparing a feast for family and friends. He believes that food brings people together, bridges cultures, and is an excellent way to express one’s personality.

The AI-driven detections go beyond signatures and anomalies to understand attacker behaviour

QUALYS

INDU S TRY’ S

PERF O R MERS

DELIVERING CRITICAL SECURITY INTELLIGENCE ON DEMAND

Qualys provides organisations with ability to consolidate cybersecurity stack and reduce complexity.

Risk mitigation solutions from Qualys include asset visibility, prevention, remediation, threat detection, and response

Qualys has a solution portfolio of more than 20 natively integrated applica tions covering asset management, IT security, web application security, cloud and containers security, and policy compliance. The spectrum of risk mitigation solutions includes assets vis ibility, prevention and remediation and threat detection and response.

Its EASM or External Attack Surface Man agement launched in August 2022 enables external assets visibility by providing an outside-in view identifying high-priority assets visible to threat actors. Similarly, VMDR 2.0 TruRisk launched in June 2022, enables a riskbased approach to cybersecurity. It defines an asset risk score based on business criticality plus detection score, minus the mitigation to prioritise risk mitigation.

Digital transformation keeps accelerating and between emerging technologies and hybrid

workforces, the attack surface is constantly expanding and getting more difficult to secure. Qualys provides several different capabilities to address digital transformation pain points such as cloud security which provides a complete view of an organisation’s cloud security posture; VMDR or Vulnerabilities Management Detec tion and Response for traditional endpoints, mobile devices, and operational technology; web application security to find and fix security issues in web apps.

It also provides Patch Management to ensure vulnerability remediation for a distributed workforce without the need for VPN and EDR or Endpoint Detection and Response to iden tify and act on suspicious or malicious activi ties, and many more.

Qualys is an integrated solution which provides organisations with the ability to consolidate the cybersecurity stack, reduce complexity, increase operational efficiency, and optimise costs. The extensible, self-updating and centrally managed, cloud-native solutions can be adopted via Shared Cloud Platform SCP or Private Cloud Platform PCP.

Qualys solution focuses on risk mitigation,

provides full assets visibility, enables vendor consolidation, sup ports stakeholder alignment, and delivers process automation and effective innovation. With Qualys One Cloud Platform, One Single Agent, and One Global View, enterprises can expect more security, less complexity, less spending, and less risk.

The Qualys Global Partner Programme attracts leading man aged security service providers, solution partners, consultants, and auditors worldwide, to offer comprehensive cloud-based security, compliance, and IT solutions. The company rewards partners by providing additional margin to recognise value and collaboration, protecting revenue for customer renewals and funding for partner-driven marketing efforts.

It also provides product-based training, self-paced training and labs, or instructor-led classes and Qualys product certi fications at no cost. The Qualys Partner Portal is a single easyto-access site enabling partners to locate relevant programme information and access dashboards to measure success and upcoming renewals.

To continuously strengthen risk mitigation, Qualys aims to further support a risk-based approach to cybersecurity with new features and product evolution. Automation will continue to play a critical role in the Qualys product portfolio to reduce the time to remediate and accelerate detection and response capabilities.

The company also expects that Qualys Open Cloud Platform will continue its integration path with the broader technology ecosystem, enabling customers to streamline and automate cybersecurity and information technology processes. It also believes that operational technology will continue to be a focus area, especially in terms of IT and OT convergence. Multi-cloud security is also expected to expand to improve capabilities and CSP coverage.

HADI JAAFARAWI Managing Director Middle East, Qualys.

TOP EXECUTIVE

As the Managing Director for Qualys Middle East, Hadi is responsible for the company’s field operations, including a combination of direct and channel sales and marketing strat egies aimed at driving strong customer growth. He has more than 25 years of experience in IT, security, law and business development experience in the Middle East and Gulf region. Hadi began his career as an IT engineer in Lebanon with Silicon Computer Systems before specialising in information security and spending 10 years in Saudi Arabia with I(TS)2, first providing security training and consultancy and transitioning to business development and team man agement. He moved into his current role with Qualys in late 2012.

The announcement of Qualys UAE Cloud at the end of 2020 was an important milestone for the company and Hadi as it came at a pivotal moment amidst the economic crisis when organisations were in search of locally hosted security solu tions to support their digital transformation initiatives.

DREAM ROLE

As Hadi continues to gain wisdom, knowledge, and experi ence, he aspires to continue to lead and inspire highly mo tivated professionals, build leaders of the future and make a difference in the regional cybersecurity arena.

ROLE MODEL

During his early years at Qualys, Hadi got the opportunity to work closely with the late Philippe Courtot who was a true visionary, leader, innovator, and customer advocate. As his mentor, Courtot pushed Hadi to be the best version of himself and always think outside the box.

OFFLINE

Sight and sound are two of the five senses that Hadi likes to experience through photography and composing and playing music.

VMDR 2.0 TruRisk takes a risk-based approach to cybersecurity by defining asset risk scores based on business criticality

HISENSE

PERF

DELIVERING CUTTING-EDGE SMART DISPLAY ELECTRONICS

With its focus on the transformation in the digital world, Hisense has been constantly introducing state-of-the-art technology.

The global electronics and white goods manufacturer, Hisense, is dedicated to bringing innovative and smart technology products to the market. It launched a 100L9G Laser TV, the latest large-screen product from the TriChroma Laser TV series in July 2022. The 100-inch TV has revolutionised the market with its immer sive eye-friendly experience for home viewers.

The cutting-edge technology uses triple-laser light for enhanced colour and brightness and has built-in DOLBY Atmos for cinema-level sound, all while saving on consumption costs. Hisense has unveiled a new line-up of WiFi-enabled smart-tech home appliances and medical equipment and is also creating new categories with its smart commercial display and transportation solutions.

Hisense has 20 research and development centres and 29 industrial parks worldwide. It also has in-house teams focusing on exploring technology and launching products that can improve the consumer journey. The new range of home appliances is built with smart technol ogy developed and designed as per the needs of consumers.

With its focus on the transformation in the digital world, Hisense has been constantly introducing state-of-the-art technology. For instance, the Laser TV is a perfect product that brings cinema to the living rooms with technol ogy that provides an elite viewing experience. It also has the VIDAA OS that offers a frictionless viewing experience.

Technology is deeply rooted in Hisense’s culture and delivering pioneering products

is key. As a competitive brand, the company constantly works toward introducing new technology to the market and has an expansive product portfolio, ranging from entertain ment and home appliances to healthcare and retail. Its U8G TV model caters to the gaming audience, while its ground-breaking Laser TVs offer cinematic experiences to viewers. Similarly, the ULED 8K Mini-Led Series comes with a unique backlight technology, perfect for movie buffs.

At Hisense, consumers’ needs are at the centre of innovation and it is important to exceed expectations when bringing new prod ucts to market, including home appliances.

Hisense has a range of partners looking after its business across various countries. This eliminates operational challenges and makes for a more streamlined strategy. The company allocates an official distributor and marketing team in each market, enabling them to leverage their knowledge and expertise for better results and help Hisense penetrate untapped markets.

Working closely with the distributors is essential for Hisense as the shared knowledge and regional expertise allow the company to quickly understand and overcome operational obstacles in new markets. Hisense adopts an omnichannel approach, integrating varying shopping methods for consumers. The com pany’s pure-play business model focuses on consumer electronics, increasing brand equity across all markets.

Innovation never stops at Hisense where smart technology has always been the way forward. The company constantly analyses Big

JASON OU President, Hisense Middle East and Africa.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Jason has an experience of more than 12 years in the consumer electronics industry, leading South Africa’s home appliances division. He generated the highest market share for Hisense refrigerators and expanded business categories to include other home ap pliances. Since 2020, under his lead ership, Hisense has grown by double digits across the MENA region. Since 2018, Jason has helped im prove the brand equity and awareness about the company with the business registering exponential year-on-year growth. He has also helped strengthen distribution coverage, channel pen etration, new product introductions, and e-commerce set-up. The com pany has also increased its focus on brand-building through sponsorships and the first store in Dubai and aims to add more in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Data and Artificial Intelligence to reshape technol ogy as it currently stands. It aims to launch products that have state-of-the-art technology and make consumer’s day-to-day life easier.

The company made its entrance into the health care industry with radiology monitors and ultra sound devices that are undergoing final testing in hospitals across the region. In the next few years, Hisense aims to revolutionise the lives of surgeons by providing high-tech advanced technology medi cal equipment that provides clearer imaging that can reduce doubt and improve results. Besides, medical equipment Hisense has also expanded into mobile phones.

In March this year, Hisense launched its first branded store in the Middle East, marking a mile stone in the company’s regional expansion. It was later awarded Dubai’s Quality Global Award by the Department of Economy and Tourism. It is also an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2022. ë

VEEAM

EXPANDING THE ABILITY TO REDUCE BUSINESS DATA RISK

Veeam is the leader in backup, recovery and data management solutions that deliver Modern Data Protection. The company provides a single platform for cloud, virtual, physical, SaaS and Kubernetes environments. Veeam customers are confident their apps and data are protected from ransomware, disaster and harmful actors and are always available with the most simple, flexible, reliable, and powerful platform in the industry.

Veeam Backup and Replication: Released as the most advanced data protection solution for cloud, virtual, physical, SaaS and Kubernetes workloads, Veeam Backup and Replication v11 has been downloaded by more than 850,000 users.

The company has continued innovation and expansion of its expansive feature set with V12 by further hardening the capabilities customers need in today’s ever-changing IT ecosystem. The new version, planned for general availabil ity in the next few months, expands the ability to reduce business risk through improved data and systems security recoverability at scale.

Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365: As the Microsoft 365 backup market leader, with over 11 Million users under paid contract, the new version V7 promises enterprise-grade moni toring and reporting capabilities as a result of integration with Veeam ONE, helping to keep systems and infrastructure running smoothly thanks to built-in intelligence.

Veeam Backup for Salesforce: Following the success of its Microsoft 365 product, the com pany will provide a demo of Veeam Backup

for Salesforce, a much sought-after addition to Veeam’s SaaS portfolio. With the ability to back up in the cloud and on-premises, the new offer ing eliminates the risk of losing Salesforce data and metadata.

Kasten K10: It is the most complete enter prise data management solution to date purpose-built for Kubernetes. The latest release V5.0 is focused on delivering a comprehensive risk management strategy, streamlined CI and CD pipelines and new ecosystem advancement details that optimise and de-risk Kubernetes investments. These advancements all aim to help the expanding Kubernetes community work more efficiently and securely in cloudnative applications.

Against the backdrop of the pandemic, the company witnessed an acceleration of digital transformation initiatives and cloud adoption across enterprises. According to the Veeam Data Protection Trends Report 2022, organisa tions aim to have 52% of their workloads in the cloud by 2024. This has brought with it a mul titude of challenges and complexities relating to multi- and hybrid-cloud architectures and Kubernetes adoption.

The incidence of ransomware is also on the rise. Within the region, 88% of organisations in the UAE and 84% in Saudi Arabia fell prey to ransomware attacks in 2021.

Veeam platform is the leading data protec tion platform for all workloads. It ensures bulletproof ransomware protection, acceler ates migration to the hybrid cloud, helps meet recovery time and point objectives while reducing cost and complexity and protects workloads whether physical, virtual, NAS, IaaS, SaaS, or Kubernetes. ë

INDU S TRY’ S

O RMERS

MOHAMAD RIZK

Regional Director, Middle East and CIS, Veeam Software.

TOP EXECUTIVE

Rizk has a strong technical sales background and 14 years of ex perience in the industry. He had an illustrious career helping re gional enterprises with their digital transformation journeys through the rollout of technologies, pri marily virtualisation, storage and data management, and protection. He joined Veeam as a Pre-sales Consultant in 2013 based in Saudi Arabia and moved up to his last role of Senior Director, Technical Sales for the Middle East, Russia, and CIS where he was instrumen tal in the planning and execution of several large-scale projects that helped drive Veeam’s reputation as an industry leader in the modern data protection domain. He is

Veeam provides a single platform for virtual, physical, SaaS and Kubernetes environments enabling backup, recovery, and data management.

UNLEASH DIGITAL

Visit us at Za’abeel Hall 1, Dubai World Trade Center 10 - 14 October

PROCESS MODELLING, PROCESS MINING, TWO SIDES OF THE COIN

The goal is to take a deep-dive into processes and discover touchless paths that require minimal human intervention and increase quality of business.

JULIAN KRUMEICH, Director Product Management ARIS, Software AG.

globalized world, every organization needs to undergo constant transformation in the way they do business. Change and innovation are a part of the new normal for businesses across all industries. These practices can range from small – like making shifts to meet new market demands or industry regulations – to implementing larger customer-focused busi ness model innovations that can disrupt the underlying industry or even create an entirely new market.

To transform your organization, you essen tially need two components:

#1 Strategy and plan for the desired new way of working

#2 Visibility into your current modus operandi

In the case of digital transformation, the first is process modelling, which sets the bar you want to achieve, and second tells you where you are and what you need to change using process mining to achieve the first.

When it comes to process transforma tion, you need both a strategy and a clear understanding of where you are today. That is why process modelling, and process mining are critical to your success.

To remain successful in a competitive,

It is like two sides of the same coin; you need to actually pay with both.

Process mining allows you to take all the process data within your company and mines it for insight on potential improvement, focusing on finding better, more efficient pathways in operations. The goal is to take a deep-dive into

Maybe it will identify opportunities to increase efficiencies in the shipping, deliver, return steps of the process

as-is processes and discover touchless process paths that require minimal human interven tion and increase the speed, accuracy, and qual ity of whatever your business does.

So what can process mining reveal about a business’s current state of operations?

Let us take a process from order to delivery as an example. Customers today demand a highly flexible and digitized customer experience that allows them to change their order up to the last possible moment. When customers cannot do this because of inefficient processes, businesses risk losing customers to a competitor.

Here’s an example: I recently ordered some clothes from a large fashion house and wanted to change the size of one of the items after I placed the order. The process model used by the designer could not support my request to change the size of one piece of clothing and my request caused issues with the shipping and delivery of the entire order. It was a nightmare experience for me as a customer, and from a sustainability standpoint, it created a lot of waste.

In this case, process mining could help this business identify those touchless points in the process that can be improved to deliver an improved customer experience and reduce waste. Maybe the data analysis will reveal that a tweak in the point-of-sale software can support a customer’s ability to amend an order within a certain timeframe without causing delays.

Or maybe it will identify opportunities to increase efficiencies in the shipping, deliver, and return steps of the process which will lead to increased customer satisfaction. These are only assumptions, however.

A complete process mining analysis can only

reveal the realities of a business’s as-is state.

Order changes are increasingly a necessity not only in the stock-to-order business, but also in make-to-order. Take automotive manu facturers, who must allow customers to change their vehicle configuration until extremely late in the production process, like changing the paint colour by the time it reaches the paint shop.

Customers also demand full visibility into their orders. This applies not only to automo tive orders – which can take many months to more than a year in times of global value chain disruption – but to industries with shorter make-to-order timelines like the live tracking of food deliveries.

Once you have acquired the data and insights into how your business operates, the next step is critical to achieving the innovation you want to see throughout your business model: process modelling.

Process mining and process modelling are often thought of as two unrelated practices used for digital transformation. They in fact are very closely related and are two sides of the same coin.

You cannot successfully accomplish a pro

cess modelling exercise without the data and insights derived from process mining. Having said, several customers treat process mining and process modelling as siloed entities within their transforma tion journeys. And if there is anything we know better, it is that removing silos and encouraging free flow of information is what drives innovation, change, improved efficiencies – all things that ultimately make a truly connected enterprise.

If you want to change the way you do business, or even your entire business model, to achieve the innovation you want, there are many stakeholders involved. Therefore, you need a platform that man ages the transformation process and deliv ers the right information to the right people at the right time.

Take the process from order to deliv ery as an example: If you only change the underlying IT systems without educating everyone involved in the process on those changes, the transformation will cause fric tion or even worse.

While an increasing number of com panies have already implemented process modelling and mining, the majority still do so in isolation, resulting in lower effective ness of transformation outcomes or even failed approaches. This is similar to com panies working in isolated functions rather than process-driven organizations.

For true transformation heroes, it will therefore become best practice to establish an integrated transformation platform to gain fact-based, data-driven process insights as well as planning and rollout capabilities to turn plans into actions and ultimately measurable results. ë

Automotive orders can take many months to more than a year in times of global value chain disruption

Once you have acquired insights into how your business operates, the next step is critical to achieving innovation