CXO DX November 2023

EXPERT ADVICE

» EDITORIAL

HARNESSING LLMS Large Language models such as ChatGPT are key to how we harness AI in industries efficiently. These advanced AI models are trained on different types of data and they leverage ML techniques and AI algorithms to understand and generate text similar to humans. Their efficiency depends on the quality of the training data and exposure.

Their versatility to deal with different topics as well as their ability to automate routine tasks as well as handle multiple parallel interactions is making Gen AI a significant option to reduce human efforts. however, there are also disadvnatages or concerns. One of the concerns is that datasets used to train these LLM can contain biases and this could be reflected in the output of LLMs. While LLMs will need a lot of data training to function best, a complex web of valid data concerns and regulations needs to be navigated. There is the undeniable risk of data compromise when companies are looking to deploy such models for their organizations. The benefits look substantial but they need to ensure that the risks are taken care of and all customer data is well protected and meet regulatory requirements such as GDPR. One of the significant risks with training data is that the LLMs cannot unlearn the data that has been fed into them and it is possible that data you added for a job that is now completed will stay on. Getting rid of that could be an expensive option. Hence there is a need for caution and it is best to keep sensitive data out of LLMs. In the unforeseen scenario of the LLM getting hacked, data could fall into the wrong hands.

Obviously, there are answers to these challenges and it would be best to bring in the cybersecurity experts to address how best to secure your data even as you look at leveraging the benefits that deploying LLMs can bring you.

R. Narayan

Co-Founder & Editor in Chief

narayan@leapmediallc.com Mob: +971-55-7802403

SAUMYADEEP HALDER Co-Founder & MD

saumyadeep@leapmediallc.com Mob: +971-54-4458401

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RAMAN NARAYAN

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Editor in Chief, CXO DX

MALLIKA REGO Co-Founder & Director Client Solutions

mallika@leapmediallc.com Mob: +971-50-2489676

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Sunil Kumar Designer

Nihal Shetty Webmaster

PUBLISHED BY - Leap Media Solutions LLC

REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City | www.cxodx.com NOVEMBER 2023 / CXO DX

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» CONTENTS

20 » NEW FRONTIERS Ahmad Al Dandachi, Enterprise Commercial Director - UAE discusses highlights of Microsoft’s focus at GITEX Global 2023 and how the vendor is enabling several use cases of AI.

22 » TOWARDS RESPONSIBLE AI

14 COVER STORY

14 » DELIVERING THE VALUE IMPACT D-Link continues to deliver value and quality through its affordable range of high-performance networking products.

NEWS INSIGHT 11 » DELL UNVEILS APEX CLOUD PLATFORM FOR MICROSOFT AZURE 12 » OPSWAT OPENS REGIONAL OFFICE IN DUBAI 13 » AJMAN BANK UNVEILS NEW RETAIL SUPER APP POWERED BY DIGIBANC PLATFORM INTERVIEW

18 » MAKING A MARK

Shahnawaz Sheikh, VP Sales META at Cirruslabs Middle East discusses the company’s strategies for the region.

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Hyther Nizam, President, Middle East and Africa at Zoho discusses how the vendor continues to make strides in enhancing AI capabilities of its products while addressing privacy concerns are always top priority.

CIO OUTLOOK

17 » ALIGNING TECHNOLOGIES WITH GROWTH Kashif Rasheed, Head of IT PMO at Union Coop discusses industry trends, focus areas and outlook ahead.

COLUMN

24 » MANUFACTURING IN THE MIDDLE EAST: WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2024 Khaled AlShami, Infor vice president solution consulting, MEA elaborates manufacturers need to be ready to embrace new digital strategies.

26 » SCALING UP GENERATIVE AI Generative AI has made its mark and it’s time to scale it for the enterprise says Sid Bhatia, General Manager & Regional VP, META, Dataiku.

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28 » THE FIGHT AGAINST HYBRID THREATS Michael Byrnes, director - solutions engineering, iMEA, BeyondTrust says we must fight back againt hybrid threats.

30 » 6 STEPS TOWARDS THE PERFECT HYBRID WORKPLACE Ekta Puthran, Head of Sales APAC & MEA - Collaboration, Barco explore six pivotal steps to master the hybrid workplace.

31 » TOWARDS A DATA-LED ENTERPRISE Vibhu Kapoor, Regional VP MEA & India, Epicor discusses 5 pointers to accelerate the journey towards becoming a data-led enterprise.

33 » KUBERNETES AT A CROSSROADS Michael Cade, Global Field CTO Cloud-Native Product Strategy, Veeam elaborates on what many developers still need to understand about protecting containers.

38 » AI'S ROLE IN THE EVER-EVOLVING CYBERSECURITY LANDSCAPE Bharat Raigangar, Board Advisor, 1CxO, CyberSecurist & Mentor at Finesse discusses the implications of Generative AI on the cybersecurity landscape.

REGULARS

06 » NEWS 35 » TRENDS & STATS 36 » TECHSHOW

» NEWS

ZAINTECH AND VEEAM PARTNER TO DELIVER BACKUP AND DISASTER RECOVERY SERVICES Partners are set to bring Veeam-powered solutions to market and to build reliable, enterprise-grade offerings ZainTECH, the integrated digital solutions provider of Zain Group, announced a strategic partnership with US-based Veeam Solutions (Veeam) to bring Veeam-powered solutions to market and to build reliable, enterprise-grade Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) offerings.

The announcement was made during GITEX Global 2023, the largest ICT and technology exhibition and conference in the Middle East, taking place in Dubai, where ZainTECH is an exhibitor for the first time, booth number C-10, Hall 21.

Working alongside Veeam, ZainTECH will be able to offer its customers a comprehensive and cost-effective way to scale their backup requirements and data management systems. Veeam’s solutions are provided through strong alliance partnerships and seamless technology integrations with leading cloud providers,

including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Cloud, and Google Cloud.

Andrew Hanna, CEO of ZainTECH said, “This agreement underscores ZainTECH’s commitment to partnering with the best technology providers in the business to provide our clients with the most

advanced array of products and solutions.

With Veeam’s remarkable technology portfolio in data backup and recovery, we are confident that this collaboration will not only enrich but elevate our clients' access to their invaluable digital assets and information.”

DIGIGLASS AMPLIFIES MICROSOFT SECURITY EXPERTISE DigiGlass’ SOC is a centralized unit embedded with capabilities for monitoring and managing customers’ security hygiene Microsoft Information Protection: Ensures the secure handling of sensitive data through classification, labeling, and protection across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Azure Security Center: A unified security management system that provides advanced threat protection across cloud workloads and hybrid environments.

Redington highlighted its key role in extending the reach of Microsoft Security solutions through its MSSP brand, DigiGlass, at GITEX Global 2023. This collaboration leverages Microsoft's substantial investments in cybersecurity and combines them with DigiGlass's strengths, positioning both entities as leaders in delivering cutting-edge security solutions.

Microsoft’s suite of security solutions encompasses:

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Azure Sentinel: A cloud native SIEM service that provides intelligent security analytics for quick detection, investigation, and response to potential threats.

Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP): An endpoint security solution that safeguards devices against sophisticated threats and offers advanced threat hunting capabilities.

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

Identity and Access Management: Microsoft's identity and access management solutions, including Azure Active Directory and Microsoft Identity Manager, help secure user identities and control access to critical resources.

DigiGlass’ SOC is a centralized unit embedded with capabilities for monitoring and managing customers’ security hygiene.

» NEWS

DIGITAL DUBAI JOINS FORCES WITH SOFTWARE AG & PALMIRA MoU signed to enable Government Entities to manage Integration Capabilities Digital Dubai has forged a strategic partnership with global technology leader Software AG (Frankfurt MDAX: SOW), and regional implementation partner Palmira Software House to offer the Dubai Integration Platform as a Service (Dubai iPaaS) framework across Dubai Government Entities to provide a tailored and cost-effective solution for their integration needs. The partnership represents a significant step towards Dubai’s Digital City goals and aligns well with the UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025, which emphasizes the integration of digital aspects into government strategies.

The announcement was made during an official MoU signing ceremony at GITEX Global 2023 between H.E. Matar AlHemeiri, Chief Executive, Digital Dubai Government Establishment, one of the entities under the Digital Dubai umbrella; Rami Kichli, Senior Vice President, Middle East and Turkey, Software AG, and Jamal AlMahamid, CEO, Palmira Software House LLC.

data enables them to efficiently address their integration requirements, marking a significant enhancement in their digital capabilities.

With the introduction of this advanced iPaaS framework, government entities in Dubai will gain independence and control over their integration processes. This empowerment over their

Dubai iPaaS framework, is a flexible unified offering, pioneered

by Digital Dubai, which plays a central role in advancing Dubai’s digital city aspirations.

ITSM ENHANCES PRODUCTIVITY, INNOVATION & IT OUTCOMES, SAYS SOLARWINDS REPORT The Average SolarWinds Service Desk customer surveyed saved 23 hours per week due to reduced ticket volume The average SolarWinds Service Desk customer surveyed saved 23 hours per week due to reduced ticket volume— nearly the equivalent of adding an extra employee to their team. Additionally, participants reported the ability to handle an average of 19% more tickets per IT agent.

SolarWinds surveyed 163 Service Desk customers and additionally found:

Cullen Childress

Senior Vice President, Product, SolarWinds SolarWinds released a report on the positive impacts of IT Service Management (ITSM) on improving IT outcomes, service delivery, and employee satisfaction.

● ITSM Helps Support Success & Speed of IT Outcomes: Empowered by AI-powered features, including a virtual agent to support troubleshooting and guided incident resolution, SolarWinds Service Desk customers achieved an average 23% reduction in time spent resolving incident and service tickets requests. Additionally, respondents reported a 21% reduction in both system downtime and ticket submission volume after implementing ITSM. ●

ITSM Creates Superior Employee

Experiences: A successful service desk deployment helps improve end-user satisfaction by ensuring faster resolution, better self-service capabilities, and a more organized way of accessing support. SolarWinds Service Desk users improved user experience by an average of 21% and, in some cases, as much as 45%. ● Investment in ITSM Pays Off: One in six SolarWinds Service Desk customers reported an ROI up to 3x their ITSM investment, with more than half (51%) reporting a return 3x their investment.

"At SolarWinds, we believe transformation and success go hand in hand. We pride ourselves on closely collaborating with our customers throughout their ITSM journeys, fromAhmad basic ticketing all the way through El Dandachi AI-powered service delivery, while helping Enterprise Channel Lead, themMicrosoft maximizeUAE value,” said Cullen Childress, SVP, Product at SolarWinds.

NOVEMBER 2023 / CXO DX

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» NEWS

UAE’S HLB HAMT SIGNS PACT WITH AUTOMATION ANYWHERE FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION The UAE’s 7th largest auditing and tax advisory firm gets equipped to enable businesses and government entities to leverage the benefits of automation.

Center of Excellence (CoE) in the UAE and beyond. The establishment of a Robotic Process Automation Center of Excellence (RPA CoE) within the organization underscores HLB HAMT's pivotal role in propelling digital transformation in the solutions it provides to businesses and government entities.

HLB HAMT’s CoE hub, in close collaboration with Automation Anywhere, will offer an extensive range of cross-functional capabilities, pinpointing and deploying impactful solutions tailored to organisations in specific industries. These include digital consulting, cutting-edge analytics and AI as well as seamless integration and automation. HLB HAMT also provides tailored SAP Business One and Sage X3 solutions along with other versatile platform solutions to address diverse digital needs.

HLB HAMT, UAE-based leading audit and tax advisory firm, has signed an agreement with Automation Anywhere, a global leader in Intelligent Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), at the recently concluded GITEX Global 2023, to function as a

The HLB HAMT CoE hub represents a meticulously designed, cross-functional centre focused on empowering businesses and government organizations to fully leverage automation's potential and realize tangible, real-world results.

MICROSOFT AND MAJID AL FUTTAIM ACCELERATE ROADMAP FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Organizations agree to jointly drive transformation initiatives across Majid Al Futtaim’s operations to create a superior level of customer experience Microsoft expanded its long-term partnership with Majid Al Futtaim with a new strategic agreement that will enhance Majid Al Futtaim's operations across the retail, real estate, and entertainment sectors by utilizing Microsoft's robust suite of technologies and services.

Both organizations will be working together on a number of strategic objectives that will leverage their strengths to enhance innovation, data monetization and capacity building. The partnership will also see them drive digital transformation through a Governed Innovation Hub, which will be led by a team of experienced professionals from both organizations. The Innovation Hub will focus on developing advanced applications that drive automation, enhanced customer experiences, and smart mall solutions. These applications will be powered by Microsoft’s Azure data analytics and AI capabilities, which will help Majid Al Futtaim to better understand its customers, optimize its operations, and create a more seamless and personalized shopping experience.

“We are proud to have been a key partner in Majid Al Futtaim’s digital transformation journey for many years,” said Naim Yazbeck, General Manager, Microsoft UAE. “Our partnership will accelerate this journey even further, empowering Majid Al Fut-

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CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

taim’s employees to tackle new challenges, create new innovative customer experiences, and improve business efficiency. We are confident that this work will help pioneer new possibilities for the retail industry across the region and beyond.”

Under the partnership agreement, both organizations will be jointly working on a Data Strategy aligned with Majid Al Futtaim’s business objectives to deliver actionable insights and transform decision making horizontally across functions and operating companies.

» NEWS

AZCOM IT DISTRIBUTION PARTNERS WITH SECEON The VAD will male available Seceon’s advanced threat management platform that visualizes, detects and eliminates threats in Real-time for The Gulf Countries AZCOM IT Distribution based in Dubai announced a new partnership with Seceon a leading provider of comprehensive protection, detection and response platform.

Seceon enables CIO’s, CISO’s, MSP’s, MSSP’s to reduce their cyber threat risks and their security stack complexity while greatly improving their ability to detect and block threats and breaches at scale. Seceon’s Open Threat Management (OTM) platform augments and automates MSP and MSSP security services with its award-winning aiSIEM, aiMSSP and aiXDR platforms. Seceon has been growing fast across The Middle East and Africa and has been actively blocking malware, ransomware and attacks targeting the cloud and IoT/OT environments at the edge.

“We are excited with our new distribution agreement with SECEON. Their solution fits in well with our product mapping to

meet the needs of CIO’s and CISO’s in the ever-changing cyber threat landscape. We are looking forward to working with the Seceon team and our channel partners to grow successful business together” said Nassir Nauthoa, Executive Head of AZCOM IT Distribution.

“We are excited to grow our business in The Gulf Countries through AZCOM IT Distribution. Seceon is providing gapless security coverage for the expanded attack surface brought by remote work, IoT, OT and cloud by collecting telemetry from logs, identity management, networks, endpoints including IoT and OT devices, clouds, and applications. The Seceon platform drives efficiency for SOC teams with AI and ML models built on behavioral analysis and correlation engines to create reliable, transparent detections and alerts.” said Lalit Shinde, CRO of Seceon, Inc.

Nassir Nauthoa

Executive Head of AZCOM IT Distribution AZCOM IT Distribution is a Value-Added Distributor (VAD) based in Dubai, U.A.E supplying a range of server, workstation, storage, networking and cybersecurity solutions to the Corporate Reseller channel in The Gulf Countries.

MINDWARE LAUNCHES AGGREGATION GATEWAY FOR INNOVATION AND COLLABORATION The VAD is embracing a unified approach to support its partners and ecosystem through its cutting-edge consulting services Mindware, a leading value-added distributor (VAD) in the Middle East and Africa, is excited to announce the launch of MAGIC (Mindware's Aggregation Gateway For Innovation And Collaboration). With MAGIC, Mindware is embracing a unified approach to support its partners and ecosystem through its cutting-edge consulting services. This initiative comes as the role of IT distributors continues to evolve, recognizing the vital importance of digital transformation in driving industry growth.

This initiative embodies Mindware's commitment to excellence and innovation, propelling the tech ecosystem in the Middle East and Africa forward. The 'Magic' Hub is more than just a service; it's a strategic partnership dedicated to nurturing the growth and prosperity of the company’s valued partners. In essence, the 'Magic' Hub is Mindware’s

commitment to delivering well-designed, customer-centric, innovative, and efficient services.

At its core, the 'Magic' Hub is designed to excel in handling mega deals efficiently - offering an array of support services that encompass technical expertise, financial acumen, marketing prowess, legal compliance, and comprehensive training.

Philippe Jarre President Mindware Group

“I am delighted to announce the launch of MAGIC. With this initiative, we are taking a bold step towards providing unparalleled support to our valued partners. This reflects our commitment to embrace digital transformation and equip our partners with the tools and expertise they need to succeed in today's ever-evolving market," said Philippe Jarre, President Mindware Group.

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» NEWS

HUAWEI INTRODUCES GOCLOUD AND GROWCLOUD PARTNER DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORKS The Huawei Cloud Partner Network (HCPN) in the Middle East and Central Asia provides partners with valuable business, technical, marketing, and Go-to-Market support.

On the sidelines of GITEX GLOBAL 2023, Huawei introduced the new GoCloud and GrowCloud partner development frameworks in line with the theme of "Go Together, Grow Together".

These frameworks aim to help partners build competitive offerings based on Huawei Cloud, as well as drive customer acquisition and revenue growth.

Huawei Cloud offers the Pangu Large Models engineering platform, which streamlines and expedites the creation of industry models by encompassing functions like data processing, model training, and application development. Huawei Cloud has developed more than 20 industry models and more than 400 AI applications on Pangu L0 foundation models together with our partners and customers.

At the Huawei Cloud Partner Forum, Huawei also introduced the Huawei Cloud Partner Network (HCPN). This global partner program aims to help partners achieve success on Huawei Cloud by providing them with comprehensive business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market (GTM) support. The HCPN also enables Huawei Cloud customers to find high-quality HCPN partners who deliver value-added services and solutions on Huawei Cloud. Moving forward, Huawei Cloud will continue to improve

the partner development framework and incentive policies, enhance the product GTM for partners, and increase investment in joint sales.

Frank Dai, President of Huawei Cloud Middle East & Central Asia, said, "The GoCloud and GrowCloud partner development frameworks foster innovation, nurture enduring partnerships, and empower you to thrive in this digital era. We are not here just to win the market; we are here to walk on this journey together."

LAMBDA AND VAST DATA PARTNER TO ACCELERATE AI TRAINING ACROSS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CLOUD Lambda Selected the VAST Data Platform to Provide Customers with a Highly Performant, Easy to Deploy GPU Cloud Mitesh Agrawal, Head of Cloud and COO at Lambda said, “The VAST Data Platform enables Lambda customers with private cloud deployments to burst swiftly into Lambda’s public cloud as workloads demand. Going forward, we plan to integrate all of the features of VAST’s Data Platform to help our customers get the most value from their GPU cloud investments and from their data.”

VAST Data, the AI data platform company and Lambda, a leading Infrastructure-as-a-Service and compute provider for public and private GPU infrastructure, announced a strategic partnership that will enable the world's first hybrid cloud experience dedicated to AI and deep learning workloads. Together, Lambda and VAST are building an NVIDIA GPU-powered accelerated computing platform for Generative AI across public and private clouds.

Lambda has selected the VAST Data Platform, the data platform designed from the ground up for the AI era, to power Lambda’s On-Demand GPU Cloud, providing customers with the fastest and most optimized GPU deployments for Large Language Model (LLM) training and inference workloads in the market. With the VAST Data Platform, Lambda customers will also have access to the VAST DataSpace, a global namespace to store, retrieve and

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Renen Hallak

Founder and CEO, VAST Data process data with high performance across hybrid cloud deployments.

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

“Lambda and VAST are bound by a shared vision to deliver the most innovative, performant and scalable infrastructure purpose-built from day one with AI and Deep Learning in mind," said Renen Hallak, Founder and CEO of VAST Data. " Together, we look forward to providing organizations with cloud solutions and services that are engineered for AI workloads, offering faster LLM training, more efficient data management and enabling global collaboration to help customers solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.”

» NEWS INSIGHT

DELL UNVEILS APEX CLOUD PLATFORM FOR MICROSOFT AZURE Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure extends Azure experience to data center and edge environments Dell Technologies announced the availability of Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft, a new fully integrated turnkey system developed in collaboration with Microsoft that extends the Microsoft Azure hybrid cloud experience to data center and edge environments.

It’s the first offer in the Dell APEX Cloud Platform family and the first available Premier Solution for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI. This new Azure Stack HCI solution category only includes platforms that provide fastest time to value for Azure hybrid cloud through the deepest levels of integration with Microsoft.

Dell APEX Cloud Platforms are next generation infrastructure that deliver consistent operations and more control over workload placement by extending your choice of cloud ecosystem on-premises.

These platforms offer customers greater flexibility and investment protection over time by combining the best of Dell innovation in automated infrastructure management and orchestration, software-defined storage, and next generation compute.

The opportunity to extend Azure cloud services to on-premises environments is significant. According to an ESG study on multicloud application deployment trends, 48% of customers surveyed are expanding on-premises deployments. Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Azure provides an optimal way for customers to bring Microsoft Azure to their data center and edge locations.

This new platform builds upon decades of Dell and Microsoft collaboration. It combines Dell’s expertise in delivering software-driven management and orchestration and software-defined storage with Microsoft’s leadership in cloud services and container orchestration.

“More of our customers are asking us to bring the power of Azure wherever they need it out in the real world, whether that is in their factories, retail stores, quick service restaurants, or distributed locations.

Through our partnership with Dell, we can project just enough Microsoft Azure to those locations at the edge,” said Douglas Phillips, Corporate Vice President, Azure Edge + Platform. “This new solution gives our mutual customers a seamless experience from cloud to edge, wherever their data lives, so they can spend less time managing infrastructure and focus more on transforming their business.”

The Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure is designed to address several key IT priorities.

• Simplify management: This new offer delivers consistent Azure operations across on-premises locations and public cloud via native integration with Azure Arc. Deep integration and extensive automation enabled by Dell’s APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software allow us to deliver benefits to our customers that far exceed our past solutions. For example, the automated deployment wizard results in an 88% reduction in deployment steps

compared to existing integrated systems, allowing customers to save more time Nicholas when deployingTravers the platform.

Country General Manager for Qatar, Dell Technologies • Accelerate Application Delivery: Through optimized delivery of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) hybrid, and Arc-enabled app and data services, the platform helps accelerate application delivery. Customers will be able to simplify management with deep integration and familiar tools. Users can also enforce consistent security and compliance policies across the Azure landscape through integration with centralized Azure management and governance services.

• Fastest Time to Value: To ensure customers get the fastest time to value and ongoing full stack support, Dell ProSupport Infrastructure Suite provides a single source of solution level-support for Dell hardware, system software and Azure HCI. Onsite diagnosis, residency, data migration, data disposition, and education services cover you on tasks commonly required in a multicloud environment, allowing internal staff to focus on other priorities.

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» NEWS INSIGHT

OPSWAT OPENS REGIONAL OFFICE IN DUBAI The company’s Middle East, Turkey, and Africa office will feature a state-ofthe-art Critical Infrastructure Protection lab will offer CDR and other technologies to an expanded market. Its hub presence will ease OPSWAT’s engagement with partners and customers, who will get face-to-face access to industry experts.

OPSWAT, a global leader in Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) cybersecurity solutions, announced the opening of its Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) regional office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, following GITEX earlier this month. The move is aimed at answering the increasing demand across the region for zero-trust cybersecurity solutions capable of safeguarding critical infrastructure.

The opening of OPSWAT’s Dubai office closely follows a period of significant growth for the company in the region. Over the past 12 months its regional momentum has included 60% growth in revenue, 50% growth in its customer base, a 50% increase in the number of projects, and a substantial increase in the company’s operational resources.

OPSWAT’s regional customers include organizations in the manufacturing, nuclear, energy, oil and gas, government, and defense sectors. More than 50 GCC ministries selected OPSWAT in the past year and the company is also actively working with almost all the region’s oil and gas companies. In the financial services sector, OPSWAT has provided solutions and products to 43 regional banks — including eight central banks — since March 2022, and is in the POC stage with approximately 50 other FSI entities.

“This office opening is timely, as we will have an on-the-ground presence in a market where we are fast becoming the vendor of

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choice for government ministries and banks,” said Sertan Selcuk, VP of Sales, Middle East, Turkey, Africa & Pakistan (METAP), at OPSWAT. “Our expectation is to see at least 500 companies as our customers in the META region by the end of this year.”

Selcuk explained that the ongoing merger between IT and OT has added many layers of complexity to securing critical infrastructure. IT cybersecurity solutions lack the tools to protect such infrastructure and very few security professionals have the skills to tackle the current threat landscape as it relates to OT. A further challenge is that few training and certification programs focus on critical infrastructure protection.

“Like elsewhere, many critical infrastructure networks in the Middle East rely on outdated or legacy systems that were not originally designed with robust security in mind,” Selcuk said. “Most OT networks rely heavily on IT systems and this interconnectedness often increases the attack surface. Securing these interdependencies poses substantial challenges.”

OPSWAT’s growing reputation in the region has been built on its Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) technology, which addresses these challenges directly. In CDR, files ranging from PDFs and HTML to image and video assets are pulled apart, sanitized, and reconstructed in real time.

From its new base in Dubai, the company

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

Apart from serving as a collaboration hub for customers and partners, OPSWAT’s Dubai office is home to a critical infrastructure protection (CIP) laboratory, where industry professionals, clients and channel organizations can see for themselves the power of OPSWAT products like Neuralyzer, MetaDefender Kiosk, MetaDefender Vault, NetWall, and much more. They will also be able to explore the advantages of OPSWAT Academy training, experience attack simulations, and discuss with the company’s experts how to combine these products and services to build the best possible OT security posture.

Following two successful years where its business has more than doubled, OPSWAT is looking to a strong 2024, characterized by the same level of growth.

“This investment [office launch] builds on the foundation we’ve been laying in the region for years, and we’re excited to have a strong presence in this key market,” Selcuk noted. “We are fully committed to the cyber fight alongside our META customers and partners. We see Saudi Arabia and the UAE as critical markets for cybersecurity awareness, and we see our growth in the region as continuing through our channel partners.

We look forward to working with them to bring our solutions to more customers in the months ahead.”

Apart from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Selcuk described OPSWAT’s growth in Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait as “exponential”. “We are also in the midst of a very aggressive restructuring in Turkey, which is home to more than one million manufacturers,” Selcuk continued. “We have reaped the fruits of this in the first six months of this year. Next year we will focus on Pakistan and South Africa and we plan to manage all the countries in the META region from our new offices in Dubai.”

» NEWS INSIGHT

Ajman Bank unveils new retail Super App powered by Digibanc Platform The Digibanc Platform from Codebase Technologies enables the Bank to create and launch digital banking products and services

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jman Bank, one of the UAE’s leading financial institutions, unveiled a pivotal step in its digital transformation journey at the Ajman Digital Government pavilion during GITEX Global 2023. The bank announced a strategic partnership with Codebase Technologies to launch its new re-tail super app, marking the institution's transition to an era of unparalleled digital agility. The Digibanc platform, developed by Codebase Technologies, underpins Ajman Bank’s super app. To further amplify the bank's digital capabilities, Cloud4C and Microsoft Azure cloud solutions have been integrated. This collaboration is geared toward unlocking enhanced customer value, streamlining operations, and driving increased revenue through state-of-the-art innovation.

Mustafa Mohammed Saeed Al Khalfawi, CEO of Ajman Bank, remarked, "This isn't merely a platform upgrade. It's a paradigm shift in our operational approach, leveraging advanced tools, automation, and enhanced capabilities to navigate the evolving banking environment.

The Digibanc platform has been pivotal in our transition to a more customer-focused, innovation-driven model. The transformative power of technology and cloud solutions in the financial sec-tor is undeniable. As a front-runner in the UAE banking scene, we're committed to harnessing these innovations to elevate customer experiences and boost our operational efficiency.”

Codebase Technologies’ Digibanc platform serves as Ajman Bank’s new epicenter of innovation, offering a full front-to-back technology stack to address the bank’s business and operational needs. Leveraging Digibanc’s microservices architecture and ready-to-market components, Codebase Technologies has implemented a new technology foundation from which Ajman Bank can create and launch digital banking products and services, benefit from enhanced customer analytics, and optimize internal workflows. Through its API-first approach, the team integrated Digibanc with key third-party partners, including Kong, Infobip, Microblink, and Aquant, enhanc-ing Ajman Bank’s collaboration with fintechs and improving its customer-centric offering.

As financial institutions embrace a more flexible approach to product and service development, the Digibanc platform empowers Ajman Bank with a flexible innovation center that is highly scalable and agile. Thanks to the platform's unique API-first architecture, the bank can embrace collaboration in new ways by seamlessly integrating fintechs into its customer offering. Digibanc also provides the bank with the flexibility to fine-tune business logic and workflows on the fly, as well as launch new customer experiences through a composable banking approach made possible by Digibanc deployed on the cloud.

Tamer Al Mauge, Managing Director - MENA, commented, “Digibanc has exponentially en-hanced Ajman Bank’s capabilities to become a digital-first leader. With its new technology plat-form in

place, the bank’s team has an extreme degree of flexibility over their products and ser-vices, customer journeys, and improved insights into their business as a whole. With these en-hanced capabilities, Ajman Bank has reinvented its approach, and we’re proud to have helped pave the way.”

Taking a cloud-first approach to fortify the underlying operational foundations is a primary step towards long-term agility, scalability, and Travers Nicholas flexibility. As an Azure ExpertCountry MSP, aGeneral Microsoft Gold ManagerPartner, for and one of the few firms globally to achieve 11 Advanced Specializations Qatar, Dell Technologies on Azure, Cloud4C was ideally positioned to support Ajman Bank's digitalization journey in the cloud. They ensured risk-free deployment of the entire Digibanc environment on a well-architected, fully secure Azure cloud that complies with standards outlined by the UAE Central Bank. This allows Ajman Bank to focus on core operations, seamlessly transform, and become future-ready, pow-ered by a next-gen digital banking platform on a fully managed intelligent cloud.

“In the current experience economy, banking users demand the best services backed by excep-tional speed and security at their fingertips. By choosing Microsoft Azure, Ajman Bank can now seamlessly innovate, deliver personalized services, and grow their business without worrying about internal IT challenges. Cloud4C’s Mission Critical Operations Center, powered by a pro-prietary AIOps-driven Self-Healing Platform, 25 Centers of Excellence, and 650+ dedicated Az-ure experts, guarantees that all cloud requirements are met and managed with utmost agility and confidence,” added Rakesh Reddy, Regional Director of MEA at Cloud4C. We adhere to local and global compliances like NESA, Dubai ISR, SAMA, GDPR, IRAP, RBI, MEI-TY, OJK, MAS and FedRamp etc.

Our Banking Specific Cloud practice currently supports more than 40 banks on the Bank-in-a-Box (BIB) framework and RegTech practice.

Cloud4C is also a global premium supplier of SAP and a trusted RISE with SAP partner, providing underlying ser-vices and infrastructure for SAP HANA and S/4HANA on Cloud NOVEMBER 2023 / CXO DX

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» COVER STORY

DELIVERING THE VALUE IMPACT

Product Highlights

Rugged Construction IP66 weatherproof housing makes DCS-F4724 ideal for surveillance applications

Full HD Resolution with Wide Dynamic Range A high-resolution megapixel sensor provides 1080p resolution while Wide Dynamic Range technology ensures that you capture the details you need

Complete Day/Night Surveillance Solution Keep watch over an area 24 hours a day with built-in night vision; the IR LEDs and automatic IR cut filter gives you a clear picture, even in complete darkness

D-Link continues to deliver value and quality through its affordable range of high-performance networking products.

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CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

» COVER STORY

I

f one were to try and gauge the history of the technology business in the region over the past two decades and more, there are indeed a few companies that have been consistent in their commitment to the region and have helped build a strong channel ecosystem. It is not just their commitment but also the product innovations that they continue to offer, keeping pace with the disruptive trends and shifts.

D-Link belongs to a select list of companies that have stayed the course over the years, building and sustaining a loyal channel and a significant market presence in the segments of its focus. The brand offers a diverse range of products including routers, switches, access points, security cameras, and other connectivity solutions that address the requirements of SMEs and even larger enterprises. D-Link has also been successfully partnering with telcos in the region. The vendor offers products that offer top-tier performance at affordable prices, making it an attractive option to consider for SMEs and offering them good value for their investment. This is in addition to the company’s significant success in the consumer segment where it has a strong recall with consumers and offers a diverse range of products including routers, Wi-Fi extenders, switches, network cameras, and smart home devices such as smart plugs, smart cameras, and smart sensors. that meet their specific needs and preferences.

Sakkeer Hussain, Sales and Marketing Director at D-Link MEA says, “As a brand, we have been operational in the region for nearly 30 years and in the past many years, have been one of the very few companies that have been equally focused on our customers and partners. One of our key strengths has been our ability to consistently breach benchmarks in product innovation in the networking range and be the first to bring products with AI, Wi-Fi 6 enabled and other latest features to the region. Globally, we continue to win accolades for product innovation and we back that with our commitment to the markets we serve in terms of product sales and support.”

D-Link has been a pioneer in offering cloud storage and remote control for consumers and small businesses with its mydlink ser-

Sakkeer Hussain Sales and Marketing Director, D-Link MEA

vices in 2011. The services worked with the company’s various camera devices, allowing owners to store footage in the cloud versus via local memory. You could access your D-Link Cloud Cameras, Cloud Routers, and Network Video Recorders from anywhere. For products like security cameras and baby monitors, mydlink also made it possible to tap into a camera’s feed remotely using the mydlink app. mydlink was discontinued by 2022 as the vendor aligned with emerging trends and continued to introduce new technologies.

D-Link has been an early adopter of new Wi-Fi standards, such as the transition to Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax). Wi-Fi 6 offers improved speed, capacity, and efficiency, and D-Link has been at the forefront of integrating these advancements into its networking products. D-Link has been pi-

oneering products that leverage 5G technology for high-speed internet access and improved connectivity for various devices as the rollout of 5G networks continues globally.

The vendor has been one of the earliest to offer mesh networking technology-enabled connectivity devices that address the challenges of Wi-Fi coverage in larger homes or offices. Mesh networking creates a seamless and efficient network by using multiple devices to extend coverage and ensure a strong, consistent signal throughout the premises.

Among other innovations, D-Link has integrated artificial intelligence (AI) features into some of its security cameras. These features may include intelligent video analytics for enhanced motion detection, ob-

NOVEMBER 2023 / CXO DX

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» COVER STORY ject recognition, and improved accuracy in detecting potential security incidents.

D-Link has also focused on ensuring its devices are resilient and secure against cyber attacks. For instance, D-Link’s AQUILA PRO AI M30 AX3000 dual-band Wi-Fi 6 router acquired the Nemko ETSI EN 303 645 cybersecurity certification, making D-Link the first networking brand in Taiwan to obtain this certificate issued by the Nemko Group. ETSI EN 303 645 is the European standard for cybersecurity requirements in IoT devices and focuses on ensuring the privacy, integrity, and overall security of IoT devices, protecting them against potential vulnerabilities and threats.

Last year, D-Link also joined the Metaverse Standards Forum as the first participant from the networking equipment industry. The Metaverse Standards Forum is a newly established governing body that aims to promote alignment on priorities and requirements for Metaverse interoperability standards.

Enabling secure and resilient connections with Nuclias cloud

D-Link was arguably the earliest of the networking hardware vendors to offer cloud management platforms for its products. D-Link’s cloud management platform is called Nuclias and for the past few years, it has been offering an extensive

range of products that can be configured remotely using the Nuclias cloud. These cloud-enabled networking routers, access points, and switches have made the life of network configuration easy for network administrators. Also, setting them up is quite easy for even non-tech personnel in the company if required to do so.

Sakkeer elaborates, “Nuclias is a 100 % cloud-enabled network management platform that makes network setup and management effortless for SMBs that may not necessarily have dedicated network admin resources to invest time of their own. This makes it ideal for small to medium-sized businesses across verticals like retail, restaurants, hotels etc that just want a hassle-free secure network that works fine.

The intuitive interface and dashboard, ensure that there is no need to open up ceilings or travel to other sites to rectify small problems. New devices can also be onboarded automatically through a zero-touch process, meaning non-technical personnel can handle this task if necessary.”

D-Link’s Nuclias Cloud enable SMBs to not only automate and monitor their network, but also to make the most out of features such as the customisable captive portal and 3rd party integration that can provide Wi-Fi analytics, wayfinding, and marketing automation which can be done remotely or onsite. The customisable captive portal allows businesses to create a

“As a brand, we have been operational in the region for nearly 30 years and in the past many years, have been one of the very few companies that have been equally focused on our customers and partners."

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CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

seamless log-in experience and 3rd party integrations can automatically check in customers via guest Wi-Fi. This type of software allows stores to get a good picture of who is using the Wi-Fi as well as to measure and analyse footfall. What’s more, it enables a great deal of flexibility to scale networks to accommodate more access points whilst retaining a robust and centralised management system.

As it is all cloud-based, any information sent to and from the Cloud is encrypted, with 99.9% reliability guaranteed. There is no need for your own server and all that is required are the Cloud-managed network devices, a Cloud license, and a PC or tablet to run the app.

With Nulcia cloud, D-Link also offers an opportunity for managed service providers in the reseller channel community to offer their customers services like creating accounts, generating reports, and remotely installing, managing, and monitoring the IT infrastructure and/or end-user.

Channel enablement

The channel has indeed been key to the company’s continued success and the vendor has always focused on channel enablement with the solutions they bring to market. The vendor has constant engagements with the channel that include training workshops and a robust partner program that ensures commitment in a market that has seen several competing brands struggle to emulate the success that D-Link has had.

Sakkeer adds, “We can proudly vouch for the fact that we are one of the very few brands that have consistently served the region with as much commitment as we have in the past couple of decades. We have developed a very loyal partner ecosystem serving the consumer, SME, and enterprise segments that have been able to grow with us.”

In recent years, D-Link focused on products that can align best with the hybrid workplace and achieved better traction in the market. One of the key strengths of the company has also been to stay abreast of the trends and shifts and accordingly deliver solutions. With its robust regional operations based out of its Jebel Ali office in Dubai, D-Link continues to forge ahead in meeting customer demands and partner aspirations.

» CIO OUTLOOK

ALIGNING TECHNOLOGIES WITH GROWTH Kashif Rasheed, Head of IT PMO at Union Coop discusses industry trends, focus areas and outlook ahead Where do you see the industry heading in 2024?

Based on the current trajectory, the IT industry is expected to continue its rapid growth in 2024, with a focus on emerging technologies such as Digital Transformation, Low Code platforms, AI, ML, RPA, and the Internet of Things (IoT). These technologies will enable companies to operate more efficiently, improve their customer experiences, and develop new products and services.

Additionally, there will likely be an increased focus on cybersecurity and data privacy to protect companies’ assets and customers' data.

Has there been an increase in the awareness of diversity and the positive role it plays in the workplace?

Diversity and inclusion have been gaining increased attention and awareness in recent years, both in society and in the workplace.

Many companies are recognizing the importance of having a diverse workforce, not just in terms of race and gender, but also in terms of age, culture, and background.

There have been several initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace, such as unconscious bias training, mentorship programs, and diversity recruitment efforts. Many companies are also setting diversity and inclusion goals and measuring their progress towards achieving them.

What would be the ideal work environment and work culture from your perspective?

The work environment would likely be one that fosters open communication, collaboration, and innovation. A positive work culture that values teamwork, accountability, and work-life balance would also be desirable.

What is the most engaging or satisfying aspect of your job role?

The most engaging and satisfying aspects of my role include leading a team towards a common goal, solving complex problems, and seeing a project through from conception to completion.

What is the most challenging aspect of your job role?

As an IT PMO professional, some of the most challenging aspects of my job role is to managing multiple projects simultaneously, balancing competing priorities and resources, and navigating complex organizational structures and politics to ensure project success.

What would be your approach to building your team?

It starts with Identifying the roles and skills needed by identifying the roles and skills required to achieve the team's goals. Recruit right talent with the range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences which can help foster creativity and innovation and lead to better decision-making. In addition, ensure to help develop positive team culture, encourage open communication & collaboration, teamwork, provide regular feedback and recognition, focus on training and development, empower team members and finally value work-life balance for your entire team.

What is the best approach to lead a culturally diverse team?

It is important to understand and respect for different cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives to recognize and appreciate the unique strengths and values of each team member.

Build relationships with team members by actively listening to their concerns and understanding their cultural differences. It is important to establish trust and open communication channels to foster a positive work environment. Establish clear expectations for team members, including work quality, deadlines, and communication and ensure that everyone understands the goals and objectives of the project.

Encourage collaboration with team members to work collaboratively and encourage everyone to contribute their unique perspectives to the project.

Which was your most significant contribution to your company in 2023 and how did it impact or influence the business?

We launched new E-Commerce platform

Kashif Rasheed

Head of IT PMO, Union Coop and Mobile APPs which have significantly Travers contributed to our sales. Nicholas During developCountry General Manager ment we emphasized the need tofor design a Qatar, Dell Technologies user-friendly website and APP that should be visually appealing, easy to navigate, and have a clear call-to-action. The focus was to ensure that the website is responsive, mobile-friendly, and optimized for search engines. We have developed a robust product catalog, Implemented a secure payment system and include state of the art search engine on website which provides personalize search as per customer past behavior.

What is your 2024 plan for your department? How do you plan to take the business forward with technology?

In 2024, the business plan to leverage emerging technologies such as AI, ML, blockchain, and (IoT) to improve business operations.

These technologies can be used to streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and provide real-time insights that enable better decision-making.

Moreover, cybersecurity and data privacy measures to protect company assets and customer data also in the top priority list.

2024 will be another year of further "Digital Transformation", "Innovation", and "Strategic alignment".

NOVEMBER 2023 / CXO DX

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» INTERVIEW

MAKING A MARK Shahnawaz Sheikh, VP Sales - META at Cirruslabs Middle East discusses the company’s strategies for the region

Please elaborate on your operations and focus in the region At CirrusLabs, we focus on Cloud transformation and help companies in their cloud journey. We are headquartered out of Atlanta in the US and we have offices in Canada and India. The Middle East Business reports to US headquarters. We are around 600 employees and most of them are in the US. We started out operations here about seven months ago. Our focus is UAE, then Saudi, and Qatar. These are the three countries that we are focusing on. But eventually we will expand into Egypt and other markets. We are also a local office partner for ScienceLogic, a software and service vendor that offer information technology (IT) management and monitoring software for IT Operations and cloud computing. For ScienceLogic, we operate as science logic across the META region. We have the responsibility of developing distribution and channel partners. So, we have appointed distributors for Africa, and Middle East. We are in the process of recruiting partners across the region. For that particular product, we have a wider scope. However, from our services perspective, we want to stay focused only on these three countries to begin with, until we create a significant impact and increase our customer base within UAE, Saudi and Qatar.

What are your partnerships in the cloud space?

We are a gold partner of Microsoft. We have expertise across major cloud platforms including Azure, AWS, GCP and we recently acquired certification on G42 as well. So primarily we cover major, public cloud providers, and local as well. We have certified experts and have delivered a lot of large projects, helping companies move their on-prem data centers onto the cloud you know, even to the tune of like 2000 plus applications. On the cloud, we work on microservices, help build data lakes, and have done a lot of work in the AI space as well.

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Can you elaborate on what you do on the data front?

If the companies wanted data lakes or data to be centralized, in one place, which helps query or retrieve the data, it requires, an engine to be built for faster access to the data, and it will be specific to that particular organization's business only. Especially for enabling AI, if you have a data lake, then it becomes easier to look at the data relevant to your business, rather than looking at everything else. From that perspective, companies who are looking at deploying AI, will also prefer to have their own data lakes or data warehouses.

Elaborate your focus on testing services?

We represent a company called Tricentis on the testing front. Tricentis provides AI-based, continuous testing portfolio of products with approach that’s totally automated, fully codeless, and intelligently driven by AI. It addresses both agile development and complex enterprise apps, enabling enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation by increasing software release speed, reducing costs, and improving software quality.

We help companies in their application testing, both the DevOps and DevSecOps teams with any new development or any new piece of software that they develop, that requires to be tested before it is rolled out into production. We bring in those testing tools and expertise. We bring in the application testers, application architects, and Scrum Masters for the process. The right combination of all of these will help customers test the applications before they are rolled out into production. A piece of software that's been developed requires testing from multiple perspectives.

If an upgrade has happened on the payment gateway, it needs to be tested if it is working properly. This testing is required from software development and execution perspective. So that's what we do with the test automation solution.

» INTERVIEW

Elaborate on your product focus We have products as well in addition to our services. On the product side, we have some in house products like product called LockThreat, which is into GRC. That's a product that helps companies with managing risk and compliance. We are now introducing an AI based GRC solution, we believe that we have a unique proposition that nobody else offers. We believe that we have an edge for the next few quarters. This AI approach simplifies human efforts. For example, if there are hundreds and thousands of submissions from users or entities with respect to compliance, then, someone from within the organization or external audit team has to validate all those responses, and then score it ad whether compliant or non-compliant. In this case, a manual process will take a lot of time. So if there are 3000, to 4000, submissions, even if you have a decent size team, for the management to see the result, it could take several days to several weeks before the results are published for them to see This can be done much faster with our solution. We are deploying this currently for a healthcare organization in the region. For this entity, the submissions come in, on a quarterly basis. And this could be evidence about the clinics or hospitals on the compliance side. These could be about how hygienic they are for instance. For this, they may submit the data around that could be a picture of a laboratory or washroom. Prior to AI, humans had to identify if there were any stains but now AI is going to do that using image recognition software and then assign the compliance scores.

Discuss the focus of ScienceLogic?

ScienceLogic offers a single pane of glass as far as monitoring goes for IT infrastructure that can look at multiple clouds.

ScienceLogic focuses on IT monitoring. It includes IoT but doesnt do OT monitoring. It integrates with all the servers, storage, network devices, and access to public and private cloud services and helps manage all the infrastructure. It also helps with identifying the root cause analysis. If for instance, typically in a large complex network, there is a problem with the hardware, and if the product, the problem is reflected on the application, it will think that the issues with the application but they don’t identify the root cause which could be in the CPU utilization. It could be a memory utilization issue and so ScienceLogic helps identify the root cause, then it also helps the business services as well providing critical intelligence such as notifications on the production front for instance in a factory. For this , dashboards need to be customized and aligned with the Business needs, which we do.

The customer does not need to keep multiple different monitoring tools and see everything in one single window.

How are you enabling partners?

As part of the two-tier Model distribution, we are training partners to do the standard deployment. Where customization is required such as building a customized dashboard so that the management can see relevant information on the dashboard, we offer our services.

Elaborate your SAP focused services?

We acquired a company at the beginning of this year, who are into SAP services. So, again, we don't necessarily go about deploying the SAP applications, but wherever there is a requirement for

Shahnawaz Sheikh VP Sales – META at Cirruslabs Middle East

a cloud transformation of SAP, we can offer our expertise. SAP themselves have been advocating to their customers that at some point, they need to move to the cloud. That is an opportunity we will be addressing as well.

"Especially for enabling AI, if you have a data lake, then it becomes easier to look at the data relevant to your business, rather than looking at everything else. From that perspective, companies who are looking at deploying AI, will also prefer to have their own data lakes or data warehouses."

NOVEMBER 2023 / CXO DX

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» INTERVIEW

NEW FRONTIERS Ahmad Al Dandachi, Enterprise Commercial Director - UAE discusses highlights of Microsoft’s focus at GITEX Global 2023 and how the vendor is enabling several use cases of AI What were the highlights of your participation at GITEX this year?

The biggest highlight this year has been about Gen AI. This year's GITEX has been about "The Year to Imagine AI in Everything," and Microsoft has focused on showing how AI will revolutionize the way we live and work. So that theme was top of mind and everything at our stand was focused on showcasing Gen AI use cases and scenarios.

For instance, we showcased a very interesting use case. We have unveiled an AI bot, called Mai, which has a ChatGPTlike interface and can assist users accessing government services and in verticals like health care and education. It's much more than a chatbot. And we chose the name on purpose because of how it is spelled. It is really kind of a very smart government digital assistant, to help you in accessing any government service in many, many languages and even in many dialects. It will be able to gauge the dialect of Arabic the user is speaking and will be able to respond in the same dialect. Likewise, it can handle many other languages. From services like renewing your visa to paying your bills, renewing driving licenses, etc, it will assist you and it is already being deployed.

We have also unveiled Microsoft co-pilot that will be your AI assistant to all Microsoft workplace solutions like Excel, PowerPoint, and Word teams. So that was a focus as well at the showcase.

How was the attendance at GITEX and at your booth?

The number of people who came to our booth has been significantly higher than last year. This year besides the IT heads, CIOs, and CISOs, we have seen CFOs, chief procurement officers, and others

20

Ahmad Al Dandachi

Enterprise Commercial Director – UAE Microsoft

who have come and shown interest in understanding how these solutions can help them from a business perspective. So it is no longer the IT leaders but the business line leaders who are keen on the new technologies.

Is there any expansion on the cloud data center front?

We are expanding our footprint in UAE from a data center perspective as our data centers have been in the UAE for almost 6 years and they have been pretty successful, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We are expanding capacity in terms of additional zones to handle larger demand, especially looking at Gen AI-fuelled data volumes. There is a need for more capacity, and more GPUs as Gen AI will demand more computing resources. We're invest-

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

ing more and more in the GPUs and data centers. And I think this cloud journey will continue to grow in the coming few years.

Does this go against the idea of sustainability because of increased computing?

We are committed to the goals of reducing our carbon footprint and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2030. We're super committed to this year and every year with the progress on how we're doing this, etc. Cooling and power are not going to be the same as they were three, or four years ago as it's completely different and uses green renewable energy.

It is our commitment to the country and to the world to bring renewable energy to our data centers.

» INTERVIEW

TOWARDS RESPONSIBLE AI

Hyther Nizam, President, Middle East and Africa at Zoho discusses how the vendor continues to make strides in enhancing AI capabilities of its products while ensuring privacy concerns are always top priority

How strategic has been the MEA market for Zoho?

The Middle East and Africa region is the fastest growing region for us globally. We started the operations, just over five years ago, having a local team here. Since then, our revenue has grown by 7x for the whole business in Middle East Africa region and for UAE market, we grew by 10x revenue. Every year or every two years, we are doubling the size of our business. We have been seeing 60% growth every year. We are seeing this growth because of our product portfolio including CRM software and accounting software, support software. There is growth in all segments.

We are gaining new customers and existing customers are investing in additional products from us.

Product like workspace, Mail, Accounting, and to our existing customers, we sell other products like CRM, Zoho Creator, Helpdesk, and so on. So we are seeing tremendous traction on both sides, creating new acquiring new customers, and as well as, cross-selling other products to customers.

You cover SME to enterprise. How much traction do you see in the enterprise space?

We're seeing huge traction, in both the mid-market and enterprise.

We have always been very strong in the SMB space. We are see-

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CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

» INTERVIEW ing increased adoption in the enterprise space because many of our products are mature addressing the requirements of enterprise Businesses to have products that offer performance, compliance, and security. The majority of our growth is now in the enterprise segment.

We have seen growth and demand because of the breadth and depth of our portfolio. We are not just a CRM product. We offer email, accounting, low code platform and so many more that helps address the demands of the Business across departments.

So we are winning hands down across the region vis-à-vis all competition.

How are the go to market strategies for Zoho and ManageEngine different?

There is a different go-to-market strategy for both companies because ManageEngine caters to the IT department, going up to the CIO level, and pretty much everything could be left to the CIO’s decision. It is different with Zoho’s products as a marketing product decision maybe with the CMO, services product would be decided by the services head, Accounting product by the Finance department, and so on. The decision-making in Zoho’s case is more scattered across different department heads and so the goto-market has to be different for each product. In ManageEngine’s case, pretty much every product decision is with the CIO and so it is easier to piggyback on the same decision-maker. In terms of branding, I do keep hearing from ManageEngine customers about their familiarity with the Zoho brand. The Zoho brand is quite visible and its pull factor helps ManageEngine as well.

Elaborate about the focus on AI at Zoho?

AI is very fundamental part of our roadmap and strategy. In fact, we have launched, a lot of AI capabilities across our products including Generative AI. In fact, Zoho AI assistant Zia has been integrated with third-party intelligence, as it has done with ChatGPT, bringing the newest technology into the company's broad portfolio of business solutions. The focus is on bringing together ChatGPT's generative AI with our homegrown AI features to enable users with a more intuitive, efficient, and secure experience.

We have in fact taken a slightly different take in terms of AI. As we are a privacy-focused company, we want to focus on privacy first and then look at AI. Zoho builds its AI in-house, focusing on optimal privacy protection that seamlessly integrates with users' greater technology ecosystems. Tools powered by Zoho's AI extensions deliver intelligence without compromising customer data or sending information to an unverified third party. Examples include handwriting detection, phishing protection, communication translation, and more.

For Generative AI to be more effective, you have to push out more data to AI but that shouldn’t be at the cost of privacy concerns. That is our belief and focus. We are also focused on building LLMs for specific industries.

Can you elaborate on your LLM focus?

This is deep ongoing R&D work at the moment. Zoho is currently developing proprietary Large Language Models (LLMs) capable of conversing, summarizing, paraphrasing, and adapting to new

Hyther Nizam

President, Middle East and Africa, Zoho

tasks with zero-shot learning techniques, empowering seamless AI-driven communication and knowledge discovery like never before. One of our co-founders is fully focused on this but we cannot commit to anything further for now.

How does the privacy focus in AI help with customer concerns?

IT resonates well with customers. People have been looking at AI for the additional features and advantages it provides. But lately, they have taken a step back when it came to their notice that the success of Gen AI depends on the data provided. So they are concerned about the cost at which success is possible. They don’t want their customer data to go out to a third-party system. So they appreciate our privacy-focused approach to AI and are now taking a holistic approach to AI. How was GITEX? GITEX is a flagship event for everyone in this region. It is the same for us and this year we have seen a lot more of visitors and many quality leads. We have used GITEX this year to announce the launch for more AI capabilities across our products.

NOVEMBER 2023 / CXO DX

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» COLUMN

Manufacturing in the Middle East:

What to Expect in 2024

Khaled AlShami, Infor vice president solution consulting, Middle East & Africa elaborates manufacturers understand the changing landscape and are ready to embrace new digital strategies, enabling them to turn challenges into opportunities.

T

he manufacturing sector in the Middle East is on a growth trajectory, with countries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt investing heavily in developing their manufacturing bases to diversify their economies.

In Saudi Arabia, the government is championing the sector as part of its Saudi Vision 2030, and the National Industrial Development and Logistics Program (NIDLP) aims to transform the country into an industrial powerhouse and a global logistics hub, including unlocking the full potential of local content and the 4th Industrial Revolution. Output in Saudi Arabia’s manufacturing market is projected to amount to US$243.80 billion in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 5.77% expected between 2023 and 2028, according to Statista.

In the UAE, national initiatives such as the government’s “Operation 300bn” strategy aim to increase the industrial sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) to AED 300 billion (US $81.7 billion) by 2031. The government is also keen to use technologies such as artificial intelligence to help propel the sector to new heights.

The government of Egypt aims to increase the country’s industrial production from about EGP 3.6 trillion ($117 billion) in 2022-23 to EGP 4.3 trillion in its 2023-24 plan. The government plans to achieve industrial output of about EGP 2.46 trillion by the end of 2026/25, compared to about EGP 1.83 trillion in 2023/2024, with an average annual growth rate of more than 18% during the years of the plan.

Despite this, individual manufacturers face numerous challenges including persistent global inflation, supply chain issues, and increasingly high customer expectations.

To navigate these challenges and be primed to tap opportunities

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CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

for growth, manufacturers must ensure that they understand the changing landscape and are ready to embrace new digital strategies, enabling them to turn challenges into opportunities.

Here are five 2024 predictions for manufacturers: 1. Rebalancing business will continue to be a challenge While manufacturing is growing as a sector in the region, it is not immune from global challenges. While most global indicators of supply chain performance, labor markets, and productivity are gradually aligning with their pre-pandemic trajectories, inflation, fiscal spending cuts, and geopolitical instabilities continue to loom over 2024. Investment in software and other digital technologies will help Middle East manufacturers to hedge against this VUCA (volatility uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) in 2024 and maintain their momentum.

Manufacturers will accelerate investments to protect long-term profitability by broadening their smart manufacturing capabilities. The two dominant themes will be continuing to implement smart factory initiatives to achieve targeted business goals, and utilizing digital technology to increase supply chain visibility, productivity, and connectivity with suppliers, partners, and consumers.

2. AI will be key to optimizing supply chains and inventory – In response to pandemic-led shortages, which are still very much in the mind of logistics professionals, companies have recently sought the protection of just-in-case inventory management and increased inventories to manage contingencies.

This approach, however, has resulted in storage space shortages and a meteoric rise of warehouse rents. As manufacturers realize the long-term nature of this VUCA environment, more and more will pivot towards a data-driven and agile approach that dynamically adjusts to real-time conditions.

» COLUMN Spending on AI-enhanced supply chain management solutions will increase next year as manufacturers look to balance the cost and risks of inventories. Supply chain management solutions that predict demand and risks and consider supplier reliability and agility and transcontinental transportation risks will be a key factor in creating the market leaders and winners.

3. Automation will debottleneck warehouses – 2024 will see rationalization of warehouse capacity, in light of increased real estate prices and higher interest rates. The focus will be on optimizing capacity through automation. Warehouse management systems (WMS) are likely to play a critical role because they can optimize the velocity of goods, reduce errors, improve labor productivity, and optimize warehouse storage. Integrating WMS with other supply chain solutions will see an acceleration in 2024, as customers look to achieve agility, transparency, and increased productivity in their supply chains.

4. AI will engulf Industry 4.0 – AI is now already at the heart of any Industry 4.0 transformation. It is widely acknowledged as the most important tool redefining the boundaries of manufacturing. However, 2023 was the year of Generative AI. The speed of maturity of Generative AI has taken the industry by surprise. 2024 will be the year of maturity for Gen-AI-related use cases and how Gen-AI will collaborate with traditional predictive AI to unleash more areas of productivity.

Four use cases are likely to mature the most and find wider adoption: • Predictive maintenance. The utilization of AI-driven predictive maintenance has evolved from preventing costly breakdowns to orchestrating maintenance schedules to optimize production. The vendor landscape will likely mature the most, and more solutions will be available to meet customer complexities and needs. As industrial equipment companies switch to the servitization model, it will act as an additional driver.

• Dynamic supply chain management. After making its impact felt in inventory management and demand forecasting, AI will revolutionize supply chain management, from demand management to last-mile delivery.

• Product quality via cognitive analytics. The adoption of AI-powered cognitive analytics to enhance quality control is likely to grow and mature with incorporation of Gen-AI. • Innovative design with Gen-AI-driven creativity. Product design will witness a Gen-AI-driven makeover, with algorithms generating innovative concepts based on consumer preferences and market trends. This will expedite design cycles and enhance product relevance in dynamic market conditions.

5. Ecosystems will take center stage – Ecosystem-centric thinking has gained solid traction in the past few years, and it will accelerate in 2024. There are various types of digital ecosystems. Some are defined by the number of partners involved, and others by what they offer. All ecosystems share these four characteristics: symbiotic, customer-centric, scalable, and most importantly, focused.

Khaled AlShami

Infor Vice President solution consulting, Middle East & Africa

• Technology partner ecosystem. No man is an island. This is particularly true for digital transformation projects, which typically rely upon several specialists. Relying on a single turnkey partner will increasingly give way to a partner ecosystem approach, which will handle the size and complexity of projects.

• Platform ecosystem. Leading manufacturers are pivoting from product-centered thinking to modern platform-oriented digital thinking. In this new era, composition platforms provide the plumbing and glue for agility and digital transformation. Manufacturers will rely increasingly on the flexibility of platforms over monolithic products.

In conclusion, the manufacturing landscape will continue to evolve, battling the VUCA environment, relying on Industry 4.0 and AI synthesis in 2024. This evolution isn't just about boosting productivity; it's about fostering innovation, sustainability, and creating a future that combines human ingenuity with technological prowess. Embracing these advancements ensures the manufacturing sector withstands the near-term challenges and emerges even stronger in the coming decades.

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SCALING UP

GENERATIVE AI

Generative AI has made its mark and it’s time to scale it for the enterprise says Sid Bhatia, General Manager & Regional VP, Middle East, Turkey & Africa at Dataiku A McKinsey study, published in May, looked at the potential of AI in the GCC and concluded it could “deliver real value” to the region of US$150 billion, or 9% of aggregate GDP. But the report went on to speculate that its own estimate will be “quickly surpassed”, owing to the emergence of other AI technologies. It cites as an example generative AI, the content-creating tech that lies behind the veil of tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard.

When something is new, we immediately split into two camps.

One cries “Hype!”, the other, “Next big thing!” I will probably be accused of hype for siding with the latter, but the surveys and anecdotes are compelling. A recent global Dataiku-Databricks study showed almost two in three (64%) organizations were at some stage of evaluating generative AI for adoption in the next 12 months. Some 45% are already experimenting with it.

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Before long, it seems, gen AI will be part of IT think. And because digital adoption is in many ways a race to value, enterprises must come up with an adoption strategy that includes consideration of short-term time-to-value, long-term ROI, CAPEX-vsOPEX analysis, and an evaluation of on-hand physical, digital, and human resources. To ensure value, the organization must also identify use cases up front, allowing both for mundane apps that optimize and tweak, and moonshots that transform the business.

A medium-term roadmap and budget should align with a specific adoption path. There are four from which to choose.

1. Services

You can outsource development and deployment of a gen-AI suite to a third party. A high degree of requirements fit, a guarantee of tight integration, and a great number of customization options lie

» COLUMN down this path. The service provider you choose will doubtless be the one that plugs your own AI skills gaps. And if you have a prior relationship with the provider, requirements analysts will already know your business well, and work can proceed more quickly.

However, this last benefit speaks to a parallel disadvantage — to maintain your gen-AI system, you must accept an ongoing dependency. Costs will be high and, to maximize ROI, AI project leaders will be pressured to select the more ambitious projects that come with greater risk attached.

2. Point solutions

You can buy off the shelf. Many modern AI applications cover a wide range of use cases for the augmentation of operations and processes. If the organization opts for this route, it can accelerate time to value if its chosen use cases are well covered by the outof-the-box functionality of the selected solution.

The downside of point solutions is their limited potential for scalability. They may cover the optimization of one process but not be applicable to an associated process. Technical debt accumulates as many tools pile up and become integral to core business processes, leading to mounting costs in support and vendor dependencies. The off-the-shelf option also fails to solve the skills-gap problem as it makes no significant moves towards Everyday AI, where everyone knows how to use these technologies. Additionally, point solutions bring the black-box problem, where even beneficiaries may not trust results because they have no idea how they arose.

Sid Bhatia

GM & Regional VP, META, Dataiku

3. DIY

Of course, you could always role up your sleeves and do-it-yourself (DIY), developing the internal AI and software development capabilities to build solutions that make sense to you and align with your Everyday AI strategy. Not everything would have to be built from scratch. You could combine open-source software with components provided by cloud-computing partners. The results would be well-integrated systems that are in tune with your IT orchestra and fulfil the needs of the business to a T. The organization would also retain full IP. But this path is open only to those that have the skills needed to develop solutions around generative AI. If time is not a factor (a doubtful scenario in a competitive economy), you can always go on the hunt for the right skills, but they will be rare and expensive.

And even if you create the ultimate capabilities, only their builders will be qualified to maintain them, meaning that over time, fewer working hours will be dedicated to new projects as the skills you have on hand will be devoted to keeping models afloat.

4. Platform

Some market offerings allow businesses to build machine-learning and AI capabilities, including generative AI, into their dayto-day operations. The most successful AI programs democratize the use of tools to build trust. Non-technologists learn new skills as they become citizen developers, using low-code and no-code development platforms to infuse models with business-centric design. And while lowering technical barriers to entry, these platforms also cater to a wide range of technical skills, from the casual expression-builder to the experienced coder. Because every-

body is creating AI projects, reuse becomes second nature. Each project gets off the ground more efficiently and makes it to market more quickly. A common platform also allows for critical governance to be woven into the day-to-day use of AI and enforced, reducing the risk associated with AI scale-up.

The platform approach is the best of all worlds — reduced entry-barriers, lower costs, faster time to value, easier maintenance, more audit options, better governance, and more. But to fulfil its potential, an AI platform requires an organization-wide shift in mindset. Business leaders must be prepared to break down silos and move towards an Everyday AI culture where teams collaborate routinely, and value can be added repeatedly through brainstorming and rapid prototyping. A middle ground must be found between developmental autonomy and governance, so that employees feel empowered to add new value.

AI, every day

Generative AI is an extraordinary milestone in the history of our technological development. It can automate the mundane (yet creative) tasks that keep humans from innovating. With due care, it can take a place of honor among all the other innovations that power the modern, digital business and lead us into a new paradigm of Everyday AI. NOVEMBER 2023 / CXO DX

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THE FIGHT AGAINST

HYBRID THREATS Michael Byrnes, director - solutions engineering, iMEA, BeyondTrust says hybrid threats are a plague upon our newfound cloud prosperity and we must fight back

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s IT environments get more and more complex, the region’s cybersecurity professionals find themselves dealing with more and more complex threats. One of the latest is the hybrid threat. The term “hybrid threat” refers to the environments targeted by the campaigns.

Hybrid environments are much more common across the region since organizations headed for the cloud. For a series of business reasons, enterprises had to leave some elements of their IT stack on premises. The complex setups that resulted challenged the IT and security functions daily. Threat actors leveraged the chaos to their advantage, using a broad range of techniques to flit between on-premises networks and their associated clouds.

The misunderstood cloud and the staggering multiplication of accounts and identities has led to a much larger attack surface and more opportunities for attackers. Azure AD Connect, for example, requires many different accounts on premises and in the cloud. Permissions in these accounts may be able to replicate directory changes and modify passwords — global admin tasks that should never fall into the hands of any third party.

Certificate-based authentication allows nefarious parties to gain a persistent foothold and move without challenge. The threat actor compromises an account with the right permissions to assign credentials to an Azure-native application, which they then use to access sensitive services and data. Any unused or misconfigured

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» COLUMN accounts left over from cloud migration can be candy to malicious groups, who can use them for stealthy infiltration and to cover their tracks. They can delete virtual machines and data and disrupt services. They can even hijack email accounts, reconfigure security controls, and create scheduled tasks that (among other things) deploy ransomware payloads.

The problem is, in being quick to adopt the cloud, enterprises have not been so quick to adopt the security posture to match.

Here are three best practices that are important steps towards a safer hybrid environment.

1. Get familiar

You must become familiar with the identities, accounts, and privileges used by your organization. “Attackers think in graphs; defenders think in lists,” remember? Attackers will be looking at all of these entities and their dependencies to find a path to your crown jewels. Only by understanding those dependencies yourself can you anticipate where they might strike and how. Think in terms of over-provisioned and under-protected accounts.

Another recent and famous cybersecurity catchphrase is “attackers no longer hack in, they log in”. Identity has become the new perimeter. Compromise the right one and you can wander and act with impunity. Any account is yours for the taking, any system or application yours to command, whether on premises or in the cloud. Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) is the emerging answer to hybrid attacks. Bringing together identity access management (IAM) and identity security it reclaims visibility and understanding of the environment, especially of the complex interdependencies between accounts, privileges, and access. This is a critical capability in a hybrid environment.

Without it, the SOC is blind. Security teams not only need to be able to see everything for which they are responsible. They need real-time recommendations so they can intelligently target atrisk areas and proactively reduce risk.

2. Get strict

In a complex hybrid environment, it is more important than ever to tighten permissions to “least privilege” levels. To prevent lateral movement, ensure that each account is aligned with the role of the human or application that uses it. It should not have more permissions than are needed to fulfil a function. To this end, endpoint privilege management tools that cover all the major platforms — Windows, Mac, Unix, Linux, and so on — are fit for purpose. No user should have local admin privileges unless sysadmin is their core job. One slip-up and an attacker could dump credentials and disable endpoint security.

Where possible, implement password management tools. They are designed to automatically discover privileged accounts and enforce just-in-time access. This brings a high degree of control and protection, not to mention auditing capabilities. These approaches do not only work in on-premises environments. Because the modern attacker often uses on-premises privileged accounts to access similarly provisioned accounts in the cloud, any step we take to tighten privileges on premises will also protect the cloud environment from compromise. So, in general, implementing just-in-time and least-privilege policies across a hybrid en-

Michael Byrnes director – solutions engineering, iMEA, BeyondTrust

vironment reduces the attack surface and blocks many vectors commonly used in hybrid attacks.

3. Get control

Attackers will use any tool at their disposal to get the job done.

Remote-access tools are very popular in the work-from-home world. But they are vulnerable to compromise, as are admin tools like PowerShell and AADInternals. As they stand, traditional cybersecurity solutions like anti-virus or endpoint detection and response (EDR) are not equipped to flag activity by such off-theshelf native tools. After all, they are in everyday legitimate use.

Not inherently malicious. Application control can join forces with privilege management to drastically reduce an attacker’s ability to access tools and privileges. They will soon find it more difficult to execute code or move laterally and their dwell time will be cut down considerably.

En garde

In the end, it does not matter if the adversary is a teenager in their bedroom, an operationalized criminal team, or a state-backed battalion. If you have the right controls in place, threat actors will have their work cut out for them and may — if they are working on the principle of “lowest hanging fruit” — move on to easier targets. If you know the identities, accounts, and privileges operating in your network; if you tighten access to implement the principle of least privilege and just-in-time access; if you look to the tools bad actors use and cut off their access; if you do all these things, you will be thinking as they do — in graphs — and you will be on track to establishing a safe hybrid environment.

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6 STEPS TOWARDS THE PERFECT HYBRID WORKPLACE Ekta Puthran, Head of Sales APAC & MEA - Collaboration, Barco explore six pivotal steps to master the hybrid workplace thought company policies A strong and well-defined hybrid work policy serves as the bedrock of a successful hybrid workplace. It sets the expectations, guidelines and boundaries for both remote and in-office work.

To create an effective policy, consider the unique needs and preferences of your employees. Recognize that flexibility is key, allowing individuals to choose where they work best while ensuring alignment with the organization's goals.

Ekta Puthran

Head of Sales APAC & MEA – Collaboration, Barco

Why is creating a successful hybrid workplace challenging?

Creating a harmonious hybrid workplace means bridging diverse workstyles, fostering culture, and tackling technical intricacies. Success demands strategic vision and adaptability.

Why is it crucial to get it right?

- Talent attraction and retention. Attracting top talent and retaining valuable employees increasingly hinges on offering flexible work arrangements. A well-structured hybrid workplace can be a competitive advantage.

- Productivity and innovation. A well-executed hybrid model can enhance productivity by allowing employees to work where they are most effective. It also promotes innovation through diverse perspectives.

How can you get it right?

1. Build a strong foundation with well-

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2. Redesign offices for efficient collaboration Hybrid workspaces should be designed to facilitate collaboration seamlessly, whether employees are in the office or working remotely. Invest in spaces that encourage collaboration and connection.

Next up, integrate suitable hybrid meeting equipment in your hybrid workplace.

Modern cameras, microphones, speakers, and wireless videoconferencing solutions ensure that hybrid meetings run smoothly, enabling all participants to fully engage, regardless of their location.

3. Provide the home office basics for increased productivity Remote workers also require the right hybrid meeting technology to perform at their best. Ensure that employees have access to quality hardware and software.

This includes providing laptops, monitors, ergonomic keyboards and mice, webcams, printers, headphones, and a reliable internet connection. By offering the essentials for a functional home office, you empower your remote workforce to be productive and efficient.

4. Ensure easy access to company platforms One of the defining features of a hybrid workplace is the ability for employees to

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2023

work from various locations. To support this flexibility, your IT infrastructure must be robust and reliable.

Employees should have seamless access to company platforms, regardless of where they are working. Invest in secure and user-friendly remote access solutions to enable hassle-free connectivity and collaboration.

5. Amp up your security With employees connecting to company platforms from different locations and devices, security is paramount. Strengthen your cybersecurity measures to safeguard sensitive data, maintain confidentiality and protect privacy.

Implement multi-factor authentication, encryption and regular security audits.

Training your workforce on cybersecurity best practices is also essential to mitigate risks effectively.

6. Optimize your workplace based on insights Data plays a crucial role in shaping the success of a hybrid workplace. Collect and analyze data on employee meeting behavior, workspace utilization, and device usage. Use these insights to make informed decisions about workspace design, technology investments, and resource allocation.

Maximizing device ROI and adoption rates will ensure that your efforts to create an efficient hybrid workplace yield the desired results.

Why getting the hybrid workplace right matters can be summed up in one word: impact. It impacts your organization´s ability to attract and retain top talent, fuels productivity and innovation, enhances your organization's resilience. By embracing the six essential steps outlined in this article, your organization can navigate this evolving landscape with confidence and grace.

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TOWARDS A DATA-LED ENTERPRISE Vibhu Kapoor, Regional Vice President - Middle East, Africa & India, Epicor discusses 5 pointers to accelerate the journey towards becoming a data-led enterprise

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n business, insights are everything. They are the angled mirrors that help decision makers see round corners. And in insights, data is everything. It is the light that bounces off the mirrors.

to their demolition. But if companies want to futureproof themselves against, say, supply-chain disruptions, they must lean into the wind and get it done — get rid of silos and unify the data infrastructure.

The UAE is in a stronger economic position than most of its MENA peers. It rebounded from the pandemic more quickly than many nations around the world and its inflation rate throughout 2022, while higher than it had been for some time, was still lower than many countries in Europe and the Americas. But the economy is inarguably global. And businesses here are once again looking to do more with less and unlock the kind of long-term business value that can help them weather another crisis should one arise.

Data is easy to gather, but if it is to be transformed into actionable insights, a cogent strategy must be formulated and nurtured. In place of silos, we should see tighter integration of platforms and as few vendors as is practicable. We should see unified governance that reaches every corner of the business.

When we see these things, value will follow. Increased productivity flows from centralised, accurate, non-duplicated data that represents a single source of truth.

“Unlock long-term business value and weather the next crisis.”

It is easy to say; it is easy to write down. But challenges stand between us and the kind of insights that give us a glimpse of what lies beyond the horizon. Here are five considerations that will enhance any journey towards becoming a data-led organisation.

1. Silos, begone

Data silos remain a sticky problem, as does internal opposition

The first step in accomplishing all this is widely known. Cloud migration brings the right infrastructure for scaling up data leverage. Business stakeholders can incorporate processes and workflows into the new environment and define goals, policies, and even challenges within a coherent data framework. Access for employees is also improved, which is critical for a workforce that may be working from anywhere at any time. Cloud environments make it easier to provide security at scale — another vital component in a region beset by ransomware and other threats.

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Vibhu Kapoor

Regional Vice President, Middle East, Africa & India, Epicor

2. Analyse this… and that

When moving to the cloud, one advantage that is immediately felt is that of cost reduction. Hardware and model expenses are reduced, and this is true for businesses of all scales. Everywhere we look, we see this democratisation of AI, so every business must now operate under the assumption that it is only a matter of time before their competitors adopt AI and ML. This calls for an AI strategy — one that encompasses daily use and is underpinned by governance that ensures that data gathering, data storage, model building, model maintenance, and more are consistently compliant and continually adding value.

3. Got talent?

A data-driven company should be one in which people are empowered, not replaced. Models built around leveraging trends, alleviating stress points, and replacing outdated processes only work because they are empowering the employee. We live in the age of employee experience. Employers are now the ones in the shop window. If you adopt an automate-first strategy, how much good talent will you be able to attract if they are unsure when their role may become automated?

If — as any shrewd business leader should — you accept that enterprises are still only as good as their people, then those people must necessarily be at the heart of every technology decision. A secure and reassured workforce will serve customers better, innovate more freely, and stay longer. What this means for data initiatives is that you must pick the right use cases having identified who does what when and how.

4. Look out the window

If the past few years has taught us anything it is that the most

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powerful insights occur when looking outside the confines of the business. There are entire networks of data and intelligence available across a variety of industries. Properly integrated into the enterprise’s data environment, they can help with supply-chain visibility and a range of other trend-watching use cases. They can boost efficiency and time to market. For example, imagine the value to a car manufacturer of a data feed of hundreds of millions of part purchases and repair events. Consider the efficiency gains of analysing this data that has come from across the industry, not just inside the individual business.

5. Walk softly and focus

Jumping in with both feet on any large-scale change project is a recipe for disappointment. Be “data informed”. Ask questions. Find out what is available and what use it may have. It is all well and good to have millions of records on hand, but if they do not help accomplish a specific business goal, then what is the point? Be “data driven”. Determine ways of using what you have to generate useful insights and make better decisions.

But to reap the greatest benefits, be “data led”. Establish a constant feedback loop that enables real-time, even automated, decisions through intelligence that is embedded into processes and workflows. This is where every company should aim to be.

The end of the road?

Supply chains, economic disturbances, social hurdles. The challenges never stop, so neither can the data evolution of a competitive business. Data insights in a data-led organisation will come from many quarters. But if the right strategy is in place, then no corner will seem too troublesome, and no horizon too daunting.

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KUBERNETES AT A CROSSROADS

Michael Cade, Global Field CTO Cloud-Native Product Strategy, Veeam elaborates on what many developers still need to understand about protecting containers

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espite it still feeling like ‘the new toy’ for many development teams, container technology has been around for some time. But it wasn’t until the rapid evolution of container-based applications in recent years that businesses started deploying these environments en masse.

In fact, recent reports suggest that we are approaching a tipping point in container usage.

However, these insights also reveal that the way the majority of businesses are protecting their containers is still unfit for purpose.

In fact, recent findings suggest that Kubernetes (K8s) clusters belonging to more than 350 organisations, (including several Fortune 500 companies) are currently “openly accessible and unprotected”. So, what are businesses still getting wrong here?

Two steps forward and one step back

A 2023 report from Enterprise Strategy Group described the container market as “red hot”. Nearly half (47%) of businesses

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» COLUMN reported that they are using containers currently, while 35% are planning on doing so in the next 12 months. If those plans all become reality, that’s 82% of organisations using containers by the end of 2024.

It's a common conflation that containers equal Kubernetes. While this isn’t accurate, as it's simply a platform for managing containers, the report indicates it is becoming the standard. Currently, 66% of organisations use it to manage and orchestrate their containers. Essentially, it's a product name that’s become so widely used that it's now synonymous with the thing itself, like JCB, Kleenex or Frisbee.

But “red hot” is an apt way to describe current container usage in more ways than one. With current practices, far too many businesses risk getting burnt. According to the same report, less than half of companies that have implemented containers made data protection part of the architecture design process. Instead, 19% only considered how to protect their containers after implementation was complete and perhaps worse, 33% just carried on using existing data protection tools and processes. This is symptomatic of the knowledge gap around containers and Kubernetes and, in some cases, data protection in general.

Time to move on

Let's tackle the worst problem first. According to Enterprise Strategy Group, a third of organisations using containers still use the same data protection tools and processes as they would have on a ‘normal’ application. This is ineffective for several reasons.

While traditional backup solutions focus primarily on Virtual Machines (VMs) or file-level backups, Kubernetes demands a more nuanced approach, given its dynamic and cloud-native nature. Backing up a container-based environment with a traditional backup solution is like trying to take a snapshot of a city with a photograph. Sure, you might capture the buildings, but you won’t have a sense of the flow of traffic, or what's happening inside or underground.

But if that’s the case, why are organisations doing it? In most cases, it’s simply an awareness problem. Businesses think the solution works. After all, they have backups so they don’t see the difference until something bad happens like a cyber-attack. As soon as they try to recover the container-based environment using this backup, they realise that their image-based backup can’t ‘see’ the K8s clusters. A traditional solution will only backup the VM that holds the containerised environment, leading to all kinds of potential issues including incomplete backups, inconsistent states, inefficiency, and security gaps, to name a few.

Data protection from/by design

So, understanding the need to protect containers with a system that understands containers is the first mental hurdle that needs to be overcome. But there’s one more hurdle before the finish line. When implementing Kubernetes, data protection needs to be part of the plan from early design phase on. There’s a long list of reasons for this, but it comes down to the efficiency of resources (in computing and financial terms), the opportunity to test and validate, and most crucially of all - ensuring reliable and fast recovery. In reality, backup is the easy part, it's the recovery that’s

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Michael Cade

Global Field CTO Cloud-Native Product Strategy, Veeam

hard. Building with recovery in mind against clear KPIs, namely Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO), are essential. However, this is infinitely easier to achieve when it's part of the plan from day one.

With nearly one in five organisations making this mistake, this is an age-old problem for a new technology. If we look back ten or twenty years ago to when organisations were protecting their physical servers, the technical details have changed but the reason for the problem stays the same - backup is ‘tiresome and boring’.

It's like looking at the airbags when building a new sports car - no one’s in it for the airbags although they are often life-savers. As such, there’s a risk no one thinks about them in the early development stages. But if you’ve built that chassis and added a hightech dashboard, putting that final safety measure in is going to be much more expensive than it needs to be.

That isn’t to say: “If you haven’t thought about it yet, don’t bother.”

Organisations need to have proven and tested backup and recovery plans in place. According to the Veeam Data Protection Trends Report 2023, 85% of organisations suffered at least one cyber-attack in the preceding twelve months; an increase from 76% experienced in the prior year. One way or another, you need to be “Left of Bang”. If that work is being done after the design of a containerised environment it may take some redesign and refactoring but that’s better than the alternative of being unprepared during a successful ransomware attack. As the proverb goes: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

» TRENDS & STATS

55% OF ORGANIZATIONS ARE IN PILOTING OR PRODUCTION MODE WITH GENERATIVE AI More Than Half of Organizations Have Increased Generative AI Investment in the Last 10 Months

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n a recent Gartner, Inc. poll of more than 1,400 executive leaders, 45% reported that they are in piloting mode with generative AI, and another 10% have put generative AI solutions into production. This is a significant increase from a Gartner poll conducted in March and April 2023, in which only 15% of respondents were piloting generative AI and 4% were in production.

“Organizations are not just talking about generative AI – they’re investing time, money and resources to move it forward and drive business outcomes,” said Frances Karamouzis, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “In fact, 55% of organizations reported increasing investment in generative AI since it surged into the public domain ten months ago.

Generative AI is now on CEOs’ and boards’ agendas as they seek to take advantage of the transformative potential of this technology.”

The poll included 1,419 respondents who participated in a Gartner webinar in September 2023 discussing enterprise cost and risks of generative AI. Results of this poll do not represent global findings or the market as a whole.

generative AI as they see the profound ways that it can drive innovation, optimization and disruption,” said Karamouzis. “Business and IT leaders understand that the ‘wait and see’ approach is riskier than investing.”

Generative AI Investments Scaling Across Multiple Business Functions

The poll found that 45% of enterprises are scaling generative AI investments across multiple business functions, with 22% scaling across more than three different functions. Software development is the function with the highest rate of adoption or investment in generative AI, followed closely by marketing and customer service (see Figure 1).

Growth initiatives were cited as the primary business focus of generative AI investments by 30% of respondents, followed by cost optimization (26%) and customer experience/retention (24%).

“Many organizations began their AI journey with an overemphasis on cost

optimization and efficiency,” said Karamouzis. “Savvy enterprises have moved beyond this to focus initiatives on efficacy, quantifiable value and business agility in products and services.

This ensures visibility, trust and synergy among stakeholders, and most importantly, alignment to business outcomes.”

Generative AI Hype Cycle Identifies Key Technologies Impacting Organizations

Gartner predicts that by 2026, more than 80% of enterprises will have used generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) application programming interfaces (APIs) or models, and/or deployed GenAI-enabled applications in production environments, up from less than 5% in 2023.

In the 2023 Gartner Hype Cycle for Generative AI three innovations are projected to have a huge impact on organizations within ten years which include GenAI-enabled applications, foundation models and AI trust, risk and security management (AI TRiSM).

Executives Believe Generative AI Investments Outweigh the Risks Seventy-eight percent of respondents believe that the benefits of generative AI outweigh its risks. This is higher than the 68% who reported this sentiment in the earlier poll.

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» TECHSHOW

LEXAR SL660 BLAZE GAMING PORTABLE SSD Designed for your consoles and premium gaming rigs, the Lexar SL660 BLAZE Gaming Portable SSD uses USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 technology and offers blazing-fast NVMe performance that puts you in the fast lane with speeds up to 2000MB/s read and 1900MB/s write. It features a USB Type-C (USB-C) port that includes a USB Type-C to Type-C cable and a USB Type-C to standard USB Type-A cable for ease of use.

The SL660 BLAZE Gaming Portable SSD is built with a premium aluminum enclosure and features a sandblasted finish for added protection against shock and vibration. Designed to be seen next to your console or gaming rigs, the SSD also comes with a detachable stand for added style and includes a durable pouch for added convenience.

The SL660 BLAZE Gaming Portable SSD features an advanced security software with 256-bit AES encryption to protect your essential files against corruption, loss, and deletion. Easily create a password-protected safe that automatically encrypts data. And for peace of mind, files deleted from the safe are securely erased and can’t be recovered.

Highlights: •

Performance of up to 2000MB/s read and 1900MB/s write

•

Enhance your gameplay with vibrant colors of RGB LEDs

•

Features premium aluminum enclosure with a sandblasted finish for added protection

•

Shock and vibration resistance

•

Comes with a detachable stand and durable pouch for added style

D-LINK DAP-2622 Effortlessly convert any Ethernet wall socket into a highspeed AC Wave 2 Wi-Fi access point, delivering simultaneous dual-band 2x2 MIMO connectivity. The DAP-2622 is built to handle bandwidth-intensive applications involving numerous clients. It delivers high-speed Wave 2 wireless connection reliably, with maximum wireless signal rates of up to 1167 Mbps, and 2 x 2 MU-MIMO with two spatial streams. Performance is further optimized via the Nuclias Connect platform which adjusts the DAP-2622’s channel selection, transmission power, and maximum number of client connections.

It is ideal for Ideal for Hotel Rooms, dormitories or other

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short stay rentals. Turn any Ethernet socket into a highspeed access point, as well as connect an IP phone or other device via the extra LAN socket.

The DAP-2622’s Load Balancing feature spreads the work load between two or more Access Points to get optimal resource utilization, throughput and response time, while Airtime Fairness helps distribute equal amounts of air time to each connected client. Band Steering auto-connects devices such as smart phones and tablets to the higher-capacity 5 GHz band while allowing devices 2.4 GHz-ready to remain. The result is a steady, consistent connection for each user – the perfect balancing act.

» TECHSHOW

YEALINK MVC S60 The Yealink MVC S60 makes hybrid meetings accessible for everyone. Designed for small to medium-sized meeting rooms, the MVC S60 is fully compatible with Microsoft Teams. Remote attendees of hybrid meetings often encounter – poor video, audio, and presentation quality. The Yealink MVC S60 is a video conferencing solution that solves this problem. With the 360° coverage and center-of-the-table perspective, no one in the room will be hidden from view. The all-new 10K camera delivers stunning images with much more detail even in every crop. Remote attendees can now get a more inclusive meeting experience even when they are not there.

The MVC S60 room kit comprises SmartVision 60, MCore Pro mini-PC, MTouch Plus touch panel, and WPP30 wireless presentation pod to enable high-quality conversations and collaborations during the meetings.

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The MCore Professional Mini-PC features a secure performance with a powerful CPU, faster processing, and high-end AI features. It supports three display screens in conference rooms and can be easily connected and deployed using one CAT5e cable.

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MTouch Plus touch panel has incorporated more flexible features like a spacious 11 inches screen for better visibility and convenience and 4K content sharing options by pairing with Yealink WPP30 wireless sharing dongle or connecting with Airplay, Miracast, or Google Cast. It can incorporate multiple touch panels in the same room for flexible collaboration necessities.

Highlights: •

The SmartVision 60 is a 10K resolution, 360-degree intelligent camera with a pair of multi-functional microphones and a state-of-the-art speaker system, delivering an inclusive and immersive experience for all remote meeting participants. It showcases a sleek & compact all-in-one design housing all the devices needed for a video conferencing solution.

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Easy to manage with D-Link’s free software-based management solution, Nuclias Connect

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Superior throughput with dual-band transfer speeds of up to 1200 Mbps

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MU-MIMO slices through congestion, better handling more users

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Band Steering intelligently manages users, pushing them onto the higher radio frequency when possible

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Coverage is shared more efficiently over more users with Airtime Fairness

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Quality of Service (QoS) prioritizes network traffic, minimizing the impact of busy bandwidth

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Support for Power over Ethernet 802.3at means less wires, for cleaner and easier deployment

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Stay secure with WPA2/WPA Personal & Enterprise wireless encryption

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AI'S ROLE IN THE EVER-EVOLVING CYBERSECURITY LANDSCAPE Bharat Raigangar, Board Advisor, 1CxO, CyberSecurist & Mentor at Finesse discusses the implications of Generative AI on the cybersecurity landscape A conversation I had with a leading General AI (GenAI) researcher revealed a foreboding forecast. GenAI's increasing efficiency and prevalence, coupled with intelligent automation tools, are predicted to empower non-state actors in wreaking havoc. This spans scenarios like stock market manipulation, precise targeting in cyber-attacks (e.g., phishing), and economic sabotage aimed at individual firms.

Bharat Raigangar

Board Advisor, 1CxO, CyberSecurist & Mentor, Finesse

Acknowledging the potential for increased automation to ease cybercriminals' tasks, a pertinent truth emerges. Cybercrime actors seek high returns with low investment, and the automation wave facilitates this pursuit. Nevertheless, the analogy of a group running from a bear emphasizes that it is not always important to be the fastest. It is equally important to avoid being the slowest.

The dynamic landscape of cybersecurity is undergoing a profound transformation, marked by the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) at its forefront. Essentially, artificial intelligence speeds up things, ushering in an era in which both defenders and cybercriminals can take advantage of its capabilities. In this blog, we delve into the implications of AI-driven innovation in cybersecurity, shedding light on the challenges and opportunities it presents.

AI's accelerated processing capabilities, initially harnessed to fortify defensive strategies, have inadvertently become a double-edged sword. Cybercrime, a lucrative business, quickly adopted AI. It would be naive to assume that criminal actor groups aren't leveraging AI to enhance their Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs). From language translations to expediting code development and analyzing vast datasets, AI serves as a versatile tool for cyber adversaries.

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In the face of these challenges, the key lies in adopting an informed risk-based approach. Organizations need to be acutely aware of worst-case scenarios, engaging in realistic conceptual wargaming. This approach is essential for preparedness and resilience in an environment where uncertainty and innovation coexist.

In conclusion, as AI continues to redefine the rules of engagement in cybersecurity, a proactive and adaptive stance becomes paramount. Innovation through uncertainty requires not only technological fortification but also strategic vigilance.

Informed risk management, coupled with an understanding of the evolving threat landscape, will be the linchpin for organizations striving to navigate the complex interplay between AI and cybersecurity.

Vibin Shaju General Manager – UAE, Trellix