Smart SMB June 2019

STRATEGY

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AS THE DIGITAL JOURNEY UNFOLDS PUBLISHED BY Business Media International REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City www.bmi-digital.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Raman Narayan narayan@bmimea.com Mob: 971-55-7802403 SALES DIRECTOR Ankit Shukla ankit@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-8825706, Mob: 971-552572807 EDITOR Diksha Vohra editor@smartsmb.net Tel: 971-4-8825706, Mob: 971-506395616 CIRCULATION MANAGER Bhawana Bhatia bhawana@smartsmb.net Tel: 971-4-8825706 TELE MARKETING MANAGER Jennefer Mendoza jennefer@smartsmb.net Tel: 971-4-8825706

We held a highly satisfying edition of the Smart SMB Summit in Nairobi last month. The response of the audience in terms of the involvement they revealed right through the keynote and panel discussion sessions underlines why Kenya has an advantage going ahead on the digital transformation journey.

The people are willing to learn and adapt as the new wave of technologies realigns job opportunities and skill requirements. Microsoft with its opening of a new Development center in Kenya is opening up more doors to local engineering talents. Likewise, there are other vendors too who are eyeing Kenya as a market to attend to in detail. This is a market we at BMI are committed to as well with our services.

The refrain that those Businesses which do not adopt some of the new digital technologies will be left behind is constant and an inescapable truth. It is also being said that there is no need to digitalize beyond the point where those deployments start giving demising returns, which Gartner refers to as the balance point. Do what is required and optimize the technologies being used. And then review the deployments as part of a regular schedule as this is an ongoing journey.

While the buzz around Blockchain has been built up over the past couple of years, it seems there are very limited use case scenarios currently for more wider deployments apart from the deployments being seen in government and public services, as there seems to be an ROI challenge as well. IoT on the other hand, as a Gartner spokesperson discusses in an interview featured in this issue, is looking on track for more large scale deployments by next year as companies now understand the benefits, IoT integration will provide in enhancing operational efficiency. AI is already seeing more and more deeper integration with more workflow processes across verticals in addition to the chatbots that it has popularly enabled on customer side processes.

R. Narayan Editor in Chief, Smart SMB

FINANCE Akhilesh Pandey akhilesh@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-8825706

Management

DESIGN Ali Raza ali@qnamarcom.com Tel: 971-4-8825706

Chairman S.N. Tiwari

CEO Saumyadeep Halder

sn.tiwari@smartsmb.net

saumyadeep@bmimea.com

Publisher Raman Narayan

Managing Director Ankit Shukla

narayan@bmimea.com

ankit@bmimea.com

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to validate the accuracy of all information included in the magazine, the publishers wouldn’t be liable for any errors therein Copyright@2019 Business Media International LLC. All rights reserved.

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CONTENT

CONTENTS Spotlight

Finance

Building the Digital Narrative

VAT REFUNDS -

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All you need to know

HR 12

TalkPoint Embracing the digital era

Preparing for a future ready economy

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Column 16

Bridge to the future

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Subduing the threats

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Miles to go

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Driving the change

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Will wearables become the norm in the workplace?

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Strategy

In focus THE ROAD LESS DRIVEN

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Epicor enhances customer engagement over Iftar

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NEWS

Bahrain’s IT Market to top BHD Microsoft opens first 70 Million by 2021 Africa F Development Centre in Kenya uture government and digital transformation are driving Bahrain’s IT market to reach a record-high of BHD 70 million by 2021, the newly appointed Country Manager of SAP Bahrain announced today.

In line with Bahrain Economic Vision 2030 to foster economic diversification, organizations are increasingly digitally transforming, especially with real-time software to transform citizen and customer experiences. As a result, Bahrain’s IT market is growing by 8 percent to BHD 70 million by 2021, according to BMI Research .

“Bahrain’s record-high IT spend shows how rapidly digital transformation is

accelerating for the public and private sectors,” said Reham Almusa, Country Manager, SAP Bahrain. “Bahraini organizations, especially in the public sector and banking and finance, are becoming Intelligent Enterprises to gain a competitive edge, predict citizen and customer needs, and drive innovation.”

One of Bahrain’s biggest opportunities is to run on the cloud to optimize costs and business avvvgility, and to scale up. SAP is seeing strong Bahrain interest on SAP ’s Saudi Arabia Digital Hub and cloud data center .

Fostering Bahrain’s innovation community and youth development, Bah-

s the next step on Microsoft’s journey in Africa, Microsoft has launched its first Africa Development Centre (ADC). With two initial sites in Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria, the ADC will serve as a premier centre of engineering for Microsoft, which will have local African talents create solutions for local and global impact.

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“The ADC will be unlike any other existing investment on the continent. It will help us better listen to our customers, develop locally and scale for global impact. Beyond that, it’s an opportunity to engage further with partners, academia, governments and developers – driving impact in sectors important to the continent, such as FinTech, AgriTech and OffGrid energy,” said Phil Spencer, executive sponsor of the ADC and executive vice president at Microsoft Local innovation, global impact

rain Polytechnic has launched the country’s first SAP Next-Gen Hub . The virtual space, at leading universities, enables the SAP ecosystem of customers and partners to co-innovate and co-create with students.

Dr. Jeff Zabudsky, CEO, Bahrain Polytechnic, stated: “We are delighted to have launched the first SAP Next-Gen Hub in collaboration with SAP. We want to continue collaborating with our industry partners to ensure that our students are educated with the best practices with SAP Next-Gen resources to utilize SAP software and curricuSMARTSMB / June 2019

lum in classrooms.”

During the recent Unbound Bahrain , Wissam Kadi, Global Director, SAP Next-Gen Labs, spoke on how organizations can impact innovation by activating science fiction thinking and imagination, and leading with purpose tied to the UN Global Goals. He also highlighted SAP’s support for the One Billion Lives initiative and how SAP Next-Gen drives and encourages innovation, intrapreneurship, and entrepreneurship in collaboration with its expansive ecosystem.

Africa is poised for innovation at the intelligent edge. To staff the ADC, Microsoft is seeking engineering talent from across the continent to fuel AI, machine learning and mixed reality innovation. Engineers have already started working, and the company intends to recruit 100 full-time engineers by the end of the year – expanding to 500 across the two sites by 2023.

Microsoft is also partnering with local universities to create a modern intelligent edge and cloud curriculum, totally unique to Africa. Graduates will have access to the ADC to build a relevant and meaningful career in data science, AI, mixed reality, application

NEWS

development and many more.

“Microsoft intends to recruit exceptional engineering talent across the continent that will build innovative solutions for global impact. This also creates opportunities for engineers to do meaningful work from their home countries and be plugged into a global engineering and development organisation, said, “Michael Fortin, corporate vice president at Microsoft and the lead in establishing the first ADC engineering team in Nairobi

SPIRE SOLUTIONS INTRODUCES GAMIFIED INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEMS/SCADA CYBERSECURITY TRAINING The distributor teams up with ThreatGEN to boost industrial cybersecurity capabilities in the Middle East world-renowned industrial cybersecurity experts. This new cooperation brings the region’s first ICS cyber security training to the Middle East, that leverages cutting-edge computer gaming and simulation technology.

The first training will be conducted in Dubai from July 8th to 11th, 2019.

Microsoft is already empowering many innovations at the edge with partners like Interswitch, SunCulture and M-KOPA. Through the ADC, Microsoft intend to invest in more cutting-edge solutions suitable for Kenya, Nigeria and the rest of the world.

Our Microsoft Cognition team and Windows team will be kick-starting our ADC efforts, focusing on AI-enabled cloud services, mixed reality experiences and rich applications that power the intelligent edge without disruption.

The ADC supports Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more.

The ADC is the first Global Development Centre in Africa with a combined expected investment of US $100 million over the first five years of operation.

“The ADC will be unlike any other existing investment on the continent. It will help us better listen to our customers, develop locally and scale for global impact. Beyond that, it’s an opportunity to engage further with partners, academia, governments and developers – driving impact in sectors important to the continent, such as FinTech, AgriTech and OffGrid energy,”

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Recent cyberattacks such as WannaCry, NotPetya, and TRITON continue to threaten Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT) networks increasing the risk of costly production outages, safety failures, environmental incidents and theft.

According to Gartner insights on OT Security Hygiene, 2018, “by 2021, disruptive attacks on unsecured OT networks will have led to environmental damage or/and harm to people”.

As most malware incidents in ICS/OT systems are caused by inappropriate human activity, an understanding of ICS Red Team/Blue Team capabilities is required to prevent security incidents.

Training plays a pivotal role to protect against malware infections to Industrial Control Systems.

To address customers’ challenges related to industrial cybersecurity capabilities and improve overall resiliency in the region, Spire Solutions has signed a strategic partnership with ThreatGEN, founded in the US by

“The Middle East represents such an important economic region of the world, with energy organizations at the forefront. Protecting those organizations’ industrial control systems is paramount to safety and continued economic growth. We are extremely excited about the opportunity to work with Spire Solutions and to be a part of the mission to secure industrial control systems and train the workforce”, commented Clint Bodungen, Founder/ President & CEO at ThreatGEN. “Security awareness and training is the most fundamental component of an organization’s overall security posture and risk mitigation strategy.

Learning cybersecurity from a hacker’s perspective is critical when it comes to understanding how attackers think.

Based on computer gaming technology, our ICS Red Team/Blue Team Training course will provide local organizations’ teams with an opportunity to learn adversarial tactics in conjunction with defensive methods”, said Avinash Advani, CEO at Spire Solutions.

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NEWS

Veeam takes lead in Cloud Data Management Dell Technologies to help accelerate digital transformation for Abu Dhabi Ports bu Dhabi Ports has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Dell Technologies that will see the organisations combine their expertise in maritime and IT to develop technology-based concepts, solutions and services specifically for the maritime industry.

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in Las Vegas – the annual flagship event hosted by Dell Technologies that allows decision makers, customers, partners and analysts to discover how to learn new capabilities, reinvent processes, innovate faster and create value that will change the game across industries.

The MoU with Dell Technologies is designed to provide Abu Dhabi Ports with consulting services and help them leverage high value-added technologies such as blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI) to fuel their digital transformation journey. In addition, this strategic partnership will also see an exchange of industry best practices and expertise needed to develop truly integrated smart ports that can better serve the customers and other stakeholders of Abu Dhabi Ports.

Abdullah Al Hameli, Executive Vice President – Corporate Support at Abu Dhabi Ports, said: “At Abu Dhabi Ports, innovation is at the heart of everything we do. We are delighted to partner with Dell Technologies on our ongoing digital journey. Dell has long been a leader and pioneer in IT, and we look forward to combining their knowledge and insights with that of our own maritime experts.”

Over the past few years, Abu Dhabi Ports has made significant strides in harnessing innovative digital solutions for trade and port communities. In 2018, it launched Silsal, a blockchain-based solution aimed at streamlining trade flows and supply chains.

The MoU was signed by Abdullah Al Hameli, Executive Vice President – Corporate Support at Abu Dhabi Ports, and Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President, Middle East, Turkey & Africa at Dell Technologies. The signing took place at Dell Technologies World 2019 SMARTSMB / June 2019

Mohammed Amin, SVP META at Dell Technologies, commented: “At Dell Technologies, we primarily aim to help organization build their digital future and transform their infrastructure. We are well positioned with end to end solutions to enable Abu Dhabi Ports modernize their IT infrastructure to efficiently operate their traditional applications as well as run their cloud native applications allowing them to unlock the potential of artificial intelligence and blockchain to develop new services. It is a pleasure to partner with Abu Dhabi Ports to achieve their visionary step towards transforming the logistics and industrial services in Abu Dhabi and the UAE.”

Veeam Software, a leader in Backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management, has exceeded $1 billion in annual bookings, joining an elite group of software companies to achieve this milestone. On its journey to the billion-dollar mark, Veeam has also surpassed 350,000 customers, adding new customers at a rate of more than 4,000 each month, illustrating the success of the first act in its evolution.

“Veeam created the VMware backup market and has dominated it as the leader for the last decade. This was Veeam’s Act I and I am delighted that we have surpassed the $1 billion mark; in 2013 I predicted we’d achieve this in less than six years and we have,” said Ratmir Timashev, Co-Founder and EVP Sales & Marketing at Veeam. “However, the market is now changing.

Backup is still critical, but customers are now building hybrid clouds with AWS, Azure, IBM and Google, and they need more than just backup. To succeed in this changing environment, Veeam has had to adapt. Veeam, with its 60,000+ channel and service provider partners and the broadest ecosystem of technology partners, including Cisco, HPE, NetApp, Nutanix and Pure Storage, is best positioned to dominate the new Cloud Data Management in our Act II. Our vision and strategy for the hybrid cloud will see us deliver the kind of success others can only dream of.”

For more than a decade, Veeam has been the leading provider of backup, recovery and replication solutions.

Initially focused on server virtualization for VMware environments, in recent years, Veeam has expanded on this core offering, delivering integra-

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tion with multiple hypervisors, physical servers and endpoints, along with public and SaaS-based (Software as a Service) workloads, while partnering with leading cloud, storage, server, HCI and application vendors to provide the most robust Cloud Data Management platform on the market.

Veeam’s partner-centric strategy and ability to adapt to the market has been the cornerstone of its success and is the foundation for Act II. In January, Veeam launched Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 4, delivering new major capabilities that provide easy cloud migration and cloud mobility, cloud-native backup, cost-effective data retention, and portable cloud-ready licensing, increased security and data governance, and solutions to make it easier than ever for service providers to deliver Veeam-powered services to market. The company has also announced the new with Veeam program, which sees Veeam partnering with premier enterprise storage and hyperconverged (HCI) vendors to provide customers with comprehensive secondary storage solutions that combine Veeam software with industry-leading storage and HCI infrastructure hardware and management stacks. Solutions have already been announced with ExaGrid and Nutanix.

RheinBrucke partners with Epicor to offer ERP Solution in the Cloud eading IT consultancy firm RheinBrücke has entered a partnership with Epicor Software, a global provider of industry specific enterprise software to promote business growth, to offer Epicor ERP in the RheinBrucke ME cloud to the Middle East market.

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The new offering enables businesses to innovate, reduce costs, and boost operational efficiencies. The solution offers several advantages, such as lower capital requirements to access innovation, scalability, shorter deployment times for better returns on investment, reduced infrastructure costs, trimmed operating expenses, and world-class security.

In attendance at the launch event were His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed Bin Faisal Bin Khalid al Qassimi, His Excellency Jamal Saif Al Jarwan, Secretary-General of the UAE International Investors Council, and His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed bin Saqr Al Nuaimi, Undersecretary for Support Services at the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation and other dignitaries across the region. RheinBrücke and Epicor also signed an agreement to offer products for Ajman Chamber of Commerce and its members.

Ratmir Timashev Co-Founder / EVP Sales & Marketing, Veeam

Also in attendance was His Excellency Mohamed Hassan Al Noman, Chairman Rheinbrucke Middle east who said: “Across the world, we are witnessing the adoption of cloud computing as an enabler of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data analyt-

ics, and the Internet of Things. We are excited to launch a new cloud-based ERP offering with Epicor, a leading software provider with a proven track record, over 20,000 global customers and 70 products that span the entire value chain. The partnership between Epicor and RheinBrucke will open new opportunities for growth, especially in this region that is ripe for digital transformation and keen to stay ahead of the curve in today’s digital age.”

Vetri Selvan, Managing Partner and CEO of RheinBrücke, said: “Partnering with Epicor was a strategic decision as this alliance means both parties can achieve more not just in the immediate term, but looking ahead. We look forward to supporting businesses in the Middle East in their digitisation journeys, so that they remain competitive and agile in today’s competitive global landscape.”

“Andy Coussins, SVP and Head of International Sales at Epicor, said: “All industries today need digital solutions to remain relevant and drive growth.

We are delighted to support RheinBrücke as it launches Epicor ERP in the RheinBrücke ME Cloud. This partnership further extends our Cloud offering for the Middle East and helps support the UAE’s transition towards a knowledge-based economy in line with the UAE Vision 2021.”

The launch event also featured a dynamic panel discussion, entitled ‘Data is the New Oil’.

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

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NEWS

SHARJAH ENTREPRENEURSHIP CENTER UNVEILS IMPACT REPORT

The Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa), a launch pad for aspiring and established entrepreneurs in the UAE, revealed its Impact Report. Highlighting the influence Sheraa has had on the entrepreneurial ecosystem since its inception in 2016, the center presented key findings and metrics, thus far. Additionally, Sheraa took the opportunity to showcase the graduates from the latest Series A program, and announced the winner of the $50,000 grant at their annual Ramadan majlis, held at Al Jawaher Reception & Convention Centre, Sharjah.

The Impact Report drew attention to

NUTANIX EXPANDS MULTI-CLOUD SOLUTION PORTFOLIO Nutanix, a leader in enterprise cloud computing, announced the continued evolution of its offerings across private and public clouds, further making multi-cloud computing a reality for its customers. Nutanix is extending its Xi Frame desktop-as-a-service solution from the public cloud to the private cloud, enabling the delivery of apps and desktops in a true hybrid cloud environment. In addition, the company is announcing new functionality and additional planned availability zones for its cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) service, Xi Leap.

With Nutanix Xi Frame, customers can already access applications and virtual desktops from popular public SMARTSMB / June 2019

the staggering contribution Sheraa has made towards the entrepreneurial community in the last three years. The investments and revenue generation alone stand at $61.1M, while Sheraa’s startups have helped create a total of 506 jobs. Moreover, Sheraa has awarded $533K in grants, in the recent past, through its four fold program module that support start-ups at all levels.

Najla Al Midfa, CEO of Sheraa said, “As Sheraa marks our third anniversary, I could not be more proud of how far we have come. In three years, we have graduated 72 startups that have raised over $37M in investment, gen-

clouds like AWS and Azure simply and easily, using any browser and any device. With the latest Xi Frame update running on the Nutanix AHV hypervisor, customers can now extend desktop delivery to their Nutanix private cloud, integrating virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) services with the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud platform. Xi Frame desktops can be simultaneously delivered via multiple clouds and managed via a single console for seamless control and administration, providing a true hybrid experience.

In addition to being available to users on AWS and Azure, Xi Frame is now also available to customers worldwide for Nutanix private cloud deployments using AHV. “The multi-cloud world is the new reality for IT — it’s no longer up for debate.

Customers need solutions that can bring together the full mix of public, private, and edge clouds that will soon

erated over $24M in cumulative revenue, and provided over 500 jobs. We are also proud to be hosting our fifth Showcase Day. Our graduating startups have come a long way over the past 12 weeks and we have no doubt that they will continue to have a positive impact on their societies and economies.”

Sheraa showcased their line-up of startups graduating from Series A. Having completed the rigorous and intensive three month program addressing key milestones in the journey of growth, entrepreneurs were groomed on refining strategy and customer experience to make them ready for their next round of investments.

The teams and individuals presented their ideas to leading investors, key opinion leaders and heads of government entities, after which, internal and external committee rankings ultimately chose Mr Draper as the grant winner. Mr. Draper is UAE’s first online personalized shopping service for men, offering clients customized boxes of clothing directly delivered to their doorstep.

Sunil Potti Chief Product and Development Officer, Nutanix

make up their critical infrastructure without drowning them in needless complexity and unchecked costs,” said Sunil Potti, Chief Product and Development Officer, Nutanix. “By continuing to add new capabilities to our portfolio, we’re giving customers the freedom to deliver their applications and data from the cloud that makes the most sense for their business.”

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SPOTLIGHT

BUILDING THE DIGITAL NARRATIVE

By R. Narayan

Smart SMB Summit & Awards reveals Kenya’s enthusiasm to accelerate digital transformation The Kenya edition of Smart SMB Summit & Awards held at the Crowne Plaza in Nairobi on the 23rd of May saw an impressive turnout of over 300 decision makers from the mid-market in attendance. The event was held under the theme ‘Redefining Digital and Business Transformation’ and focused on pivotal topics that are integral to the adoption of digital transformation. The sponsors of the event Gold sponsors included Redington Kenya Ltd, Silver sponsor Veritas Exhibition partners Unify, MicroStrategy and SAS as well as Media partners Metropol TV and Mediatech.

Smart SMB Summit & Awards is held in multiple countries of GCC and the Kenya edition was the first edition held outside the GCC. The event series is organized by Business Media International, the publishers of Smart SMB Magazine.

The platform has been successful in taking the narrative of digital and business transformation forward to

the mid-market in different markets.

Likewise, the intent of the Kenya edition of the event was to to advance awareness of how to to take strategic approaches to digital transformation in organizations. The attendees had the opportunity to listen to and interact with industry experts who presented keynotes and were part of panel discussions at the event.

‘Data protection is key to digital transformation’.

The first keynote of the day was presented by Paul van der Linde, Partner Manager, Global Alliances at MicroStrategy who spoke at length on the Key Pivots of Digital Transformation and highlighted the role that HyperIntelligence, an enterprise analytics tool that works seamlessly across web-based content and through your mobile device to bring answers to people through relevant, context-based analytics.

Clare Ward, CIO of Kenya Airlines presented an insightful presentation on ‘Opportunities to exploit Data Analytics’ and how the Airlines operations is streamlined using Analytics to plan, visualize and predict in parallel.

Among the three panel discussions of the day, the first panel discussion discussed at length the ‘Outlook for digital transformation in Kenya’s mid-market’ with the panelists including Oscar Corriea, Director of Technology, Maarifa Education, Stanley Chege, CIO, Madison Group, Kenya, James Siku, Head of ICT, Aga Khan Hospital Mombasa and Vincent Milewa,Territory Manager - Africa (East & West), Unify.

Presenting the second keynote of the day, Vincent Nuwamanya, Technical Pre-sales Consultant at Veritas Technologies LLC shared insights on how

James Siku Ojwang, Head of ICT & Ag Head of Outreach at the Aga Khan Hospital, Mombasa, Kenya gave an exhaustive presentation on the role of AI and IoT in enabling digital transformation with examples of use cases for IoT from healthcare.

SPOTLIGHT

The second panel discussion discussed the ‘Role of Fintech in enabling digital economy’ and went into details fo how Fintech is growing at an accelerated pace in the country in light of mobile payments, banking and savings, growth of alternative funding platforms etc. the participants in this panel discussion included Faisal Omar, Founder & Director, FMO Consulting, Stanley Chege, CIO, Madison Group, Patrick Kamanu, Operations, M Oriental Bank, Kevin Amateshe, Digital Lead East Africa, Sanofi and Francis Kamuyu, Head of IT at Multichoice Kenya.

The final panel discussion of the day discussed ‘Facilitating Digital Transformation in key verticals’ and participants included Clare Ward, CIO, Kenya Airways; Thomas Gachie, Chief operating officer, Centric Air Ambulance Ltd.; Tom Mboya Opiyo, Head of ICT at Unga Group; Emma Okere,Lead Data Scientist, Kenbright Actuarial & Financial Services Limited and Lawrence Lubanga, CTO, MTN Kenya. The panelists shared the dynamics of their verticals and their status on adopting some digital transformation measures.

Following the summit, the day’s agenda included an Awards Gala. Awards were presented for companies cross different verticals who have taken the lead in pioneering deployments of new technologies, thus transforming their Businesses. Awards were also presented to Technology companies who are playing a lead role in facilitating digital transformation deployments.

Paul Van Der Linde Partner Manager, Microstrategy

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AWARDS WINNERS LIST Catagory

Winner

Best Digital Transformation in Healthcare

Aga Khan Hospital Mombasa

Best Digital Transformation in Hospitality

PrideInn Hotels & Investments Ltd

Best Digital Transformation in Manufacturing

Unga Group

Best Digital Transformation in Education

Longhorn Publishers Plc

Best Digital Transformation in Banking M Oriental Bank Best Digital Transformation in Insurance

Madison Group

Best Digital Transformation in Financial Services

Branch International

Best Digital Transformation in Aviation Kenya Airways Best Digital Transformation in Media

Metropol TV

Telecom Solutions Provider of the Year MTN Business Kenya VAD of the Year with Best digital Transformation Initiatives

Redington Kenya Ltd

Cloud Computing Solutions Vendor of the Year

Oracle

Storage Vendor of the Year

Veritas

Networking Vendor of the Year

Cisco

BI Software Vendor of the Year

MicroStrategy

Vendor of the Year with Best Digital Transformation Focus

Unify

CIO of the Year

George Njuguna, Group CIO, HF Group

Digital Innovations in Client Services

AMREF Flying Doctors

Panel Discussion Outlook For Digital Transformation In Kenya’s Mid-Market

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

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SPOTLIGHT

Panel Discussion Role Of Fintech In Enabling Digital Economy

Clare Ward CIO, Kenya Airways

James Siku Head of ICT, Aga Khan Hospital Mombasa

Panel Discussion Facilitating Digital Transformationin Key Verticals

Vincent Nuwamanya Technical Pre-sales Consultant, Veritas

Award Winner: Aga Khan Hospital Mombasa

Award Winner: PrideInn Hotels & Investments Ltd

Award Winner: Unga Group

SMARTSMB / June 2019

SPOTLIGHT

Award Winner: Longhorn Publishers Plc

Award Winner: Madison Group

Award Winner: MTN Business Kenya

Award Winner: Redington Kenya Ltd

Award Winner: Oracle

Award Winner: Veritas

Award Winner: Cisco

Award Winner: AMREF Flying Doctors

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June 2019 / SMARTSMB

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TALKPOINT

EMBRACING THE DIGITAL ERA George Njuguna , Group CIO at HF Group discusses the success of the group on its digital transformation journey

By R. Narayan What has been the major focus in your role as CIO of the HF group?

As CIO of HF Group, part of my charge has been to create the vision, direction, and delivery program for the company’s digital transformation agenda.

This requires me to find a balance between advancing ideas that deliver on the evolving business needs, high customer expectations while delivering on shareholder value. In tandem, I must ensure that core operations remain stable and do not deter us from focusing on the strategic objectives.

changed; with interest income suppressed, the organizations profit margin had drastically contracted and the “Rock of Kenya” was on the brink of an uncertain future.

A few weeks after the bill was signed, I was hired as HF’s Chief Information Of-

ficer. It was the first time that the organization elevated the ICT Division to a seat at the “Big Table”. Digital Banking was at the centre of my transformation mandate and I set out to turn HFC into a market leader in Digital Financial Services (DFS). The journey began by crafting a digital banking prop-

Great thinking alone cannot move the dial, one must be willing to roll up their sleeves and get the job done amidst the pressure of budget constraints, cyber security threats, and intense competition within the industry. This pressure is further augmented by new players like fintechs who are not saddled by some of the legacy challenges faced by incumbents.

How did the HF group take to digital transformation initiatives?

HF Group (formerly Housing Finance Corporation of Kenya) is one of the institutions that was severely impacted by enactment of the interest capping bill in August 2016, mainly because of the organizations traditional focus on the real estate sector. For over 50 years, HF Group had positioned itself as the leading mortgage provider in Kenya and had successfully captured a big market share. However, the market dynamics had significantly SMARTSMB / June 2019

George Njuguna Group CIO, HF Group

TALKPOINT

osition that would soon become the main initiative to lift HF out this predicament. This required selling the vision, stakeholder engagement, acquisition of new skills and quick deployment.

The vision was shared in the early part of 2017 where it was one of five key strategic initiatives meant to address our performance challenges. The development begun in August 2017, with the aim of not only entering the digital banking space but being amongst the top three players by end of 2018.

Discuss some key highlights of your digital platform?

Unlike most DFS solutions that focus on Services and Products, our platform - HF Whizz focuses on “Use Cases” and delivering the ultimate User Experience – “Fast and Simple Banking at the Speed of your Lifestyle”. The six use cases being addressed are how people Get, Spend, Borrow, Store, Invest and Protect money.

Our new DevOps program and agile delivery methodology are tailored to respond to market insights and customer demands while ensuring optimum stability and security. The platform is under 24/7 monitoring at our Security Operations Centre (SOC) that is constantly being upgraded with new scenarios to ensure that the customer

and organizations’ assets are protected from internal and external threats.

Since going live at the end of July 2018, we have executed seven major changes on the platform recording an average downtime of less than four-minutes per change. This has never resulted in an outage of the entire platform but of the particular capability being upgraded, because we incorporated micro services into the build from the onset. We have leveraged the power of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data to make lending decisions and issue mobile loans to virtual customers in less than 7 seconds.

By adopting a cloud-first philosophy, we have accelerated our speed to market with lower hardware expenses so as to channel more resources to solution development. Unlike many organizations that are deploying private clouds, our solution runs on public cloud (Microsoft Azure) which gives us an array of new capabilities like orchestration, service monitoring and auto scaling across multiple global data centres.

Looking ahead, what are the major priorities?

This success is not the result of a single individuals efforts. I have the honor of working with a gender and genera-

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tionally diverse team that believe in themselves and in our ability to jointly chart a new path for HF. It is their relentless focus on our cause, faith in our capabilities and fortitude to soldier on through challenges that gives me strength in those low moments faced when taking on the status quo.

As their leader, my role is to empower and motivate each member of the team thrive in their element and deliver their best.

If I can chronicle the last two years in terms of focus, 2017 was about thinking and casting the vision, while 2018 was about execution and responding to the market. This year, 2019 is about accelerating growth and generating revenue. However, the thinking and vision casting never stops, as that is what keeps us all aligned and focused on the big goals despite many challenges. Part of this involves building trust and keeping your ego in check by giving new team members the opportunity and support to redefine the roadmap.

Having stretched beyond the traditional CIO mandate to lead this initiative, I’m pleased that it’s uptake has exceeded our expectations by expanding the HF retail customer base from 50,000 to over 650,000 new customers in 9 months since its commercial launch.

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

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TALKPOINT

BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE Francis Kamuyu, Head of IT - Multichoice Kenya discusses the trends in favor of digital transformation as well as challenges in Kenya

By R. Narayan

Please elaborate how you see mid-market in Kenya looking at the need for digital transformation initiatives?

Kenya is one of the most innovative countries worldwide. Recently Nairobi even overtook Johannesburg briefly as the most innovative city in Africa. We have digital transformation in almost every vertical, including some government services. E-Citizen is a marvel, coming especially from a bureaucracy. In Kenya digital transformation is not an option. The case for digital transformation especially regarding cost savings and convenience is not a sermon for the Kenyan market. That is preaching to the choir.

The competition is so cut-throat in every segment that the mid-market range is almost chaotic, each player grabbing every advantage they can. In all industries this is replicated in new innovations on a monthly basis. The competition is so tough that the big boys are not letting any opportunity in digital transformation go unexploited, so you can imagine the mid-market.

It has become a national culture, we don’t do digital transformation in Kenya. We are.

What are usual challenges to digital transformation? Are these budgetary challenges or approval delays or a combination?

The industries that “digital” has disrupted the most are payments (Mpesa and ecommerce), retail (ecommerce), obviously telecommunications (IP telephony) and banking (mobile and ebanking). Notice that most of these share two similarities: they are financial transactions where customers pay to businesses. Such disruptions SMARTSMB / June 2019

usually have a clear cut return on investment and so are easier to justify, and little wonder we have more of these as case studies even if other disruptions in many other industries are also as successful.

The most underrated challenge in digital transformation is actually not the immature technology, low bandwidth, strict and rigid regulations or even lack of expertise. The greatest challenge is presenting the value to the deal makers. We can easily blame top management and regulators for not approving technological innovations that we think are breakthroughs waiting to revolutionize the world, but if we cannot convince those who sign the dotted line we should perhaps humbly take the time to understand why. In almost all cases you will find the problem is that techies are expected to convince the decision makers regarding the value of the solution. The only convincing techies I know of are presales engineers. And even then not all.

If those are not doing the talking, most likely the approval will not come. Ignoring those who know the users from the R&D stage to pitching will usually end in disappointment.

Another big mistake is to drive technological innovations from the technology department. Solutions are owned by the business. Else you run the risk of ending up with a great toy. Impressive, full of bells and whistles, but no clear alignment with value. Sometimes you end up with a solution that’s not solving a problem. Not all solutions solve problems, there’s a difference.

Business knows that difference.

What do you think are most relevant technologies that could be a good fit for companies in the re-

gion? Do you for instance see IoT and AI deployments relevant to most verticals?

We are still in the early stages of digital transformation in the region, mostly digitizing payments and processes.

There are still many opportunities in these areas. We however need to move on to AI enabled fraud control especially in the payments area, as well as process improvement. Next we need big data to make better use of all the collected data. Dashboards and other reporting solutions come in here. The next evolution stage is middle ware. We have a lot of disparate data that would enable wonders if cleaned and mapped to each other. The Huduma namba project by the government of Kenya shows a growing awareness of this gap. These stages are more of agile iterations than steps in a staircase, meaning we will keep improving as long as there are opportunties.

There have been interesting experiments with AI in the region, mostly chat bots to assist service centers.

East African Breweries and Davies and Shirtliff have also deployed very impressive IoT solutions. Multichoice has its own IoT implementations using 2G from way back before 3G in select decoders to understand viewer preferences. IoT and AI however still lag behind their cousins in digital transformation. They haven’t been fully exploited or integrated even where there are opportunities, mostly because the field is still growing and also because the case is not as clear as for other solutions. I however expect that AI and IoT will catch up with time.

The main challenge with IoT is the unforgiving nature of the solution. You

TALKPOINT

have to get the design perfectly right, else after deploying the millions of IoT devices in far flung areas there is no way of correcting a mistake. The other challenges are the demands on big data storage and big data analysis, heavy capex in hardware, expensive telecommunication links, expensive big data specialists and a solution that must be designed by expensive enterprise architects. After all that investment, it is underwhelming to learn that only about 4% of collected big data ever gets used. Perhaps with time there will be a balancing in the industry, where the design of the solutions is such that more of the collected data gets used and the TCO is managed realistically. Until then only big companies can play with most IoT solutions.

Having said that there are IoT solutions that have very clear business cases, especially in logistics management.

For AI the biggest impediment could actually end up being the low cost of labor in our markets. For the same reason that washing machines are popular in the west and not in developing countries, because you can get someone to wash the clothes, the house, utensils, baby sit and cook for less than it costs to own a washing machine; AI may be more expensive than the humans they could replace in developing countries. Until the cost of implementing and running AI is lower than the humans it seeks to replace, there may not be a good financial case for the replacement.

Showmax are excellent competitors in the streaming space.

We deploy technology all the time in the Multichoice group of companies.

That is why Supersport was declared the best sports channel at the last Olympics. That is why everyone will tell you that if you don’t have Supersport you shouldn’t call yourself a football fun. Our use of technology is not so much in this or that area, it is so ingrained in continuous improvement that it is part of our DNA. Take the integration of social media and email into our call center solution. It is part of the strategy to put our customers first. It is not even considered a technology project. That is business as usual.

We are working on several innovations that will make it much easier for customers to engage with us. We will let you know about them as they move from testing to deployment.

Do you see the solutions providers in the region quite up to speed with their expertise in these new technologies as well as services to customers?

As stated above Kenya is a cut-throat market for solution providers. We have seen very many innovative ideas that have been fronted by local companies. Typically a startup will get some brilliant engineers and experienced pre-sales engineers to work on a solu-

tion to a lucrative problem. They will then hire savvy salesmen to push the solution to the market. It is always refreshing to host them to learn which problems they are working on and their proposed solutions.

Unfortunately many of them sit back and relax on becoming successful, and, like the blink of an eye, the big boys take over their space and eat their lunch. They have better customer care, more stability and offer better value overall.

Solution providers play a great role as disruptors. Their speed in research and development pushes the boundaries and creates new value. When they focus on niche markets they also contribute to create entirely new realities. They should however not get comfortable. Getting to the top is hard. Very hard. But nowhere as hard as remaining on top. They should continuously improve and find new ways of remaining on top. The prices they charged for their solution, when new, cannot remain for years. The big boys will adopt the innovations and provide the same solutions for half the price or even less. For the solution providers it means only one thing: They must continually do whatever it is they did to get to the top. It is a treadmill. And as JF Kennedy said about the space program, they should do those things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

At MultiChoice, how has the company looked at Technology as an enabler? Any recent deployments that you could highlight?

Multichoice has always been at the forefront of technology innovation.

When the company launched satellite TV it was a technological innovation.

When we launched digital decoders it was a technological innovation. Right now the Multichoice group is a significant player in the IPTV space. We have streaming services like DStv Now, DStv Catch Up Plus on the world class Explora and Showmax. DStv Now and

Francis Kamuyu Head of IT, Multichoice Kenya

19

20

STRATEGY

THE ROAD LESS DRIVEN In a region where almost two-thirds of the population owns a car, nobody thought about car sharing as an option until a few years ago. Smart SMB turns open the pages of the past with the Co-Founder and CEO of Ekar, Vilhelm Hedberg, to understand how did they start and where are they now.

By Diksha Vohra orn in the small town of Venezuela, Vilhelm was surrounded by the best of nature. During his school days too, he showed a lot of interest in environment protection but even till then the thought of working with automobiles had never struck him. He always believed in the power of a sustainable business and that’s what he tried implementing in the shipping company he worked for and the ISO business he established in Dubai eight years ago. But the best was yet to come.

B

One fine afternoon, Vilhelm and his friends were discussing business ideas while hanging out in a swimming pool and that’s when the idea of car sharing came up. The term instantly struck a chord and Vilhelm grabbed the opportunity to what we know today as the region’s most innovative startup idea Ekar.

The start Vilhelm Hedberg Co-Founder / CEO , Ekar

SMARTSMB / June 2019

The letters ‘EK’ in the brand name comes from the flight code of Emirates Airlines, and precisely the

staff of Emirates were the ones Ekar initially catered too. Vilhelm would often see the cabin crew traveling from one country to another, with taxis and metro as the only option left for local travels. To sort their issue and to test the waters, Vilhelm and his friend Ravi started Ekar and provided the staff of Emirates with cars they could share and then pay as per their usage. Eventually, they began catering to the staff of Etihad Airways and since they got popular, they began catering to all of Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s residents.

The Gap As a city, Dubai is vibrant and ever welcoming. While most people here drive and use their own cars to drive to their favorite destinations, statistically these cars were only used 5% each day. 95% of the time they remain parked, which to Vilhelm sounded like a big issue. And it indeed is because most of the times, the value of the car didn’t justify the usage. While the concept of car sharing has been popular in the west, the MENA region didn’t have a similar facility. According to reports, each car shared removes 17 cars off the road, which makes a big difference. Especially in a city like Dubai where traffic is a huge concern, car sharing came as a breath of fresh air.

The Concept The concept of Ekar was fairly simple - providing a mobility facility to peo-

STRATEGY

ple who’d like to travel locally in an affordable manner. However, it wasn’t so simple to explain this to other key organisations and funders who often confused it with car pooling. Where car pooling means that a number of people sit in a car, drive along the way and get dropped off at different locations, car sharing is where one picks up the car from a location, drives it to his destination, drops it there and pays for the minutes or hours he uses the car for.

While the concept is not only environment friendly, it saves a lot of money.

Since the driver only pays per minute, commuting over longer distances becomes much cheaper compared to general taxis, Ubers and Careems.

People could pre-book their car and drive it for as less as a minute and as much as three to four hours. Ekar was launched for those who might want to pick up their children from school, drive to IKEA for groceries, pick up a few friends for dinner and then drive home.

the app prompts him to check the car properly and report any damages.

He has to click pictures and submit it on the app before boarding the fleet.

When he sits inside, he can rate the cleanliness of the car too. So if someone sees a scratch on the car and if that scratch was not there when the car was handed to the previous driver, the app will raise a case against the previous driver for damaging the car.

Moreover, if the car is given any less than three stars in terms of cleanliness or functioning, it is taken off the road immediately and sent to the service station.

21

tive and environment friendly options like the metro, taxis and more. Ekar aims to provide a car in the proximity of 500m to every consumer who wishes to drive from one place to another without worrying about parking fees, petrol cost, car rentals, EMI and other issues.

The innovations Ekar is about to launch a proximity note system. For instance, if you’re in a meeting and you’re expected to get free within the next 30 minutes

The Challenges Explaining the difference between car sharing and car pooling was just the start when it comes to the challenges Ekar faced/faces as a brand. The biggest challenge is posed by the high demand of the consumers. Ideally, the ratio for car share in western countries is 50:1 whereas in Dubai alone it is 250:1, which means that 250 people are behind one car. To meet the excessive demand, Ekar needs to continuously keep adding more cars to the fleet.

The second challenge then was ensuring the quality of the cars. With each car being driven by six or more drivers a day, the possibility of wear and tear had increased. Moreover, whom would you hold responsible for the damage? That’s when Vilhelm and his team thought about a smart solution. They enabled various security systems to keep things under control.

Today if someone books an Ekar, he is prompted by the app to take a selfie with the car in the background. Then

The Expansion In 2017, Ekar had launched with 100 cars and two years down the line they have more than 200 cars in Dubai alone. In Abu Dhabi, they have about 300 cars. The brand has also entered the Saudi Arabian market recently with just 15 vehicles to test the market and this year, they plan to add at least 1000 cars to their fleet there. Apart from these two countries, Vilhelm is also contemplating expansions in other GCC countries.

The Competitors According to Vilhelm, Ekar doesn’t compete with Uber, Careem or RTA taxis. The competitor is the owner himself. As per statistics, where a few years ago almost every individual had a car, the rate is slowly decreasing.

People are choosing more cost effec-

so you can update that on the app.

After that, whenever any car comes in close proximity with your location, you’ll either get a notification or the car will be booked for you automatically. Moreover, one would be able to transact in various currencies. But the most awaited addition is that of luxury cars which will be much faster and more stylish than the ones already available.

The Verdict Ekar as a brand focuses on enriching consumer experience by providing them a solution to their day to day commuting problem. While the brand has witnessed an increase in revenue for upto 15% by each month, Vilhelm’s vision is to take his company to better heights. It would be worth seeing what changes do the above innovations bring to consumer’s lives in the near future.

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

22

TALKPOINT

SUBDUING THE THREATS Marc French, Senior Vice President and Chief Trust Officer at Mimecast discusses the need for actionable threat intelligence

By R. Narayan As the Chief Trust Officer of Mimecast, what are the responsibilities you look after?

My role comprises looking after issues that are a blend of both privacy and security. Instead of focusing on only issues that traditionally a CISO (chief information security officer) looks at, I look after both the technical and the business aspects of the processes.

We took a step back and looked at the tasks in organizations addressing privacy concerns, such as for example GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) readiness, privacy awareness training etc and saw that they go together with security awareness training and so on.

95% of the privacy functions were being done by the security team anyway by default but my role extends that together with the security aspects firmly. And of course I have a go to market strategic role to go with the technical side.

How can a company use effective strategy for threat intelligence?

While everyone can have a threat intelligence function, it is daunting in general, especially for the smaller organizations. Everyone can have a threat intelligence function, but you need to know if you have a strong one.

So my assertion to customers is to ‘use their vendors’ for the threat intelligence feeds. While the customer is consuming technology from his immediate environment, vendors have access to a global network of systems that can help generate threat SMARTSMB / June 2019

intelligence feeds. A customer’s first stop to procure threat intelligence function should be to approach their vendors and enquire them about the intelligence updates for products they are providing. If the answer is no, then you should be immediately looking for other options including replacing the vendor. If they are not being able to provide any updates to your technology to help you reduce the security risk in your environment, you need to find an alternative.

Threat intelligence is a key factors in ensuring cyber resilience. How does Mimecast help in providing threat intelligence?

Mimecast specializes in a cloud-based email management and includes services such as archiving, security, and continuity to protect business mail.

Email is a top vector as far as cyber attacks are concerned.

As you can imagine, we see billions of emails across the globe and are best placed to identify threats in the email environment. We have found out that, cyber attacks, even a Phishing campaign, is initially tested out in one geography or vertical before it is deployed globally. As we have intelligence from across all part of the world, we can easily help see the threat way before it gets out to be a more widespread attack. We can therefore help customer create rules and take preventative actions in such situations before the problem arises. And if there is threat intelligence coming in for all products and solutions in the network, the sum total of intelligence unleashed to the frontend dashboard and the multiple

Marc French SVP & CTO, Mimecast

touch points in the chain will offer the necessary ability to catch the threat before it becomes a serious issue.

Discuss the threat intelligence services you offer?

There are two facets to threat intelligence we offer under the Threat Centre, a service that brings together a group of cybersecurity experts providing threat intelligence to help organizations convert threat information into value for the business.

The Threat Centre makes the service available to end users in two forms.

One is through a UI that’s part of the product which security teams can use themselves based on their verticals through the API feed. Those with a Threat Intelligence Centre can offload all this intel and feed it into centralized threat management and use that data for their defense. What I see is that SMB organizations tend to use UI components, as they aren’t typically able to pull out their intelligence into centralized system, perhaps being hard for them to hire an intelligence team. Enterprises on the other hand have typically invested in threat management infrastructure and therefore use the API feeds to enhance their own threat intelligence capabilities.

We offer both options.

Howe is the business outlook for Mimecast in the region and what

TALKPOINT

are the key areas of focus?

The business is growing in the 20-30 percent range across the regions. We are doing quite well in the region. The focus this year is on security awareness and threat intelligence functions. Mimecast Awareness Training, launched in the second half of last year, is a security awareness training and cyber risk management platform that helps combat information security breaches caused by employee mistakes.

Are there plans for locally hosting your solutions?

We have our solutions hosted in our facilities and distributed across the

world. We do not yet have a Middle East data center but are thinking about it.

How do you see yourself positioned towards the mid-market?

We have an entire suite of solutions from email security to email archiving, security awareness training platform, web security, mail continuity and so on. We now offer a new service Mimecast Supervision, that helps financial services organizations address supervisory compliance requirements and other regulatory constraints, as part of the Mimecast Cloud Archive and so on. For SMB organizations, we are like a one-stop shop for email and web security services.

The State of Email Security Report 2019 United Arab Emirates Findings

Email Attacks

75% OF ORGANIZATIONS IN UAE SAW AN INCREASE IN IMPERSONATION ATTACKS

Social engineering attacks are a rising concern for organizations because they’re often one of the most difficult to control. Most notably, the report found that in the UAE impersonation attacks increased by 75 percent, with 77 percent of those organizations impacted by impersonation attacks having experienced a direct loss, specifically loss of customers (23%), financial loss (21%) and data loss

(40%). Phishing attacks were the most prominent type of cyberattack, with 94 percent of respondents having experienced phishing and spear phishing attacks in the previous 12 months, and 75 percent cited seeing an increase in phishing attacks over the same time period.

Not only are email-based attacks on the rise, but they’re affecting how confident people are in their organization’s cybersecurity defenses – and ultimately the ability to do their jobs. According to the report, 39 percent believe it is likely or inevitable their organization will suffer a negative business impact from an emailborne attack this year. The report also found that almost a third (62%) encountered a ransomware attack that directly impacted business operations. Fifty-eight percent of UAE respondents noted having downtime for two to three days, whereas 29 percent experienced downtime for four to five days.

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of impersonation attack victims experienced a

RESULTING LOSS

35%

94%

experienced a PHISHING ATTACK

saw increase in PHISHING

saw an increase in TARGETED SPEAR-PHISHING attacks with MALICIOUS LINKS

The third-annual State of Email Security report from Mimecast, based on insights from 1,025 global IT decision makers, including the UAE reveals a major increase in targeted attacks like impersonation Fraud, spear phishing and Business Disrupting Ransomware. . As cybercriminals continue to use email as a primary vehicle to steal data and deliver advanced threats, the results of this research provide valuable insights and trends around what’s affecting organizations the most and how they can improve their overall security posture.

23

87%

0 4 "* &)Č’ 0"! 0-,,Ćœ+$ of business partners or vendors looking to gain access to money, sensitive intellectual property or login credentials (45% have seen this increase)

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Awareness Training

72%

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of awareness training happens

– the most widely used method

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see threat intelligence as an

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THE FUTURE

are using email security systems that provide threat intelligence data to their security teams.74% said their organisation’s email security system can consume and apply threat intelligence data to their other security systems

Cyber Resilience

21%

currently planning or have a longer timeline for launching their cyber resilience plan

NETWORK SECURITY

RECOVERY

WEB SECURITY Č’

19%

in the process of rolling one out

59%

have a cyber resilience strategy in place

85% 82% 79% 78% 70% 79% Get The Full Report *Results from Mimecast-commissioned Vanson Bourne survey of 1,025 global IT decision-makers, Nov. 2018-Feb. 2019

Mimecast is a cybersecurity provider that helps thousands of organisations worldwide make email safer, restore trust and bolster cyber resilience. www.mimecast.com | Š 2019 Mimecast | SA-577

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

24

TALKPOINT

MILES TO GO Ganesh Ramamoorthy, Managing vice president, Gartner – IoT, Semiconductor discusses how the IoT landscape is still some way from seeing larger scale deployments

By R. Narayan How do you look at proliferation of IoT deployments?

What stage are we in terms of adoption?

Lots of pilot projects have been done around IoT. Companies know very well that there are a lot of benefits to be made. In industries across the board, the pilot projects seems to be from the perspective of how can they manage and optimize the usage of assets and how can they enable predictive maintenance on equipment so that they know when a machine could fail and prevent that by doing maintenance ahead of the anticipated failure. These pilot projects have been limited in size though, catering to some Business units. Moving ahead, the challenge is to scale them up organization wide.

To do that, you need some core infrastructural capabilities.

What are the core infrastructural capabilities required for enabling IoT? The first is cloud capability, because if the cloud isn’t in place, it would be difficult to collate the data coming from all IoT endpoint and perform the analytics.

Ganesh Ramamoorthy Managing VP, Gartner

There is a lot of debate around adopting the kid of cloud. Different discussion are happening at companies for evaluating the right cloud strategies.

ing on the front end for customer facing processes. With IoT implementation, this needs to be enabled for the operational staff as well. They need to be familiarized with such mobile apps so they get comfortable to work with new applications built for IoT. There is going to be a lot of investments on that front going ahead.

The second aspect is having mobility initiatives for operational staff, such as the personnel on shopfloor. We have seen mobility initiatives happen-

Analytics is the third area. While we are well versed with customer analytics, IoT deployments would entail operational analytics that looks at op-

SMARTSMB / June 2019

erational data, perform analytics and tie that back to Business analytics for decision making.

These three capabilities are going to be critical. Many organizations have gaping holes in these aspects. Companies are working towards building these capabilities in the MENA region and these would continue for the year ahead.

By mid-2020, is when we could expect to see announcements of large

TALKPOINT

scale deployments of IoT by organizations. By then they would possibly have reached some level of maturity in terms of core capabilities. At this point of time, we are done with piloting and testing phases. Now it is about ensuring all building blocks are in place as far as capabilities are concerned and once that is achieved, the large scale deployments can happen.

Do you see a lot of advances on enhancing the capabilities of IoT sensors?

Obviously, technologies are always advancing and likewise, there are a lot of advancements happening on the sensor side. We are talking of sensors integrated with AI capabilities, sensors with more processing power, edge analytics etc wherein devices on the edge have the capabilities to process data then and there and respond.

However it all depend on what the organizations need and just because the capabilities are there, it wouldn’t make sense to have edge analytics on all devices. This needs to be done with a comprehensive understanding from the process side of what the organization requires. That is when the investments on the hardware and the software will make sense.

Which verticals could benefit most from IoT? Elaborate on some use case scenarios?

a discount on an motor insurance in return for gathering data from an IoT sensors that collects information on how it is driven, how fast the vehicle is driven, how often it is taken for service etc. You can extrapolate these kind of use cases across industries.

For example, Industry Assets can be monitored and the IoT data can be used by insurance companies to reduce the risks involved in their lending programs and draw a much better data mitigation plan. In summary, there are a lot of use cases possible for different kinds of companies.

As Monetization of data evolves new opportunities, would there be ethical issues to be concerned about?

Organizations need to be transparent about how they are collecting consumer data, what kind of data is being collected and where it is going to be share. If the organization isn’t clear about this with its consumers, they could always run into issues with compliance and regulatory authorities.

Would hacking be an issue as well with IoT endpoints?

Hacking would always be an issue.

Therefore security is not an after-

25

thought. When products are designed, security should be in-built.

Describe the IOT ecosystem?

Large IT services companies are doing IOT projects. Systems integrators, consultant, heavy equipment OEMs, ISVs all are into this market. These different kinds of companies look at IoT from different perspectives and they don’t get the full view to built an end to end solution. Gartner doesn’t think a particular company is going to lead the IoT space. There are going to be pockets of ecosystems and they will be driving the IOT space.

What is the role of platforms in IoT? there are hundreds of platforms. Many of them are generic, providing basic features such as being able to manage the devices and many ignore the security aspects. some of the more advanced ones come with machine learning capabilities built in, more advanced device management capabilities. The features will keep evolving and on the other hand there are also companies building their own platforms as they see the cost of customization for off the shelf platforms as more expensive compared to building a platform by yourself. So IoT strategies will vary from company to company.

Typically, you would expect asset intensive industries to benefit the most from IoT. That is always there but today is you look at Banks for instance , they could possibly start looking at their ATMs as IoT devices by themselves and operated from remote locations integrating all the data to a centralized system. The use cases could be as mentioned before around Asset management and optimization, or it could be around data gathering and monetizing it. There could be various new use cases such as a Bank willing to give consumers a discount on a new product or service when customers share some data or it could be an insurance company will ing to offer June 2019 / SMARTSMB

26

FINANCE

VAT REFUNDS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW A year and a half after the implementation of VAT, refunds have become an issue. With many SMBs facing a tough time to get things right, we bring to you a detailed report on all you need to know about VAT refunds.

By Diksha Vohra fter finishing work, Farah Anwar walks out of her office locking the doors. While walking through the now seemingly quiet streets of the Deira market, she remembers the good old days where the same streets used to be heavily crowded, bustling with noise and happenings all around.

Today, however, the situation is a lot different.

A

Majority of the shops in the Deira market were either occupied by electronic retailers or gold sellers. Since the implementation of VAT in early 2018, these markets have particularly been affected.

“Within our industry, our profits margins are barely 1%,” says Farah Anwar, CEO of Ashraf Electronics. “With a 5% VAT, most of the firms haven’t been able to make enough profit and hence have moved away from mainland operations to freezone areas to save on the tax.” Moreover, with VAT refunds sometimes taking longer than usual, the SMEs reach a plateau in the operations with no or minimal cash flow, which makes it harder for them to continue work.

According to statistics, 296,000 businesses had registered for tax in 2018 alone from which the total number of periodic tax returns received by the FTA from businesses registered for VAT purposes exceeded 650,000. Moreover, as per Khalid Ali Al Bustani, FTA General Director, the Federal Tax Authority was among the eight most searched names on Google in that year. This proves that VAT information was quite high on demand yet many businesses seem to struggle with understanding the same. We take a look at certain VAT essentials which SMEs can look into to prepare themselves well in advance for any refund related query.

ference between the input VAT and the output VAT is the VAT refundable amount. Rajeev Samtani, Managing Director of Xcel Accounting says: “A company is required to list the details of sales, purchases output VAT, and input VAT paid over the past quarter or month as the case may be. The output VAT is the amount of tax collected on the company’s sales, and the input VAT is the amount paid to the supplier towards purchases and expenses. A VAT refundable position occurs when the input VAT exceeds the output VAT.” This means that VAT refunds only apply to companies where the VAT inputs exceed the VAT output, hence it is not applicable to every business. Having said that, in order to ascertain whether or not the business is legible for a VAT refund, the following accounting health checks need to be made to understand the financial state of the business in concern: 1. Books of accounts must be reconciled with all the supplies (Standard-rated supplies, Zero-rated supplies & exempt supplies) and purchases disclosed in the VAT Returns 2. Availability of all the valid tax invoices for sales and purchases; 3. Availability of all import records and its declaration in VAT return;

What is VAT refund and is it applicable to every business?

4. Availability of all export records and its declaration in VAT return;

In simple terms, the dif-

5. Availability of Profit and Loss account and Balance Sheet.

FINANCE

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Myths about VAT refunds in the UAE As per Chirag Aggarwal, Co-Founder at Earningo Accounting & Tax Consultancy, the biggest myth about VAT refund is that it is challenging to receive a refund from the FTA. “If the business are having proper and accurate accounting records, documentation and internal controls in place, then refund can be easily claimed from the Tax Authorities,” he clarifies.

Rajeev, however, adds more myths which are growing concerns and need to be clarified:

Myth

Facts

All customers can claim a refund on VAT

End customers cannot claim an input VAT refund

Refund is available on excess of all amounts paid or payable over amounts received or receivable

Amount paid or payable after six months of supply date is not eligible for refund claims.

The VAT shall be refunded automatically in the case of excess VAT paid over received

A VAT refund has to be specifically applied for

A foreign company can claim any amount as refund

The minimum amount of VAT that may be claimed is AED2,000 (USD544)

There are various VAT Refund Schemes available under the UAE Vat Law wherein only registered persons can also get benefit out of it

Vat Refund Scheme for UAE Nationals are available to those who are building new residences in the UAE irrespective of whether they are registered or not

VAT refund is available on exempted products and services

Any input tax charged for goods and services in the exempted category is non-refundable. Exempted supplies include local transport, financial services like life insurance as well as zero charge financial services

All businesses in the GCC can claim a VAT refund under the Foreign Business VAT Refund Scheme in UAE

A business which is registered and located in a Gulf State where VAT is not in practice, as of now, can claim VAT refund under this scheme. This includes all the GCC member States, except for Saudi Arabia and the UAE

Best practices SMEs can follow to prepare for a smooth VAT refund As per Chirag, the first thing SMEs should install is an FTA approved accounting software in their offices because without it, calculating VAT and generating the required reports would be difficult and may lead to rejections later. Secondly, there must be a reconciliation between financial records and VAT records for each VAT reporting. Thirdly, as Rajeev states, SMEs need to review their existing operations, financial management and book keeping regularly to under-

stand the implication of VAT. For this, the best way is to hire a certified tax advisor. Furthermore, all staff should be trained in VAT, specifically on their area of responsibility to avoid any last minute confusions. “Staff would need to know how to explain to customers and suppliers on the requirements of VAT and how it affects business transactions,” says Rajeev.

In order to ensure that adequate funds are available to pay off the VAT liabilities it is essential that a good and robust cash flow management system is in place. This is particularly important since there can be a timing lag between invoicing for service and getting the payment, especially in the case of delays. A good practice would be to keep aside a certain percentage of revenue in a separate bank account which cannot be accessed very easily.

Also, asking customers to make partial or full payments upfront will go a long way in ensuring there is adequate working capital for the business.

Lastly the VAT regime requires SMEs to maintain proper books of record whether eligible for VAT or not and this applies to freelancers and micro-businesses as well. If the SMEs maintain their records well, review them from time to time, plan their cash flows accordingly and seek advice when required from certified VAT experts, VAT refunds wouldn’t be an issue.

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

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IOs today must master the difficult balance between managing the risks of deploying immature technologies and those of being left behind by emerging, disruptive trends if they are to help their businesses drive profitable growth in the years to come.

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Disruptive technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will transform the way we do business over the decade, yet they are not quite ready for prime-time deployment. In the Middle East, countries like the UAE have launched a national strategy for AI to make it an integral part of business and government services. Organisations in the UAE have started to experiment with the tech in non-critical applications so that they are ready when the technologies go mainstream. For instance, Bee’ah, the leading environmental management company in the UAE, recently announced that its new headquarters will be the first fully AI integrated building in the region.

IoT plus blockchain will enable a wide variety of new business opportunities in the future. Though they are evolving, they have a decade or more before they are truly mature. A lack of standardisation, the business process changes it will demand, and the impact of large ledger sizes on network and computing resources are among the challenges for blockchain.

It’s time to experiment (and learn) Constant experimentation and innovation are essential if companies are to keep up with the rate of change.

We recommend doing 6-8-week experiments to start the digital transformation journey. Fail fast, fix, and move on. But organisations that start this journey will find themselves challenged by a shortage of digital talent, difficulties in scaling up small-scale experiments and a need to reinvent organisational cultures for constant innovation.

SMARTSMB / June 2019

DRIVING THE CHANGE Mansoor Sarwar, Director - Technical Services and Pre-Sales at Sage Middle East discusses the IT leaders’ challenges including the shortage of talent and a need to reinvent cultures

Mansoor Sarwar Director - Technical Services and Pre-Sales, Sage

Where is the talent?

Organisations need strong in-house technical knowledge and skills in IoT and blockchain to manage vendor risk in these emerging areas. Companies need people able to evaluate the specialist offerings from niche vendors so that they can make good choices in a complex and constantly changing landscape.

One thing’s for sure: top quality IT talent has never been in more demand, so make sure your business is set up to attract and retain it.

Innovation as part of the culture Many large organisations are treating innovation and disruption as separate disciplines because of the challenges of driving change in an established business and securing the right skills.

Companies are pursuing a slew of

strategies to drive innovation in their businesses, ranging from setting up venture capital funds and incubators and investing in tech and digital companies to running innovation challenges and forming strategic alliances with tech companies.

Blockchain and IoT will one day affect everyone from risk and compliance to production to sales to finance. Every team needs to start to understand what these technologies mean for the company’s future, and adopt innovation as part of its mandate.

It can’t be stressed enough that innovation cannot happen in isolation - it must be part of the organisation’s culture. The IT team needs to develop new skills and change its culture to support the organisation as it integrates new technologies into the business.

They will need vision and storytelling skills to help the organisation prepare for this change.

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HR

PREPARING FOR A

Future-Ready Economy The onset of the fourth Industrial Revolution has brought forward many concerns; the most important of it being the possibility of traditional skills getting replaced by new skills. In such a scenario, how can individuals and entrepreneurs prepare in advance to thrive in a future-ready economy?

By Diksha Vohra

ciate the development while some get frustrated because it takes too long to get hold of an actual person who can answer their complex queries for which the virtual operator is not trained.

Hani Asfour Associate Dean, Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation

Welcome to the world of the fourth Industrial Revolution where automation and digitization have taken over the world. From hospitals to travel industry to marketing, everything is influenced by it. Amidst all these, however, a larger chunk of the workforce is fearing unemployment due to the increased level of digitization and lesser requirement of those with general skills. According to the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week Future Skills 2030, technological advancement is expected to increase the number of jobs in previously non-existing sectors such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Automation and Advanced Manufacturing, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), big data and analysis.

This means that those with general skills will have to upgrade their knowledge to these Future Skills to be able to succeed in the new era marked by rapid technological advancements.

ew years ago, when you would dial the number of a cinema hall to book your tickets, your queries would be answered by an individual who would look into her system and advise you on the show timings, book tickets for you and sometimes even hold tickets for those who would wish to come and pay in person.

“The World Economic Forum describes the top three skills required in the Fourth Industrial Revolution as: Complex Problem Solving, Critical Thinking and Creativity,” says Hani Asfour, Associate Dean of Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation. Jim Yong Kim, former group President of the World Bank adds interpersonal skills and collaboration to this list too. He feels that it is a great challenge to equip the younger generation with these skills which they would need, no matter what future jobs look like.

But today when you dial the same board-line number, you first speak to a virtual operator who understands your requirements and then suggests options accordingly. Now, there are two sides to the coin - some individuals appre-

“Automation and machinery have already, if not soon, become the norm,” says Hani. “In architecture alone we expect 40% of the daily tasks of the architect to be completed by machines, more accurately and efficiently. This includes

F

SMARTSMB / June 2019

HR

simple tasks as area and material calculation to more complex tasks such as 3D form generation and parametric permutations.” While these developments would imply an increase in efficiency and productivity, are people responding to these changes positively?

“I think people who’re currently working in jobs are getting habituated with managing data unlike those who aren’t,” says Muhammed Chibb, a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Tejawal and Almosafer. “For example, a few years ago if a marketer told his client that he thinks his customers would like things to be done a certain way, the customer would believe him.

But today, he needs to present data to show how customers are reacting to the changes in real time to be able to convince someone to proceed with a strategy in mind. Hence, our decisions have become more knowledge based and that reduces the possibility of errors and ambiguity.”

So for those who are in the market place, adjusting wouldn’t be that big an issue because they’re gradually developing with the needs of the market. But for others who are either not working or working who haven’t adapted to changing environments, there is no way out because If a client fails to receive information backed up by data analysis, thanks to a globally converging market, he can look out for a solution elsewhere leaving no option for local entrepreneurs to upgrade their skills. Therefore, future skills adaptation isn’t anymore a choice, it is a necessity.

Muhammed and Hani, however, feel that these advancements will create more job opportunities where people’s skills would be used in the right place and more productively. “Some jobs like software handlers, developers, computer scientists and other specialised jobs would increase,” says Muhammed. Hani, on the other hand,

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feels that jobs like augmented reality designers, drone experience designers and internet of things conductors would increase.

The UAE has already undertaken big steps to equip the younger generation with skills required to face future challenges and achieve the core goals of Vision 2021 and Centennial 2071.

The UAE National Innovation Strategy too focuses on renewable energy, transport, education, health, technology, water and space. Meanwhile, the National Employment Strategy of 2031 also aims to empower labour productivity by increasing the number of research and development personnel, promoting entrepreneurship, promoting lifelong learning programs, training on future skills and skill development programs and focusing on attracting talent by enhancing knowledge and cultural diversity.

A major concern hovering around most industries is that with the use of future skills, would there be no need of a personal touch to services rendered?

And how would machines be able to answer complex issues which a human brain can answer much quicker.

“The lack of a personal touch is precisely why I feel design is at the core of the fourth industrial revolution if we wish to succeed,” says Hani. “Design starts with empathizing with the user. Sincerely caring about who is interfacing with your product or service will ensure its consistent value. So, as we teach in design, we have to enter into the field and listen to users and capture their pain points and identify solutions to address their concerns.

This will revolutionize how we typically think of productions.” Most often businesses tend to think of the viability first and the engineering tends to focus on technology and feasibility. Designers add to that mix a human-centered approach, where the desirability of the product ensures the customer’s

Muhammed Chibb Founder, Tejawal and Almosafer

fulfillment.

According to Muhammed too, if someone wishes to travel, would he depend on the advice of a physical travel agent who may suggest options to him based on mental speculations or some ongoing trends or would the advice of a robot who tells him what 200,000 people from his nationality, income group, tastes and preferences have loved. The choice is quite simple.

The human touch wouldn’t be lost because they can then focus on better and bigger things leaving the routine works to be done by the machines.

Therefore, preparing oneself for the fourth industrial revolution by acquiring these future skills would not only help one create more, develop more and deliver more, but would also increase the efficiency and effectivity of all other tasks being taken care of by virtual intelligence.

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

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IN FOCUS

EPICOR ENHANCES CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT OVER IFTAR

By Diksha Vohra

picor Software engaged its regional customers over a private Iftar dinner on the 22nd of May 2019 at the Ritz Carlton, DIFC in Dubai.

In addition to being an opportunity for the vendor to show its appreciation for its customers, the event during the holy month also served as a platform for the vendor to enhance its ties with them.

E

Hesham El Komy, Regional Vice President at Epicor Software said: “This Iftar is less about business and more about engagement. Opportunities like this allow us to interact informally with our customers.”

Over the years, Epicor has made significant inroads in the region especially with manufacturers who rely on its ERP. Several of the attendees at the Iftar have been Epicor clients for long and swear by the solution’s flexibility and scalability to meet their requirements.

Yatim from Utico has been using Epicor’s services for quite some time and he admits how dependent he and his team are on their software for nearly everything related to their business workflow.

He claims, “I have worked with several other ERP solution providers before but none of them provided the kind of exceptional services like Epicor did.

From project marketing to invoicing, everything is taken care of by them.

Moreover, the way they engage with their customers quite often, addressing their requirements without delays.”

Ms Sarpin, Vice President, Kerzner who was one of the attendees said, “Our ties with Epicor goes way back. I love the way Epicor not only serves its customers but is also available when needed and is always open for feedback and new ideas on how to grow and provide better service, and that’s what makes them unique.”

For Epicor, the company leaves no stone unturned in its quest to meet customer expectations.

Stuart Millward, Vice President Professional Services, Epicor Software says that customer relationships are key to their organisation’s growth and development, hence such events help them in building that relationship outside work too. “Epicor is a people based business and the customers I work with are the ones I interact with.

My job is to ensure that we deliver the promises we make and so this Iftar is a great opportunity for me to interact with my customers, understand if they have any concerns and address them to the best of my ability.”

Stuart adds: “Unlike previous years, the economy isn’t as strong. So everyone needs to invest more time in business and work harder.”

Hesham, however, feels that Dubai as a city is always busy and the ones who really want to do business, the key stakeholders, are there in the country and working. “People are closing deals, receiving our services and we’re there for them. Yes, this year has been move vibrant than the previous years but business practically never stops in Dubai.”

Epicor is now scheduled to hold the Customer Summit in Dubai in June 2019. “There is much to look forward to at that event as it will shed light on important areas we’re investing in including artificial intelligence, customer engagement and other programs lined up for the year,” concludes Stuart.

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

Epicor ERP Positioned as a Visionary in Gartner 2018 Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Midsize Enterprises

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WILL WEARABLES BECOME THE NORM IN THE WORKPLACE? Shankar Iyer, senior vice president and general manager of VMware End-User Computing discusses the inroads Enterprise wearables will make and which could well exceed £45 billion by 2022 ould virtual reality headsets enhance IT support services for remote employees? What if workers could navigate the office with augmented reality maps? How might IT deliver more personalised mobile experiences with smartwatch data or in-ear virtual assistants?

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This could be the future of work with wearable technology: smartwatches, smart glasses, headsets, smart headphones and other internet-enabled devices worn on the body. As adoption grows and the technology matures, IT leaders consider ways wearables will transform the employee experience.

Work Improves One of the biggest benefits of wearables is the productivity that’s gained.

Users initially adopted wearables for health, fitness and entertainment, but both employees and employers start to see the value of wearables for work, such as:

• Constant Connectivity: Many workers use personal smartwatches to receive hands-free email and meeting notifications. This makes it easy for workers to stay on top of updates and prioritize tasks while they’re away from the desk.

• Accelerated Access: Smartwatches and other wearables can provide workers with password-free, instant access to work resources. The always-on nature of wearables (e.g. always online and always on the body) likens the devices to a personal key that could unlock anything, from printers to laptops. Imagine its 8 o’clock in the morning, and you reach your office and you can’t get through the doors because you forgot your security pass at home. Now, imagine if the same thing were done with your smartwatch, essentially authenticating you to an electronic badge reader, and you breeze right through.

• Quick Training: Augmented reality (AR) displays overlay steps, diagrams and other digital instructions onto real-world objects so employees can efficiently learn complex tasks. It’s not hard to imagine office workers using an AR headset to operate new equipment or to share 3D presentations with co-workers.

These are just a few basic examples of wearables for knowledge workers.

Leading companies already reimagine workflows with wearables in much bigger ways to gain a competitive edge.

An Ecosystem Evolves Shankar Iyer SVP and General Manager, VMware

SMARTSMB / June 2019

The introduction and advancement of surrounding technologies makes the future of wearables at work even more promising. Wearable devices are only

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as valuable as the data transmitted to and from these devices. Emerging technologies will increase the quantity, quality and value of this data. For example, edge computing could enable the data collected on wearables to be processed at the device.

5G networks could quickly transfer massive amounts of this data back to the cloud, where machine learning applications could return intelligent insights or automatically take data-driven actions. These innovations will dramatically improve the performance and usefulness of wearable devices and applications in the workplace.

Adoption Grows During the last decade, tech enthusiasts expected wearables to be the next big thing at work. Initially, smart glasses never caught on with workers or consumers. Progressive manufacturers and healthcare organisations experimented with wearables for engineers and patients, but the devices remained largely absent in the typical enterprise.

Slowly demand grew. In 2019, researchers at Gartner “forecast that worldwide shipments of wearable devices will reach 225 million in 2019, an increase of 25.8 percent from 2018.”

According to the same Gartner source, in three years, Gartner predicts total shipments will more than double, growing from 140.82 million units to 453.19 million units.

“It’s not a fad,” Iyer cautions. “Enterprise wearables could exceed £45 billion by 2022.”

According to Gartner, approximately a third of total estimated purchases in 2019 (225.12 million units) will be smartwatches (74.09 million units).

Gartner also predicts that by 2022, ear-worn devices will account for more than 30 percent of all shipped wearables, as their capabilities expand beyond communication and entertainment.

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Mobility Transforms Manufacturers, retailers and healthcare providers were ahead of the curve when it comes to piloting and implementing wearable technology at work. Now, companies and institutions in the education sector are starting to explore how they can incorporate wearables into student and employee experiences.

For example, Robert Irving, Director of IT, University of Sharjah is excited about how the university can integrate wearable technology into its administration systems. That would open up possibilities such as prompting students about upcoming assignment deadlines or telling them where their next lecture is located. He also highlights the health and fitness data collection capability of the devices, and how this could be used to help students better understand when the optimum time is for each individual to study.

“

Wearable devices are only as valuable as the data transmitted to and from these devices. Emerging technologies will increase the quantity, quality and value of this data. For example, edge computing could enable the data collected on wearables to be processed at the device.

“

Robert Irving Director of IT, University of Sharjah

The workplace of the future is part human and part machine. Smart things (smart printers and smart TVs), autonomous things (robots and autonomous vehicles), proximity-based sensors, virtual assistants and other technologies will work in concert to augment and enhance the employee experience. As IT plugs workers’ wearables into these connected workspaces, new applications and refined workflows will emerge.

Of course, all this information—enterprise data on smartwatches, confidential communications on hearables, intellectual property on the display of smart glasses—must be managed and secured. Now in its mature stages, digital workspace technology enables enterprise IT to secure access to work resources across these new form factors and varied operating systems. Any device that employees use to access company apps and data must be secured to prevent data leaks or hacks. Wearable technology should be managed and secured, alongside mobile phones and desktops.

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

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TECH WATCH

ARUBA 530 SERIES ACCESS POINTS

SYNOLOGY RACKSTATION RS819

The Aruba 530 Series with 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), combined with Aruba intelligent software features are designed to deliver high performance connectivity in extreme density deployments of mobile and IoT devices.

The 530 Series is designed to simultaneously serve multiple clients and types of traffic, boosting overall network performance by up to 4X versus 802.11ac APs. In addition to 802.11ax benefits, the 530 Series also provide Aruba differentiated capabilities that include AI-powered RF optimization, always-on connectivity and WPA3 certified security. Additionally, Green AP mode for 802.11ax APs also leverages AI/ML capabilities for energy savings of up to 70%.

Overview:

Highlights • AI-powered features for wireless RF and client connectivity optimization • Eliminates the need for IoT gateways and the resulting complicated network management requirements, allowing IT teams to easily connect a diverse

SMARTSMB / June 2019

set of IoT devices and sensors that utilize different protocols • The support of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5 and Zigbee protocols on the new APs allow organizations to connect with 74% of today’s IoT devices.

• Wi-Fi 6 offers improved battery life for battery powered IoT devices. The protocol allows IoT devices to remain inactive until data needs to be transmitted. As a result, battery powered IoT devices realize a significant power savings, reducing the maintenance windows for IT staff. The efficiency improvements in Wi-Fi 6 amount to a faster performing and more efficient infrastructure as well as an enhanced experience for all the clients on the network.

• Ideal for high density environments such as higher education, retail branches, hotels and digital workplaces • State of the art security with WPA3 and Enhanced open

Growing use of the Internet and highspeed connectivity is driving the demand for effective storage and backup solutions. According to the latest figures from IDC, Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region recorded a growth of 7.5% YoY in 2018 Q4. The external storage market is strongly supported by refresh cycles and large-scale digital projects run by governments across Middle East and Africa.

Leveraging this regional sentiment to invest in reliable, cost effective, and forward-looking storage solution for medium enterprises, Synology launched its RackStation RS819, the first RackStation in the Value Series with snapshot technology in the Middle East. The RS819, is a compact and scalable 4-bay rackmount NAS with snapshot technology support. It has been designed ground up for business workgroups to effectively manage, share, synchronize, and back up data.

TECH WATCH

Synology’s latest NAS solution is built with a compact footprint and uses a state-of-the-art 64-bit quad-core CPU with expandable storage capacity up to 112 Terabyte. Medium sized enterprises can benefit significantly with the range of compute and storage capabilities inbuilt into the RackStation RS819.

RS819 is the first RackStation from Synology in the Value Series, using the new 64-bit quad-core CPU, to support snapshot technology, bringing easy data protection solutions.

Highlights: • 64-bit quad-core CPU and 2GB DDR4 memory • Over 224 MB/s encrypted reading performance • Advanced Btrfs file system offering 4,096 system-wide snapshots and 256 snapshots per shared folder • Expandable storage capacity up to 112TB with one Synology expansion unit RX418 • Powered by Synology DiskStation Manager • RS819 runs on DiskStation Manager, an advanced and intuitive operating system for Synology NAS devices, with various applications offered to enhance work productivity.

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D-LINK 5000 SERIES DATA CENTER SWITCHES Overview: The D-Link 5000 Series Data Center Switches are a series of high-performance switches that feature high port density, routing, and ultra-low latency, designed to be deployed as Topof-Rack (ToR) or leaf-spine switches in data center applications. Combined with ONIE support and increased cost-efficiency, the 5000 Series form a flexible long-term solution for managing and expanding data center infrastructures in a Software-defined Networking (SDN) environment.

The 5000 Series switches support open networking, providing IT professionals with innovative third-party operating systems and software options. This lowers costs by separating software from hardware and increases network agility and flexibility. With support for standards-based tools and standards-based applications, open networking simplifies scalability and future-proofs the network.

As bare metal switches, the 5000 Series switches ship pre-loaded with

Open Network Install Environment (ONIE). ONIE is an open source install environment that acts as an enhanced boot loader. This small Linux operating system allows administrators to install the network operating system(s) of choice as part of the data center provisioning process in the same manner that servers are provisioned. In addition, the 5000 Series also offers network administrators the option to purchase a license to activate the D-Link OS on the switches.

Highlights: • Open Network Switch for Data Center and Enterprise networks • 48 x 10GbE SFP+ ports • 6 x 40GbE QSFP+ ports • Support for open-source Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) for zero-touch installation of network OS • Certified compatible with the Pluribus Netvisor OS enterprise or fabric editions

June 2019 / SMARTSMB

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MARKET MONITOR

CEO PRIORITIES ARE SHIFTING TO MEET RISING GROWTH CHALLENGES Growth continues to top the list of CEO business priorities in 2019 and 2020, according to a recent survey of CEOs and senior executives by Gartner, Inc. The most notable change in comparison to last year’s results is that a growing number of CEOs also deem financial priorities important, especially profitability improvement.

The annual Gartner 2019 CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey of 473 CEO and senior business executives in the fourth quarter of 2018 examined their business issues, as well as some areas of technology agenda impact. In total, 473 business leaders of companies with $50 million or more and 60% with $1 billion or more in annual revenue were qualified and surveyed.

The survey results showed that a popular solution when growth is challenged is to look in other geographic locations for growth. Responses mentioned other cities, states, countries and regions, as well as “new markets” would also include some geographic

reach (though a new market can also be industry-related, or virtual).

Another way that CEOs seem to be confronting softening growth prospects and weakening margins is to seek diversification — which increasingly means the application of digital business to offer new products and revenue-producing channels. Eightytwo percent of respondents agreed that they had a management initiative or transformation program underway to make their companies more digital — up from 62% in 2018.

Cost management has risen in CEO priorities, from No. 10 in 2018 to No. 8 today. When asked about their cost-control methods, 27% of respondents cited technology enablement, securing the third spot after measures around people and organization, such as bonuses and expense and budget management. However, when asked to consider productivity and efficiency actions, CEOs were much more in-

(Source : Gartner)

SMARTSMB / June 2019

clined to think of technology as a tool.

Forty-seven percent of respondents mentioned technology as one of their top two ways to improve productivity.

Digital business is something the whole executive committee must be engaged in. However, the survey results showed that CEOs are concerned that some of the executive roles do not possess strong or even sufficient digital skills to face the future. On average, CEOs think that sales, risk, supply chain and HR officers are most in need of more digital savvy.

Once all executive leaders are more comfortable with the digital sphere, new capabilities to execute on their business strategies will need to be developed. When asked which organizational competencies their company needs to develop the most, 18% of CEOs named talent management, closely followed by technology enablement and digitalization (17%) and data centricity or data management (15%).

REDEFINNING DIGITAL AND BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION September 11th 2019, Atlantis The Palm Hotel, Dubai

One to One Meetings

A LEARNING PLATFORM FOR MID-MARKET ORGANIZATIONS LOOKING TO EMBRACE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Demonstration Area

• The largest gethering of “C” -level executives from the SMB / SME segment with over 1200 senior decision makers expected to attend • Talks by eminent industry experts on various facets of Digital and Business Transformation • A showcase of innovative technologies and services from sponsors in an exclusive exhibition zone • Sm@rt SMB Awards for pioneering technology deployments verticals

Smart SMB Awards

For registrations and nominations visit: smartsmbsummit.com ORGANIZER:

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