Cover Feature | SME
improves itsSME platform to ensure it meets and even exceeds the needs of its brokers and clients.
Al Masah Capital : Leveraging ICT as an enabler Al Masah Capital Management provides fund raising and advisory services and access the opportunities provided primarily in Alternative Investments in the Middle East and North Africa region. Among its clients is Al Najah Education Limited (Al Najah), a specialized education and investment company that has evolved into a synergistic platform of 26 educational institutions across the MENA and SE Asia regions. Others include AVIVO Group, a regional healthcare operator, Diamond Lifestyle limited (DLL), a specialized food and beverage investment company as well as Gulf Pinnacle Logistics Limited (GPL), a logistics and transportation company. With such a diverse portfolio, the company has also focused on enabling latest ICT solutions with most of the entities that are part of the extended family and most notably with the educational institutions. Ashith Piriyattiath, Group Head of IT with Al Masah Capital Management says, “Some of the recent ICT initiatives include moving the corporate office DC and DR infrastructure to the cloud and moving from legacy email systems to Office 365. Among other many initiatives, we have been exploring the digital Marketing and online reputation Management to enhance the business,
22 | November 2017
deployed data leak prevention solutions across the group that helped achieve a remarkable 99% protection from data leakage as well as deployed anti-ransomware solutions.“ The schools that are part of its portfolio have seen significant ICT deployments. It has migrated decoupled infrastructure of the individual schools in the group to centralized infrastructure from corporate office and migrated to the cloud. It has explored the benefits of i-Pads in Education by transforming Sabari Indian School to Apple Branded Indian Curriculum School.Latest WiFi Access Points have been deployed across all the schools and established centralized control. He adds, “The schools have been exposed to the benefits of Microsoft Education platform and there is a unified School Management system for all the entities under our education division which will be hosted on to the cloud in a centralized manner. We have explored the latest streaming options of Laser technology and short throw projectors across schools, have introduced centralized Helpdesk system for the schools and hosted the Fleet Management (School Transportation System) to the cloud.” For Johnny Rockets Burgers, that is also part of its portfolio, Al Masah has explored the benefits of Online Ordering with Mobile Apps, explored the benefits of Digital Marketing, implemented a CLOUD based POS system and initiated drive-through systems for Johnny Rockets Burgers. While the group has
Ashith Piriyattiath IT Group Head Al Masah Capital Management
in-house IT team to cater the demands and to enhance the business in terms of technology, it works closely with multiple system Integrators. Ashith says, “We work with a couple of solution providers and system integrators on a regular basis and we work with preferred partners based on their area of expertise. We work with multiple SPs and Sis. Among some of the vendors, we having corporate agreements with include IBM related to its Cloud Services for our Datacenters and DR sites, HP- Aruba for mobility/ Infrastructure/Networking projects, Microsoft for our email solutions, 3CX & AVAYA in terms of communications, EPSON for Display/Projector and mirroring solutions and again HP for printing solutions.” With such a huge focus around ICT deployments from leading vendors, it is small wonder that the group is well placed to leverage the latest digital transformation tools.
He adds, “We are in the path of digital transformation and projects are in pipeline in terms of digital transformation and security. The key focus in terms of digital transformation will be to give better experience to investors of AL Masaha, Customers of Logistics and F&B division and to bring innovations in Educational platform by engaging the latest technology trends in Curriculum. The intent is to make our educational division as the pioneers in terms of utilization of technology. As the case studies illustrate, Technology is quite central to Businesses in the region focusing across a varied spectrum of services. While some have gone the further mile ahead with deployments of state of the art technologies that put them straight on the fast track for digital transformation, the others too are keeping pace with constant updates to their core solutions and backend infrastructure.