The energy and uti
lities industry is complex and growing, but also needs to be modern and efficient. From analytics to networking to mobility, the ICT opportunities are abound for this sector to survive the upheavals in markets and collapsing business cycles. Etisalat recently organized a half-day workshop, highlighting how the service provider’s domain expertise and flexible ICT solutions can protect businesses in this important sector from market volatility and unforeseen business circumstances.
The event, which was held under the theme ‘Together we Energise the World’, kicked off with a keynote address from H.E Dr Matar Al Neyadi, Undersecretary, Ministry of Energy, who spoke about the UAE’s vision for energy and technology. “Technology is a crucial component of the energy sector and a vehicle of change across the entire spectrum. The UAE is leading the way in clean and renewable energy by transforming and modernizing the energy sector and enabling sustainable development to be the global future of energy,” he said.
Ragy Magdy, VP – Enterprise Private, Etisalat, set the stage for the event with a presentation on the internal changes Etisalat has made to address the energy and utilities sector. “We are taking a triple ‘S’ approach. This includes structure, whereby we are reducing the layers and putting in place dedicated account teams, and improving existing systems and rolling out new ones to improve customer experience. And we are planning to advance on core telecom offerings and introduce vertical solutions.”
Irfan Jeraj, Director – Energy & Utility, Etisalat, who took to the stage next, spoke about the company’s unique value proposition to the industry. “The energy and utilities sector is the heartbeat of the country and we recognize the importance of the industry. We understand what the business requirements are of this sector though it is a complicated segment to serve in the UAE,” he said.
This was followed by presentation by Jose Sanchez, Senior VP – Pre-Sales & Customer Delivery, Etisalat, on the new service model to enhance customer experience. “We have recognized the need to become more transparent and deliver services in a better way. As part of this, we are organized internally to provide personal and differentiated services to our customers. We will provide consistent services across all customer touch-points including our unified customer service centre and B2B portal. Also, we will have dedicated service managers assigned to our top 34 customers.”
Energy in the cloud was one of the topics discussed at the event. “The effect of declining prices is being felt and energy companies across different streams have been forced to respond to market conditions. IT organizations at these companies are under pressure to do more with less. The solution is bimodal IT and adaptive sourcing to transform your business. We have a comprehensive IT service portfolio including cloud, managed co-location and mobility,” said Omran Mansour, Senior Manager of Product Management – Data Centre & Cloud Services, Etisalat.
The state of security in the energy and utilities was discussed by Kamran Ahsan, Senior Director and Girish Dani, Manager of Security Services, Etisalat. “The volume of incidents has increased dramatically in the past year. Power and utilities respondents to The Global State of Information Security Survey reported that the average number of detected incidents skyrocketed to 7,391, a six-fold increase over the year before. You have to be risk-oriented and continuously monitor your infrastructure assets,” said Ahsan.
Other topics covered by key Etisalat executives at the workshop included VSAT for energy and oil & gas by Oosman Kader, Manager – Network Proposition; M2M solutions for energy industry by Murat Eldem, Senior Director, M2M Services; Enterprise mobility by Francisco Hernansanz, Senior Manager – Product Management, Cloud and Mobility Services; and large scale integrated ICT delivery and management by Sahebzada Haider Khan, Director –eHealth.
