In a key move that clearly demonstrates the perception that the Middle East is an important and emerging market, global research firm Gartner is bringing its flagship conference series to Dubai in 2013.
The Middle East has become almost synonymous with the term ‘emerging region’ in recent years – a market with significant potential and a place where companies can come and expect growth.
Gartner certainly believes that, and is proving it by not only increasing investment in the region, but also bringing its flagship Gartner Symposium series to Dubai in 2013.
Alwyn Dawkins, senior VP at Gartner Events, says this is a significant statement on Gartner’s part.
“Bringing our flagship conference here shows how important we consider the region to be. All Symposiums are hosted in important regions – USA, Europe, Brazil, South Africa, India, Australia and Japan – and now the Middle East” he says.
Symposium is an event designed for CIOs from major corporations, governments and organisations around the world. In a year it typically attracts around 5,000 CIOs and 15,000 to 20,000 other attendees.
“It’s actually the world’s most important and biggest gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives, and as a brand has been running for 25/26 years,” Dawkins says.
Asides from the event, which will be held between March 5th and 7th at Madinat Jumeirah, Dawkins also says Gartner is increasing its investment in the region in other areas.
“We’re adding more people here. We have an office in Dubai and also serve other parts of the region. In the most major countries in the Gulf we have either a presence in or clients in. Our research business in the Middle East is one of our fastest growing regions for research, so we’re increasing both our analyst and sales staff to support that,” he says.
Gartner anticipates in 2012 that MEA IT spend will reach70 billion euros – a 6.3% growth over 2011, which saw almost double digit growth in IT spend.
“We operate in 85 different countries, have thousands of clients all over the world and like most multinational companies we’re always looking at market opportunities where we see growth and opportunities to build our business. The Middle East and Africa is amongst one of the fastest growing regions in terms of technology investments,” he says.
Investing in other areas
As well as an increase in IT spend, Gartner has also observed a change in the areas to which IT is invested.
Vittorio D’Orazio, research director at Gartner, says: “In the past there was little or no attention to costs while today efficiency is the top CIO business priority, according to the Gartner CIO survey’s data for the region. Certainly there is more attention to growth and to expansion strategies, while the political issues that are still dominating the region are leading to increased attention of technologies such as social networks, security systems and communications.”
D’Orazio also believes the future is optimistic for the Middle East.
“Organisations have everything they need to improve by using technology. They have fairly good IT budgets, they have the infrastructure and they have investments – particularly the ones from venture capitals from the Gulf region,” he says.
What the Middle East needs, however, is to invest more in attracting talents and bright ideas, he adds.
“There should be more projects at a government level to appeal top talents to move to the region and create sustainable business. Also, there aren’t many large IT companies able to compete with the usual suspects that operate in the region,” he says.
Looking forward, D’Orazio says he thinks there will be a consolidation stage with the creation of larger IT enterprises that can address the local issues better than looking for multinational corporations operating from distant hubs.
“However, some multination corporations are already reacting to this by improving their presence in these countries and targeting it more actively,” he says.
