EMC has released the findings of a survey that asked I.T. decision makers in UAE for their perspective on I.T.’s role as an enabler of business change during the shift towards the megatrends of cloud, mobile, social and Big Data.
Collected among registered attendees for yesterday’s EMC Forum, the research polled a total of 315 business and IT management and executives, technical architects, data scientists and storage/infrastructure managers from a range of UAE businesses.
Although the results largely indicated that the UAE’s IT leaders are looking to embrace the third platform, there still remain a number of decision makers who remain unmoved by the third platform.
Speaking to CNME at the Forum, Jonathan Martin, Chief Marketing Officer, EMC, discussed the challenges that IT leaders face in the tide of third platform technologies. “With organisations trying to move from traditional client servers to new platforms, they have the huge challenge of reducing investment in traditional systems, and reapplying that investment in fuelling the third platform,” he said. “As in many regions around the world, the Middle East has plenty of countries, which are all at different stages of this journey. Dubai could be classed as one extreme, with a progressive use of technology. Traditionally you would expect the developed world to set the standard and the emerging world to follow, but I think the opposite is true in the UAE.”
Martin went on to highlight his belief that the UAE is at an advantage with less lagging legacy technology. “Some of the most progressive use of mobile, social, cloud and Big Data technology of anywhere on the planet happens in Dubai,” he said. “In many cases a lack of legacy IT infrastructure acts as an advantage, as IT leaders don’t need to spend money on keeping the lights on. The use of mobile technology and the way it is embedded into public services like education and government services here is fantastic.”
The EMC Forum Survey reveals that in the UAE, I.T. is now viewed as a strategic enabler to grow business and better connect with customers.
79% of respondents in the UAE report that their CXOs consider I.T. as a strategic lever to grow the business, now more than ever before, yet 64% of companies believe that spending for technology was outside of I.T.’s control.
88% of respondents expect next-generation technologies such as mobile, social, cloud and Big Data to give their organisation a competitive advantage.
The top three business priorities when implementing new technologies in organisations from the UAE were enhancing customer experience (55%), automating processes (50%) and helping to win new customers (41%).
Meanwhile, 86% of respondents agreed that their organisation sees the increasing role of automation – such as software defined storage – as critical to business growth.
Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President and Regional Manager, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Middle East, EMC Corporation, said, “The EMC Forum survey clearly highlights the ambitious nature of enterprises in the UAE who continue to turn to technologies like cloud, social, mobile and Big Data to better meet customer expectations. Enterprises today don’t just focus on IT to drive down costs but more so on using these advanced tools to drive agility and competitive strategy. As this transition to the third platform becomes a reality, IT departments find themselves open to new opportunities to innovate and truly fuel business transformation driving it from a mere support function to a strategic enabler.”
