Enterprises in the Middle East must prepare themselves for the big data boom or risk being pushed aside by international companies. This according to Marc Heger, senior director for hardware sales at Oracle MENA.
“I think if we don’t have a plan in place to take advantage of that big data boom in the coming two or three years, many local companies are going to expose themselves to external competitor pressures,” Heger said.
“Once the financial spending begins again, international companies will come in who are set up to take advantage of big data. If local companies are not prepared there is a clear business risk,” he added.
Heger was talking after the release of Oracle’s second Next Generation Data Centre Index, which showed the Middle East’s significant improvement in managing data centres.
In Oracle’s first survey, released in May 2011, the Middle East lagged behind other regions and countries surveyed. This year, its ranking has gone up from bottom position (4.41) to mid-table (5.27) – a 20% increase.
It also showed companies in the Middle East with less than 10% of their IT estate virtualised were significantly down from 52% to 16%, and those doing ‘nothing’ about data consolidation were down from 37% to 16%.
However, Heger emphasised the region still has a long way to go in reaching the standard necessary to compete at an international level.
“Companies in the Middle East shouldn’t laud themselves and pat themselves on the back yet, because they still haven’t surpassed the standard in mainland Europe at this stage. But they are looking in the right areas and have people looking at these technologies and the next generation of data centres,” Heger said.
“Over the next couple of years it’s not about how long can it take or should it take to reach that level, I think we have to reach that level. The next few years will be interesting and vital,” he added.
