EDITORIAL
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STEERING THROUGH CHANGE PUBLISHED BY Business Media International REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City www.bmi-digital.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Raman Narayan narayan@bmimea.com Mob: 971-55-7802403 SALES DIRECTOR Ankit Shukla ankit@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-2618885, Mob: 971-552572807 EDITORS Diksha Vohra editor@smartsmb.net Tel: 971-4-2618885, Mob: 971-506395616 Baraka Jefwa baraka@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-2618885 CIRCULATION MANAGER Bhawana Bhatia bhawana@smartsmb.net Tel: 971-4-2618885 SALES R. Subramanyan subu@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-2618885 FINANCE Akhilesh Pandey akhilesh@bmimea.com Tel: 971-4-2618885
The speed at which things are changing in these times throws stiff challenges at us to keep pace. There is a radical overhaul across several industries necessitating staff skills to be updated in whichever roles they are with ongoing education the only way ahead. Technology has become an all pervasive influence, redefining what value additions are expected of people as repetitive tasks get automated. Seen as a disruptive phenomenon, digital transformation enables organizations to enrich all workflow processes. With more data insights easily available from different work processes typically because of the functionalities provided by the software, people in different roles have more possibilities to enhance the outcomes of the jobs they do. There are several stories of new age companies leveraging emerging technologies. The rise of online groceries such as in the region is proof of how change is being accepted, comfortably complementing the reach of the traditional models of the brick and mortar groceries as well. FreshToHome.com, an online fresh fish and meat store, is leveraging solutions, including machine learning and computer vision, to ensure it can deliver fresh, chemical-free seafood, poultry and other meats to customers, with no antibiotics or preservatives. The produce is transported through a temperature-controlled supply chain, remotely monitored with the help of IoT sensors. For the regional market, GITEX 2019 indeed lived up to its promise, providing attendees good insights into the transformative technologies coming into the market. From AI and 5G solutions to human centric cybersecurity solutions, there was a vast spectrum of solutions on display. The sum total of these technologies are churning wheels of change faster towards a more inter-connected digital economy. For the mid market customers, the vast array of technologies to choose from is empowering but at the same time they need to do so with discretion.
R. Narayan Editor in Chief, Smart SMB
Management Chairman S.N. Tiwari
CEO Saumyadeep Halder
Publisher Raman Narayan
Managing Director Ankit Shukla
sn.tiwari@bmimea.com
narayan@bmimea.com
saumyadeep@bmimea.com
ankit@bmimea.com
Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to validate the accuracy of all information included in the magazine, the publishers wouldn’t be liable for any errors therein Copyright@2019 Business Media International LLC. All rights reserved.
November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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CONTENT
CONTENTS strategy
roundtable Championing Omnichannel aproach for new age customer
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Talkpoint THE FOOD DELIVERY EXPERTS 12
News In detail FreshToHome.com to invest AED 50M in UAE and KSA creating 1,000 Jobs
DELIVING ON FUTURE FULFILLMENT
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ADVANCING ON THE CLOUD FRONT
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STRIKING BIG IN ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS
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MAKING INROADS
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THE NEXT FRONTIER OF VALUE
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PEOPLE CENTRIC SOLUTIONS
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DAAS - TRANSFORMING THE DIGITAL WORKSPACE
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CRITICALITY OF DATA MANAGEMENT
32
Techwatch
36
IT Directory
34
Market Mirror
38
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feature
Rise of the online groceries stores
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case study KOJ Group accelerates with Zendesk SMARTSMB / November 2019
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NEWS
GITEX 2019 GENERATED AED Infor drives 919 MILLION IN RETAINED digital transformaVALUE FOR DUBAI’S GDP tion in Saudi Arabia Direct Economic Output of AED 1.136 billion was generated within the MICE and adjacent sectors by GITEX’s 171,282 attendees in 2019 GITEX Technology Week continues be a strong catalyst that accelerates the region’s growing global status as a pioneering market in technology adoption. The show’s growing contribution to Dubai’s economy is attested by the results published in the GITEX Technology Week Economic Impact Assessment 2019 Report issued by DWTC. With a significant AED 1.6 billion in revenue across direct, indirect and induced economic levers, GITEX Technology Week also translated a high 57% of this total economic output into retained value of AED 919 million for Dubai’s GDP this year. The whitepaper provides in-depth insights into how the scale of and global exhibitors and visitors at GITEX collectively yield a ripple effect beyond the technology and MICE sector, sustainably supporting the country’s diversification agenda that has been identified as a strategic priority in the UAE Centennial 2071 Strategy. “The UAE is evolving into a global innovation hub and pioneer in the use of transformational technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. Our investments and strategic efforts are aimed at furthering DWTC’s role as a pioneering MICE platform, optimally positioned to connect developed economies with high-growth emerging markets across continents,” said His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General, Dubai World Trade Centre Authority and Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing. “The 2019 GITEX Economic Impact Assessment report sheds light on DWTC’s approach and proven ability to unlock ecosystem-wide economic value, creating even more critical wider socio-economic impact, ultimately spurring business expansion investSMARTSMB / November 2019
ment and leadership for Dubai as a global hub for international business.” Since its launch in 1981, GITEX – which was then the Gulf Computer Exhibition – has been the region’s flagship engine for global technological permeation and mass proliferation across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia regions. Growing just under 60x in its attendee base and nearly 100 times in scale since inauguration, the event has also evolved its vision beyond being a platform for game-changing technological innovation to seeding the knowledge economy for the MEASA’s future tech ecosystem with its well-lauded GITEX Future Stars. Direct Economic Output of AED 1.136 billion was generated within the MICE and adjacent sectors by GITEX’s 171,282 attendees in 2019, representing the impact of their total spend on goods and services related to their participation in the event as well as their spend across ancillary sectors during the course of their business visit to Dubai. A further estimated AED 468 million was generated by GITEX in indirect and induced output, resulting in a combined Total Economic Output of AED 1.6 billion.
Digital transformation has been a key focus area of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which aims to enrich the lives of its citizens and develop a prosperous and future-ready society. Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialised by industry, has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation efforts across a broad range of sectors. Following a string of project successes and recent signings, the enterprise software vendor reports its license revenues in the kingdom have increased by 78% between FY18 and FY19, a testament to the escalating interest in digital transformation technologies across Saudi Arabia. Digital transformation has been a key focus area of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which aims to enrich the lives of its citizens and develop a prosperous and future-ready society. At the recent Smart Nation Innovations Week event in Singapore in June, H.E. Eng. Haitham Al-Ohali, Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of communications and information technology, stated that collaboration with the private sector has enabled the country to become a rapidly expanding technology market, whose volume is forecasted to surpass $35 billion by 2030. Further expanding its presence in this fast-growing segment in the kingdom, Infor recently signed two agreements with Saudi Bugshan, one of the largest
NEWS
groups active in the Middle East and North Africa with interests spanning automotive, beauty & fragrance, education, food & beverage, healthcare, and real estate. Firstly, Infor will assist the conglomerate with its ambitious digital transformation efforts across multiple countries with the implementation of a suite of applications based around Infor LN enterprise resource planning. The second agreement revolves around Saudi Bugshan Barmaja becoming an alliance partner assisting in the deployment of a range of Infor solutions across the region. Another recent addition to Infor’s portfolio lies with Almajdouie Logistics Company’s adoption of Infor’s warehouse management system (WMS). Almajdouie, one of the largest logistics service providers in Saudi Arabia, desired a robust and scalable integrated WMS that would meet immediate needs and cater to future demands. These projects join Infor’s already impressive customer portfolio for Saudi Arabia, which includes MEDISERV, Zahid Tractor & Heavy Machinery Co. Ltd, Saudi Diesel Equipment Co. Ltd., and Saline Water Conversion Corporation. “With digital transformation being a key focus of Saudi Arabia’s Vision
2030, it is no surprise that we continue to find success in the kingdom, with increasing demand for our enterprise solutions,” said Jonathan Wood, Infor general manager of Middle East and Africa. “It is our privilege to support
GM, Infor ME
organizations across a range of industries in Saudi Arabia as they undertake their first digital steps to a brighter future, and we hope to continue being the first choice in industrial enterprise solutions in the future.”
VEEAM CONTINUES TO DOMINATE CLOUD DATA MANAGEMENT WITH Q3’19 DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365, reported 113 percent growth YoY Veeam Software, the leader in Backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management, announced results from Q3 2019 and is yet again outpacing the market. In an aggressive market that is seeing both legacy and newcomers falter, Veeam has reported another quarter of double-digit growth with an annual recurring revenue (ARR) increase of 24 percent year-over-year (YoY) and huge uptake in its new Veeam Universal License (VUL) subscription pricing model which saw a 108 percent rise in bookings for the same period. Veeam also reported that in its annual customer satisfaction survey it scored a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 75; this score sees Veeam exceeding the market average, and is the sixth consecutive year the company has achieved this result.
Jonathan Wood
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“2019 has been a massive year for Veeam; not only have we surpassed $1B in annual bookings, we are also innovating the customer experience through new Veeam Universal License (VUL) subscription models and continued new product releases,” said Ratmir Timashev, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President (EVP) of Sales & Marketing at Veeam. “In our last fiscal quarter, we saw tremendous growth across all markets, particularly our subscription business, taking our customer count to more than 365,000. As we enter Q4 2019, we will be announcing a number of new solutions that will
Ratmir Timashev
Co-founder & EVP, Veeam continue our market leadership, and as we have shown with our NPS score, we are exceeding customer satisfaction at every point.” Veeam’s Enterprise business grew 20 percent YoY, with the company counting 81% of the Fortune 500 and 66% of the Global 2000 as customers, such as include ABM, United Healthcare, Carmax and Micron. With more than 365,000 customers worldwide, new Veeam customers include Reynolds, Bahrain Credit, British Columbia Forest Practices Board, LCR Group, Azzurri Group, KPN, Vancouver Canucks, and Sydney Living Museums. Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365, reported 113 percent growth YoY. Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 has now been downloaded by more than 84,000 organizations, representing over 9 million user mailboxes. November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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NEWS
DAFZA contributes 12% to Dubai’s foreign trade in first half of 2019 Results show 8% growth in foreign trade Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (DAFZA) has further established itself as a global facilitator for business growth and prosperity and a vital engine for Dubai's economy following the announcement of its half year results for 2019. DAFZA's contribution to Dubai's foreign trade reached 12% in the first half of the year, confirming the success of its plans to enhance its role in Dubai and to establish its presence amongst the free zones as one of the most developed, advanced and distinguished at the national and regional levels. The results of the first half of 2019 confirmed the success of DAFZA in achieving high growth rates compared to the same period last year, where it achieved a growth of 8% in the total value of foreign trade which exceeded AED 78 billion, an increase of 5.7 billion AED. This was driven by an 11% growth in re-exports, which reached a value around AED 45 billion, representing 21% of the total re-exports in Dubai. For the second consecutive year, the free zone also achieved a large trade surplus of over AED 11 billion in the first half of 2019, a growth of 35% compared to the same period last year. His Highness (H.H.) Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of DAFZA, said that the results of the first half of 2019 confirm the status of the free zone as a major contributor to the UAE economy in general and the emirate of Dubai in particular. The results also highlight its strategic role in facilitating global trade through Dubai, which is a key gateway for various countries and continents around the world and is a meeting point for routes linking
H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman, DAFZA East, West, North and South. H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed added that these results are a reflection of the free zone’s efforts to increase foreign direct investment (FDI) to the emirate and sustain its business growth. DAFZA’s growth over the past two decades is a confirmation of its role in achieving the Emirate’s objectives and strategic plans of economic diversification away from dependence on oil according to a clear economic vision for the future. H.E. Dr. Mohammed Al Zarooni, Director General of DAFZA, commented that DAFZA has continued to play a key role in enhancing the growth of Dubai's economy, through its solid plans which ensure that the free zone is home to major international companies, as well as ambitious small and medium-sized companies planning to expand across the UAE and the region.
Dubai Government Workshop to collaborate with Finesse to accelerate its digital transformation journey Finesse will digitally automate numerous services and offer analytical solutions to facilitate operational excellence Dubai Government Workshop (DGW) has revealed that it has reached a collaboration with Finesse to assist with the acceleration of its digital transformation journey, which aims to rede-
NEWS
sign traditional processes that support various business functions and decisions. As part of the partnership, Finesse will oversee digital automation of numerous services and provide analytical solutions to ensure operational excellence at DGW. Fahad Alraeesi, Deputy of CEO, DGW, said: “DGW is committed to maintaining and enhancing our services and increasing operational efficiency through significant investment in technology. Keeping pace with the latest technological innovations aligns with our commitment to achieving digital transformation; and implementing digital solutions ranging from automation of customer journey touchpoints and internal processes, along with the provision of business insights to executive management and employees, will elevate our user experience to the next level.” Eljo JP, Global Business Development Director, Finesse, added: “Our collaboration with DGW is strategic for Finesse as we comprise our solutions to meet specific public sector requirements, in line with the vision of the wise leadership. Our solutions for analytics and RPA will significantly transform the entire business process at DWG, ensuring the Department has the latest technological innovations at its disposal moving forward.”
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Mindware launches Microsoft Azure Marketplace Marketplace will allow partners to deliver hosted Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings via the platform Mindware, one of the leading Value Added Distributors (VAD’s) in the Middle East and Africa, announced the launch of its new cloud Marketplace during GITEX Technology Week. Offering superior transactional experience to the channel community as well as a wide variety of cloud solutions and services, the Mindware Marketplace will increase cloud adoption for partners and their customers. The new Marketplace which is hosted on Microsoft Azure, will, in addition to making cloud services purchase easy and intuitive, offer Mindware’s regional partners the ability to set up and manage their own “white labeled storefront”, thereby offering cloud solutions directly to end-customers. Vijay Kumar, CTO and cloud Director at Mindware said, “There has been an acceleration in cloud adoption in the region as a result of major cloud service providers such as Microsoft establishing physical data centers in the Middle East. Organizations are more comfortable with consuming these services now that data sovereignty and security matters are no longer a concern. As a leading regional distributor and in line with our ‘partner experience first’ philosophy, we realized the need to offer a feature-rich platform to enable our partners to develop their capabilities and offerings and to take their business to the next level.” “We’re transforming the way our partners define their growth, and we’re helping them drive digital transformation in their customers’ businesses. Mindware is a great example of how partners are differentiating themselves today and recognizing the changing digital technology to solve problems utilizing cloud computing. There is a huge opportunity around cloud migration and together with our
Karim Hanafy
Microsoft Area Services Partners Lead, One Commercial Partner - MEA partners, our goal is to help our customers find the right solution at the right time,” said Karim Hanafy, Microsoft Area Services Partners Lead, One Commercial Partner - Middle East & Africa. The new marketplace, which can be custom-branded by partners, has several new and enhanced capabilities including a robust and customizable billing engine, which allows partners to easily automate ordering and billing the entire Microsoft portfolio including Office 365, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft ESD. Partners can monitor and control their customers’ Microsoft Azure consumption with automated provisioning of cloud services and utilization-based billing. The Marketplace will allow partners to deliver hosted Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings via the platform. The interface is intuitive and helps partners to place orders faster and it offers recommendations when products are being purchased to provide an optimized solution. November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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NEWS
TALLY LAUNCHES TALLYPRIME AT GITEX 2019 The software is designed to capitalise the power of business data through real time reports Tally Solutions showcased TallyPrime, the company’ next generation business management software at the 39th GITEX Technology Week. The company showcased the latest offering at stall H5- 30 and will continue showcasing the new solution, as well as engaging with customers through oneon-one interactions and live demos all throughout the next few days. Built on a completely new architecture, TallyPrime brings with it newer capabilities, unusual speed and reliability, real time reports and insights, surprisingly effortless navigational experience, refreshing new look and feel and much more. The software is designed to capitalise the power of business data through real time reports and enable business owners to take critical business decisions with ease.
Vikas Panchal, Business Head of Tally Solutions in the Middle East, said “Our endeavour has always been to provide useful, delightful and flawless products to businesses across the globe. TallyPrime is a reflection of our efforts in this direction. There are tremendous growth opportunities for the SME community across the world, and at Tally, we are determined on leveraging technology as a key enabler for enhanced business efficiency for them. Crafted for growth and designed to delight, the new product is a perfect companion for business owners in their journey towards growth.” TallyPrime is designed for even the smallest of firms to have a competitive edge. It helps businesses keep a close watch on cash flow and man-
Vikas Panchal
Business Head ME, Tally
age all their finances and inventory in one place. In addition, the software’s unique in-built error detection and correction capability mitigates any error in data. Essentially, it allows business owners to spend less time on administration and more time running their business. The solution is not just designed for business owners, but also simplifies life of tax consultants and chartered accountants as the software allows generation of VAT returns and audit reports at the click of a button, enabling them to file VAT returns for their clients easily and quickly. Tally also hosted ‘Tech Arena’, a series of tech talks on technology and future of business applications. Experts from the company R&D division shared their insights on effective technology for business growth on all days of the event.
LIFESIZE RECOGNIZED AS A VISIONARY IN GARTNER’S MAGIC QUADRANT FOR MEETING SOLUTIONS Lifesize provides video conferencing solutions that enable 4K-quality video meeting experiences and collaborative content sharing Lifesize has been named a Visionary in Gartner, Inc.’s 2019 Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions report. Vendors in the Magic Quadrant report are evaluated based on completeness of vision and ability to execute; this is the second consecutive year Lifesize has been included. “We consider Gartner’s recognition of Lifesize as a Visionary in the latest Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions to be validation of the progress we’ve made in delivering powerful workplace meeting and collaboration experiences to enterprise teams and organizations of all sizes across the globe,” said Craig Malloy, CEO of Lifesize. “Our continued dedication to leading-edge innovation of modern meeting room systems, video conferencing software and cloud-based communication serSMARTSMB / November 2019
vices transforms the way our customers do business.” According to the report, “Buyers of meeting solutions are increasingly interested in converged solutions that offer embedded audio, along with video and collaborative capabilities (e.g., screen sharing, virtual whiteboards). The market’s focus has shifted away from narrow categories based on delivery mechanisms toward broader, ubiquitous access. Meeting technologies have developed in the past few years to allow users to benefit from the collaborative experiences whether they are using videoconference room systems, sitting at their desks using desktop or web clients, or accessing from mobile devices. While the cloudbased meeting solutions vendors initially focused on delivered services to
Craig Malloy CEO, Lifesize
PC clients and mobile apps, more care has been taken in recent years to improve ease of accessibility from videoconference room systems.” Lifesize provides video conferencing solutions that enable 4K-quality video meeting experiences, collaborative content sharing and high satisfaction for customers in more than 100 countries through a growing partner ecosystem. The company’s market-leading meeting room devices, software and services allow users and IT teams to host, join and manage video, audio and web conferencing via a single cloud-based platform.
NEWS IN DETAIL
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FRESHTOHOME.COM TO INVEST AED 50M IN UAE AND KSA CREATING 1,000 JOBS The fish & meat online retailer to invest in regional infrastructure development and backward integration and aims to become leading fresh fish & meat e-commerce supplier in the region FreshToHome.com, the world’s largest online fresh fish and meat store announced it is set to invest AED 50 million in the UAE and Saudi Arabia over the next two years, creating 1,000 jobs, as the company formally launches operations in the UAE. FreshToHome’s regional expansion is being supported by CE-Ventures, the corporate venture capital platform of UAE-headquartered multinational company Crescent Enterprises. Founded in 2015, FreshToHome.com is the world’s largest e-commerce platform for fish and meat, serving 1 million customers across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, New Delhi (and the National Capital Region), Chennai and parts of Kerala, with 45,000 orders per day. Following a “soft launch” in the UAE a few months ago, FreshToHome. com has seen rapid acceptance for its business model, and is already making more than 1,000 deliveries per day across the country, placing it among the top 5 e-grocers in UAE. The planned investment announced will support infrastructure development and user acquistions, including backward integration on farming, with FreshToHome acting as a microfinacier to fishermen and farmers, and working closely with them to deploy the latest technoliges to increase yields. The company currently has a food processing and storage facility in Umm Al Quwain, with a production capacity of 30 tonnes a day, and it is looking to add another facility in Dubai. Shan Kadavil, CEO and Co-Founder, FreshToHome, said: “FreshToHome. com’s value proposition of offering 100% fresh fish and meat direct to your doorstep, free of added chemicals and full of flavor, has already resonated well with the UAE’s discerning customer base, who want quality and convenience, but in a responsible manner keeping sustainability at the heart of our direct farm to fork sourcing. With the support of our investor base, in-
cluding lead investor in the Series A funding round CE-Ventures, we are investing heavily in the GCC market, and we aim to be the largest e-commerce fish and meat retailer in the region differentiated by quality and range of the products that we offer.” “Our UAE operation has already proven to be a huge success, representing our fastest-growing market. UAE is a haven for food lovers and the demographics are ideally suited to our business operations. We see the country as the perfect platform to develop our business and launch operations in other GCC countries, especially Saudi Arabia.” Tushar Singhvi, Director of CE-Ventures, said: “The market potential of FreshToHome.com’s UAE expansion is clear as this is an innovative new way of selling fresh fish and meat in the UAE. FreshToHome.com also offers a better way of sourcing meat and seafood, with its technology enabling it to deal directly with fishermen and farmers, and make fresh, chemcial-free produce more easily available. As a UAE-based company, we consider food security for the country to be of utmost priority and we will help facilitate FreshToHome.com to bring their superior fish farming technology to the UAE.” While FreshToHome.com sources most of its locally available fish from the UAE coasts, its commodity exchange sourcing platform enables the company to reach a network of more than 1,500 farmers and fishermen across the world, thereby differentiating in the range and quality of products offered to its customers. By using predictive analytics, machine learning and artifical intelligence, FreshToHome.com can disintermediate the supply chain, cutting out middlemen and reducing wastage; farmers and fishermen offer their produce directly through a smart-phone based app, enabling delivery times to Dubai within
18 to 24 hours from catch even from remote coasts in India via air transport. FreshToHome.com also leverages a number of innovative technology solutions, including machine learning and computer vision, to ensure it can deliver fresh, chemical-free seafood, poultry and other meats to customers, with no antibiotics or preservatives. Produce is transported through a temperature-controlled supply chain, to avoid bacterial contamination with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors allowing remote monitoring at every stage, including vehicles, cold rooms, processing halls, delivery points, and even the bags to the end-customer. These innovations give FreshToHome. com wastage rates of below 1.5%, compared with an industry average of 15 percent. The company continues to invest in research and development in new technology solutions; through its FreshToHome.com Labs, it is exploring adding new fresh products, and is experimenting with a milk delivery vertical model. FreshToHome.com currently employs over 2,000 people and has its own fleet of over 500 temperature controlled trucks and bikes, 40 collection centers and 5 factories in Umm Al Quwain, Cochin, Bengaluru, Noida and Chennai with over 60 hubs, where 30 tonnes of fish and meat is delivered on a daily basis.
November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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STRATEGY
THE FOOD DELIVERY EXPERTS Muhammed Yildirim
Managing Director, Talabat
In the world of online food delivery, Talabat has carved a niche for itself. Smart SMB takes a look into the ‘behind the scenes’ of the brand and what makes it unique. By Diksha Vohra service for their customers but also focuses on personalized services for them, which gives them an added edge in the market.
When you hear someone talk about ordering food at home, generally brands like Zomato and Uber Eats come in the mind. But if you happen to be in the Middle East, you will relate more to another name altogether, that name being Talabat. Over a decade and a half old now, Talabat has quickly become the leading food delivery platform in the Middle Eastern region, beating their competition by focusing on their customers for strength. Relying on their technological innovation for keeping up with the pace of advancing technology, Talabat is always striving to improve and offer their customers the best of services available. SMARTSMB / November 2019
The Start It was back in 2004 when a group of young Kuwaitis launched Talabat with the basic aim of making ordering food from restaurants easy and seamless. The gap was the inherent challenge in ordering food and relying on restaurant delivery systems, which are not always reliable or promise a quick delivery to their customers. Launching of Talabat helped these services get better by eliminating the need for the customers to rely completely on the restaurants. Talabat not only focuses on providing fast paced and quick delivery
At the time of the launch, there were only a handful of people, including founding member Abdulaziz Al Loughani, who believed in the idea. It was only after the venture succeeded in Kuwait, that it was expanded to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and then eventually to the rest of the Gulf region and beyond. What started with a few believing people, the Talabat family has grown steadily and now has close to 1,000 employees. “Ever since the inception of this company, we have paired global knowledge with local talent and know-how. We believe in working hyper-locally to give the best ex-
STRATEGY
perience possible to our valued customers. As a result, Talabat is a part of the Delivery Hero Group, one of the leading global online food ordering and delivery marketplaces,” says Muhammed Yildirim, MD, Talabat while beaming with pride.
The Digital Presence Talabat has been present in the digital world since the very beginning. Before apps became all the rage, the company had a website for their customers to use. Later on, they launched the app as well, which is one of the most used apps in the region. “Thanks to our digital innovation, we are not only the market leader in the food delivery service in the region, but we have also created a new benchmark in the F&B industry by setting exceptionally high standards of customer service,” he shares. In today’s date, Talabat is deemed as a compelling tech start-up success story that keeps up with the pace of changing technology. It is this thought pattern of always wanting to stay ahead of the curve that has kept Talabat in the premier position in the market and made their app as one of the most used.
The New Concept Very recently, Talabat launched the concept of cloud kitchens, which allows them to support restaurant partners to reach new customer segments and scale their businesses. Not only this, but cloud kitchens help promote a culture of food entrepreneurship as well by offering food innovators the chance to convert their dreams into a very tangible reality. “By providing infrastructure and shared services, we also helps ex-
isting businesses scale up faster without the traditional risks associated with business expansion,” shares Yildirim on a cheerful and positive note.
The Challenges and Milestones In terms of the challenges faced, when Talabat was launched, the industry in this particular region was in a nascent stage. It took some extreme and concrete efforts on the part of the founding team to convince restaurants and convey the exact value that Talabat was adding to their brand. It was a difficult task to get the restaurant owners to trust something new and almost unheard of till before. The biggest doubt in most minds was the sustainability of the model as many owners had the fear and hesitation of sharing their own profits and revenues with Talabat. According to Muhammed, it was an even bigger and a very much real challenge to convert the larger community of consumers who were used to the takeaway and restaurant home deliveries, to use an online platform for meeting their dining needs on a regular basis. Talking about the milestones,
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Yildirim proudly shares, “Our orders across all countries witnessed a growth of 100% only in the last three years. Not just that, we also celebrated our 100 millionth order last year.” Another milestone was when the company acquired a portion of Zomato’s business in the UAE, which was a very valuable addition to the Talabat family as Zomato being one their biggest competitors. In Yildirim’s view, all these milestones and success are built on their strategy to constantly provide choice, speed, and an amazing experience to their customers. They truly believe that their customer is the king and back this philosophy of theirs through their services.
The Competition Customers are at the core of their philosophy, and all their efforts are centered around creating a better customer experience. Talabat was the first company in the food delivery sector to launch a mobile app in the Middle Eastern region back in 2011, an achievement in its own right. The company has also continued to find innovative ways of meeting their customers’ needs by providing them with the best services and personalized experience. “We are well ahead of
Rasha Al Danhani
Founder, Papparoti
November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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STRATEGY
our competitors and our numbers speak for us in this regard,” says a confident Yildirim. With utter belief in his company and team, Yildirim shares, “Another matter of pride for us is that we are successful in each of the seven markets that we are present in, in and around the MENA region. We have been able to achieve this because we are born and raised in the Middle East and are proud of our heritage.” Not just this, but their last-mile logistics capabilities are the best in class and they have the biggest and the best network of drivers complemented by a leading logistics team, which sets Talabat apart from its competition, in both delivery services and customer support.
The Strength For Talabat, people and their convenience are at the core of their philosophy. So for people who prefer cooking at home, they built their grocery delivery service to suit the needs of such people specifically. Hence, for them, people are not their competition, but their strength.
The Innovation Talabat has already launched the
new category of groceries, and is now launching the category of pharmacy as well. They are also continuously improving the app’s functionality by adding new features that make it easier to discover restaurants, engage with the app, and pay for the order. Additionally, the cloud kitchen is one of their latest tech offerings that prove that they are moving with the pace of the changing technology and are well equipped to tackle any change that may come their way.
The Future “We are excited for the Expo 2020 and all its themes, opportunity, mobility, and sustainability,” says Yildirim. As a company, Talabat strongly supports these themes and believe they are vital for building the future. They are expectedly expecting a boost in the business as the Expo is a huge opportunity for any company of their magnitude to reach out to the visitors who will be in the UAE for the event. The last Expo in Shanghai attracted a high number of visitors, and Dubai is projected to attract over 25 million visitors due to its geographical location and its position as a world-class tourist destination.
As far as expansion plans are concerned, Talabat is, for now, focusing on providing the best service possible to their customers in the UAE and across the Middle East. Currently, Talabat is partnered with over 13,000 restaurants and vendors with more than 24,000 branches in the GCC and Jordan. “At the moment, we are content and happy in supporting our partners across all seven countries, as they are a key part of our business,” sums up Yildirim.
The Verdict Talabat, as a company, has a bright future ahead if they continue on their path. The way it has been able to keep up with the changing technology and has evolved at every step to serve its customers is truly remarkable and the company will do well to keep this up. Replicating the success of years gone by will prove tougher and tougher but the innovations that have been implemented and the ones which are in the pipeline will go a long way in helping the company achieve the desired results. It is always difficult to retain existing customers than gaining new ones, but Talabat and its philosophy prove that nothing is too difficult if the customers have their faith intact.
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FEATURE
RISE OF THE
ONLINE GROCERIES STORES Online groceries are beginning to find traction in the UAE with consumers used to the benefits of delivery and ease of ordering. By Diksha Vohra available under one roof causing them to waste additional hours.
Nader Amiri
CEO & Founder, el Grocer
Aftab still remembers his weekly trips to the supermarket with his father for their household grocery needs. He would get to roll the trolley around various aisles while his father would pick out the things on the list. If he got lucky, he would get a chocolate bar or his favorite cereal on the way out, and the journey back home would be a happy one. But this memory, besides being a nostalgic one, also reminds him of the tediousness of it all and how on many occasions his father would crib about the fact that they had to brave the traffic and spend time in the commute, just to get their groceries. It also brings back memories of the times when they needed to visit multiple supermarkets simply because all their needed products would not be SMARTSMB / November 2019
This nostalgic and cumbersome scenario is, however, slowly fading away in today’s world, with technological advancement bringing almost everything in the palm of your hand. With the introduction of e-commerce, most of the shopping experiences have gone online. Be it clothes, shoes, electronics, or even sporting equipment, everything is just a tap or a click away. With specific target marketing and a huge network of social media, getting to the target customers is not exactly difficult for these brands. Gone are the days when your neighborhood grocer was your only hope and you had to adjust and compromise if some certain products were out of stock. “It is about not having to carry heavy items and about saving perhaps 3–4 hours of your time to spend with your friends and family every other weekend,” Nader Amiri, CEO and founder of el Grocer shares the reason that brought the idea of online grocery delivery to him. Now is the time when the consumer is the king and all the options are sitting conveniently as apps on his phone. Walmart Grocery Store, Costco, Sears, and others led the change from supermarkets to online grocery stores in the USA. Brands like BigBasket and Grofers, recently joined by Amazon, are bringing the revolution in India. With el Grocer and InstaShop entering the UAE online space a couple of years back, it is only a mat-
ter of time before this shift happens completely in the Middle East as well. “I was quite disappointed that it was easier to order either a laptop online or a burger from my favorite restaurant but I could not get my groceries. It is all about providing the convenience and saving the time when you need it the most,” says Nader. El Grocer saw its full launch in 2017 and has been picking up speed in the relatively conventional market of the UAE. Technology and convenience is something that everyone loves and prefers, in any part of the world, and this is the reason why brands like el Grocer have been able to thrive in the nascent market of the UAE. Most of today’s consumers have been acquainted with online shopping habits and have enjoyed the benefits of delivery and ease of ordering for quite a while now. So for online grocery, the players only needed to be present in the technological space to attract customers. “I think the whole grocery industry is on the cusp of a transformation. The industry has been rela-
FEATURE
tively stagnant and competing mainly on the price for many decades, but now it is time for people to re-imagine how grocery shopping decisions are made,” explains Nader while talking about the quick changing scenario in the grocery industry. In just less than a decade, the online grocery market has grown to more than hundreds of thousands of customers placing myriad orders with lots of stores and brands partnering with the players to help change the landscape. Adding to Nader’s comment about the change in the shopping habits, John Tsioris, founder and CEO of InstaShop, mentions a strong reason behind this need for change by saying, “Back then I used to call the local grocery store for my order, but usually the experience was not good, with wrong products being delivered and sometimes I even never received my order. As a young professional working long hours, I wanted to avoid the haste of long supermarket lines and the traffic on the way.” This kind of the previously prevalent state clearly uncovers the huge space to improve the service level by utilizing technology. Just within a couple of years into its existence, InstaShop is already having its business beyond the UAE borders, thanks to the need fulfillment done by improving the said service levels. With the change being apparent and remarkable in its speed and magnitude, the early adaptation begs a question of the satisfaction level—whether the change is here to stay or is it just a fad? The industry’s retention rate of around 70% confirms how important and satisfying the new
levels of service have been. By partnering with the retail stores, both parts of the grocery industry get to benefit. By facing the new challenge, stores will improve and grow further, while the online industry can provide products at the store prices courtesy of the partner retail stores by just charging a small delivery fee. “As a marketplace, all of our partners share most of their in-store offers with us. On top of that, we partner with FMCG brands to give short-term/weekly exclusive offers on el Grocer. They work like promo codes and even have themes like Back To School, Ramadan, Baby Week, etc.,” Nader shares how his platform works in tandem with the partners. John has similar functioning on his platform and goes one up by saying, “We have exclusive campaigns that we run directly in collaboration with brands, so quite often you would see deals on many products, giveaways, and competitions.” Given this emerging trend of online delivery and the growth that is being seen, services offered by such platforms have expanded to butchery and meat products, pet care products, flowers, and even fresh produce. Talking about this intensive collaboration, Nader mentions, “I think online will help grocery retail listen more to consumers and pay more attention to shopper needs in order to provide more technology and services.” A time period witnessing such a change can be said to be an exciting age of grocery transformation. John is not far behind in piping in with his comments on the same. He says, “We are the best friend of the small neighborhood store
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to the big chain supermarket, by enabling brick and mortar shops to come online.” Needless to say, the young industry of online groceries is promising a huge growth in the coming time. The bright future only means further improved services for the consumers, not only online, but offline as well. “Supermarkets can only benefit from this trend by choosing the right partner that will guide them towards the online era,” John says on the bright future that will be shared by the online and offline grocery industries. With technology spreading like wildfire, one can only imagine what the future holds, but with the guarantee of amazing things to come out of the store, quite literally.
John Tsioris
Founder & CEO, InstaShop
August 2019 / SMARTSMB
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CASE STUDY
KOJ GROUP ACCELERATES WITH ZENDESK
By Baraka Jefwa
In this era of technology disruption, companies that are constantly evolving and leveraging new tools to enhance their processes are more likely to stay ahead of their competition. ital transformation, and Zendesk has been a great partner for us. We have been using Zendesk for 9 months and it has gone so well for our brands that we decided to roll it out for the entire business,” said Jamjoom.
Kamal Osman Jamjoom Head of Omnichannel & Innovation, KOJ Group
Kamal Osman Jamjoom Group (KOJ), a company whose history stretches over three decades, has been alive to the need for keeping pace with changing trends. From humble beginnings in 1987, KOJ has grown into one of the leading multi-channel retail groups in the Middle East that operates several leading regional and international brands. KOJ attributes its access to their ability to innovate both in their core business and when it comes to adopting new technologies. The group chose Zendesk for their next step of business transformation earlier in the year and having seen a substantial improvement in operational efficiencies, the group is now extending the rollout across its entire business network. Mr. Osman Jamjoom, Head of Omnichannel & Innovation, KOJ Group, explains that his role involves keeping up with technologies that can improve KOJ’s internal processes and make their business more streamlined while keeping in mind their omnichannel goal. “We are deep into that journey of digSMARTSMB / November 2019
“The departments that use Zendesk are the brands; as an organization we have eight brands, and six of them use Zendesk. So, they are the ones that have complete ownership of responding to all sorts of inbound queries regarding social media on the webforms and the websites. Apart from that we run it in our ecommerce business. As mentioned earlier Zendesk went so well for our brand in managing our external customers, we now use it for internal support to manage our internal customers. In that sense every department now uses Zendesk,” he added
advanced analytics. “Zendesk is a very powerful tool that if you can exploit and harness in a perfect way it can really have an impact in the lives of your employees and just as importantly in the lives and happiness of your customers,” Jamjoom continued. The company is currently looking at integrating WhatsApp for business and their customer service telephones to Zendesk. The organisation is doing a full-on telephony integration of their head office into the tool so that when someone calls the organisation can have a 360° view of the customer. “Our biggest opportunity is to get that 360° view nailed, once we have that view we will be able to know where our customers are coming from and what channel they want to talk to us, making their experience much more fluid and our experience as a brand in talking to external customers more efficient. For our internal customers, who manage our support desk, we can provide a better service to every department in the business. If we enhance our services and get our reporting right, the knock-on effects of that is huge because every department relies on the support services,” he explained.
Jamjoom further explained, “initially we were trying to organise our online channels and bring them to one place. We also have a growing ecommerce business where we want to cater to our customers on the online portal, in the stores, on our socials and have a 360° view of the customer. We assessed a lot of tools and Zendesk came out trumps, because they manage the channels so well and they have many features,”
For organisations trying to improve customer experience digital transformation is becoming increasingly important, recent statistics show that two-thirds of the CEO’s of Global 2,000 companies will shift their focus from traditional, offline strategies to more modern digital strategies to improve the customer experience before the end of 2019.
He added that the main goal for Zendesk within their organisation is to expand their processes and communications through and to fully use the features. Some of the Zendesk features include, flexible ticket management with automated workflow, multi-channel support: email, web, phone, chat, social media, mobile support with native iPhone, iPad, and Android apps and robust reporting and
“If you want to improve your customer experience you need to know every customer’s preferred channel in order to manage their expectations and to manage your own workflows, especially as your business gets bigger, and one of the ways you can do this is by being in the digital realm with tools such as Zendesk, which gives you a full customer view and gives you accountability because of its reporting feature.” Jamjoom concluded.
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TALKPOINT
FUTURE FULFILLMENT, TODAY FULFILLED
By Diksha Vohra
Fadi Amoudi - CEO and Founder of IQ Fulfillment, the region’s first and largest robotics warehouse, talks about his pioneering idea that redefines the quotient of the fulfillment industry while keeping a firm view on his vision for the future of stress-free business. Can you take us through the process of establishment of IQ Fulfillment? What made you create a unique concept like this? When I decided to move to Dubai with family and kids, it meant that I needed to do something different and challenging to establish myself. Most of my background is in the FMCG sector and I have always been into technology, so I decided to open the first e-commerce grocery plant in Dubai. From there, I opted to do financial models, commercial business analysis, market analysis, etc. It was then that I found two loopholes in the e-commerce industry; scaling up and technology. I wanted to optimize on those and did a lot of in-depth research on the topic. That is where automation and robotics came in. I took the robotics solution and implemented it in the groceries to potentially fulfill up to 10,000 orders. The question was how to scale up to those many orders in groceries and then it hit me that fulfillment can be in any business and it was just my mind that was restricted to groceries. I researched fulfillment in-depth and found out that there are only a handful of players, out of which none were using robotics. That was my breakthrough and I moved my entire business from groceries to robotics fulfillment. It was a huge challenge as it is a new industry. To build a brand from there, we needed warehouse automation and software solutions like wareSMARTSMB / November 2019
Fadi Amoudi
CEO and Founder, IQ Fulfillment
TALKPOINT
house management. We started building the first fulfillment solution center of the region where we wanted to support SMEs while utilizing most of the robotics into it. That is how we created the IQ Holding, which is a technology holding company that specializes in supply chain sector. There are 3 verticals, IQ Robotics, IQ Fulfillment, and IQ Express.
So what is IQ Robotics all about and what you are doing in your warehouse exactly? We support all SMEs in our region and have a roadmap to expand all over Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UK, China, and the US. We want to scale up to a scenario where we will take care of all our clients’ back-ends with the highest level of technology and they can concentrate on what they do best, which is their products and promoting them. We will concentrate on everything else that gives them headaches. IQ Robotics is a technology company that offers various services like warehouse automation, software solution, project management, package protection, etc. We have partnerships with various technology companies like Quicktron, Logistic Technologies, Q-Billing, and many others to serve the clients. We offer services to anyone who wishes to transform their company in the technological era. The major difference is that we are live out of Dubai right now and with our partnerships, we do not need to have more space in the US, Europe or Asia. We want people to interact more with technology and the awareness needs to be raised. So we aim to bridge the gap in that aspect.
Why do you think there are very few players in the fulfillment industry in the UAE? Can the market not being mature enough be a reason as why people have not tapped into this market? I am not saying that there aren’t any players in this particular industry.
There are a lot of players in the logistic sectors and there are a lot of players internationally and locally that are in the space. But players who match the vision that we have are not there. This is because we offer the SMEs a totally different experience.
So when you say you offer SMEs a totally different experience, what does that entail? What are the benefits SMEs will have if they deal with you? Full live visibility. We have the most advanced facility in the entire region with state of the art technology and robotics integrated with just one aim, to help our clients without their investments going up. So what we offer to our clients are solutions that are better than what they would normally get without making them spend more.
So your target clients are SMEs who deal with logistics, freight forwarding, etc? No, our target players are basic everyday people. It can be moms, dads, teenagers, millennials, whoever has an idea and wants to sell online. We provide the entire support to enable them to get online and start their own e-commerce business.
What made you capitalize on the idea of using robots? It was a leap of faith. I honestly believe in Dubai, in the UAE, and the vision set by his highness for the UAE. But that does not mean that we just offer technology fulfillment. We are technological fulfillment partners. We do not believe in blowing smoke, we believe in building things from the ground up, and that is exactly what we did with our company as well.
Apart from being the first warehouse using robotics, can you share 3 distinguish-
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ing aspects of your warehouse that differentiate it from the rest? We have ground robots, state of the art conveyor belts, dynamic solutions, outbound mobile stations, and full visibility on your solutions. Those things in themselves are enough to set us apart. But we also carry a warehouse management system, an order management system, and a transportation management system all in one place.
What is your vision for the future for IQ Fulfillment, especially with the Expo 2020 coming up? Any new opportunities you are trying to capitalize upon? We are a start-up and we love to promote that. We are also not just one start-up but we are three start-ups; IQ Fulfillment, IQ Robotics, and IQ Express. But when you talk about Fulfillment, we aim to spread peace of mind all over. Whatever help we can afford to give to our SMEs, we would gladly do it. This company was born to support the SMEs and help them with their digital transformations. We plan to always introduce new technology. We have already autonomous unmanned vehicles, drones, and a lot of new cool stuff coming up. But despite all that, we will keep on doing the fulfillment connected solutions for SMEs.
What would be your three takeaways that you would like to share with budding entrepreneurs? The first is to be passionate. Find something you are passionate about and you want to do. Second is to make sure that the passion you want to achieve solves a problem or a challenge that most or all people face. The third is to build from the ground up. It does not matter if it takes you a million tries, always start from scratch. There are no shortcuts if you want to build a great start-up. November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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ROUNDTABLE
CHAMPIONING OMNICHANNEL APROACH FOR NEW AGE CUSTOMER An integrated omnichannel support solution keeps all your bases covered so you can meet customers wherever they are. By Baraka Jefwa During a recent Zendesk roundtable, organised by Business Media International, senior IT heads from different verticals discussed the importance of implementing an omnichannel solutions in their organisations especially at a time when the whole world is going through massive transformation and many companies are trying to keep up with the customers of today and the future. Profiling the customer of the future is something that can be done with ease in the Middle East region as reports show that it is the citizens themselves leading the digitization charge. As measured by digital consumer adoption, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are among the top countries in the world, with more than 100 percent smartphone penetration and more than 70 percent social-media adoption—even higher than in the United States. Moderating the roundtable, Asmae Lemniei, MD, Lean X Consulting, said that the challenge for businesses in this day and age is to know the customer, anticipate their needs and to be in touch with what is happening in order to offer the right products and solutions without ignoring their channels of communication. “We are in a region where the best products and services are being commoditized. Its about having the best solution at scale with a cheap cost which is able to go beyond the presumed value of our customers. The customer experience is the only differentiator of the companies of the future. How we are bringing an omnichannel strategy to serve customers, how we are serving them, how well we know them and how we are capturing all the touch points of our customers SMARTSMB / November 2019
both online and offline,” Lemniei explained. She added that with restorative disruption, companies have the responsibility to manage and drive change and restore their competitive advantage. Zendesk is an example of a company enabling restorative disruption, as according to Owen McConnell, Regional Sales Manager, Zendesk, they offer customer service and engagement products that are powerful and flexible, and scale to meet the needs of any business. “What we supply are applications that can be operational within a very short time, giving you the ability to serve your customers with one or two channels initially and as you company evolves you will expand with us to different channels,” added McConnell. During the round table Wael Al Jallab, Senior IT manager, Majid Al Futtaim Carrefour Markets explained, “currently there are multiple channels of a business. In the past customers would go to the store and deal with cashiers and finish their journey. Today however, the combination of adding the online business and different channels of dealing with customers is making life more complicated,” Tamal Chakravorty, Group Head of IT, Landmark Group added that the problem with new age customers is that they want five-star services without paying for them. He added that the key to customer satisfaction is managing customer expectations which varies from region to region. New age customers like switching between channels and picking the channel that best meets their needs. For example, baby boomers prefer phone
support, while millennials and Generation Z like chat and self-service. Zendesk findings show that 40% of customers prefer to use help centers before contacting support, but only 20% of teams provide self-service. An integrated omnichannel support solution keeps all your bases covered so you can meet customers wherever they are. Responding to the question of how organisations should go about choosing the right tool for managing customer experience, Hashim Saeed, Head of IT, Azizi Group said, “organisations need to have a clear vision of what they are doing so that they can plan. They need to setup strategies on how to achieve objectives and to understand what the market needs in order to pick the right solution,” “As businesses we create that instantaneous demand in the market, so the important part is concentrating on where the customers are communicating from. Concentrating on the right channels helps in meeting customer demands,” said Phil Smith, Group Head of Digital, KOJ. He added that their organisation uses Zendesk to manage their channels so as to ensure that each customer is happy, a point that everyone in the room agreed upon as an organisation’s platform is the gateway to customer data.
TALKPOINT
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Mindware, a leading regional VAD had unveiled new Marketplace, hosted on Microsoft Azure. Philippe Jarre, CEO, Mindware discusses how the mare place will enable partners By R. Narayan Elaborate on new cloud marketplace and the key driving factors that led to the launch? We really need to catch up in the cloud business and the new cloud marketplace presents that opportunity. As part of enabling the marketplace, we had identified different vendors who are among the best to provide cloud solutions on Microsoft Azure, notified them and signed up contracts with them. We have had a marketplace before but that wasn’t the best technically and a generation older- it wasn’t very flexible and back office activities were more manual. That is not efficient in the cloud era and I know some of our competitors may still be doing this but we have moved ahead with the new marketplace. It is built on Azure and since we have a strong relationship with Microsoft, the pricing would be very competitive. The platform would be competitive and flexible; partners will be able to use this platform for their own business.
Discuss the new solutions focus and consolidation of teams? After the acquisition of Arrow, we merged both technical and pre-sales teams and Mindware and Arrow into one single solutions team. We have produced three solution arrays - one is for infrastructure and networking
solutions, one is for security solutions and one is for cloud. We are going to use this team to build content that can be placed on the marketplace. We are going to local players, global players, ISVs etc to enrich our marketplace with new content possibly every month. Over the next one year, we will look at massive expansion of solutions available via the marketplace.
How does the new marketplace help partners?
Philippe Jarre CEO, Mindware
help clients migrate to cloud.
How significant is the cloud business at present? Our cloud business is modest and I believe that is the case in the market. But we expect an acceleration of the business by as much as 25% month on month.
We enable our partners who may not have the capacities for building their own marketplace, to white label our marketplace for them so that they can have their storefronts to deliver hosted Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings via the platform. The partners can also list their capabilities on our marketplace and based on requirements form our clients, those services could be utilized. This broadens the utilization of the partner capabilities through our marketplace, in a way via white-labelling their capabilities. The new marketplace has a robust and customizable billing engine, which allows partners to easily automate ordering.
Are there trust issues still with customers about having their solutions on the cloud and data hosted elsewhere?
We have also on-boarded partners from Kuwait and Qatar, and are on-boarding partners from UAE and KSA, where we have the biggest number of partners. Our plan is to have one or two new partners added on the marketplace in a week. This model would be an exponential business model. This would be a new channel. The solutions team will provide technical capabilities to design solutions and
What are the key focus areas at Mindware at present?
These issues remain to some extent. At the same time, a lot of people want to do backup and recovery deployments on the cloud. This is a transformation journey. At some point, matching the scale of investments in datacentres for availability and security in the regular datacentres with the capabilities that are there in the huge cloud based datacentres would be not possible. The move to the cloud is therefore inevitable in the longer run.
Growing the cloud business, moving into solutions and services business, and expansion into new geographies are the three priorities. The goal is to get the business to clock 1 billion USD across MEA.
November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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TALKPOINT
STRIKING BIG IN ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS Danny Bates, Co-founder and CMO, STARZPLAY discusses how the company has emerged as a leader in online video subscriptions and online video revenues
By Diksha Vohra
On demand entertainment - there were many in the market like Netflix and slowly Amazon also joined the game. What made you then launch STARZPLAY? We saw a gap in the market for a home-grown, regional option that provided exactly what viewers wanted. A trailblazer in our field, STARZPLAY has fast become MENA region’s leading SVOD platform, through a combination of a strong team, a unique approach to market and through the provision of unrivalled Arabic and English content that subscribers really want.
How are you different from the rest? What is your USP?
Danny Bates
Co-founder and CMO, STARZPLAY
Available in 20 countries across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, with more than 10,000 hours of content including premium movies, exclusive series, Bollywood movies as well as Arabic series, STARZPLAY has secured its place as the number one player in the MENA region in terms of online video subscriptions and online video revenues – with a leading market share of 29% in subscriptions and 33% in revenues according to IHS Markit. A trendsetter in terms of our business model, we have successfully established mutually beneficial partnerships with some of the region’s leading telecommunications companies and offers flexible payment options through customers’ existing mobile/
SMARTSMB / November 2019
TALKPOINT
WiFi packages. Our winning strategy has focused on ensuring our customers have the best possible content that they want to watch, combined with a successful stream of tie-ups with regional telecoms companies and the added customer benefit of no obligation trials and flexible payment options. Content truly is king and is something we have focused on as a USP from the outset – with a focus on both English and Arabic content which is obviously important for our Middle East subscribers.
When did you start the company and how has it been going since then? The company, led by a team of broadcast professionals, was set up in Dubai in 2014 and has become a true home-grown talent that is inspiring entrepreneurs across the region. In MENA, we have around 1.3 million paying subscribers now. More recently, we supported with the launch of India’s Lionsgate Play service, marking the continued expansion of the company’s strategy to license its STARZPLAY Connect platform to broadcast and telecom operators offering a cloud-based solution for providing entertainment services online. The deal to use STARZPLAY’s homegrown technology is a compelling move forward for the business and further reiterates STARZPLAY’s leadership position as a premium provider of managed video services. With OTT SVOD services gaining momentum globally, STARZPLAY’s proven competencies – both in offering all apps and connected devices as well as backend technology – has helped position the business as a partner of choice for new enterprises that seek to explore the potential offered by this dynamic industry.
While the UAE has been at the forefront of tech ad-
vancement, you're the first mover in your industry. What were some of the challenges you faced while launching your brand? Was acceptance by UAE audience a big challenge too? Now a well-recognised Middle East technology start-up, and featuring in the Financial Times Top 25 Tech Companies to watch in the Middle East, it’s quite remarkable to think that when we were securing our first license from Dubai Economic Development department, there was no existing category for SVOD, showcasing just how much of a leader they truly are being the first ever start-up within the category in the region. Within just a five-year time frame, STARZPLAY is on the brink of reaching profitability – a remarkable feat for the industry where up-front costs can be heavy due to the required investment in content and the technology platform itself, not to mention day to day operating costs from people to premises.
How many users do you have of Starzplay right now? Currently we have 1.3 million paying subscribers from across the region.
What does the future look
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like - what all new initiatives are you bringing to the forefront in the near future? The online subscription video market in MENA is experiencing a growth phase: according to IHS Markit data, paying subscriptions at the end of 2018 stood at 1.78 million, 45% higher than the previous year (1.23 million in 2017). Annual revenues from paying subscriptions reached a high of $146 million at the end of 2018, growing 41% over the previous year ($103 million in 2017). IHS Markit expects the growth spree to continue unabated and by 2023, with paying subscriptions to reach almost 5 million. The CAGR for the period 2016 to 2023 is expected to be 26%. This bodes well for the industry and for our future growth. STARZPLAY’s focus will be on increasing shareholder value through securing profitability and continued growth in MENA and further afield. Saudi Arabia remains a huge growth market with obvious potential in terms of its demographics and scale, as well as the cultural developments occurring in the kingdom. We will continue to create exceptional value for its customers through premium content and localized service experience. In the near future, we have some exciting developments in the pipeline as we hope to enter the original Arabic production space to further differentiate our service.
Our winning strategy has focused on ensuring our customers have the best possible content that they want to watch, combined with a successful stream of tie-ups with regional telecoms companies and the added customer benefit of no obligation trials and flexible payment options. November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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TALKPOINT
MAKING INROADS
Jeff Ogden, General Manager – Middle East, Mimecast discussed the company’s email security solutions focus and the trends in the market By R. Narayan
even the government segment?
Jeff Ogden
GM - ME, Mimecast
Discuss the customer profile you focus on in the SMB segment? We go upwards of customers with 3 users, but typically focusing on the 50 to 250 user customers from the SMB segment. The products are the same across the board with same functionalities but a subtle difference in pricing structures. That is our big differentiator form a lot of other providers who tend to have SMB product and an enterprise product, with the SMB product offering less functionalities.
What has the traction been in the region? In terms of seat size, we have great cadence with the 50-250 user customers. We have a lot of partners in the UAE focusing on that segment who are selling Office 365 or Google services and then include our solutions with those. We get great traction in that space and this is possibly one of our fastest growing segments. In the SMB space, we get requirements from all verticals - from shipping companies to small retailers to Equestrian centres etc. They all have a challenge in email security that needs a solution.
Do you see adopting of cloud improving across segments, SMARTSMB / November 2019
Government segments are less comfortable as of today with cloud. The legislation on use of cloud solutions in government sectors is a little ambiguous at the moment but is improving all the same. When the new legislation on GDPR expected in the next few months, cloud could be adopted across. All other verticals are coming around to adopting cloud, even Banking.
Are SMB customers buying the solution packages? During the last fiscal year, the predominant business was around security. However, there is an increase in people buying packages. The big issue in the SMB is lack of technical resources. In that context, it is not wise to buy multiple products to fix the same issue. It is best to buy packages. We have a single admin console and 10 products. We see the trend of more SMBs looking to buy the packages. The packages includes features like web security, internal email protection, security awareness training. They get multiple products operated controlled through a single console.
How is the focus on ‘Human error’ in your security awareness training helping out? The need for security awareness training is still quite important. In a diverse organization, they may not share the same understanding across the departments. The problem with cyber awareness training programs is that they are rolled out in terms of presentations and videos. But people may
not be attentive to those. We are using a mix of short videos from the content point of view and laced with humor. Mimecast Awareness Training is a security awareness training and cyber risk management platform that helps combat information security breaches caused by employee mistakes. This is working incredibly well.
With cloud traction still modest, how does that impact your volumes? We are 100% cloud focused in terms of our solutions. In the next 2-3 years, the cloud will likely become the norm. We have to embrace the cloud and need to ensure we are building policies and structures. As an email security company, we know most of the problems Businesses face with their IT is inbound malware - 70 % of the email coming in is spam or email you don’t want to see. These are already coming in from the cloud and it is quite easy for us to protect the customer by scanning their inbound email through public cloud. So we are better placed than companies whose solutions are typically meant for critical data in a cloud datacenter where traction is still modest. So the adoption rates for our solutions is probably higher than the other products for instance which may entail use of critical data.
Do you have tie-ups with other solutions and vendors? Our cloud-native platform, known as Mime|OS provides an extensible architecture that lets you quickly and easily integrate Mimecast with other solutions. We have got APIs with other solutions and vendors including vendors such as Splunk, Logrythm, IBM Security, PaloAlto, Salesforce etc.
TALKPOINT
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THE NEXT FRONTIER OF VALUE Sayantan Dev - Senior Vice President, Redington Value talks about the company’s plans for the coming years amidst the constant changes in the IT industry. By R. Narayan What is new at GITEX for Redington Value? There are three areas we are focusing on most: one is cloud- as cloud adoption in the region is mainstream now, the second area is security- as there are different areas of security which are emerging and the third area is something that we forayed into about three years back, a data science and analytics practice which has today evolved into a business application group. So, we have consolidated everything that has to do with delivering a business outcome to a customer to one bracket and it has a very different rhythm from what we do.
With the industry’s move towards cloud how are you structuring the focus of your business? Cloud adoption is a reality now, so there is a huge demand, for both infrastructure and consumption on the cloud. We are working with almost all the technologies in that area, we are partnering with the leading providers of public and private cloud; with Microsoft, AWS, Oracle and VMware. In all the three silos of cloud offerings, Infrastructure- as- a service, Software-as-a- Service and Platform-asa-Service, there are numerous new dimensions coming in. We are working with a new set of partners that are possibly born in the cloud and ISVs to hosting in different cloud infrastructure and certifying some of their products and going to the market. A lot of services elements have kicked in and we are encouraging our partners to focus in specialized areas; we
ourselves are building a strong practice along the services in a bid to address the market.
How is the rest of your business changing? Fundamentally we are changing. Traditional distribution had two dimensions to it, the product management side, where you work with a set of innovators trying to take their innovations to the market, and the other way where you are working with channel partners helping them create new revenue streams and bringing them new practices, enhancing the ecosystem. We are trying to bring in a third dimension; which is basically a layer of specialization model. If we take security as an example, conventionally we have looked at it in a way, whereby vendors provide different types of security solutions and then channel partners further take the services to the market. There is however a third element to it which is becoming more important to work on, and this is the specialization layer. So, we are trying to create specialization around sub-categories of security such as perimeter security, application security, security at the cloud and a lot more. This is also similar for cloud and other businesses and applications; so we are working on analytics on one side and we have specialization around ERP, and we are trying to bring in specialization in another area which is RPA. Then again, since we’ve made an entry in the application stack, there is another requirement which is coming up, and we are building vertical wide speciality. So, this is how the new business frontiers are developing.
Sayantan Dev
SVP, Redington Value
Kindly expound further on your entry into RPA. When it comes to RPA, we are working with Automation Anywhere at the moment and on the AI side we signed a very interesting vendor in Freshworks, and there are more announcements to come on this area and also on the analytics side. On the other fronts, we partnered with Tableau and MicroStrategy, which are mature relationships now and we have started striking consistent revenue growth with these partners.
To what do you credit the change in the pivots of your business? From being a very pure play infrastructure player, an area which is almost getting commoditised with hyperconverged boxes, we are now trying to move up the value chain in trying to address the requirements in the business application layer. Security as a practice is drastically changing to keep up with the threat landscape. So, we have been introspecting on how to take our business to the next level and taking the necessary steps to that effect. November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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TALKPOINT
PEOPLE CENTRIC SOLUTIONS By R. Narayan
Proofpoint showcased its portfolio of people-centric cybersecurity solutions, at GITEX. Emile Abou Saleh, Regional Director, Middle East and Africa for Proofpoint discusses the company’s focus areas
What are the solutions of focus for Proofpoint?
As a leading cybersecurity company, Proofpoint helps companies protect their biggest assets- the people. Proofpoint started 17 years ago as an email security company and became one of the leading cybersecurity companies through developing some new technologies, new products and acquisitions to tackle next generation threats. Cybercriminals relentlessly target the people who will provide the most lucrative pay-out and that’s why we are committed to delivering innovative people-centric security and training solutions that ensure an organisation’s most attacked people are protected.
Elaborate about VAP?
VAP is an acronym for Very Attacked People. Proofpoint focuses on people centric approach. There has been a drastic change in terms of who is attacked. Earlier, it used to be the CEOs and other C-level decision makers who were attacked. Now, it is not longer about the very important people. The attack vectors have changed. When analyzed, the people being attacked are not being done so on basis of their ranks but on basis of whether they can lead the hackers to the information they seek. Attackers can breach the systems, gain access to aspects like meeting schedules of the CEO for instance and create mischief with the intent to defraud. In one case, a CEO mail account was spoofed and a mail sent out to the CFO even as the CEO was in the middle of a meeting with a suppliers, instructSMARTSMB / November 2019
ing the CFO to clear an invoice of the supplier he was sitting with. This was possible because the attacker had access to the CEO’s meeting schedules. The CFO verified that the CEO was sitting with the supplier and he cleared the invoice upon which the amount was transferred. The discovery that the systems were compromised came too late.
What are the significant threats that organizations face and how can Proofpoint solutions help?
Business email compromise is one of the biggest risks that organizations face today. With digital transformation and the move to cloud, CIOs and CISOs have this concern of Business email compromise. This is where Proofpoint comes into the picture and can protect organizations and its people.
Emile Abou Saleh
Regional Director - MEA, Proofpoint social media, and the deep and dark web. Cloud app security includes Cloud App Security Broker that offers riskaware data protection and advanced threat protection for cloud apps. With Cloud App Security Broker, organizations can have visibility to who is accessing the cloud, what type of applications are accessing the cloud, what kind of data is going to the cloud. Then you can sanction what kind of applications cannot access the cloud and so on.
Discuss your presence and focus in the region?
We have multiple solutions. We have email security solutions, differentiating between if the mail has malicious content, attachments etc and where we can prevent by doing sandboxing . On the other side, we also focus on the people- they are the first line of defense unlike in the past when it was said that people are the last line of defense. We provide organizations security awareness training to help them differentiate between a bad email and a good one for instance.
Proofpoint has been doing business in the region for past 7-8 years. We invested in an office here at the beginning of the year and the investments will continue to grow as want to be next to our existing customers in the region to support them. we have customers across various verticals.
Proofpoint has digital risk protection, archiving and compliance and cloud app security among its other solutions. Digital Risk Protection secures a brand and its customers against digital security risks across web domains,
Discuss your focus on cloud solutions?
We have two distributors in the region - Shifra and Exclusive Networks and have partners in all countries of the region.
We are cloud ready and have solutions that can be implemented fully on cloud, on premises or in a hybrid model.
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DAAS TRANSFORMING THE DIGITAL WORKSPACE Paulo Pereira, Director, Systems Engineering - Emerging Markets and Eastern Europe at Nutanix discusses how DaaS is a great way to empower both end users and your IT teams Companies of all sizes are turning to desktop as a service (DaaS) solutions to satisfy their digital workspace needs. Traditional desktops and laptops are costly and difficult to manage, and they pose significant security challenges. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) replaces traditional systems with virtual ones powered from your datacenter. Many enterprises have successful VDI deployments, but are looking for options that extend their organization into cloud and reduce management overhead. DaaS overcomes the challenges of traditional desktop and laptop systems and can serve as a platform to deliver VDI from clouds. For companies undergoing digital transformation, DaaS is a great way to empower both your end users and your IT teams. End users benefit because they have greater flexibility to work from anywhere, on any device, and collaborate more easily with co-workers, partners, and suppliers. IT teams benefit because DaaS can simplify VDI integration and delivery while making it easy to add new services to an Enterprise’s digital workspace whenever and wherever you need them at the speed of the business. SMARTSMB / November 2019
Paulo Pereira
Director, Systems Engineering - Emerging Markets and Eastern Europe, Nutanix
Top Ten Reasons to Choose DaaS Reason 1: Eliminate Desktop and Laptop Challenges Managing and supporting a large number of desktop and laptop workstations with locally installed software is a challenge for companies of all sizes. Employees come and go regularly, and appropriate devices have to be sup-
plied and retrieved. Keeping close tabs on desktops and laptops, often across numerous physical locations, is difficult, time consuming, and expensive. An even bigger concern for most companies is security risks created by physical computing devices with data stored locally. DaaS addresses these challenges by moving all the heavy lifting into an enterprise or cloud datacentre: User applications no longer need to be
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installed or run locally on each device. Company data remains in your datacenter or the cloud where it is more secure. If a physical device fails, the user can simply switch to a different device and pick up where they left off.
Reason 2: Remove the Expertise Barrier For many companies, running VDI inhouse is subject to operational, performance, and scaling constraints due to a lack of expertise and experience. Smart companies increasingly view DaaS as an elastic complement to existing VDI deployments or an opportunity for continued growth in VDI in hybrid cloud. DaaS reduces or eliminates VDI management challenges, enabling IT teams to focus on delivering services to businesses and end-users — and satisfying digital transformation goals.
Reason 3: Focus on Strategy Not Tactics DaaS is an important part of your digital transformation strategy, significantly reducing the IT effort required to support end users and freeing your team to focus on business outcomes rather than IT outcomes. DaaS makes it possible to continuously integrate and continuously deliver emerging technologies. DaaS also allows you to quickly support projects that require a fast ramp up, without exposing your company’s network and intellectual property. In many industries, mergers and acquisitions are a fact of life. DaaS can help you accelerate onboarding of new employees during acquisitions and grant them immediate access to company applications, data, and services.
Reason 4: Overcome Geo-
graphic Limitations DaaS offers a great solution to address digital workspace needs across disparate geographies. With the right DaaS solution, employees can work from almost anywhere that has an internet connection and receive good performance. If users in different locations need to collaborate electronically, DaaS solutions can facilitate collaboration.
Reason 5: Enable Bring-YourOwn-Device Adopting a BYOD policy, as many companies are doing, makes device management even more intractable. With DaaS, your company’s important applications run in your provider’s infrastructure services, safely isolated from other activity on user devices. Users gain access to applications and data only after proper authentication. And because no data is stored locally on the device, there’s no risk of compromise if the device is lost.
Reason 6: Soar into the Cloud DaaS provides an platform for Enterprises to understand and consume cloud services without having to learn new technology terminologies. DaaS also accelerates the cloud learning maturity in an organization because they can focus on application service integration and delivery without worrying about tech debt and tech inertia.
Reason 7: Pay Only What You Use The ability to pay as you go—and pay only for what you use—is a hallmark of IT success in the digital age. DaaS simplifies your operations, reduces your per user costs, and makes perfect sense for organizations in the midst of
digital transformation. DaaS reinforces a subscription based consumption model that meters on actual usage.
Reason 8: Simplify Scaling The worst thing that can happen to new employees is to have them sit idle waiting for the computing resources they need to do their jobs. But planning for resource needs and scaling infrastructure—whether physical systems or VDI—to keep up with the needs of a dynamic enterprise is hard. DaaS provides immediate scalability to simplify the planning process and address unforeseen needs. You can provision new desktops as needed and release them just as quickly.
Reason 9: Maintain Full Control A common concern that many enterprises have when it comes to DaaS is loss of control, but DaaS and BYOD don’t necessarily mean that you lose control over your environment. In fact, you may even increase control. DaaS gives you both greater visibility and increased cost control. Depending on your DaaS provider, you can quickly and easily grant (or remove) access to applications and data at a granular level. You can control access to data and prevent employees from making local data copies or writing data to insecure devices. Employees can also access specialized resources like GPUs on an as-needed basis.
Reason 10: Step Up Security DaaS eliminates the risks that result from sensitive data stored on user devices. Data remains secure in a datacenter, subject to your full control and established governance. DaaS providers take security seriously and offer a variety of advanced authentication and other security capabilities.
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CRITICALITY OF DATA MANAGEMENT Entry of global Public Cloud Providers in the Middle East sets spotlight on criticality of Cloud Data Management opines Claude Schuck, regional manager, Middle East at Veeam The advent of cloud, scale and hosted pay-as-you-grow services are finally upon us! The two major cloud providers, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have put down large investments and opened datacentres in the Middle East. In June this year, Microsoft brought online two United Arab Emirates (UAE) regions - in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, enabling government agencies and businesses to comply with local regulations, by providing data residency in the UAE for its Azure and Office 365 services. A little over a month later at the end of July, AWS announced the expansion of its global footprint with the opening of the AWS Middle East (Bahrain) Region. The announcement stated that ‘developers, start-ups, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and non-profit organizations can start using the new AWS Middle East Region to run applications and serve end-users across the Middle East.’ We are facing exciting times ahead with the launch of these public cloud providers in the Middle East, which will undoubtedly provide an impetus for regional companies to better integrate cloud into their strategies. Organizations will be more comfortable with consuming these services now that data sovereignty and security issues, which have been the main stumbling blocks in the past, are no longer a concern. We are facing exiting times with the advent of all these public providers. SMARTSMB / November 2019
Claude Schuck
Regional Manager, Middle East at Veeam
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Do these announcements sound the death knell for traditional hardware solution providers? No doubt analysts will be keeping a close eye on hardware sales in the next two to five years. I recently returned from Las Vegas where there was a large Public Cloud provider conference of over 60,000 delegates and I was thoroughly and pleasantly surprised at the content and mindset of providers, customers and partners. One thing is clear - we are at an infliction point in IT. Any CXO returning from this event would have many questions about their IT services and I suppose their first priority would be to halt all procurement. Why would you want to incur huge costs to own and maintain your own datacentre, besides the operational and security challenges that go with it? The advantages of public cloud services have been well documented. But the answer is not that simple. As both, public and private cloud continue to mature in the region, many companies will opt for both, leveraging multiple clouds to satisfy their diverse enterprise computing needs. Multi-cloud combines on-premise operations with services and applications running on multiple cloud providers, which enables organizations to capture the benefits of each platform while mitigating their downsides.
the distributed data between all the clouds and centralising this management to ensure visibility regardless of where the data is residing.
In this heterogeneous environment, the main challenge now is managing
2. Capabilities: Organizations must enhance their capabilities, to ensure
The 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management report surveyed over 1,500 business leaders globally andfound that organizations are on a journey to become a more intelligent business, meaning they are leveraging technologies such as Cloud Data Management and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a real-time view of the collective business and the ability to act intelligently on that insight. Amongst the businesses on this journey, the study highlights four common components globally: 1. Cloud: Cloud Data Management is a key component of delivering Intelligent Data Management. Three-quarters of companies report using Software-asa-Service (SaaS) platforms. Many are utilizing the cloud for their backup and recovery services, with 51% using Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) and 44% using disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS). It is evident that leaders are recognizing the advantages of a multicloud and hybrid-based approach, citing cost, reliability, flexibility and data security of the cloud as their main reasons for choosing it.
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employees can draw on data insights and use new technologies as they are deployed, with 9 out of 10 businesses viewing upskilling employees’ digital skills as vital to their digital success. 3. Culture: Creating a culture that is adaptable and receptive to new technologies so that people can evolve with the organization is essential, with more than two-thirds of respondents believing that company culture needs to become more open and accepting to digital technologies. 4. Confidence: Organizations must create a sense of confidence in the business’ digital capabilities, built on a strong data foundation. Presently, only a quarter of respondents report total confidence in their capability to meet their digital challenges. What is clear from the 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management Report, as well as the entry of the major global public cloud service providers in the region, is that the time for action is now. This starts with a strong digital foundation, which ensures that data is backed up and always available. With this in place, organizations can confidently deploy new digital initiatives, leveraging the business value and competitive advantage for today and into the future, and harness the potential of Cloud Data Management.
November 2019 / SMARTSMB
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IT DIRECTORY
DCG MEMBERS LIST Company Name
Head of Company
Name of Company Description Sales Person
TRIGON LLC
ARUN CHAWLA
KAMRAN KHAYAL
TRINITY INFOTECH FZE
RAKESH M. BOHRA
Contact
TRIGON LLC was established in the year 1997 with an exclusive focus on Distribution of IT & Consumer Electronics products
04-3426060 050-6595630
kamran@trigon-gulf.ae
HARISH TAHILIANI
A provider of Components, PC Accessories, peripherals, networking products, branded PCs and assembled PCs
04-3524099 050-8584085
harish@fareast.ae
RAJU MANGUKIYA
Since 2006 Dubai based, True Value Computers LLC has strived to bring the best solutions at the most affordable prices to the Technology market. TVC has been providing leading IT Accessories and Consumer Electronics to the Number of its Distributors and Resellers Worldwide,
04-3551171 055-4264190
mahesh@thetargetbrand. com
04-8860616 055-3385235
dipesh@tsscfzco.com
TRUE VALUE COMPUTERS LLC
MAHESH MANGUKIYA
TSSC FZCO
SUNITA GOPAL BHATIA
DIPESH BHATIA
TSSC FZCO is a pc component distributor based in Jebel Ali since 2005. We are the authorized distributor for Samsung semi-conductor, Lexar, Gamdias gaming, Avermedia and sub distributor for Kingston, HyperX, Intel, AMD and many more.
V K SHAH TRADING LLC
VASANTLAL K SHAH
V K SHAH
Leading importers & exporters of IT Hardware, Consumables, Peripherals & Printers.
04-3588678 050-3492672
vkshah@eim.ae
04-3975152 055-1043450
dineshe@eim.ae
VIBRANT TECHNOLOGY LLC
DINESH JAIKISHAN
DINESH JAIKISHAN
Vibrant Technology is Dubai based IT - Company . Founded in 11/12/2004 , We help our customers in their IT infrastructures through a wide-range of solutions inclusive of networks, voice, video, storage, and security . Strategic partnerships with industry leaders for software, hardware and communications solutions enables us to have preferred access to the latest technologies for our customers.Trading Partners to name a few : HP, DELL, ACER , TOSHIBA , Cisco, Avaya, Polycom, Panasonic
VIRDI MIDDLE EAST DMCC
MANZOOR FATMI
SUDHIR PILLAI
Union Community Co. Ltd is exporting their brand, ViRDI to more than 120 countries in worldwide and consistently innovating new biometric solutions for user convenience.
04-4539943 050-4954069
f.manzoor@virditech.com
VITTAL MOOLYA
The V I S H Computers Trading LLC is leading suppliers of Information & Technology products and services in the Middle East region having based in Dubai – UAE since 2004. VCT’s showrooms are the one stop shop for all your Information & Technology needs featuring a wide range of World famous Brands of Servers, Workstations, Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, LED’s & TV’s, Printer / Copiers & Consumables, NAS Storage Products & Solutions, Network Products and Solutions, Uninterrruptible Power Supply (UPS), Inverters, Batteries , POS Systems & Supplies, Software – Microsoft / Adobe / Sonicwall / Symantec / Kasperskey / ESET and Computers Accessories & Pheripherals.
04-3933711 050-7371926
vittal@vishcomputers.com
MOHAMMED OWAIS
Western Digital (WD) is an American computer hard disk drive manufacturer and data storage company. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology products, including storage devices, data center systems and cloud storage services. Western Digital has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. It is also one of the larger computer hard disk drive manufacturers
04-3724593 055-4725008
Mohammed.Owais@wdc.com
04-3558359 056-3628894
sunny_narain@pinegroup. com
04-2729344 050-7747352
tssony@gmail.com
VISH COMPUTERS TRADING LLC[ARCAD COMPUTERSLLC]
WESTERN DIGITAL UK LTD
VITTAL MOOLYA
KHWAJA SAIFUDDIN
XFX TECHNOLOGY LLC
SANJAY [SUNNY] NARAIN
MD. IMTHIYAZ
XFX is a division of PINE Technology Holdings Limited, a leading manufacturer and marketer of innovative solutions for the worldwide gaming technologies market. Founded in 1989, PINE designs, develops, manufactures and distributes high-performance video graphics technology and computer peripherals.
ZABEEL STAR COMPUTERS LLC
SONY THOMAS
SONY THOMAS
Leading reseller, importer-exporter & wholesleller for IT Hardware & Networking Products based in Deira, Dubai(UAE)
SMARTSMB / November 2019
Hi, we’re Salesforce. We help companies unify marketing, sales, service, commerce, and IT on the #1 CRM platform, so you can give every customer the personal experiences they love. Visit salesforce.com/eu/learnmore.
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TECH WATCH
FUJITSU FI-800R PFU (EMEA) Limited, a subsidiary of Fujitsu Ltd., the world's leading scanner manufacturer, announced the launch of the fi-800R, a new image scanner designed for the front desk environment, combining passport, ID and document scanning. The latest model in the fi Series delivers an innovative compact design with a state-of-theart dual path mechanism that enables staff to complete all of their tasks in one place – meaning ID and documents never leave the customers’ sight. Featuring an Automatic Document Feeder with Fujitsu’s innovative Active Separation technology, the fi-800R makes input smoother than ever, while Automatic Skew Correction eliminates feed errors. The bundled PaperStream software optimises images for downstream processes, as well as extracting information to enrich customer profiles. Automatic Profile Selection, where staff no longer have to spend time sorting documents by format, and 40ppm/80ipm scan speed means customers can get on with their day in
record time.
Highlights: • Taking up half the space of alternative solutions, the fi-800R is perfect for the front desk, or any other place where space is tight. • The innovative U-turn path mechanism with Automatic Stacking Technology ejects papers back up through the scanner, removing the need for a front output tray. • Drastically reducing the machine’s footprint means the fi-800R can be used in spaces half the size of an A4 sheet. • The fi-800R is also the first scanner of its kind that doesn’t require a carrier sheet to protect passports, incorporating a return path mechanism that can process thicker items such as ID cards and passports including the MRZ (Machine-Readable Zone) alongside A4 documents.
VAIO SX12 The VAIO SX12 is crafted with a thin and lightweight design. At 0.62" tall and 1.97 lbs, it is easy to hold and ideal to carry. VAIO SX12 features 8th generation Intel quad core processors and VAIO TruePerformance. "VAIO TruePerformance" is technology designed to maintain higher performance for a longer period of time by increasing CPU power limits and more efficiently eliminating heat.With a narrow bezel design, the A4 size body accommodates a 12.5inch display screen for a 16% broader viewing experience than the VAIO S11. With VAIO SX12, you can disregard the need for external adapters. With a USB Type-C port, 3 USB ports, an HDMI port, a VGA connector and LAN connection, It provides experience connectivity at the optimal level. It is built to withstand the intense labor that comes with an on-the-go lifestyle by utilizing
SMARTSMB / November 2019
TECH WATCH
37
EPSON
SURECOLOR SC-T3100X
materials such as UD carbon fiber and aluminum to ensure robustness and impact resistance.
Highlights: • Made in Japan. Powered with Windows 10 PRO / Home, this device is available in Black, Silver, Brown and Pink color with full-size backlit keyboard.
The SureColor SC-T3100x builds on the success of its predecessor, the SC-T3100, and is an entry level desktop printer that delivers affordable, reliable performance for poster producers, small POS businesses and those working in education. With the SC-T3100x it’s all about the detail, throughput speed and size of the output (up to 24”). Designed for those who need a professional-level, technical printer that boasts a low total cost of ownership. The SC-T3100x uses a refillable ink solution (140ml refillable bottles) rather than cartridges, for convenience and low running costs. It uses UltraChrome XD2 pigment inks which means your prints are smudge and water resistant (whereas standard dye inks may run). Also, the SC-T3100x delivers deep blacks and crisp, dense lines — ideal for technical graphics. The device uses a refillable ink system (140ml refillable bottles) rather than cartridges, for convenience and low running costs.
Highlights: • Touch screen • Wi-Fi connectivity • Refillable ink solution • Unique Nozzle Verification Technology (NVT) helps prevent misprints • Robust design with smallest footprint in the Epson technical printer range • Available as desktop or floor standing (includes stand) • Low TCO • Thoughtfully designed to fit seamlessly into most environments
• It has an Intel Core i5-8265U Processor, Intel Core i7-8565U Processor with 12.5” (even in 11” foot print) full HD display, and has a memory of 8GB / 16GB. • It is built with integrated layers of unidirectional carbon fiber that enhance the protection, while still keeping the laptop thin and light at a mere 899g. • It supports VAIO® TruePerformance, a technology that helps optimize and maximize CPU and overall performance. • It’s fast charging feature allows recharging of the laptop to around 80% in merely an hour.
November 2019 / SMARTSMB
38
MARKET MONITOR
PUBLIC CLOUD COMPUTING WILL TRANSFORM GCC BUSINESSES The 2019 Gartner, Inc. Hype Cycle for IT in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states predicts that hype around public cloud computing will grow in the next two to five years. However, it will take more than 10 years for this technology to translate into mainstream adoption. “Countries in the GCC are aggressively transforming from an oil economy to a technology-centric data economy,” said Santhosh Rao, research director at Gartner. “Forty-nine percent of the businesses that participated in the Gartner CIO Agenda Survey in 2019 said that their business models have already changed or are currently changing to sustain and grow their businesses in the current global economy. CIOs are hence increasing investment in transformational technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), cloud services, automation and cybersecurity, and significantly decreasing spending on data center infrastructure.”
Key Technologies Generating Hype in the GCC
One of the reasons for the gap between the hype about public cloud computing and the current level of adoption is the lack of clear policies and governance for the technology. “Our advice to CIOs is to work closely with risk and compliance teams when moving applications to the cloud,” said Mr. Rao. Gartner analysts expect robotic process automation (RPA) to achieve early mainstream adoption in the next two years, by penetrating 20% to 50% of the businesses in the GCC. According to Gartner, RPA is the fastest-growing segment of the enterprise software market. The business impact of RPA deployments is likely to be high, and the top five global RPA vendors — UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, NICE and Pegasystems — will control almost 50% of the global market. “Globally, RPA is experiencing adoption in industries such as banking and insurance and in consulting, business process outsourcing and shared service centers. Its core benefit of re-
Public cloud computing in the GCC is forecast to grow in the next two to five years. However, Gartner predicts that the technology is a more than a decade away from the Plateau of Productivity, at which point the benefits of the technology will be completely understood by organizations. “Recent regional initiatives such as the Government of Bahrain’s Cloud First Policy, the ascent of innovative startups, and the willingness of fast-growing SMEs to adopt emerging technology are starting to change the cloud computing landscape in the Middle East,” said Mr. Rao. Hyperscalers including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft (Azure), SAP and Oracle have recently opened data centers in the GCC, thus contributing to the hype. Source: Gartner SMARTSMB / November 2019
placing humans in tasks that are rulebased and involve repetitive keying or data collation is accelerating its adoption and success in these sectors,” said Mr. Rao. IT infrastructure monitoring (ITIM) tools capture the health and availability of IT infrastructure components that reside in a data center or are hosted in the cloud as infrastructure as a service (IaaS). “While ITIM tools have been around for decades, organizations today are investing in the technology to monitor availability of servers, networks, storage and databases, as well as enable the ability to troubleshoot network and server issues in a reactive manner,” said Mr. Rao. Gartner predicts that ITIM will achieve early mainstream adoption by 20% to 50% of GCC businesses in the next two years. ITIM tools are essential for enhancing troubleshooting and root cause capabilities. “They have been used to help improve availability, and lower the risk and total cost of ownership of managing large and complex infrastructure environments,” said Mr. Rao.
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DGS-3000 Series
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• Flexible Modular Design – 10/6/3 slot options • Redundant Control Module and Power supply • Superior performance: switching capacity upto 3.84T • Virtual Switching System – VSS • Line Card Modules: 1G/ 10G – Copper & Fiber
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DGS-3630 Series • Flexible Port count options: 28/ 52 ports • Fiber, Copper with PoE & Non-PoE Variants • Redundant Power Supply • High Bandwidth Stacking
LITE LAYER 3
• Flexible Port count options: 8/16/24/48 ports: PoE and Non-PoE Variants
DXS-3600 Series • Flexible Port count options: 16/ 32 ports • Port speed Options: 1G/ 10G/ 40G • Redundant: FAN & Power modules • High Bandwidth Stacking up to 480G
• PoE Power Budget switch model options up to 740watts • Stackable options with DGS-1510 series • Management: Intuitive Web Management and Compact CLI
INDUSTRIAL SERIES DIS-100G/DIS-200G DXS-3400 Series
DGS-3130 Series • Flexible Port count options: 30/ 54 ports • Fiber, Copper with PoE & Non-PoE Variants • Redundant Power Supply • High Bandwidth Stacking
• 10G Copper & Fiber options: 24 ports • High Availability & Flexibility • Redundant: FAN & Power modules • High Bandwidth Stacking
• Industrial Switches for outdoor surveillance. • Wide Temperature Support -40 to 75˚ • DIN Rail Mount • Fanless Model • Ring Topology
ACCESSORIES SFP POWER SUPPLY STACKING CABLES
DEM-211 | DEM-210 | DEM-311GT | DEM-310GT | DEM-431XT | DEM-432XT DPS-200 | DPS-500 | DPS-700 DEM-CB100S | DEM-CB200S | DEM-CB300S| DEM-CB50 | DEM-CB100
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