We caught-up with Mohammed Amin, SVP – Middle East, Russia, Africa & Turkey (MERAT), Dell Technologies during LEAP 2022 to learn more about the future of data-driven businesses and how it’s helping Saudi Arabia chart a successful digital road map. Q: In August last year, Saudi Arabia launched a series of technology initiatives worth over $1.2billion as part of efforts to establish the kingdom as a global technology hub. What do you foresee as the key technology trends the Kingdom will witness in 2022? A: We are living in a do-anything-from-anywhere economy enabled by an expanding data ecosystem and business success will depend on the capabilities to harness this data. In a recent study by Dell Technologies, 70 percent of the Saudi respondents say their business is data-driven and consider data as the lifeblood of their organization. Consequentially, 59 percent in KSA say they were gathering data faster than they could analyze and use. This data explosion offers a unique opportunity for organizations to act and convert them into real business insights, so that it is armed with more data insights and time to focus on creating new value with technology. With this proliferation of data, edge computing has come into focus. As digital transformation accelerates, Gartner predicts that around 75 percent of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside a traditional centralized data center or cloud by 2025. As the world becomes more mobile and IoT plays an increasingly critical role, the Edge is where businesses will find the greatest opportunity to create new value. As such, this year, we can expect Saudi organizations to rethink their data management strategies to lead in the data era. Q: The pandemic had a major effect on technology, accelerating digital transformation from years to a matter of months. How did this impact organizations in the Kingdom and enable their business outcomes? A: Prior to the pandemic, businesses operated on legacy infrastructure and were not sufficiently prepared to cater to a remote workforce. But in the last two years, we’ve seen mindsets quickly shift across all industries, as organizations were propelled to innovate at an unprecedented pace to ensure business continuity. We worked with several organizations to help them adapt to new business models and to shift to a digital infrastructure that employs and supports emerging technologies. Having the right infrastructure in place to support and empower remote workers has proven to be business critical. One of our key priorities in Saudi Arabia is to accelerate national and business transformation initiatives as we work together to power the innovation agenda of the Kingdom. It’s crucial for businesses to understand that in this new digital world, modernizing infrastructure, migrating to multi-cloud, building connected workforces and securing critical assets are all elements that will drive long-term business success, and this is why our focus is on helping businesses chart a successful digital road map for the future. Q: How are organizations in Saudi Arabia transforming the way they consume and deploy software infrastructure and applications? A: In the near future, we expect more organizations to take up As a Service (aaS) models, spanning Infrastructure as a service (Iaas), Platform as a service (Paas), and Software as a service (Saas). Tailored to today’s fast paced business environment, aaS allows companies to plan, deploy and manage their entire IT footprint and choose how they consume and pay for IT solutions to meet their evolving growth needs. A recent Dell Technologies commissioned study found that more than 6 in 10 Saudi firms believing aaS would enable their organizations to be more agile, seamless and cost-effective. According to the study, currently close to one-fifth of the local businesses have moved a majority of their applications and infrastructure to an aaS model, while many more are expected to ramp up their technology infrastructure to capitalize on the pay-per-use model in the near future. aaS is proving to be a key success factor as organizations across Saudi Arabia fast-track their technology implementation to drive long-term business success. Q: Tell us more about Dell Technologies’ presence at LEAP 2022. A: At LEAP 2022, Dell Technologies is set to lead the conversation on emerging technologies and empower businesses in their drive towards a digital-ready future. During the three-day event, we will be highlighting future-ready, secure, agile and tailored IT infrastructure solutions and sharing insights from Dell experts on how technology can shape the future of a diversified economy. We will be present with our end-to-end suite of infrastructure solutions covering multi-cloud, digital workplace, 5G, Edge and IoT. — SG