RIYADH: The two-day CIO Summit 2015 will kick off in Riyadh on Sept. 8, with focus this year on aligning IT and business functions at this critical time when IT organizations in the region are facing challenges in emerging products while trying to improve operational efficiency.

This was stated in a media briefing here on Tuesday when event organizer International Data Corporation (IDC, Saudi Arabia) formally announced about the cutting-edge IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2015, confirming that the event will take place on Sept. 8-9 at the Four Seasons Hotel, Riyadh.

Notably, the exclusive summit will also see the official launch of IDC's IT executive programs in the Kingdom and, to mark this occasion, IDC will be hosting a series of informative workshops on the first day.

The workshop will have key presentations by some of IDC's most senior global thought leaders to help time-constrained IT executives make more effective business decisions.

The IDC organizes the summit, which is the largest social gathering of CIOs in the Kingdom, in coordination with the ministry of telecom and IT.

Abdulaziz Al-Helayyil, IDC's regional director for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain, said: "It is a tremendous privilege for all of us at IDC to once again receive the cooperation from the ministry as the CIO summit continues to grow from strength to strength and plays an important role in both shaping and reflecting opinion across the region's constantly evolving ICT sector."

He said: "The Saudi government is a firm believer in the crucial role that ICT can play in furthering not only the business interests of organizations across the Kingdom, but also the future prospects."

He added that this year the summit will run under the theme — Where IT Meets Business — and will drive home the importance of closely aligning IT and business functions at a time when organizations across the region are faced with the challenge of implementing emerging products and services while simultaneously trying to improve operational efficiency.

He hoped that the summit will attract more than 200 of the Kingdom's most influential CIOs, technology decision-makers and government advisers from across a broad vertical spectrum sitting together to improve operational efficiency.

"IDC Saudi Arabia CIO summit 2015 will explore the need for IT plans to include strong business justifications alongside the well-worn IT metrics that typically examine application delivery in isolation," he said.

To make it a huge success IDC has roped in some of the world's foremost ICT players that include EMC, Wareef and HP in partnership with Intel as summit partners while F5 Networks, Oracle in partnership with Intel, BlackBerry, AEC, VM Ware and Schneider Electric are platinum partners for the summit.