Detecon ranks top in offering tailor-made ICT and cloud solutions

Felix Thomas Wass

RIYADH: Building on its success story of several years as a major player in the ICT sector of Saudi Arabia, Detecon Al Saudia Company is well positioned to become a driving force in the exciting transformation of telecommunications and ICT services in the Kingdom, said Felix Thomas Wass, Detecon’s president and chief executive officer, on Tuesday. Felix said that the company aims to be a significant contributor to the success of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.
Referring to the growth of the company, Felix said that DETASAD, established in 1982 as a Saudi-German company, and drawing on the technology leadership of Detecon International, a member of Deutsche Telekom Group, offers tailor-made solutions and handles major projects in Corporate Networks & Connectivity Solutions, ICT Deployment Solutions, Managed Services, Data Center and Cloud Solutions for corporate and governmental clients.
“Our new cloud platform SAHABA has been launched in May 2017 and we’re proud to be an active player in National Broadband Transformation Plan with our Deployment Solutions,” he added. The Detasad offering covers all aspects from scoping, planning and design, end-to-end supply implementation and integration up to 24/7 operational support and maintenance of the offered products for our customer with the right resources at the right time based on German quality and local strengths.
In reply to a question about the role of Detasad within the framework of the Saudi Vision 2030, Felix said that Saudi Arabia enters into a new era marked by challenges, but filled with opportunities under the National Transformation Plan (NTP) to 2030 in which digital transformation is becoming an absolute necessity. “Our role is to be the pioneer in NTP with our experience and proven track record in ICT industry to enable new technology-based operating models that take customer experience to unimaginable heights,” he added.
Wass said: “We aim to be a driver in the digital transformation of the economy with a high local content. A key focus area is also development of local talent via joint training programs with industry and training partners as well as opening opportunities for qualified Saudis.” He said that Saudi Arabia is a very attractive market with great investment opportunities and it is our chance now to help the companies, who would like to increase the efficiency of their business due to the current economic situation.
He pointed out that there will be hundreds of new projects that will start in the coming few years to boost digitalization and these companies will need a reliable, experienced partner specialized in ICT business in order to meet the current economic challenge. “Our target is to play a key role here with our product portfolio, experience and customized solutions for the customers focusing to pass through the current economic situation,” said the Detecon chief.
“Our promise to optimize spending and costs related to ICT allows us to turn the economical challenges in tremendous opportunities by offering a real value add to our clients in their transformation to a digital economy and higher efficiencies,” said Felix, while referring to the Detasad’s engagements in the fields of telecommunications, planning, design, maintenance and operation.
To this end, he said: “We are one of the major players in NTP with FTTH planning, design and deployment with our skilled labor force. We always believe in our human resources whom are the main driver behind professionalism and quality of the whole processes.” Detasad as a member of Deutsche Telekom Group brings the best in class solutions and technology to the Kingdom with highly skilled resources, he noted.
Felix further said that “the company prioritizes training locally and from our international experience; and see it as an important element for continues improvement of our operations.”
Asked about the future plans for the Saudi ICT market and is it true that there is a transition from traditional IT infrastructure to cloud-based solutions and other innovative solutions; he said that the Saudi ICT landscape continues to transform with emerging smart cities, digitization drives, and citizen-centric programs, strong competition and a rapid shift in customer needs, which have resulted in local organizations investing in emerging technologies like cloud computing. “As the security become extremely important, the customer’s knowledge and awareness of cloud resulted in more transitions for Saudi companies to cloud,” he observed.
He pointed out that “Detasad is continuously developing its product and service offering, and innovation is part of our core strategies.” The company is expecting to generate a significant share of revenues in 2020 from business lines the company is currently not addressing. “Areas we are currently actively pursuing include advanced data analytics as a service and based on a pure value generation rather than licensing based model,” he said.
Referring to the market segment being targeted by Detasad with SAHABA, he said that “DETASAD is one of the pioneers in Cloud services and we are thrilled to take this further.”
“With SAHABA, we are targeting major corporate clients as well as SMEs…there are various cloud providers in Saudi Arabia, however our SAHABA platform covers more security aspects than what’s available in the market,” he noted.

Giving details about SAHABA, he said that “we have opted to base our Sahaba cloud on the RedHat OpenStack platform currently running on Dell hardware. In principal our solution is vendor agnostic allowing us to select the best performance/ cost ratio.” “We do not only offer cloud but also provide operator agnostic connectivity solutions including satellite, the highest level of service level commitment anywhere in the Kingdom supported from currently 38 maintenance centers, full managed services and a full turnkey design/ supply/ deployment capability for ICT infrastructure including the ecosystem components, he explained.
This vertical and horizontal diversification is complemented by advanced processes based on the Deutsche Telekom Managed Services maturity model and international standards and best processes (ITIL, ISO900x, ISO 2700x, TL9000, OEHS, CSA). Moreover, Detasad is willing to take part as an active, experienced player in the market. “We are provider of connectivity for the major banks in the Kingdom for a long time and will continue to offer the same solutions,” said Felix.
Detasad has also recently launched an innovation initiative with an aim to identify and bring to market disruptive technologies from abroad and also support local start-ups. IoT is an example of solutions perfectly suited for Detasad — from supply of 3rd party devices over design, connectivity, maintenance and application development and hosting Detasad scope covers all aspects of IoT. “We have started to develop our offering,” said Felix.
He said that the company has established a partnership with US/India based Data Analytics start-up utilizing Artificial Intelligence to provide insights on consumer behavior, predictive maintenance, financial risk assessment and logistics chain already selected by HP and other blue chip clients due to their market leadership. “We expect to have some concrete first announcements over the next quarter,” he said.