Saudi businesses placing emphasis on transformational changes

About 62 percent of Saudi businesses surveyed will undergo transformational change over the next year, according to an announcement yesterday at an IT Forum.
Mohammed Talaat general manager of EMC Corporation announced the results of its IT transformation survey during the first EMC Forum 2012.
Talaat said that the top business concerns for companies include increasing revenue by 55 percent, increasing new solution/product development by 48 percent and improving performance and shareholder value by 45 percent.
“Such priorities demonstrate organizations are no longer simply undertaking business transformation to cut costs, but are instead using it to actively drive growth,” Talaat said.
“This research showed that companies in Saudi Arabia are increasingly transforming their businesses to harness the benefits of cloud and Big Data analytics. It is clear that these changes are being pursued in order to meet the wider aims of the organization, demonstrating that IT transformation is not an end in itself, but a facilitator to wider business success,” Talaat said.
Organizations that wish to leverage the technologies fully, he said, will need to embrace new roles, such as the Data Scientist and Cloud Architect, and enable new ways of working. By transforming their business, IT and employee structures, Saudi companies will find they have greater control of their operations and the ability to gain better insights into their markets, customers and products.
The findings were reflected in the approach businesses that were taking to IT transformation. Some 62 percent of businesses in the Kingdom stated that it is progressing with transformational change to their IT function.
The survey also highlighted that the top five IT priorities for businesses include data storage/management, 63 percent; cloud computing, 57 percent; maintenance of existing technologies, such as software and hardware, 52 percent; data backup and recovery, 48 percent and network security, 44 percent
The survey also demonstrated that organizations are looking to IT to support their business goals.”
In fact, more than eight in 10 businesses have directly aligned their IT strategies with their wider business goals, demonstrating that IT is now seen as a driver for growth rather than as a cost center,” he added.
The research also showed that it is not just businesses and IT functions that are transforming, but the roles of IT workers are also undergoing rapid change. There is growing awareness that the advent of cloud computing and Big Data analytics –- two of the most disruptive technologies of this decade –- will lead to the emergence of new roles within IT departments.
In fact, 77 percent of businesses stated that they believe cloud computing will create new roles and responsibilities for IT staff over the next three years, with 63 percent stating that Big Data would do the same. This will include job roles such as the Cloud Architect and the Data Scientist.
Saudi businesses are assured that they are ready for this changing landscape, with 80 percent confident their IT organization currently has the right level of skills and knowledge in place to achieve their IT priorities successfully.
In Saudi Arabia, 62 percent of organizations agree that Big Data analytics will create new winners and losers in their industry over the next five years, with the consultancy sector agreeing with this statement the most (88 percent). Additionally, 71 percent stated that they have either deployed Big Data analytics tools or plan to consider new analytics tools within the next 12 months, with a further 36 percent stating that enhanced data management and analysis/analytics is a business priority for their organization. It is therefore clear that the race to make the most of this disruptive technology is now well underway, with the winners and losers to be decided by the rate at which they can deploy Big Data analytics.
As Big Data analytics works its way up the corporate agenda, there is also evidence that businesses are beginning to realize that as the value of their data increases, so does the need to protect it. Eighty-three percent of businesses surveyed stated that data security and governance is a major concern for them while a further 44 percent named network security as an IT priority. In addition, 48 percent of respondents cited backup and recovery as a priority. These results demonstrate just how important issues of data privacy, security and protection are to the modern enterprise.
EMC’s research has also revealed that businesses are increasingly looking to the cloud to help transform their businesses, with 57 percent stating it as a clear priority for their organization. In fact, 75 percent of respondents believe cloud architectures will replace traditional IT infrastructures within their organization within the next three years, rising to 84 percent in the telecoms sector. It is clear from this research that cloud computing is playing a critical role in helping businesses transform their business operations.