Cisco and GBM Outline Key Steps for Digitization to Help Middle East Organizations Become IoT Ready

At a press roundtable at moderated by IDC’s IoT Research Lead for MEA, Cisco and GBM outlined the vital key steps that organizations in the Middle East will need to implement in order to become fully digital to embrace the Internet of Things (IoT) era. 

• 1 in 4 leaders globally, say they are being sufficiently proactive about digitization and nearly 4 of the top 10 incumbents in each industry will be displaced by digital disruption within the next five years. (Cisco Digital Vortex: 941 leaders)
• 32% of UAE enterprises are planning major/significant investment in IoT over the next 3 years ( IDC EMEA Enterprise Communications Survey, 2015)
• 48% of Saudi enterprises are planning major/significant investment in IoT over the next 3 years (IDC EMEA Enterprise Communications Survey, 2015)

According to IDC, IoT is part of every business discussion and digital transformation is driving operational efficiency, increasing employee productivity, garnering greater customer loyalty and creating new revenue streams. As digitization accelerates, cutting edge infrastructure will increase a country’s GDP, reduce spending and create jobs. It will allow governments to extend the reach and impact of public services by converting insights into action. It will enable new and diverse groups of entrepreneurs to build businesses that will shape the world, whilst providing more accessibility and opportunities for education and technology-based careers. As a result, it will ensure that countries become more competitive on the global stage. Having the right digital ecosystem in place will be a necessity to achieve any of these things. 

Cisco Unveils Country Digital Acceleration Strategy:

Cisco’s Country Digitization Acceleration (CDA) strategy is a long-term commitment to a partnership with national leadership, industry and academia to deliver real outcomes faster and more effectively.  It aims to accelerate the national digitization agenda to grow GDP, create new jobs and invest in a sustainable innovation ecosystem across public and private sectors.

At the core of the strategy are 5 key components for successful digitalization:

1. Education:  

Creating a better educated workforce, in the latest technologies and practices such as the Internet of Everything, capable of driving digital transformation. Today our Networking Academy program in the Middle East region boasts 684 networking academies and 65,785 students (over the past 12 months) across countries. The Middle East region has the highest percentage of female Networking Academy students: 32 percent, compared to 19 percent globally. Saudi Arabia has the highest concentration of students in the Middle East with 17,142, 37 percent of whom are female. The highest percentage of female students is in Oman (57 percent) and UAE (56 percent). 

1. Encouraging entrepreneurship:  

Cisco will work with internal, national and international venture capital entities to provide multi-stage funding for global technologies. The company has already announced a $6 million investment in the Baida Impact Fund in Jordan to support early stage online and mobile innovation, healthcare technologies and services, e-commerce, consumer Internet and digital media services in Jordan. This funding represents the first allocation from the $10 million venture capital investment commitment, initially outlined by Cisco in May 2011, targeted at small businesses that provide innovative products, services and solutions.

1. Facilitating Innovation 

Cisco holds 19,000 patents, 7,000 of which are for software innovation. 25,000 engineers, $6.3 billion R&D 

1. Public and Private Partnerships 

Through the Cisco Country Digitization Acceleration partnership, new and established businesses will gain access and export opportunities to markets worldwide through Cisco’s global distribution channels. 

1. Infrastructure:

Build an infrastructure that gives citizens access to the finest healthcare, city services, education, entertainment and many other areas – all in a highly secure environment.  Today, Cisco is involved in over Smart City/ IoT/IoE projects worldwide, including in the UAE:

• Dubai Design District - advisory and consultancy-led services as well as a Data Virtualization Platform for the d3 smart city project. As part of the award, Cisco will provide an ICT Master Plan for the district and also build a Cisco Smart and Connected City Infrastructure Management layer. 
• Department of Economic Development (DED) - ‘24/7,’ an innovative round-the-clock service point developed on the Cisco Remote Expert for Government Services (REGS) platform, in line with the Dubai Smart Government initiatives. 
• Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) - upgraded technology infrastructure to support future expansion plans in line with Dubai Smart City goals which included migration of its Al Qussais and Jebel Ali data center network. Cisco Advanced Services conducted an audit at the end of the project to certify the implementation.
• Du - the first telecom company in the world to deploy Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), to cope with the growing demand for IT application and hosting and cloud services. 
• Etisalat –entered into a strategic agreement with Cisco for the supply, delivery and implementation of a Cisco Virtualization and Software Defined Networking (SDN) Proof of Concept in Etisalat’s network to help shape their SDN and virtualization strategy and future business needs.

GBM’s Annual Security Study Stresses that Security is Key to Digital Transformation:

With security issues surrounding the Internet now the number 1 priority in the digital era, more and more organizations in the Middle East are increasingly seeing the value of adopting an end to end security approach that is as pervasive as the Internet of Everything (IoE) itself. Cybersecurity solutions need to protect not just networks and devices, but also critical applications and data. Identity-based user and device authentication is critical to securing applications and data across mobile and cloud deployments.

Security is an important discussion within organizations and government bodies. While those discussions continue to evolve, it is important to note that threats to smarter and efficient operations exist right now. In the fourth edition of the GBM Annual Security Study, they focus on regional executives’ awareness and readiness to address these security challenges.

GBM’s Annual Security Study polled 500 IT professionals based in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait. One key outcome of the survey is that there is a lack of awareness of the laws and regulations related to cyber security in GCC respondents’ respective countries - 80 per cent of respondents were not aware of the cyber protection laws in their own country, Additionally, the survey has shown that security breaches in the GCC are on the rise, with one in five participants being aware of a privacy violation in the past 12 months, yet behavior has changed little in light of increased breaches.

The survey also highlighted that while 80 per cent of executives said they use their personal mobile for work and personal use, less than 10 per cent use appropriate security measures. Meanwhile, 50 per cent of respondents use only one type of security measure to access data on their mobile devices, generally a password or PIN.