them. This is because sometimes they need
to travel long distances to attend some
major workshops to develop their innovation
plans so they are now bringing those to the
office. And when it comes to the major focus
with us it all goes along with the Kuwait
Vision 2035.
So we are engaged with the highest
authorities and we’re supporting this vision
from three key pillars. So basically from one
side, we’re providing the technology by
becoming a very strategic partner with the
technological expertise. From one side, we are
helping the country towards the realisation of
the Vision and monitoring the KPIs and the
progress of this over the years. We also pay
a lot of attention to the young generation,
providing them with the required skillsets
because they are going to be the leaders of
the future vision and the future innovations.
So, we are engaged in all the sectors.
What has the Kuwaiti market been
like over the past 12 months?
W
What is SAP’s involvement in Kuwait?
We have been increasing our operations and
supporting different sectors of the markets.
We are engaged with all the major segments
of the markets from the public sector, oil and
gas, to the financial industry and we support
the private sector, including the service and
retail industries. So, we are more or less
engaged with all the industries, that’s from
an engagement with the market level.
We’ve been increasing the size of our
operation over the last few years. We’ve
doubled the number of people that we
have in Kuwait. Earlier this year we actually
opened our new office with new innovation
rooms and innovation labs to support our
customers and to bring our technology to
www.intelligentcio.com
I would say that Kuwait is a mature market
with a lot of potential. What has been going
on over the last 12 months is setting the
foundation of the future so that mostly the
country was mainly focusing on building
the infrastructure and trying to digitise
and automate most of the services for the
citizens. This is because the major driver
in the market of Kuwait, with having lots
of people from the young generation, is
experience management. The experience
management drives the government side
by providing more services, because people
would expect to deal with their government
services. From the other side customer
experience is one of our major drivers so
we support the private sector into bringing
better customer experience.
Is the Kuwaiti Government
progressive in terms of IT?
They are and we’ve seen lots of
developments. Actually, there is a continuous
monitoring of the Vision and the realisation
of it. We’ve seen the Kuwait Chamber of
Commerce and industry examining new ways
of enabling the private sector to participate
in the national economy. We have also seen
the Central Bank as the main entity for the
financial sector, bringing a lot of talent and a
lot of innovation within the banking industry.
“
business
‘‘
TALKING
WE’VE SEEN
THE KUWAIT
CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE
AND INDUSTRY
EXAMINING
NEW WAYS OF
ENABLING THE
PRIVATE SECTOR
TO PARTICIPATE
IN THE NATIONAL
ECONOMY.
Esmat Ghanem, Sales Manager Kuwait, SAP
So the government is progressive and they
are serious about those plans.
Do you operate a channel
partnership in Kuwait?
Yes we do. We have quite a strong ecosystem
which we are also developing. We continue
recruiting to our ecosystem in Kuwait and
we support the country from our ecosystem
within the region by bringing the best
partners within certain areas to support
certain industries or certain business needs.
Can you name some of the channel
partners you work with in Kuwait?
In Kuwait, the top channel partners will
actually happen to be the top system
integrators. They are Diyar United and ITS
(International Turnkey Systems). These
are the top partners locally in Kuwait and
actually they are Kuwaiti companies. n
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