COUNTRY FOCUS: LEBANON
With the ICT market in Lebanon expected
to reach US$543.5 million by 2019, the
country can boast a strong foundation
for digital transformation initiatives.
Intelligent CIO spoke to Kamal Othman,
General Manager, LEVANT, Dell EMC, to
find out how businesses in the country
are using technology to transform
themselves and their operations.
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An ideal platform
for transformation
What challenges do companies in
Lebanon face when embarking on
digital transformation?
Limited financial resources are the most
prominent barrier organisations in Lebanon
face in their journey to become a successful
digital business.
Budgets allocated towards development
of projects, reforms and initiatives for
advancement of the public sector and
collaboration between the public and private
sector hampers the progress towards creating
a digitised and innovation-focused economy.
This is closely followed by lack of reliable
data that is important to facilitate speedy
decision-making. New avenues of business
and revenue cannot be identified in the
absence of accurate data and lack of
knowledge management.
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Thirdly, lack of flexible rules and
regulations that govern the public
sector and organisational structures and
mechanisms thwart efforts channelled
towards automation and digitisation.
Moreover, lack of workforce readiness,
absence of digital vision and strategy
and technology constraints to work at the
speed of business also impede progress
of transformation journeys embarked by
organisations across Lebanon.
Why do different sectors in
Lebanon face a unique digital
transformation journey?
Most organisations across industries do not
have the freedom to start anew, or rip and
replace all their ICT investments in favour
of modern and advanced IT infrastructure.
Organisations have to contend with
traditional systems that house critical
data, so these systems cannot simply be
transformed overnight.
Therefore, while some of the industries
are much further along their digital
transformation journey, others are just
getting started and few have adopted a
piecemeal approach. This is because while
some of the issues and challenges faced by
organisations may be similar, their resources,
capabilities, appetite for disruption, and
business needs can vary quite significantly.
How can organisations in Lebanon
drive forward their digital
transformation strategies?
Digital transformation isn’t only about
implementing new mobile applications or
technologies. It is more about transforming
an organisation to leverage possibilities
provided by new technologies. However,
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