EDITOR’S COMMENT
Regional SMEs part of
transformation wave
S
mall and medium enterprises in
the Middle East and North African
region have an advanced appetite for
digital transformation, and are approaching
technology investments like larger
enterprises, investing in technology as a
competitive differentiator.
The small and medium enterprise sector
has the potential to be one of the key drivers
in the country, where Expo 2020 is rightly
believed to bring massive opportunity to
the sector. The landmark announcement by
Expo 2020 Dubai of 20% of the Expo’s total
direct and indirect spend being allocated
to both local and international small and
medium enterprises has put the spotlight
on the important role that these enterprises
play in the economic growth of the country.
According to the statement, small and
medium enterprises represent almost
94% of the total number of companies
operating in the UAE, with 400,000 small
and medium enterprises contributing 60%
of the nation’s gross domestic product, and
that will increase to 70% by 2021. The focus
on this sector is not limited to Dubai.
The neighboring country Saudi Arabia
has also brought attention towards boosting
the sector in the country in its Vision 2030
agenda and recently established a $1.1
billion fund aimed at developing its venture
capital industry and supporting the creation
of these companies.
The small and medium enterprise
sector in this region is one of the fastest
evolving sectors and has become crucial in
promoting competitiveness and introducing
new products or techniques to the changing
market dynamics around the world.
Accompanying this growth and evolution
are issues that were previously considered
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Mohammed Areff is Vice President for Avaya,
Middle East and Africa region
Small and medium
enterprise sector in
this region is one of
the fastest evolving
sectors and has become
crucial in promoting
competitiveness
only in larger enterprise organisations,
which present challenges both for the
small and medium enterprises and for the
companies that support them.
For their part, these enterprises also
need to become more educated and aware
of these potential issues and evolve to
counteract them. For instance, a small and
medium enterprise is likely to be just as
susceptible to security breaches such as
phishing attacks and viruses, as a bank or
another large organisation would be.
A small retail store faces the challenge
of accommodating customer expectations
of immediate gratification as much as
any other store and hence cannot afford
downtime or system failure. This only goes
to prove that redundancy and resilience
are every bit as important to a small and
medium enterprise as they are to a bigger
organisations.
New technologies are powerful drivers of
middle market empowerment and the small
and medium enterprise sector is looking
to have enterprise-grade solutions that
provide the right kind of security and agility
they need. While the government is equally
supportive of the growth of this sector and
actively encourages innovation and enables
productivity, costs remain a key concern.
Many of these businesses rely on
partnering with enhanced support and
outsourced solutions that enable adoption
and support for new technologies without
having to invest in new employees, servers,
appliances, and networks.
The integration of small and medium
enterprises into delivery of Expo 2020
Dubai and the advent of advancing
technology has created unimaginable
opportunities. In order to shoulder this
responsibility of innovation, the adoption of
digital transformation is a must to deliver
the customer experience that tech-savvy
consumers in this region expect with costeffective, scalable solutions that can evolve
as they grow.
Issue 02
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS