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Middle East IT Priorities 2017

Your expert guide to Subtitle

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of 28

In this e-guide

IT Priorities 2017: More than

half of Middle East

organisations will reduce

spending on IT staff

Saudi Arabia enterprise IT

trends for 2017

The United Arab Emirates

enterprise IT trends for 2017

Private and public cloud

fuelled Emea infrastructure

sales in Q3, shows IDC data

Hiring cyber security and big

data experts named top

priority for IT recruiters in

2017

Hybrid cloud set to dominate

datacentre infrastructure

buying decisions


In this e-guide:

arget IT Priorities

survey has revealed that over half of IT decision makers at

Middle East based organisations are planning on reducing

how much they spend on IT staff, despite the growing

importance of IT to business.

While only 17% of the IT decision-makers surveyed expect

overall IT budgets to be lower in 2017 than in 2016, a

whopping 53% expect a drop in the amount of budget

allocated to IT staff. This means CIOs will have to find ways

to save money in certain areas so they can afford the new

expertise they will inevitable need to support digital

transformations. For example, also in this e-guide, read how

the search for big data and security skills will be key

challenges for CIOs across the world.

And CIOs in the Middle East are expecting to integrate new

digital technologies like these into the business. For example

read how despite low crude oil prices, the Gulf region is set to


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spend big on new and existing IT projects to drive business

innovation in 2017. Total ICT investment in the Middle East,

Turkey and Africa (META) is forecast to reach $243bn in

2017, according to IDC.

Saudi Arabia will lead the way investing an annual budget of

$7.5bn in transformative technologies such as cloud, big data,

social and mobility. Meanwhile the United Arab Emirates,

which is already a leader in areas such as smart city

developments, looks set to see organisations in the country

increase adoption of other transformational IT.

Karl Flinders, Emea content editor


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Karl Flinders, Emea content editor

Over half of organisations in the Middle East plan to reduce the amount of

money they spend on IT staff in 2017, despite the need for new skills.

While only 17% of IT decision-makers surveyed by Computer

Weekly/TechTarget expect overall IT budgets to be lower in 2017 than in

2016, a significant 53% expect a drop in the budget allocated to IT staff.

With organisations adopting the latest technologies, IT leaders in the Middle

East will therefore face a challenge to gain access to new skills while

keeping IT staff costs down. For example, 24% are planning a big data

initiative and 21% will have some focus on internet of things (IoT) technology,

both of which require specific expertise.

When it comes to big data, IDC analyst Megha Kumar told Computer weekly

in November 2016 that Saudi Arabian organisations need to nurture roles

such as data analysts and data scientists, who are able to understand and

make decisions based on the analysis of big data.


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There is also a skills shortage in the Middle East in areas such as

virtualisation, with a need to improve education and understanding where

virtualisation and mobility are concerned.

Middle East CIOs will need to free up budget for the latest technologies by

cutting IT staff costs in other areas.

One possibility is IT automation, which is already a priority in the Middle

East. The research revealed that this is the most planned broad strategy for

IT decision-makers in the Middle East, with 43% planning initiatives around

this in 2017. This will reduce the need for staff to carry out repetitive tasks

and free up budget to recruit people with the required skills.

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Alicia Buller, technology journalist

Amid a climate of low crude oil prices, the Gulf region is set to spend big on

new and existing IT projects to drive business innovation in 2017.

Total ICT investment in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) is

forecast to reach $243bn in 2017, according to IDC. The research firm

2016.

Saudi Arabia will lead the way in IT spending in 2017, investing an annual

budget of $7.5bn in transformative technologies such as cloud, big data,

social and mobility.

Birag Siraj, , said the current

economic climate made cost-cutting initiatives the key factor, but added:

Jonas Zelba, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said big data was initially

seen as a buzzword in Saudi Arabia, but the technology has quickly become


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perform operational improvements, but now the emphasis is shifting to the

application of insights and the resulting revenue generation or cost

analytics to become smarter, both in terms of self-adjustment and self-

The IDC META trends report 2017 predicts that big data analytics will

become increasingly more predictive than descriptive, driving new use cases

around exploration and discovery, performance management and

operational intelligence.

had typically

struggled to obtain reliable market data, but effective big data applications

the market with their access to usage and location data, as well as billing

the way in utilising big data analytics to enhance customer insights and

Government IT focus

firm

commitment to accelerating e-commerce with the recent establishment of


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Siraj said he expected to see furthe

government encouraged e-payment and wireless payments through banks

and telcos, as well as e-government payments.

in 2017, with governments and their partners looking to enable innovative

transportation, citizen engagement, and emergency response services that

drive improvements in the lives of residents.

Everything as a service

Zelba said the hybrid integrated cloud ecosystem would be delivered

increasingly as a service on demand, ranging from computing infrastructure

and business processes to personal contents and applications.

computing environment based on their needs at

-effectively upscale or

Zelba expected to see growth in communication, datacentre, monitoring and

business processes all offered as a service.


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2017. Ranjit Rajan, analyst at IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey, said the

cloud would accelerate to a new level of adoption in 2017, with increased

competition among cloud providers driving aggressive pricing, bundling and

customer service, as well as a growing focus on securing SME accounts.

Rise of the IoT

IDC also expects the emergence of innovation accelerators to usher in a

new wave of IT disruption as early adoption gathers pace. It expects the

transformational impact of the internet of things (IoT) to become more

evident over the next 12 months, with prominent use cases including freight

monitoring, smart grid electricity, manufacturing operations, production

asset management and remote health monitoring.

In the light of these developments, the biggest spenders on IoT in 2017 are

ilities and

healthcare verticals.

Information security

Zelba pointed out that digital transformation, with initiatives around the

cloud, bring your own device (BYOD) and the IoT, also brings security risks.

This was creating a fundamental shift from traditional parameter protection


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and anti-virus activity towards content and application governance security

models, he said.

his technology

agenda for 2017.

As hacking incidents increase, Zelba predicts growing demand for biometric

technologies and encryption software.

According to the IDC report, maintaining security continues to be the top

with spending on security systems by

META organisations set to hit $2bn in 2017. The analyst expects the top five

investment priorities in this area to be threat management, compliance

remediation, security management, automatic malware removal and mobile

security.

Digital transformation drives

The last 12 months have been particularly challenging for the Gulf region,

due to issues such as currency volatility and weak oil and commodity prices,

according to -president and regional

managing director for META

expect organisations to start pushing ahead with their planned technology

-and-


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emerging technologies are increasingly leveraged in an effort to drive

desired business outcomes. Innovation will be key in this regard, and we

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Alicia Buller, technology journalist

As the UAE braves tumbling oil prices and gears up for the World Expo

2020, the country is set to increase its IT spending.

technologies such as cloud, big data, social and mobility become investment

priorities.

-called innovation

accelerators, such as the internet of things (IoT), robotics, virtual reality,

next-

-president and regional managing

director for Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META).

to $75m in 2017, according to IDC.

Ranjit Rajan, associate vice-president of research at IDC Middle East, said

increased competition among cloud providers would drive aggressive


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pricing, bundling and customer service, and there would be a growing focus

on securing small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) accounts.

Meanwhile, the transformational impact of the internet of things (IoT) will

begin to show in the UAE in 2017.

According to IDC, IoT technology will become more evident in sectors such

as freight monitoring, smart grid electricity, manufacturing operations,

production asset management, and remote health monitoring.

The biggest spenders on IoT in the UAE next year are tipped to be the

manufacturing, transportation, utilities and healthcare verticals.

While there is heavy investment in technologies such as cloud and IoT, there

is a deeper underlying trend. Jonas Zelba, analyst at Frost and Sullivan, said

the latest fad in the UAE enterprise market was digitisation, a process that

identified all the areas of a business that could be transformed by ICT to

offer integrated products and services.

vity can improve profitability

in sectors as diverse as oil exploration, agri-processing and the clothing

industry, but expect ICT providers to start positioning themselves as

complete, end-to-end partners with the ability to transform their clients into

d


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Mobile payments ecosystem expands

Perhaps the most overt digital transformation being seen globally is in

payments. Every day, people are paying for goods and services using their

mobile phones or contactless cards.

The UAE has traditionally been the pioneer of mobile payments in the Gulf

Cooperation Council region. But in 2017, Zelba said there would be growth in

two areas:

Mobile-based merchant payments and international remittances will be

increasingly adopted, and help to expand the broader mobile payments

ecosystem.

More companies will enter the mobile money market. Most prominent among

these will be the major internet players, such as Google, Facebook and

Apple, who are using communication platforms to

wallets.¨

Forget BYOD

Mobile is also changing how workers do their jobs, and their employers have

to react to this. For example, UAE enterprises are being challenged by the

concept of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and its impact on data security

and privacy.


http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450401597/UAE-telco-launches-mobile-wallet

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Zelba at IDC said the complexity of supporting a range of personal devices

However, no sooner have IT departments achieved this than BYOS (bring-

your-own-software or, potentially, service) has emerged as a fresh

challenge, he said.

productivity and drive efficiencies by reducing IT costs. As an added benefit,

allowing employees to select their own tools increases satisfaction.

internal IT capabilities, but the emergence of BYOS is set to challenge these

Datacentre growth

The IT infrastructure supporting new technologies might not be as exciting,

but it is just as important.

Phil Collerton, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) managing director

at Uptime Institute for the datacentre sector in the Middle East, said

initiatives such as smart cities, e-government, last-mile connectivity and

mobile and cloud adoption continued to drive demand for datacentre and

related services in the UAE.


http://uptimeinstitute.com/

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cater for local digitisation agendas and act as edge datacentres for

Collerton said countries in the Middle East were building datacentre

continue to compete to become the regional digital hub, he added.

UAE tech salaries to rise

A consequence of all the IT investment in the UAE is increased demand for

local IT professionals.

The adoption of emerging technologies, ERP platforms and mobile systems

is driving strong demand for talented technology professionals in the region.

According to the Robert Half 2017 Salary Guide, technology roles in the UAE

are set to see average starting salaries increase by of 2.4%, which is on a

par with starting salaries for professional roles.

Chief information security officers (CISOs) can expect to see the biggest

starting salary rises of all technology C-suite roles in the coming year. A

starting salary increase of 5.2% will see CISO positions command salaries

of between $163,500 and $255,000.


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With an increased awareness of the potential dangers of cyber threats, the

need for strong leadership within IT security is driving the demand for

experienced CISOs in the region.

the business world and is quickly becoming a fundamental piece of the

Gareth El Mettouri, associate director at recruitment firm

Robert Half UAE.

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Caroline Donnelly, datacentre editor

Demand for private cloud-enabling technologies continued to grow at pace

across Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) during the third quarter of

2016, .

Quarterly Cloud Infrastructure Tracker shows

revenue generated by the sales of private cloud-enabling technologies were

up 24.8% on the previous year, and hit $0.9bn during the third quarter.

The revenue generated by sales of public cloud infrastructure grew 13.9%,

year-on-year, and topped $0.7bn, suggesting the private versus public cloud

debate will continue to rage across Emea for a long time to come.

Meawhile, sales of traditional, on-premise hardware were down 14.5% year-

on-year, but still account for around 59% of the revenue generated by the

market as a whole.

According to IDC, a lot of the demand for private cloud technologies in the

region is being fuelled by enterprises looking to refresh and consolidate

their on-premise infrastructure.


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Jiri Helebrand, research manager for Systems and Infrastructure Solutions

at IDC at Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (Cema),

region as organisations that are consolidating their IT infrastructure seek

greater flexibility, lower capex [capital expenditure], and faster

The IDC tracker monitors sales of the servers, storage and networking

technologies used to underpin both public and private cloud environments.

The market watcher predicts, by 2020, the cloud-related portion of the

entire Emea infrastructure market, which includes on-premise hardware, will

be worth $10.9bn and account for around 35.4% of total sales.

During the third quarter of 2016, private and public cloud-enabling

technologies made up around 24.9% of Emea-wide infrastructure sales, up

6% on the previous year.

Kamil Gregor, research analyst in the European Infrastructure Group at IDC,

said the growing demand for cloud technologies ties in with several other

industry megatrends.

ed by increasing maturity and adoption rates of many new cloud-

dependent technologies such as the internet of things [IoT], cloud continues

to represent an area of tremendous growth for the European infrastructure


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we are beginning to see not only specific solutions

based on third platform and innovation accelerator technologies, but

increasingly often innovative solutions that combine multiple technologies to

harness unique value that none of the technologies could unlock alone.

from the internet of things edge devices with real-time and big data analytics

in subverticals, such as advanced building automation, manufacturing asset

management and

In a cautionary note to the supplier community, Gregor pointed to the

changing political and data protection landscape across Europe and the

impact this is having on cloud adoption rates.

cloud adoption in the region, mainly due to political volatility in the EU, both

in 2016 and potentially continuing throughout 2017, and as we approach the

end of a two- General Data Protection

Regulation

mitigating these issues, for example by taking blockchain technology from

the world of financial transactions and applying it to automation of policy


http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450401195/Post-Brexit-drop-in-pound-sees-cloud-costs-rise-by-1750-a-year-for-UK-firms-451-Research-shows

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Cyber security professionals can expect to find themselves in high demand

during 2017, as research suggests individuals with those skills will be most

highly sought after by IT recruiters.

and Jobsite, which suggests nearly half (47%) of hiring managers expect to

increase the number of IT workers they employ during 2017.

The organisations surveyed 700 senior technology professionals about their

2017 recruitment plans to compile their Technology and Recruitment The

Landscape for 2017 report.

Their findings suggest IT workers with a background in cyber security will be

in highest demand next year, with 54% of respondents setting out plans to

embark on recruitment drives in this area during 2017.

The organisations said, with data breaches continuing to make headlines

throughout 2016, demand for cyber security professionals is likely to rise in


http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450281379/Lack-of-career-progression-pushes-IT-workers-to-shop-around-for-jobs

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enterprises, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups over the

course of the next 12 months.

Ahsan Iqbal, associate director for technology recruitment at Robert

employers over the past year and this trend is set to continue into 2017.

Individuals with business intelligence (BI) and big data experience are also

expected to be in high demand next year, with 36% of participants setting

out plans to recruit people with these types of expertise.

According to the survey, this is on the back of a growing awareness among

employers about how their businesses stand to benefit from having access

to big data analytics tools and skills.

Lee Allen, sales director at Jobsite, said demand for big data skills is

particularly acute in certain industries, including healthcare and

manufacturing.

analysis of external and internal data is becoming more and more

len.


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BI and big data specialists is particularly high from employers in

fields such as FMCG, media, automotive and manufacturing, with employers

To boost their chances of attracting the best candidates and retaining the

ones they do have, 69% of respondents said they will be offering flexible

working conditions, alongside opportunities for career (54%) development

and training (53%).

flexible hours, the option to work remotely and the potential for long term

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Connecting on-premise datacentre assets to public cloud resources will be

a top investment priority for UK and European IT decision makers in 2017,

research suggests.

According to the findings of the 2017 Computer Weekly/Tech Target IT

Priorities survey, readying their on-premise infrastructure for hybrid cloud

has been voted the number one datacentre investment priority by IT

decision makers across the continent.

With enterprises increasingly looking to tap into off-premise resources, the

hybrid cloud is often seen as a delivery model that will enable them to do

that while making the most of their existing datacentre investments.

Which is important for enterprises that might still have several or more years

still to run on their existing datacentre leases, but do not want to miss out on

the cost savings and business agility benefits public cloud could bring.


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All of the major cloud providers including Microsoft, Google and Amazon

Web Services (AWS) have spent a large portion of 2016 setting out their

enterprise hybrid cloud strategies for this reason.

According analyst Gartner, 2017 is also likely to see an uptick in enterprises

looking to manage public, private and hybrid cloud resources from a

multitude of providers, as their digital transformation efforts in this area

continue to mature and evolve.

continue to increase, the use of private cloud

and hosted private cloud services is also expected to increase at least

said Gartner.

iders, plus growth in various

types of private cloud services, will create a multicloud environment in most

The rise and rise of cloud computing

The annual Computer Weekly/TechTarget poll shines a light on the

investment plans of European IT managers over the coming year, and more

than 1,000 of them (including 322 from the UK) took part in the 2017 survey,

with cloud overall set to be a keen area of focus for the majority over the

course of the next 12 months.


http://www.computerweekly.com/microscope/news/4500271927/Microsoft-strengthens-hybrid-argument-with-Azure-Stack

http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Interview-Google-cloud-chief-Diane-Greene-on-winning-over-the-enterprise-market

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450404123/The-need-for-speed-Inside-the-cloud-innovation-engine-at-AWS

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http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3443517

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Just over a quarter (27.8%) of respondents said they anticipate their IT

budget will either remain the same or increase (38.1%) in 2017, and cloud will

be responsible for consuming a growing proportion of their annual spend.

Indeed, cloud services was namechecked in both the UK and European

versions of the poll as the number one area IT decision makers expect to

see an increase in budget for during 2017.

The results are in line with analyst predictions for the year ahead, with

Voice of the enterprise report stating

that enterprises will increase their IT budget spend on cloud from 28% this

year to 34% in 2017.

ere is a perceived benefit to moving from

making big capital expenditures on computing hardware to moving to a

more operational model where you only pay for the capacity as you need it.

Liam Eagle, research

manager and co-author of the 451 Research report.

s to resources, and

Outside of the infrastructure space, the 2017 IT Priorities survey also

revealed that software-as-a-service (SaaS) looks set to be the most highly


http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450402923/Cloud-set-to-net-a-larger-share-of-enterprise-IT-budgets-in-2017-claims-451-Research

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450403702/Growing-multi-cloud-demand-means-providers-must-diversify-to-survive-warns-451-Research

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favoured application deployment model in 2017, with just over half (57%) of

UK respondents voting for it. This was the same for the European version,

where 46.9% of pollsters voted SaaS.

Hybrid cloud environments were voted the second most popular location for

application deployment in both versions of the poll, reinforcing earlier

findings from the report that suggest building out capabilities in this area will

be a top priority for enterprise IT leaders in 2017.

Looking back and to the year ahead

server virtualisation

was named as the top datacentre investment priority for respondents in

both the UK and European versions of the survey.

Server virtualisation has slid down to sixth place in the 2017 UK poll, with

22% of the vote, and is ranked third in this

in demand for server virtualisation technologies could be expected in 2017,

as enterprises move to wind down their on-premise infrastructure

investments and reach a point where they have virtualised all they can.

technology for these businesses, but this market segment is approaching





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ler IT budgets expect a further decline in usage

through to at least 2017. This is causing an overall decline in new spending

for on-

Another IT buying trend affecting this part of the market is the fact that

enterprises are increasing their use of servers that do not need to be

virtualised, thanks to the growing popularity of software-defined and hyper-

converged infrastructure stacks.

only a few years ago is now being challenged by an array of newer

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