• Cost, strategy, regulatory compliance and availability of skillsets continue to remain some of the major challenges towards achieving digital transformation.

The transformation to cloud solutions has catapulted across the GCC, thanks to Covid-19, even as more organisations are moving towards adopting hybrid cloud solutions.

Though CIOs continue to face hindrances in terms of cost allocation, available skillsets and security concerns, the compulsions created by the onset of the pandemic have reversed the otherwise conservative approach to a more robust yet cautious move towards digital transformation.

Mostafa Zafer, Vice-President for Cloud and Cognitive Software at IBM MEA, says Covid-19 not only accented a lot of challenges but at the same time accelerated the movement to digital transformation.

Four major challenges

Listing out four major challenges towards digital transformation, he says that cost – in terms of how to be cost-efficient; compliance – to local governance and government governance and regulators; strategy – where clients want to have strategic optionality, where technology has to remain agnostic; and finally the availability of skillsets – firstly the lack of skills and also the usability of available skills.

He was speaking on “Charting the journey to the cloud,” – a panel discussion as part of the virtual GBM Unlock DX Summit.

Speaking during the discussion, Zainab Al Quwaitaei, CIO – Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), says the biggest challenge is the lack or absence of digital strategy.

“There is a need to identify a clear vision and a set of goals,” she says, adding that there is still a considerable employee pushback to transformation.

“People are the key pillars of any organisation. For digital transformation, you need to get people out of their comfort zone. People feel threatened and will affect productivity,” she says, listing change management and employee adoption as the main concern among CIOis.

Right strategy

Abdullah Al Rashdi, Chief Digitisation Architect – Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), says within his organisation, initially, it was a trial of different technologies and there were failures when there was an effort made to scale up.

“We formed a specific committee which started driving to scale,” he says, adding that it is important to have the right skills.

“We started equipping the centre of excellence with the right skills and people. We had to prioritise all the initiatives and assess which are driving the maximum value. It is a journey and we need to take everyone on board,” he added.

Dr Ammar Hasan Alhusaini, Deputy Director General – Central Agency for Information Technology (CAIT) Kuwait, says the three pillars for a successful digital transformation are people, processes and the journey towards achieving it.

“We need to come up with the right strategy for digital transformation. The challenges include acceptance of change and bringing on board all the stakeholders. We have to address the lack of digital skills with upskilling and reskilling,” he said.

Sanjay Khanna, Chief Information Officer – RAKBANK UAE, says the main challenge for the banking sector is on deciding what changes you need to bring in.

Hybrid approach

“Our strategy is a hybrid approach – due to various constraints we cannot put all applications on cloud,” he says adding that lack of skilled resources, security issues and regulatory compliance continue to some of the key challenges on the cloud.

According to him, it is important for organisations to assess the business value of what they are investing when it comes to digital transformation.
“Cost management and control and decisions about when to scale up and scale down is a challenge. We have learned over the years,” he says.

Al Quwaitaei also noted that strugling to link the value of digital transformation to business is a key challenge.

Zafer meanwhile stressed on the importance for companies to automate. “there is a need for automation to free up skills and investments. Winners are those who can scale up with data and get insights in longer turn.”