- Rapid digital transformation is happening among seven key verticals – banking, government, healthcare, oil and gas, professional services, retail and utilities.
- Top three technologies seeing investment are artificial intelligence, internet of things and analytics.
Dubai: SAP is planning to invest in more data centres across the Middle East in a bid to meet the growing demand for cloud computing, a top company official said.
“We are doing it with our direct investment and with our partners such as Microsoft, AWS, Google and Alibaba. If we are not adding more capacity, we are preventing the growth of cloud adoption,” Sergio Maccotta, Senior Vice-President for SAP Middle East South, told TechChannel News.
Moreover, he said that SAP was the first cloud player to open a data centre in the UAE by foreseeing the demand for cloud adoption.
SAP has two data centres, one in the UAE and one in Saudi Arabia.
In the UAE, he said that SAP is seeing 2.5 times more cloud adoption than on on-premises.
According to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), GCC public cloud market (IaaS, SaaS and PaaS) is expected to grow from $956 million this year to $2.35 billion in 2024, at an annual growth rate of 25 per cent.
IaaS is expected to grow by about 33 per cent and SaaS by 24 per cent this year.
In the long run, IDC said that IaaS and PaaS are going to grow at a much faster pace as cloud adoption is the new platform for most of the enterprises for cost reduction, agility, efficiency and innovation.
Maccotta said that cloud adoption is growing fast as organisations that digitally transform into intelligent enterprises can become more resilient, and both sustainably profitable and profitably sustainable.
In the second quarter of this year, SAP recorded a 21 per cent growth in global cloud revenues.
Despite the market in turmoil, he said that SAP has been seeing a 20 per cent growth from the beginning of the year.
Top three trends
In partnership with Oxford Economics, SAP surveyed 3,000 global business executives across 10 industries and revealed that 32 per cent of the organisations are investing in new technologies to analyse data.
The study showed that the top three technologies seeing investment are artificial intelligence (34 per cent), internet of things (33 per cent), and analytics (27 per cent).
Maccotta said that technology investments are contributing to organisational success, including improving citizen and customer experiences (48 per cent), employee experiences (47 per cent), and employee productivity (46 per cent).
“Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, UAE organisations are aligned with the global survey results that show many organisations are investing in new technologies across everyday operations to enhance employee and customer experiences,” he said.
In the Middle East and North Africa, SAP is seeing rapid digital transformation among seven key industry verticals: banking, government, healthcare, oil and gas, professional services, retail, and utilities.
“Middle East organisations are facing numerous challenges – including instituting remote work, changing workforce needs, supply chain disruption, reskilling and retraining employees, and getting closer to their customers,” he said.
Across the Middle East, he said that industry verticals are readily adopting the latest real-time innovations – from better understanding employee readiness for remote work to video-based courses, and posting sourcing needs from suppliers across the world on digital platforms.
“Middle East organisations that digitally transform now will emerge more agile, customer-centric and competitive post-pandemic,” he said.