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FEATURE: ANALYTICS
The lifeblood of Digital
Transformation
Andy Froemmel, Head of Cloud, Middle East North, SAP,
says data has transformed from being the ‘new oil’ to
the ‘lifeblood’ of Digital Transformation
the region’s cloud-based analytics growth
by recently going live on public cloud data
centres in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and
the UAE.
Every industry vertical can benefit from data
analytics, which can measure everything
from geo-location tracking for smart
parking, malls and stadiums, to social media
sentiment and barrels of oil being pumped
or retail items shipped. But it also puts a
responsibility on to the shoulders of every
company to manage data carefully and
comply with regulations like GDPR.
One of the biggest opportunities is to train
the workforce in digital skills. While not
every employee needs to be a data scientist,
employer demand for analytics skills has been
growing by double and triple-digits over the
past few years (88% in the UAE and 455%
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), according to
the recent SAP and Oxford Economics survey
Workforce 2020. Supporting digital skills
growth, SAP recently became a partner for the
One Million Arab Coders Initiative, and our
Refugee Code Week initiative trained more
than 16,000 youth in coding skills in Europe,
the Middle East and Africa. n
In the Middle East, we are seeing strong
analytics success in mega-events, such
as with Expo 2020 Dubai transforming
experiences for a projected 25 million
visitors; banking and finance with the Saudi
Arabian Monetary Authority enhancing
its budgeting; sport with sailing analytics
during the Oman Extreme Sailing Series; and
healthcare with Saudi Arabia’s Emdadat
fostering a digital procurement marketplace
for medical providers and suppliers.
Retail holds strong potential, with SAP Hybris
Labs prototyping using analytics, Artificial
Intelligence, and augmented and virtual
reality to personalise shopping experiences.
Particularly an end-to-end data and analytics
platform becomes key for retailers to provide
a seamless ‘digital-to-shop floor’ experience
and for the consumer to remain in control of
his or her data.
Middle East organisations are rapidly
adopting analytics solutions running on
our SAP HANA in-memory platform, SAP
S/4HANA real-time business suite, and
SAP Leonardo digital innovation system.
Organisations can see the biggest benefit
from integrating analytics with Blockchain,
IoT, and AI and Machine Learning.
www.intelligentcio.com
DATA ANALYTICS IS RAPIDLY
MOVING PAST BEING ‘THE NEW OIL’
TO BECOMING THE LIFEBLOOD OF
EVERY ORGANISATION’S DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
INTELLIGENTCIO
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