EDITOR’S NOTE
W
elcome to the latest edition
of Intelligent CIO Middle East
magazine. With the Seera
Group leading the way for the Digital
Transformation of the tourism and travel
industry, this month’s cover features
Abdulrahman Mutrib, its Executive Vice
President and Group CTO.
In a wide-ranging interview, we find out about
the company’s trailblazing commitment to
technology. “We pride ourselves on being ‘a
technology company that happens to work in
travel’,” he tells us. “Tech innovation is central
to everything we do.”
Among the many topics discussed we
discover how the Seera Group has driven
pioneering technology initiatives in the travel
sector, how it has adopted cloud strategy
across the organisation and we discuss the
technology the group is looking to invest in.
He says: “In 2020, we will look into investing
in Artificial Intelligence and Machine
Learning as we believe these will greatly
enable predictive travel demand and enable
the industry to highly personalise the
travel experience including services such as
experienced smart chatbots.” To find out
more, including how the company has driven
technical innovation to serve customers’
specific business needs, turn to page 58.
In this month’s ‘Trending’ we hear about a
survey from IBM which reveals that 91% of
leaders in the Middle East and Africa strongly
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believe the correct use of data can help
strengthen customer trust and, best of all,
bottom lines.
IBM’s 20th edition of its bi-annual C-Suite
Study, Build Your Trust Advantage, polled
nearly 900 C-level executives across the
Middle East and Africa to examine how
companies in the region are achieving
market leadership by emphasising trust in
their use and sharing of data.
result plotting the right path to achieving a
shared understanding within the business
depends on being clear on definition,
purpose and constraints. More is explained
on page 44.
We have, as ever, all the regular features and
news. If you would like to contact me send
an email to mark@lynchpinmedia.co.uk
For the time being, enjoy the read!
The study found that market leadership
is most frequently attained when an
organisation establishes a high level of trust
in data from its customers, its own business
processes and across its partner ecosystem.
To find out more about the survey turn to
page 25.
In this edition’s ‘CIO Opinion’ we hear
from Tom Needs, COO at Node4, who helps
to demystify Digital Transformation and
explains what yours might actually look
like, as well as how to find the right path for
your business.
Mark Bowen
Editor
He tells us: “One of the biggest challenges
of Digital Transformation is the fact that
the term has been so widely applied. It’s
now something of a cliché, or as Forrester
suggests, has ‘come to mean so many things
that it’s almost meaningless.’”
He explains that what Digital
Transformation actually means will be
different for every organisation and as a
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