Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 52 | Page 7

EDITOR’S NOTE W elcome to the latest edition of Intelligent CIO Middle East. It’s not every issue we feature a government minister on our cover but this month we are delighted to feature HE Mothanna Gharaibeh, Jordan’s Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship. On p55 he tells us about how a government department in Jordan has completed its migration to Nutanix enterprise cloud software. As a result, it can now manage all of its infrastructure, including storage, network and virtual machines, from a single location. Like many countries in the Middle East, Jordan is making great strides in the use of digital technology with the benefits being that its economy has been reinvigorated, and entrepreneurship and innovation have been promoted with the happy consequence of creating jobs. In many ways, the country has set an example for its regional peers to follow through its establishment of cloud computing to establish best practices for digital migration and e-government services. In this month’s Trending we look at how research from AVEVA has revealed key investment priorities for Digital Transformation agendas. AVEVA, a global leader in engineering and industrial software, has revealed global survey findings identifying www.intelligentcio.com the key investment drivers of Digital Transformation across 1,240 EMEA, North America and APAC decision-makers across nine industry verticals. There are some fascinating insights to be taken, including how the region compares to the global average for its demand for AI. You can find out more by turning to p23. In ‘CIO Opinion’ we look at three key considerations for CIOs when they are pursuing their IoT initiatives. As usual, we have all your favourite features and a comprehensive news roundup from across the region. You can also read daily news updates on our website at www.intelligentcio.com/me/. And please don’t forget if you would like to get in touch please email me at mark@lynchpinmedia.co.uk. I’d like to wish you a good month ahead and please enjoy the read! Given the disruption IoT initiatives can cause when they are introduced it’s vital that CIOs push for involvement in their business’ IoT strategies from the start. Subbu Iyer, CMO, Riverbed Technology, offers three key considerations for CIOs pursuing IoT initiatives. Concerningly, 59% of IoT strategies are planned without the direct involvement of IT or IT is only involved after the crucial decisions have been made, according to Gartner. Mark Bowen Editor “For IoT projects to be successful, IT must place themselves back in the conversation,” he said. “Partnering with other stakeholders to understand what other initiatives are planned and establishing whether the underlying IT infrastructure will be capable of supporting IoT, is a crucial part of this process.” I won’t reveal what the key considerations are but you can find out by turning to p44. INTELLIGENTCIO 7