TRENDING

Susan Chang , Middle East and North Africa Channel Sales Manager , Advantech

At Advantech we offer ADAM WISE IO / EKI SWITCH / Wise-PaaS / Webacess HMI as a onestop ‘ shopping to domain ’ SI partner .

The C1D2 certified IPC / PPC / Switch / IO / router are still very popular in the MENA region , as well as AI use cases for vehicle application and industrial M2M Node and Gateway with NBIOT / LORA wireless communication .

Working with partners

We work closely with local partners . Normally we work with a distributor and vertical focused SI .

For example , if the application is related to water treatment then we will work with our local partner to offer products requested by the SI – it will normally come from an EPC contractor or the SI ’ s suggestion .

only have a good sales network but also have good vertical knowledge and know how to create synergy as well as software integration in the selected vertical markets such as O & G , energy and environment , Smart Cities and Digital Transformation .

Regional challenges and technology use cases

In the MENA region , there are ecosystems for O & G , power generation and distribution system industries with full solution offering . Previously , the closed world of OT worked perfectly , but the industrial IoT is becoming the new trend . The business model is a crossover between IT and OT , such a M2M , E2E , node to cloud . This is a totally different working model and a change for organisations . Customers cannot simply rely on their existing experience to adapt to this .

Advantech ’ s IIoT solution provides an open structure , PC-based gateway and data concentrator as infrastructure . We also have a solution for versatile Edges , hardware devices , an edge soft ready to use package and the Wise-PaaS cloud platform which contains industrial apps composed by our co-creation partner .

For both technology and business models , Advantech provides a ready to use platform to fulfil the gap to help the Digital Transformation progress smoothly .

One case in the GCC area , is for an O & G application . The customer is planning to build up piping monitoring systems and needs to have a full solution including I / O to retrieve data from a levelling sensor and a switch to communicate to the central control room . The control room also required visualisation .

If the project scale is smaller , our local partner will offer a solution diagram to the end user directly . So , we are very flexible and work closely with our local partners to best serve the needs of end users .

One local partner we ’ d like to highlight , and who we work closely with , is Startech GCC . They have been an integral part of our extended team in helping to promote and pass the benefits of this year ’ s star product ( New FPM-200 Series ) to end users .

Advice for CIOs accelerating Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation is a big topic but here are some practical suggestions :

1 . Make sure to prioritise efficiencies and technology optimisation first 2 . Carefully outline the expectation for ROI

At our recent IIoT Virtual Summit , entitled ‘ Connecting Industrial IoT innovation ’, our IIoT President , Linda Tsai , told delegates that agile innovation in the area of the Industrial Internet of Things ( IIoT ) will be the key in driving forward Digital Transformation in industrial applications into 2021 and beyond .

She identified six key technology trends for 2021 : Digital Transformation , 5G , decoupling , device-to-cloud digitalisation , empowered Edge and Artificial Intelligence ( AI ).

26 INTELLIGENTCIO www . intelligentcio . com