1

CIO Middle East . A recent MuleSoft global survey of 1,739 line of business

( LoB ) employees in organisations with at least 250 employees revealed only 37 % of organisations definitely have the skills and technology to keep pace with digital projects during the COVID-19 pandemic .

Dubbed ‘ The State of Business and IT Innovation ’ report , the survey found that the vast majority ( 82 %) of LoB employees believe they need quick and easy access to data , IT systems and applications to do their jobs effectively and remain productive .

In this regard , we continue to cover articles in this edition of the magazine addressing the issues of cloud solutions and the agility cloud offers organisations as they push and speed up their Digital Transformation agendas . expectations for convenient , real-time banking was the launch of Liv , an award-winning digital bank targeted to millennial customers who prefer to manage accounts , financial goals and services digitally . The aim of our transformation is to increase the speed and flexibility of IT delivery with best practices – for architecture , security , data and everything in between – while reducing long-term operational costs .” You can read more by turning to page 58 .

Elsewhere in the magazine , we look at cloud solutions and the impact the cloud is having on organisations in the Middle East as they accelerate their Digital Transformation strategies . According to research firm IDC , the wider Middle East , Turkey and Africa ( META ) region , will see public cloud spending increase to US $ 2.8 billion by the end of 2020 , a figure which will rise to US $ 6.5 billion by 2024 . You will find this article on page 51 .

Gracing the cover of this all-new magazine design is Miguel Rio Tinto , Group CIO , Emirates NBD , the UAEheadquartered bank that provides retail , wholesale and corporate financial services across the Gulf state and international markets . Tinto tells us how Emirates NBD has increased the speed and flexibility of IT delivery while controlling costs after it embarked on an ambitious multimillion-dollar initiative to transform its end-to-end technology infrastructure and practices .

“ It ’ s no longer about competition from other banks but from new companies that are entering the financial services market with much more flexible , less expensive cloud-native IT platforms ,” says Tinto .

As indicated earlier , in this new magazine design , we have all your favourite features , opinion , insight pieces and analysis articles from the Middle East . You can also read daily news updates on our website at www . intelligentcio . com / me /.

And kindly , don ’ t forget if you would like to get in touch please email me at manda @ lynchpinmedia . co . uk . Once again , I would also like to wish you a great start to the New Year . We hope you like the new design for 2021 . Enjoy the read !

Among the many insights , Tinto shares that : “ One of Emirates NBD ’ s strategies to meet customer

Manda Banda Editor

www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO MIDDLE EAST 7