Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 82 | Page 59

CASE STUDY

tTalk us through Ittihad International Investment ’ s IT infrastructure and why it is critical for the company to embark on a Digital Transformation journey ?

Ittihad ’ s IT infrastructure is well-equipped with leading technologies of today , including software-defined WAN , hybrid and multi-cloud models , and hyper converged infrastructure , which enable the company to host and service enterprise business applications and data with maximum security .
We embarked on the Digital Transformation journey as part of our senior management ’ s vision and business requirements . Many of the entities in Ittihad are acquired entities . The lack of an efficient integrated system meant we had to deal with legacy solutions . This proved to be a major hurdle for management as it did not have visibility of business data on a single pane of glass that would help in making better and timely decisions .
What is Ittihad International Investment ’ s IT transformation strategy and what challenges did the company face prior to working with ManageEngine ?
Our main objective is to ensure reliable IT services and applications across all business units , relying on the latest technologies such as Artificial Intelligence , Machine Learning , and robotic process automation ( RPA ). Prior to deploying ManageEngine products , we were not able to organise and deliver effective IT services . Our IT team was always in a firefighting mode , with service unavailability impending our business .
Having looked around for suitable IT solutions currently in the market today , how did you settle for the technology ManageEngine ?
We reviewed five different solutions for ITSM and third-party patch management . ManageEngine turned out to suit our requirements perfectly . There are two key reasons why we chose ManageEngine solutions : a quicker time to value and the high availability architecture of ServiceDesk Plus . It is highly customisable and can adapt to Ittihad ’ s IT operational requirements . For example , reporting and user onboarding and offboarding were made easy through customisable workflows . Both were tedious and timeconsuming tasks while using other solutions .
Given that Ittihad International Investment is one of the largest conglomerates in the Middle East with operations in the UAE , Saudi Arabia , Uzbekistan and Egypt , how important is it for the company to have robust and secure IT infrastructure and systems ?
As Ittihad is operating multiple diversified businesses and growing rapidly , the organisation ’ s overall productivity , security , and connectivity has become more dependent on computing speed , cloud solutions ,
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