Technology & IT | Wednesday 4 May, 2016 4:02 pm |

International Data Corporation (IDC) today hosted the first day of its sixth annual Saudi Arabia CIO Summit. With more than 200 CIOs and line-of-business leaders in attendance at the Bay La Sun Hotel in King Abdullah Economic City, the event represents the largest gathering of its kind in the Kingdom. Day one of the two-day event saw discussions center on the mounting pressure that technology leaders are coming under to do more with less amid an increasingly challenging economic climate.

IT once again has a critical role to play during these turbulent times by driving business transformation, introducing new levels of agility, and inspiring IT and business innovation. With this in mind, the first day of IDC's Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2016 shared insights into a range of next-generation technologies that can help drive true organization-wide business transformation. It also advised CIOs on improving their IT infrastructure management strategies and enhancing their customer experience by leveraging the rapidly changing delivery and consumption models available for ICT products and services.

"At IDC, we believe a slow economy presents the perfect opportunity for enterprises, both large and small, to re-evaluate their existing productivity and effectiveness and to align their business strategies accordingly," said Abdulaziz Al-Helayyil, IDC's regional director for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain and head of business development for national ICT development in the GCC. "As such, the most pressing issue for CIOs at this juncture is to educate their board members on the benefits of aligning IT and business objectives whilst trying to balance cost pressures. This issue was discussed extensively at the Summit as we focused on the theme of enabling digital transformation during these transitional times."

The Summit also assessed the implementation of digital transformation within so-called 'Smart Cities' to create communities that enhance the overall citizen experience and provide businesses with an environment that is conducive for both growth and innovation. In particular, discussions focused on the fact that very few Smart City implementations in the region have so far been able to demonstrate tangible benefits in terms of energy consumption, optimization, and improved quality of life for tenants, often due to a lack of collaboration across the entire ecosystem of stakeholders.

"To build a sustainable Smart City requires municipalities to look beyond siloed technology investments to consider how a combination of cloud, big data, social, mobile, and the Internet of Things can contribute to their long-term strategic goals," said Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC's group vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. "However, smart ecosystems cannot be built in isolation with the only inputs coming from government departments. Indeed, frameworks must be put in place to establish synergies between all stakeholders of the community in question, including government entities, private organizations, transportation firms, utilities, and – most importantly – citizens."

IDC also hosted dedicated sessions that focused on the latest developments taking shape in Saudi Arabia's government and education sectors, as well as an exclusive CFO roundtable that offered expert advice to the Kingdom's finance leaders on unlocking the true value of emerging ICT solutions. Meanwhile, a host of widely respected industry thought leaders were on hand to share their insights into the major challenges, opportunities, and priorities set to dictate the Saudi ICT investment landscape over the coming 12 months.

The Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2016 continues for a second day tomorrow, with IDC outlining its Digital Transformation Playbook – a future-proof roadmap for building a digital platform, fostering an alliance ecosystem, constructing new revenue models, stimulating a learning organization, and, ultimately, creating a digital transformation center of excellence. There will also be expert advice on how to lead a successful IT department while keeping sight of critical business outcomes, as well as in-depth insights into the challenges and opportunities brought about by the ongoing shift to software-defined IT.

For more information about IDC's Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2016, please contact Ms. Ronita Bhattacharjee, associate vice president for conferences at IDC Middle East and Africa, on +971 4 391 2747 or at[email protected]. You can also tweet about the summit using the hashtag #IDCSAUDICIO or visit the dedicated event website www.idcksasummit2016.com.

IDC has teamed up with a host of leading ICT vendors for the Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2016, including DarkMatter, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, and STC as Summit Partners; VMware and F5 as Platinum Partners; Nexthink as Government Vertical Partner; SAP (in association with Intel) as CFO Partner; Commvault, Red Hat, Ebttikar, Hitachi Data Systems, Juniper (in association with Barq Systems), and Lenovo (in association with Intel) as Gold Partners; Tata Consultancy Services as Breakfast Partners; iDashboards, Innovative Solutions, OpenText, and Vision Solutions as Lunch Partners; Forecpoint as Networking Partner; SquareOne Technologies as Exhibit Partner; the Association of Accountants and Financial Professionals in Business as Strategic Partner; and ITP as the event's official Media Partner for 2016.