For over two decades, Dell Technologies has been at the heart of Saudi Arabia's technology sector. As part of its ongoing commitment to driving transformation for its customers and partners in the Kingdom, Dell is showcasing its end-to-end portfolio of solutions at LEAP 2024. We spoke to Adrian McDonald, President, Dell Technologies EMEA, who shared insights on the big five unsolved challenges of technology, latest innovations, and the company’s role in helping Saudi businesses accomplish their digital transformation goals.
Can you please share your insights on the current business growth drivers?
The digital age is accelerating at pace, giving consumers more power and choice. For businesses, this is a great market environment to use digital tools to grow their brands. Companies that will be successful in the future will be the ones using modern technologies to get insights into their customers’ needs and then develop products and services to better society and government services. In Saudi Arabia, the economic power of consumers is immense, and we are honored to support them as they continue to take their digital transformation agendas forward.
Digital transformation is essential for the long-term success of organizations, but it’s not a simple thing to do. Success requires collaboration across the whole of a business, and of course, it often necessitates a fundamental redesign of business models or processes to fully leverage the opportunities that digital brings.
As time is a critical factor in achieving all this, Saudi companies need a well-connected partner with deep skills who can help establish a range of growth-focussed digital initiatives, from hybrid cloud go-to-market models, to securing endpoints, network, and data center processes to helping businesses capitalize on new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing.
2. With the rise of digital transformation in Saudi Arabia, what key technology shifts will have the most significant impact on your customers?
Our customers in Saudi Arabia, like everywhere in the world, need to win in the digital age whilst remaining cyber-secure – and they need to be doing all this in an affordable way.
There is immense digital demand. IDC states that spending on IT services in Saudi Arabia is set to outpace all other countries in the Middle East and Africa region, reaching $6.4 billion in 2027.
Key technology shifts driving this change over the next decade include the widespread adoption of 5G, multicloud, and advancements in AI and edge computing. Workplace transformation, e-commerce, cybersecurity, and smart city initiatives will further drive digital innovation. However, to thrive in a digital future, organizations must be adept at navigating these shifts.
This is why, at Dell, what we design and deliver, is created to solve some of our customers’ greatest challenges. We’re focusing our innovation efforts on what we call the “big five unsolved challenges of technology” that can hinder an organization’s ability to innovate. These comprise the future of work, multicloud, AI, edge computing and cybersecurity.
As the Kingdom further enhances its digital transformation posture, adoption and use of innovative technologies demanded by the National Transformation Program (NTP) objectives will drive significant ICT spending and unlock new avenues for economic development and offer improved quality of life for its citizens. All in all, it’s great to see how Saudi Arabia is constantly driving its digital future forward.
3. How is Dell Technologies helping companies to address any IT challenges?
At Dell, we talk about the big areas which are really driving IT architecturally: multicloud, artificial intelligence, edge computing, cybersecurity, and modern workplace. These are key to business growth for our customers and where we are strongly focused. However, it’s of fundamental importance to get the infrastructure and approach right. For example, you can't have AI or smart cities, or a telecom evolution, or a data revolution, unless you have modern compute infrastructure.
This, of course, is where Dell Technologies has a major role to play. Around 50% of the world’s mission critical data sits on Dell Technologies systems. We support customers to manage their growth and their data and operations. Gartner believes that 75% of enterprise data will be generated and processed “at the edge” by 2025. Data is increasingly distributed, which means it’s stored across different physical locations. This is why we’ve been saying for some time that it’s going to be a multi-cloud world. We’ve seen a shift away from 100% public cloud to a mix of some workloads in public clouds and some on premise. It’s clear that momentum is building towards a hybrid, distributed future, fuelled by data and analytics.
We’re also seeing cyber security becoming a concern for organisations, and for good reason - the success rate for attacks is on the rise and confidence among leaders is low when it comes to being able to recover all business-critical data after a major incident. Succeeding in today’s threat landscape requires employing a mix of preventative and reactive tools, as well as having a firm disaster recovery plan in place for when things go wrong. At Dell, our overall data protection strategy is built around a ‘Zero Trust’ architecture. Zero Trust is essentially a security model that is centered on the belief that organizations should not automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeters and instead must verify everything trying to connect to its systems before granting access.
And then finally there’s AI that represents a significant paradigm shift in the way businesses can be successful in the long term. In Saudi Arabia, AI adoption is thriving in sectors like healthcare, finance, retail, and the public sector domain by enhancing efficiency, automating processes, and fostering innovation for economic growth and diversification.
There is no doubt that AI is key to unlocking value within data and it is fast becoming one of the most important tools for businesses of all sizes. According to PWC, AI’s potential impact on the Saudi economy is immense, with the technology expected to contribute to over US$135.2 billion in 2030, equivalent to 12.4% of the nation’s GDP.
Currently, Dell provides customers with AI solutions and expertise that define their paths to the future. We help customers run AI workloads anywhere they need them and scale AI from proof of concept to production. Over the last year, Dell has deployed several initiatives across various industries showcasing the utilization of AI for the betterment of business and society.
4. Can you comment on Saudi Arabia’s contribution to Dell Technologies’ overall EMEA operation?
Saudi Arabia is a priority market for Dell Technologies. We have been present in the Kingdom for over 20 years now and continue to work closely with customers from multiple sectors – accelerating digital transformation programs that align with the nation's Vision 2030 and its efforts to embrace a digital economy.
We work in close collaboration with our local partners to help companies such as stc, Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), TAWAL and more, to implement emerging technologies, train and upskill local talent and build agile, secure and reliable infrastructures which are transforming their businesses. This success is reflected in our share in Saudi Arabia, where we lead in Storage (39.5% share), Server (56.7% share) and Commercial PCs (35% share), according to IDC’s Q4CY23 report.
Additionally, investing in local talent and fostering knowledge transfer is a key priority and we support the government’s initiatives in training Saudi nationals and equipping them with the skills they need to join the future workforce.
The time to harness the power of digital transformation is now. Our vision is to become the essential technology company and with this in mind, during LEAP 2024, we announced our plans to open a new merge and logistics fulfilment centre in Riyadh. This strategic investment commemorates Dell’s position in securing a regional headquarters license to operate in KSA and reinforces the company’s commitment to Saudi Vision 2030. The Saudi facility is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2024. It is the first in the META region and Dell’s third in the EMEA region, after Ireland and Netherlands. It will play a pivotal role in accelerating the growth of the ICT sector in Saudi Arabia, by creating new jobs, training local talent and fostering a culture of innovation.
