A chat with Mohamad Abouzaki – CEO.

Summary: As Covid restrictions lifted worldwide, I interviewed Mr. Abouzaki, CEO of Emircom, about the Middle East market’s competitiveness, the crisis’s impact on technology, and his future plans. Emircom, with over 35 years of experience, specializes in cutting-edge technology, offering tailored solutions and expert guidance to various industries.

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Interviewer:  What is Emircom’s comparative advantage, being a Middle East IT partner?

Mr. Abouzaki: Emircom has been in business for over 35 years, which in IT or technology is a very long period indeed. We started with our UAE operation in 1984 and have been in Saudi Arabia for over 15 years now. We cater to service providers, public sectors customers, and large enterprises.

We focus on cutting-edge technology by providing turnkey infrastructure solutions that help our  customers become more relevant to their businesses and industries by adopting intelligent software solutions such as artificial intelligence, machine to machine connectivity, machine learning, the metaverse, and a wide array of advanced technologies as they arise. Our strength is not just in our technical expertise, but also in our understanding of how technology affects customers’ businesses, as well as the sincere advice we give them regarding its adoption. This is what differentiates us from the competition.

Traditionally, Emircom was focused  on service providers. This has given us an advantage when it comes to learning, implementing, and using new complex technologies, and it has stimulated the growth of associated skill

sets on a global scale.. We also work with various other industries, including oil and gas, the public sector, education, banking, and utilities, and we offer solutions that are suited to the unique requirements of each sector.. Understanding how technical trends evolve enables us to anticipate client needs and directly address their pain points and service their future plans.

 

 

Interviewer: Apart from partnering with Dell-EMC and Cisco, can you talk about other partnerships and their benefits?

Mr. Abouzaki: We have a solid strategic relationship with Cisco, as one of their main networking and collaboration players in both the UAE and Saudi markets. We also have strong partnerships with Dell EMC, VMware, Oracle, and innovative software and AI vendors such as SAS.

While we largely rely on our two primary vendors, Cisco and Dell, we also cooperate with smaller, yet still worldwide, manufacturers to enhance our software and security offerings.

Being a multi-vendor integrator is an absolute necessity since it is no longer possible to rely on a single vendor to deliver a solution.

 

 

Interviewer: How does Emircom operate regarding cloud services and security frameworks?

Mr. Abouzaki: The previous three years have seen the highest demand ever for cloud services. Since technology application is frequently quite complex, not all market sectors will gain the necessary capabilities to manage their IT or technology requirements.

And that’s where people like us come in. By having the skills and the ability to deliver services, we releive customer from the load of IT requirements. This is why outsourcing of managed services is expanding the scope of cloud requirements. Many customers are hesitant to manage their IT infrastructure themselves, preferring to leave it in the hands of companies like Emircom that are experts in the field.  A well thought cloud  strategy will help ensure the high availability of technology, while implementing the appropriate robust security measures safeguards clients from vulnerabilities and threats from hackers.

 

 

Interviewer: Can you explain Emircom’s unified communication systems  work?

Mr. Abouzaki: Unified communication systems have been essential in helping organizations smoothly transition to remote work during the pandemic by allowing employees to use multiple communication tools such as telephony, contact centers, video, messaging, social networks , Teams, Cisco WebEx  or Zoom simultaneously and effectively.

The pandemic has led to a wider uptake of several alternative technologies in terms of communication, including telemedicine, work from home options, as well as numerous interesting new use cases.

This increased adoption has been seen across all demographics, including those who were previously hesitant to use technology.

 

Interviewer: How is Emircom aligned with the national vision, and how do you work with the government to achieve it?

Mr. Abouzaki: We align our goals and priorities with the UAE’s vision. We are passionate about assisting our customers with digitalization, automation, and the use of cutting-edge technologies, particularly the government sector. We put a lot of emphasis on education and enablement to help each customer

achieve his part of the national vision.

 

Interviewer: Does Emircom engage personally in research and development, or is that taken care of through alliances with larger companies?

Mr. Abouzaki: We carefully filter through market trends and we identify the partners and technologies that align with our goals. We also create our own middleware and backend software to support and integrate those solutions, taking into account local factors. For example,  we developped a middleware that enabled communication between the two smart parking systems, resulting in twice as much value for the customer.

 

Interviewer: What is Emircom’s short to medium term vision, and why is UAE the place to be?

Mr. Abouzaki: We believe that the market is shifting towards a greater focus on services, and we are positioning ourselves to be at the forefront of this trend. We are investing in a wide range of X-as-a-Service offerings, including software, platforms, security, disaster recovery, and SOC, as well as the various cloud strategies, including public, private, managed, hybrid, or multi-cloud.

We see that our consumers are increasingly looking to pay someone else to take on the burden of ownership, so we are focusing on delivering software solutions that provide meaningful outcomes

As a firm, we are committed to supporting the UAE’s long-term goals, and we are excited to be a part of the country’s rapid adoption of technology. We have a strong leadership team and a dedicated team of professionals who are well-equipped to capture this limitless commercial opportunity. We are optimistic about our future as a force for change and advancement in the UAE.