Experimental IT Blog post for the company I am associated with.....

MENA Market, abbreviated form of Middle East and Africa Market is no more a third degree destination for ICT vendors. Markets like USA and Europe are still in trouble due to weakened economy and IT spending (-2% to +6%) in these regions is not very encouraging.ICT vendor’s focus now have shifted to MENA Market. Once seen as world’s largest oil and gas destination, the Middle East is now becoming a sought after IT destination due to growing interest in IT and demand for IT solutions catering to the Islamic banking segment. You may be surprised to know that the banking assets of Islamic banking segment is going to reach US $1.1 trillion by 2012 , up by 33% since 2010.In the past five years, Islamic banking in the Middle East region has witnessed a CAGR of 20% and it will double by 2015.(Source: Forrester). Muscat based banks: Bank Sohar and Bank Dhofar have both signed agreements with an IT vendor to implement Islamic banking solution. IT banking solution vendors across the world clearly have a tremendous opportunity to cater the Islamic banking segment.

Apart from Islamic Banking solution, there are other IT focus areas like risk management, mobility, business analytics where we can expect more investments in Middle East. Infrastructure security is another major focus area in Saudi Arabia due to recently increasing cyber attacks. Oil and Gas industries are now in need of Information Management tools to effectively utilise their current employee pool. This is because; unpredictable oil prices have forced the oil and gas industries to cut down their hiring. Therefore they have to find a way to effectively manage and utilise current resources. In addition to it, due to remote asset locations and increasing huge volume of data, Oil and Gas industries are going beyond traditional ERP implementations by upgrading Data Centers and increase spending in Information Management solutions. When you upgrade Data Centers, ICT vendors who provide solutions in Network performance Management, Network Traffic and Monitoring, Network Security to name a few will surely see a traction or a gateway to enter MENA Market. Another interesting fact; decline in new oil field discoveries in recent days has added pressure to increase production capacity. This has led executives in the oil sector to look beyond current IT investment and consider more advanced IT solutions in areas such as: Big Data, Analytics, Collaboration and security.
By looking at the current situation, we can make out that external environmental factors like unpredictable oil prices, cyber attacks, resource crunch, declining natural resources are shaping IT trends in Middle East and Africa Market. Due to this upward IT trend, it is becoming more common these days to read about more Information Technology Trade Shows in Middle East region. B-to-B trade shows are the gateways for Middle East industry decision makers to tap into international best-of-breed solutions. Trade shows will bring improved access to international IT community. Exhibitions, conferences and discussions can build trust and increase awareness about latest technology trends in Business & IT trade community in MENA Market.

This year’s main attraction in the Middle East region is GITEX technology event 2012 to be held at World Trade Centre, Dubai between Oct 14th-18th. From 2008 onwards, GITEX is gaining momentum in terms of bridging the gap between Middle East IT buyers and international ICT vendors. .This year, GITEX is expecting around 75,000 visitors and 1700 Exhibitors. Cloud conference and cloud workshop is one of the highlights in the five day event. Eminent technologists and CXO’s from Hewlett Packard, Dell, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP are delivering key note speech in the event. Most munched and crunched topics of the year 2012-Cloud Bursting, Big Data Revolution, Business Analytics are definitely in the event agenda. Overall, this event is expected to be Win-Win for both visitors and exhibitors from ICT sector.