The potential for managed services is somewhat untapped in the Middle East region, but more and more customers are looking to improve on their IT infrastructure management, and are turning to managed services to achieve this.
1. If you have managed services in your portfolio, please give a brief description of the type and range that you offer.
eHosting DataFort (eHDF) is the region’s leading managed IT services provider and a member of TECOM Investments. We have been named ‘Best Managed Service Provider of the Year’ in the enterprise category at several regional awards.
eHDF provides a comprehensive suite of managed services that enable customers to assign and outsource all aspects of IT infrastructure management to eHDF, from their data centre to their core IT infrastructure including Servers, networks, storage, back-up and security.
The entire hosted infrastructure is managed on a 24x7 basis and is also backed by SLAs required for high availability, reliability, security and redundancy.
Our Managed services include:
- Network Services
- Server & Application Management
- Server Services
- Storage & Backup
- Managed Security
- Monitoring Services
- Professional Services
- Operations & Support
2. What are the main influences on enterprise decisions to adopt a managed services strategy rather than retaining IT infrastructure management in-house?
Managed IT Services offer multiple benefits – at the strategic, operational and financial level. At the strategic level, managed IT services allow companies to focus and leverage their resources towards their core business activities, rather than spending too much time on operational activities. At the operational level, Managed IT Services offers the skills and expertise of a service provider to competently manage complex data centre requirements. At the financial level, Managed Services reduce total cost of ownership and provide the benefit of a subscription based OPEX model.
This means that enterprises can continue to focus on their strategic business objectives; relocate funds on developing new applications and innovation; and indirectly win access to skilled resources, latest technology and best-in-class infrastructure.
3. How significant is this trend in the Middle East – and what is the scope and scale of the market opportunity?
The UAE currently dominates the Managed Services market in the GCC and is expected to show a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 17 per cent over the next five years. The acceleration is due in large part to increasing demand from core growth industries including retail, healthcare and manufacturing.
A more mainstream adoption of cloud computing will also be a driving factor likely to increase migration to managed services by small and medium businesses. Also, demand for virtualization, business continuity, and disaster recovery are expected to fuel growth.
4. Which managed services show the greatest potential for growth in the region, and why?
Managed Exchange, Managed Backup & Restore, Managed Storage and Managed Security Services are the some of the most popular managed services. With the constantly changing threat landscape, security is becoming critical, so we are seeing a lot of demand for Managed Security services. E-mail has become one of the most critical business applications forming the backbone for the day-to-day business operations. Anytime, anywhere access to e-mail, contacts, calendar and resources has become imperative to ensure effective communication with customers, vendors and partners. Managed Exchange is therefore becoming very popular.
5. How do you see the managed services market evolving in the Middle East – and in specific regions/countries where there is the greatest demand – during the next 12-18 months?
The Managed Services market is growing strongly in the region – Traditionally, large businesses have been relying on the expertise and services of managed hosting providers to offer secure, flexible and scalable solutions. However, over the last few years we have been seeing a growing trend amongst SMEs choosing to work with service providers for their data centre requirements – a large part of which is due to the cost effectiveness that managed services offer. There has also been a growth in the adoption of cloud computing which indicates a potential increase in the scope of managed services in small and medium enterprises.
Many organisations in the UAE are now ready to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing such as the quick deployment of IT resources, shared resource usage, and the ability to monitor usage and pay for only what they use.
According to Gartner, the spending on cloud services is expected to increase compared to other areas in the IT marketplace. In the Middle East and North Africa region, growth is expected to be around 20.2 percent through 2016.