Thursday, 22 January 2015 Blog ehdf

Key Technology Trends Affecting the Government Sector in ME

Over 25 million visitors are expected to visit Dubai for the World Expo 2020 and the event promises to be a major opportunity for business and IT development. In fact, it has opened up a number of avenues which will shape the technology trends in the region for the next few years.

While the city is already witnessing smart infrastructure being built based on the latest and cutting edge technology, the government now aspires to transform the Emirate into a smart city within the next three years. This would ensure better efficiency and an enhanced working environment for the tourists, international investors and new businesses during the Expo.

The announcement to transform the region into a smart city was made in 2013, leading to a boom in the technology sector. With the huge number of tourists and investors coming to the UAE, there will be a large influx of data, which will need greater infrastructure planning. Businesses will have to manage this large amount of information in the most organized way. To ensure the same, investing in additional storage and network capacity would be required.

The Qatar World Cup 2022 will open up similar avenues, as governments and companies continue to invest in IT solutions for smart city infrastructure development, effective data storage and backup systems.

There is also a push towards greater mobile enablement of government services which will further increase self-service utilization. Smartphones and tablets are becoming the key contact point between citizens and government institutions. With the increased focus on mobility, there will be a positive impact on ICT spending especially in the areas of mobile security, CRM, geo-localisation software, mobile enterprise management (covering solutions for device management, application development, and application management), and mobile content management, among others. (As per IDC)

All of this requires a strong backbone IT infrastructure which is secure and scalable. Hence, we will see increased investment in data centre hosting services and cloud infrastructure as a service which offers scalable infrastructure on demand at low operational costs enabling faster adoption of e-services and m-services.

Maintaining the highest levels of IT security and ensuring relevant compliance and regulatory demands have become imperative technology requirements. Ensuring the availability of IT systems in case of any disaster is also becoming a key reason for investments in Disaster recovery and Business continuity. In fact, we are seeing a lot of demand for disaster recovery solutions from the government sector.

In summary, the advancement of technology will take a new meaning in the near future as the UAE aims to transform into a major technological hub not just within the region, but at a global level.