Rapid growth and IT developments place new pressures on CIOs in the Middle East

For 2007, GDP growth has been estimated at 5.6% for Kuwait, 7.8% for Qatar, and an impressive 8.5% for the UAE.

These figures speak of the fast pace of business in the region, particularly the GCC, where oil revenue, reforms, and diversification have accelerated business development.

According to IDC, IT spending growth will shoot up by 15% this year as organizations invest in IT to handle everything from basic communications to long-term planning.

This in turn is forcing Chief Information Officers — the senior executive responsible for IT strategy — to assume responsibility for enterprise success by enabling managers to better face increasing competition and rapid changes in the marketplace, according to technology leaders set to meet in Dubai on March 16 and 17.

"With enterprises turning to increasingly sophisticated IT solutions, not just to face the competition but simply to keep up with growth," says Vice President and Regional Managing Director of IDC MEA, Jyoti Lalchandani, "CIOs will feel they carry the weight of the company on their shoulders. And in many ways they do, as they must ensure firms have tools and solutions that keep them agile and in step with the larger regional developments."

While strategy is still divided between corporate officers and line-of-business managers, CIOs are rapidly becoming the first stop for new ideas on tactical guidance and the deployment of IT in realizing short- and long-term goals.

IDC has therefore organized the region's first-ever CIO Summit, which has attracted a full roster of the Middle East's leading IT and communications firms and their global representatives.

With Dubai Internet City working as its technology partner, and with support and speakers from Cisco, Dell, Etisalat, Intel, Nokia, SAP, Symantec, Injazat Data Systems, Alcatel Lucent, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, ITS2, McAfee, APC-MGE, Trend Micro, IBM, and Blackberry, the event is set to be one of the largest and most prestigious invitation-only IT networking events ever held in the region.

A major theme at the event will be IT's role in increasing corporate flexibility.

Ibrahim Mohamed Lari, CEO of Injazat Data Systems, a CIO Summit Partner, says outsourcing should no longer be considered just a method of cutting costs but also a tactical solution. "The symbiosis between business processes and IT deployment has reached a point where outsourcing a process also means outsourcing IT.

This is a real advantage to CIOs and the enterprises they serve, as it allows them to enlist third-party expertise for everything from back-office tasks (such as HRM) to systemic tasks (such as security) to customer-facing applications that increase sales. Injazat Data Systems is committed to developing the excellence and quality of the Middle East IT Outsourcing market."

The connection (and overlap) between IT processes and business processes means CIOs must ensure that their enterprises have the infrastructure in place to handle rapid change.

Stephane Rejasse, Managing Director of Fujitsu Siemens Computers, a CIO Summit Partner, points to the importance of a solid IT foundation. "Recent IT innovations have ushered in a new era for organizations ready to make technological and conceptual leaps. Service-oriented architecture is a case in point, as it will eventually become the de-facto approach of most enterprises demanding a highly dynamic IT environment; by reassigning resources to services automatically, it provides a framework for the entire process lifecycle and creates channels that enable applications and databases to keep talking to each other, thus greatly increasing the flexibility and efficiency of IT infrastructure, something for which Fujitsu Siemens Computers is widely respected by its global customer base."

Communications, access to information, and the ready use of that information to increase the speed with which decisions are made have become essential to conveying competitive advantage.

Jan Zuurbier, vice president sales & support for emerging markets for Alcatel-Lucent's enterprise solutions activities, highlights the importance of interconnecting networks, people, process, and, most importantly, knowledge to ensure enterprises are dynamic. "Enterprises will differentiate themselves if they make it easy for employees, customers, and partners to share information. Connected knowledge will be key to strengthening relationships, simplifying communications and improving performance."

Designed to help overworked CIOs tackle the challenges of managing, planning, and matching technology to business goals, the summit will take place on March 16 and 17 at Dubai's Grand Hyatt.

The two-day event will focus on big-picture trends shaping the ICT industry and business practices.