EDITOR’S QUESTION
Mike Weston
Vice President, Cisco
Middle East
As we move into an era of complete
digitisation, Middle East governments
and organisations are rethinking their
value propositions, business models and
how they approach their infrastructure
to improve quality of life, citizen services
and business outcomes. Most regional
governments and organizations have
already begun their digital journey to
create a better tomorrow for their citizens,
customers and employees.
Cisco believes that the two over-riding
discussion topics during GITEX 2016
will be the steps and initiatives that are
being undertaken to drive digitisation
forward and the prevalence of cyber
security as a business concern and on
boardrooms’ agendas.
Digital transformation – the connection
of cities, companies, and countries
to the Internet – has emerged as the
most transformative means to ignite
sustainable growth and improve
society. Those countries and companies
that get ahead and embrace digital
transformation will uncover limitless
possibilities to drive innovation, growth
and jobs of the future.
Digital disruption in the Middle East has
the potential to reshape markets faster
than perhaps any force in history. How
smartly countries build, manage and
operate their governments, infrastructure
and businesses will be one of the biggest
determinants of their people’s future.
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However, with the tremendous
opportunities that digitisation brings,
there are an increasing number of cyber
attacks and security breaches which have
become an everyday occurrence. Security
is one of the main concerns when it comes
to adopting the Internet of Things (IoT).
As attackers innovate, many defenders
continue to struggle with maintaining
the security of their devices and systems.
Security must be everywhere – embedded
into the heart of the intelligent network
infrastructure from the service provider,
throughout the extended enterprise
network, and across supply chains. Security
needs to be as pervasive as the IoT itself.
Digitisation is dramatically changing the
world. It will affect all of our lives, and
no individual, company or country will
escape its impact and safeguarding this
infrastructure and the data that passes
through is one of the most important
tasks at hand. Cisco has also seen a
surge in interest in Cloud, Data Centre
and Analytics, Mobility, Application
Centric Infrastructure and Collaboration,
which of course will also form part of the
discussions at GITEX 2016.
www.intelligentcio.com