Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 28 | Page 52

COUNTRY FOCUS: UAE Empowered employees in the UAE are benefiting from the performance power of digital technologies. Collaboration across the workforce is increasing in an environment where employees are bringing their own business apps into the workplace. Dubai Municipality, faced with the challenge of ensuring its employees have consistent access to business applications, has launched a digital transformation project leveraging the expertise offered by VMware. ///////////////// The digital workspace revolution is employee-driven V Mware, a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, has unveiled its annual report into the state of digital workspace technologies and their impact on businesses. This reveals that empowered employees, those who are granted greater access to the applications they prefer and need to do their job, are almost five times more likely to report gains in their productivity, resulting in them spending 22% less time on manual processes. The research, conducted in association with Forbes Insights in September 2017 among 2,158 CIOs and end-users of businesses across 16 countries around the world, highlights how CIOs are recognising the performance power of digital technologies 52 INTELLIGENTCIO and applications in the hands of their employees. These empowered employees in the UAE, are more likely to say applications are very important in accelerating decision making compared to traditional employees (60% to 40%). This empowerment, according to the findings, has a direct influence on the performance of the business; with the majority of all CIOs in EMEA (89%) believing that revenue can increase by 5% over three years when employees are empowered. It is also enabling employees in the UAE to increase collaboration across the workforce (an increase by 13% against traditional employees) and, in a clear sign that they are at the heart of this app-centric digital revolution, are procuring their own applications to use at work; in EMEA, one in five business apps are being brought to the company by the employee themselves. “One of the most profound shifts in business in the UAE and the Middle East has been the migration of enterprise applications into the hands of employees. As a result, enterprise applications have become a critical part of an employee’s workday and their ability to perform their roles smartly,” said Ahmed Auda, Managing Director, Middle East and North Africa, VMware. “As UAE and Middle East organisations race to gain a competitive edge through www.intelligentcio.com