System Integrators 2012

THE REGION'S
SYSTEM INTEGRATOR
GIANTS published as a supplement to:
 Publisher
System Integrators 2011 Dominic De Sousa

Group COO
Nadeem Hood

Managing Director
Richard Judd

Interruption or opportunity? richard@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9126

EDITORIAL

We have seen a dramatic shift in the role of systems integrators in the last couple of years. It’s no Jeevan Thankappan
jeevan@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9109
longer about piecing disparate systems together and getting it to work. In other words, the role
of SIs has gradually shifted from being technology-driven entities that ensured complex systems ADVERTISING
work together towards understanding the complexity of today’s business demands. According to
Commercial Director
IDC, an increasing number of strategic business partnerships are being forged between vendors, Rajashree R Kumar
systems integrators, consulting companies and distribution channels to bring complete solutions raj@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9131

to the market. Vendors are looking to form stronger relationship with SIs to meet customer needs, Key Account Manager
Merle Carrasco
and services companies, in turn, are looking to work closely with vendors, given the increasing merle@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9134
complexity of new-gen technologies.
With the advent of cloud, mobility and social media, the industry is truly at a crossroads. There CIRCULATION
are concerns that cloud and virtualisation might put them out of a job. No doubt, cloud will have Database and Circulation Manager
serious implications on the ecosystem of systems integrators who are accustomed to a series of Rajeesh M
rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147
integration projects at enterprises, especially the large ones. Now, CIOs have the option to just
acquire the services they need from a cloud provider instead of hiring system integrators to add PRODUCTION AND DESIGN
capabilities into existing IT environments. Despite all the dire predictions, cloud represents more of
Production Manager
an opportunity than an interruption for SIs, as it still require a lot of integration chores, maintenance James P Tharian
james@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9146
and support. The trick is figuring out how to hop on to the cloud bandwagon and cash in on the
opportunity – right now, the best bet seems to be taking the managed services route. Graphic Designer
Glenn Roxas
glenn@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9107

Digital Services Manager

Tristan Troy Maagma

CONTENTS
Web Developers
Erik Briones
Jefferson de Joya
Louie Alma

online@cpidubai.com
+971 4 440 9100
Ali Bin Ali Technology Solutions 4
Almoayyed Computers 4 Published by
Alpha Data 4
Al Rostamani Communications 10
Emitac Enterprise Solutions 8 1013 Centre Road, New Castle County,
EMW 13 Wilmington, Delaware, USA

Global Technology Services (GTS) 4 Head Office

PO Box 13700
Gulf Business Machines (GBM) 6 Dubai, UAE
help AG 20 Tel: +971 4 440 9100
Fax: +971 4 447 2409
Injazat 18
Intertec 26 Printed by
Printwell Printing Press LLC
ITQAN 18 Regional partner of
Jeraisy CCCS 18
Key Information Technology (KIT) 18
mahindra satyam 16 © Copyright 2012 CPI
All rights reserved
MDS Computers 28 While the publishers have made every effort to ensure
the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not
nanjgel 24 be held responsible for any errors therein.
Paramount Computer Systems 30
Saudi Business Machines (SBM) 28
Seven Seas Computers 28

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 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012

Ali Bin Ali Technology Solutions (ABATS)

ABATS is one of the leading IT services companies
in Qatar. An integrator of competitive, innovative
turnkey business solutions and services based on
ICT, ABATS has within its ranks the best services
and solutions the industry can offer. The company
boasts an unrivalled expertise across a range of
vertical industry sectors. The ABATS service offering
includes: ERP/CRM solutions, content management,
virtualisation, Microsoft solutions, hardware solutions,
www.alibinali.com Unified Communications, Fleet management, risk
management, to name a few. ABATS believes in
giving the right technology for the right purpose
at the right time for the right price. In an ongoing
quest to deliver innovative solutions and services
that add real business value to clients, ABATS
combines its own expertise, tools, resources and
vertical sector knowledge with that of its partners.
Through the versatile portfolio of partners and
brands ABATS represents, it brings a wealth of
knowledge, expertise and superior services and
support to an ever growing customer based
spread across multiple industries in Qatar.

www.almoayyedcomputers.com
Almoayyed Computers
Almoayyed Computers predominantly operates
in Bahrain, which is a small economy from the
perspective of IT spending. It is an achievement
for such a company to scale up and have a
successful business model to cover a number
of verticals and a host of technology areas.
The company has the experience of deploying
multiple technologies from multiple principles
in a variety of market verticals, and represents
some of the leading names in ICT. Almoayyed
maintains expertise in integrating various
sub-systems in different sectors with
core ICT products to deliver and enhance
business functionalities.
The company is perhaps the most
certified IT organisation in the island
Kingdom, based on the vendor certifications
and offers services across a vast technology
mix to a host of verticals including public
sector, finance, education, retails, etc.

Alpha Data
Alpha Data is the largest multi-disciplined systems
integrator in the UAE. Founded in 1981, Alpha Data
has grown from two employees to a 720-strong
workforce building ICT infrastructure solutions for
thousands of organisations across the country. Alpha
Data is an end-to-end solution provider, which helps
its clients plan, build, support and manage their IT
infrastructures through a wide-range of solutions
that include networks, voice, video, data centers,
storage, and security, to name a few. Alpha Data
www.alpha.ae holds strategic partnerships with industry leaders for
software, hardware, communications and services
solutions enabling us to have preferred access to
the latest technologies for our clients. We work
with our clients from consulting to design,
implementation to integration and services for
their entire technology infrastructure.
Alpha Data provides post-sales support
and maintenance, NOC Managed Services and
project management for SMEs through to large
scale government organisations. The company’s
post-sales installation and support teams consist
of 400 professionals who are regularly certified
to provide support for key brands including HP,
Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, VMWare, Symantec, Bosch
and Polycom, to name a few.

Global Technology Services (GTS)

Global Technology Services (GTS) is a wholly owned
subsidiary of the Emirates National Oil Company
(ENOC), a Government of Dubai Company. It offers
value added services to a variety of customers
spanning a spectrum of industries and regions.
With over 10 years in business, GTS has set its vision
to be the best implementation house for innovative
business solutions and support services in the region.
www.gtsuae.com Its global operating model is designed to ensure that
its customers receive consistent, efficient and cost
effective services with client intimacy, sound industry
knowledge and unwavering focus on result
oriented consulting and cutting edge adaptation of
technology that are the hallmark of the GTS culture.
GTS provides the following horizontal lines
of services across vertical industries: consultancy,
software development, implementation, data
migration and conversion, training, upgrade
services, on-site and off-site support models, and
outsourcing. GTS has developed cutting edge
skills spanning several domains such as ERP, CRM,
performance management, among others.

4
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012

Gulf Business Machines (GBM)

The company

F
ounded in 1990, Gulf Business
Machines (GBM) is the leading IT
solutions provider in the region
fulfilling the IT requirements of local,
regional and international organisations in
the GCC.
GBM is the sole distributor for IBM–
excluding selected IBM products and
services –throughout the GCC, except for
Saudi Arabia. GBM’s momentum was further
enhanced in 1999, when the team secured
the Cisco portfolio. Today GBM holds the
highest level of recognition in the region
from Cisco, Gold Partner status, in addition
to the Cisco Borderless Network Architecture
Specialized Learning Partner status.
GBM offers an extensive range of IT
infrastructure, IT solutions and services
ranging from consulting, resource deployment
and integration to after-sales support, through
1000 professional and over 20 solid strategic
partnerships forged with internationally-
recognised IT solution providers.
The company, which is ISO-9001 certified
since 1999, has offices in the UAE (Abu
Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah), Kuwait, Oman,
Qatar, and Bahrain. GBM has also established
a presence in Pakistan, where the company
now operates three offices, one each in
Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore as an IBM
Premier Business Partner. The Pakistani
operation also holds a Silver Partner Status
from Cisco.
GBM also boasts of a Network Operations
Centre (NOC), which provides remote
services to manage, operate and monitor
customers’ IT infrastructures and applications
in order to ensure business continuity to
customers across the Middle East. The NOC
interface is a 24/7 ITIL-compliant service desk
which offers the customers a single point
Venkat Raghavan, General Manager, Al-Futtaim Technologies
of contact for queries, service requests and Cesare Cardone, CEO, GBM
enhanced operations.

6

Levaraging new value
Gulf Business Machine’s success is very much defined by the partnerships
and training it accumulates, and this year has been no different.
Hani Nofal, Director - INSS, GBM, receiving Network World's system integrator of the year award 2012
G
BM secured a partnership in
May with Virtual Bridges to
deliver its VERDE virtual desktop
management and provisioning capabilities
to organisations in the GCC and Pakistan.
Featuring online, offline and branch
virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), VERDE
is proven to help organisations reduce the
cost and complexity of managing desktops,
while minimising security concerns and
business risk.
In July, GBM announced another
winning partnership – this time with
Sanovi Technologies, a leader in disaster
recovery management (DRM) software. The
partnership allows GBM to resell Sanovi
DR Management Suite – a comprehensive
family of DRM solutions – again to
organisations in the GCC and Pakistan.
Both of these major partnership
agreements established a long-term strategic
relationship between the companies, which
allows GBM to remarket, distribute, resell and
support the said products.
“As the leading VDI Gen2 solution,
VERDE will help our customers reduce
desktop TCO while increasing organisational
agility, productivity and responsiveness,”
said Cesare Cardone, CEO at GBM.
“In today’s volatile business
environment, DRM solutions are imperative
for the smooth functioning of business.
We are excited to partner with Virtual
Bridges and Sanovi to bring this value to
organisations in our region,” he added.
Back in April, GBM announced it had
achieved mobile internet technology
Authorized Technology Provider (APT)
status from Cisco.
The designation recognised GBM as
having fulfilled the training requirements
and programme prerequisites to design,
resell, install and maintain the Cisco ASR
5000 Series multimedia core platform,
which delivers a mobile packet core
solution that transforms the way service
providers deliver mobile internet services to
their customers.
To qualify for the programme, GBM
had to meet a number of requirements,
including having staff who fulfil specific
job responsibilities, taking comprehensive
courses and passing rigorous exams to
validate technology proficiency.
TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
“Gulf Business Machines is very
pleased with this great achievement.
This authorisation from Cisco will allow
us to further enhance the cutting-edge
innovations and solutions we provide our
customers with,” said Hani Nofal, integrated
networking and site services director at GBM.
Following this designation, GBM also
earned the prestigious Cisco Borderless
Network Architecture Specialized Learning
Partner Status in the GCC region.
The partnership allows Cisco
Borderless Network Architecture Learning
Specialization to assess the ability of a
‘Learner Partner’ to deliver quality classes
around selling, designing, installing and
supporting products, technologies and
solutions that are under Cisco’s Borderless
Network Architecture. With this partnership,
GBM is entitled to design and create Cisco
Derivate Works.
Pawandeep Singh Arora, learning
services sales manager in the Gulf region
at GBM, said: “We are very pleased to have
earned the Cisco Advanced Borderless
Network Architecture Specialization for the
GCC region. This recognition does not only
validate our longstanding relationship with
Cisco, but also our commitment to educate
and invest in local and regional talent.”
GBM has been a Cisco Learning Partner
(CLP) since 2008 with strong presence in
the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and
Pakistan. In addition, in June 2011 GBM
and Cisco jointly launched Oman’s first and
only Cisco training centre as part of GBM’s
‘Learning Services Platform’.
This year saw a 35% year-on-year growth
in GBM’s virtualisation business, as well as
the completion of its 160th virtualisation
project in the Gulf region in March.
GBM counts all the major server
consolidation and virtualisation vendors as
technology partners in the region, including
IBM, VMware, Citrix and Red Hat.
Gulf Business Machines
PO Box 203
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates
P: +971 2 627 5165
F: +971 2 627 2498
www.gbm4ibm.com
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 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012

Emitac Enterprise
Solutions (EES)
The company

E
mitac Enterprise Solutions (EES),
a leading system integrator in
the region, has been providing
end-to-end IT solutions to clientele in
multiple industries for over three decades.
EES’s passion for progress is reflected in
our disciplined planning and management
process that enables the company to
anticipate changing economic and industry
conditions, thereby putting the company
in position to create value for customer
and shareholders. Since its inception, EES
senior management has pursued long-term
strategic imperatives to meet customer needs,
drive higher profitability levels, and provide
superior value creation for shareholders.
EES has made a special commitment to
invest in long-term strategic initiatives that
are the engines for its growth: establishing
and growing presence in emerging market
countries, expanding solution and service
offerings to enhance customer value, and
meeting the needs of its key regional
customers to help them grow.
EES’s system integration services has a
comprehensive portfolio of implementation,
support and consulting services solutions
with exceptional people supporting
business technology in action – qualified
professionals who bring technical insight,
process excellence and resource flexibility to
help customers optimize their technology
operations and drive business outcomes,
from desktop to datacenter.
EES’s long history of standing
technology partnerships has provided the
company with a competitive advantage and
market differentiation for our customers.
It has established support center to work
seamlessly 24/7 to bring new level of service Miguel Angel Villalonga, CEO of EES
experience to the customers.

8

Path to success
Emitac Enterprise Solutions (EES) continues to be one of the leading
systems integrators in the UAE, and often sets the benchmark for
successful partnerships. Miguel Angel Villalonga, CEO of EES explains how
the company drives itself to provide more for its customers.
1. Define Emitac’s growth over the last 12
months.
Emitac Group continued enjoying
tremendous growth in 2011, with
contribution from its four companies (EDL,
EMS, EHS and EES). We have also witnessed
growth across our infrastructure, application
integration and enterprise management
division. Within the infrastructure unit we
have seen a significant growth in areas like
core software technologies, thanks to our
focused engagement with Microsoft, which
has also extended to virtualisation, storage
and data management solutions thanks to
expanding our traditional relationship with
HP to other leading brands like EMC. In our
applications integration unit we have
grown with significant projects in process
automation and outsourcing similarly.
Our enterprise management division
has also seen positive results with new
strategic engagements.
2. What are the trends that you see
influencing regional enterprise IT in
the next five years, and how is Emitac
working to provision these technologies
to end-users?
We are seeing how the global trends in
IT are affecting the local markets. Cloud,
big data, mobility/consumerisation and
social media are there to stay, but it is
challenging to see how it will affect the
buying behaviour of our local customers.
In addition, and due to the local situation,
security is a very relevant element in the
evolution of the IT budgets, extended to
compliance in some sectors. The change
is very fast and we feel that customers
will require a higher level of advice and
more options to outsource the non-
strategic pieces of their IT environments.
This is why we are adapting our portfolio
and developing our services arm to give
customers a better experience.
3. What is the relevance of a good SI to a
successful IT project in an enterprise?
The role is very crucial. Customers require
best of breed technology deployed in a
well-structured and professional way. The
technology vendors normally are driven
by their own sales objectives, and that
is not always in line with the customer
needs. The SI is the link that enables
customers to select and architect the right
solution, and can take care of the overall
implementation, from a governance point
of view through its PM capabilities, as
well as from a technical point of view, and
later in the operation and support of the
installation if the customer so desires.
4. How can the client modify his
requirements in order to ensure that they
can be delivered upon?
Customer maturity level is very
heterogeneous in this region, so it is
difficult to generalise. However we see a
growing trend to exaggerate the pressure
on pricing. Customers have to understand
the limits of their negotiation abilities.
Nowadays, the market is extremely
competitive and customers will find an
option that will claim to deliver at any
price tag they set. However, that is not
always the option that will ensure the best
solution or the proper delivery. An initial
phase of professional project scoping,
selection and definition of outcome will
align expectation and mitigate the risk of
execution deviation.
5. What are the most common mistakes
that end-users make which endanger a
project’s capacity to deliver on its goals?
The extreme price negotiation can
jeopardise the resources available for
optimal delivery. In addition, the lack
of unified expectations across different
TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
customers sometimes plays a role. In the
multicultural environment we live in, the IT
departments are not always 100% aligned
with the business decision makers and that
also affects the expectation mismatch.
6. How does Emitac work with clients in
order to ensure that their projects give
them the business benefit they require?
We acknowledge that it is in the initial
phases of projects where the expectation is
set, so we have put a significant investment
in improving our presales consulting
capabilities. Our presales teams are formed
by the most experienced implementation
consultants, we promote that role as a
natural evolution of technical engineers.
That enables our teams to establish the
trusted relationship with our customers
that make us deliver on the projects we
commit, and our customers to fulfil their
business interests.
7. Define Emitac’s strategy for the next 12
months.
We will continue our journey to become
the best SI in the region. The strategy is
based on the following pillars:
• Concentrate on our core competencies,
where we can add differential value
• Expand the solutions and services
offerings around our core competencies:
Across our solutions landscape, we are
filling the gaps and developing the areas
where we still have room for growth. With
this, we will be prepared to deliver on the
new strategic trends.
From a territory point of view, we will
capitalise on our regional reach and start
doing business in other countries beyond
UAE, mainly Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as
our group has already an established
presence there.
Emitac Enterprise Solutions (EES)
PO Box 8391
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
P: +971 4 605 8100
F: +971 4 282 7836
www.emitac-ees.ae
9
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012

Al Rostamani Communications
The company

A
l Rostamani Communications
(ARC) is a member of Al Rostamani
Group, one of the largest and most
respected business conglomerates in the
UAE.
ARC was formed in 2002 as a merger of
two Al Rostamani Group entities, telecom
division of Central Trading Company and
Al Rostamani Information Services. After
almost a decade of steady growth, ARC
is now a leading IT & Telecommunication
Solutions Provider and Systems Integrator,
offering Innovative, Integrated Technology
Solutions and Professional Services to
customers in UAE and other GCC countries.
ARC takes a consultative and system
Integration approach towards its
customers’ needs and requirements. The
company first understands the specific
requirement, then develop the customized
technology solution by carefully selecting
the right mix of products from its end to
end solutions portfolio, which includes IT
Infrastructure, enterprise communications,
networking systems, data centre
solutions , IT security, applications and
telecommunication infrastructure.
ARC’s core competency lies in its
competent vendor certified engineering
resources that seamlessly conceptualise,
build, integrate, support and manage the
solutions across the lifecycle, through
their professional services which often not
only matches but exceeds the customer
experience and expectations.
ARC represents world leaders in
technology which includes, Schneider-
Electric, Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, Cisco, HP,
D-Link, Digi International, Fujitsu, McAfee,
Symantec, NetApp, VMWare, SonicWALL,
Nagravision, Telcordia Technologies, Aztech,
Sagemcom, Mediatrix, Samsung, Spirent Mohammed Zameer, GM, Al Rostamani Communications
Communications, etc.

10

Complete provider
Mohammed Zameer, GM, Al Rostamani Communications talks about the
main trends that will influence regional enterprise IT and how the company
will be placed to deliver on these in the near future.
1. Define Al Rostamani Communications
growth over the last 10 Years.
Since inception, the mission of Al
Rostamani Communications is to provide
complete end to end solution in the IT and
Communication Technology arena. For
the past 10 years ARC has been growing
at the rate of almost 60% per year and
at around 25% in the last 3 years. We
have consolidated relationships with the
world’s best manufacturers in the areas of
Infrastructure, ICT and Telecoms, namely
Schneider, Pelco, McAfee, Symantec,
Fujitsu, NetApp, HP, Motorola, Cisco,
Telcordia, and Sagecom, to name a few.
2. What are the trends that you see
influencing regional enterprise IT in the
next five years, and how is Al Rostamani
Communication working to provision
these technologies to end-users?
The trend in the next five years is going
to be towards clouds, SaaS, datacentres,
virtualisation, and managed services.
The system integrators with professional
engineering skills to provide managed
services and customer centric consultancy
on reducing CAPEX on the infrastructure
and converting it into OPEX will be the
winner. We at ARC are more customer
centric than product centric. This
approach has helped us move to a stage
where it is easier to transit to newer
challenges of providing managed services
and customer centric solutions. We have a
vast team of engineers with certifications
from various vendors like Cisco, NetApp,
Vmware, Fujitsu, Dataminer, HP, Symantec
and McAfee.
Additionally, due to our vast experience
in the telecommunication industry, the
solutions provided to our clients includes
not only enterprise solutions, but also a
consumer centric portfolio through the
regional operators.
3. What is the relevance of a good SI to a
successful IT project in an enterprise?
As already indicated a good SI should
be more customer focused than product
focused. The SI approach should be
more consultative. Together with the
involvement of customers the SI should
design a solution focussed on customer
needs. With the present trends, the SI
should also advise customers on cost
effective and futuristic solutions scalable at
least for the next three to five years.
4. What are the points end-users should
keep in mind when choosing an SI to
work on a project?
Most important factors a customer should
be looking for in a SI can be summarised
as follows:
• Past experience of implementing similar
projects
• Technical skill set of the SI
• Credibility of the organisation to
support the customer for not only the
present requirement but consistently
advise the customer for future trends and
requirements.
This can be assured by organisations
like ARC, a member of the reputed Al
Rostamani Group, whose key focus is
customer satisfaction and employee
enrichment.
5. What are the most common mistakes
that end-users make which endanger a
project’s capacity to deliver on its goals?
The most common mistake end user
makes is to opt for low cost solutions from
inexperienced SI’s who have short term
goals. Though the cost is very important,
an end-user must also ensure that the
organisation they are dealing with is
committed and technically proficient.
6. How does Al Rostamani
Communications work with clients in
TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
"As already indicated a good
SI should be more customer
focus than product focus.
The SI approach should be
more consultative. Together
with the involvement of
customer the SI should
design a solution focussed on
the customer needs. With the
present trends SI also should
advise customer on more
cost effective and futuristic
solutions scalable at least for
the next 3 to 5 years"
order to ensure that their projects give
them the business benefit they require?
Al Rostamani Communications has
a consultative approach. Firstly the
consultants conduct a due diligence
to understand the customer’s existing
infrastructure. Thereafter the future
requirements are studied and a gap analysis
is performed to arrive at the most practical
and cost effective solution. Our consultants
not only have the technical skills but also
understand business compulsions and the
final design provided will address both the
technical and business requirements.
7. What is Al Rostamani Communications’
growth strategy for the next three years.
In the next three years we will move
towards providing managed services,
and solutions associated with the cloud
and datacentres. Our goal is to derive at
least 50% of our revenues from services
and rest from the product and system
integration. ARC is one of the very few
system integrators in UAE which has equal
strengths both on the enterprise and
telecom segments.
Al Rostamani Communications (ARC)
PO Box 30420
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
P: +971 4 428 7557
F: +971 4 425 0507
www.arcuae.com
11
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012

EMW ME
The company

E
MW ME, a privately held company,
was established in the region in
2003. EMW is recognised in the
region as the smart convergence and
applications expert, and partner of global
vendors with the objective of providing
premier customer-oriented information
and communications technology
products and services for local, regional
and global clients.
EMW’s mission is to simplify
technology complexities and help
organisations translate their networking
and communications strategies to meet
their business objectives and operate
more efficiently at less cost and risk.
The company provides excellence in
IT and services to commercial and
governmental entities worldwide
using a customer first attitude. EMW
has the agility and the ability to build
and customise specific requirements
that meet or exceed their clients’
expectations in line with industry
standards. EMW has been awarded top
honours four consecutive years in a row.
EMW specialises in end-to-end
infrastructure and business enablers,
which include various vendor
specialisations and partnerships that
are best of breed across the globe. It
prides itself in delivering solutions and
expertise with 7x24, 365 days a year
support. EMW ME has always provided
its customers with superior support,
which translates to: professional
services, improved uptime, increased
productivity and investment protection.
It also keep its customers updated on
the latest technology trends along with
recommendations of their benefits to
improve both bottom and top lines.
Serjios El-Hage, CEO of EMW

13

Integrated excellence
Serjios El-Hage, CEO of EMW, says his company thrives on exceptional
customer service and an enviable track record of project execution.
Define EMW’s growth over the last 12
months.
EMW has been able to maintain a steady
growth and our success stories continued
throughout the year. During the last
twelve months EMW has added significant
customer in the region. All our wins
comprised of very complex and highly
integrated solutions.
EMW has always kept abreast with
the latest technologies and solutions.
We have enhanced our partnerships
with various vendors- we have achieved
Juniper Networks Wireless LAN Elite
Certification, Juniper Network Operate
Specialist, the first in the region to
achieve both these certifications. We have
also achieved Cisco System Collaboration
Specialisation which enables us to push
niche value add proposition to enterprise
customers that customer service focused.
These new certifications recognise and
honour our technical expertise, agility and
ability to deliver solutions that meet and
exceed our customers’ expectations in
terms of performance, reliability and cost
of ownership.
What are the trends that you see
influencing regional enterprise IT in the
next five years, and how is EMW working to
provision these technologies to end-users?
Trends can be summarised in three
categories: cloud computing, mobile
device management (MDM) and vendor
consolidation. Cloud computing is not
quite here yet mainly due to price and
legal implications. Service providers have
not adjusted their pricing structure to
make it attractive for enterprises to fully
host and virtualise applications across
boarders offsetting cost savings, but
more importantly the regional telecom
regulatory bodies do not have the legal
framework to deal with the cloud, whether
it is public, private or hybrid due to
geopolitical shift in the region. MDM on
the other hand is becoming more and
more prevalent with enterprise customers,
especially after the advent of bring your
own device (BYOD) trend. EMW is geared
to tackle each of these trends, having
aligned the right partnerships that offer
customers cutting-edge solutions.
What is the relevance of a good SI to a
successful IT project in an enterprise?
As a matter of principle, which has not
changed since our inception in this region
nine years ago, technologies must pass our
stringent in house testing before making
them available to customers. Our past
performance is a testament to who we
are today. Financial stability is also very
important especially with these market
conditions, many great SIs fell down the
way side, took too many risks, stretched too
thin thinking they were invincible where in
fact they were not. To maintain success in
our cut throat business, an SI must have the
means and the agility to adapt and align
with right customers and partners that see
eye to eye. At EMW we did just that, our
shift in strategy back in 2011 had paid off
mainly because of two factors: We stayed
focused on value customers and invested
in our staff. The results were phenomenal
with 30% revenue growth.
What are the points end-users should
keep in mind when choosing an SI to
work on a project?
Financial stability, reputation in the
market place, relevant past performances,
customer references and retention, project
management, vendor certifications,
technical expertise and experience, proper
corporate processes and procedures,
competitive price and most of all
employee retention.
What are the most common mistakes
that end-users make which endanger a
project’s capacity to deliver on its goals?
End-users by definition vary depending
on the type of business. For example,
TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
in hospitality, end-users are the project
owners, their consultants, their main
contractors and their operators. Most
common cause of delay we see is almost
always related to budget and final IT
requirements. Allocating the wrong
budget is the number one cause for non-
deliverance on project goals. We see it over
and over again especially on large ticket
projects whereby the IT package constitutes
a mere 3%-5% of the total cost and being
the least understood from the powers that
be at the same time the most relevant
whenever the project is completed.
How does EMW work with clients in order
to ensure that their projects give them
the business benefit they require?
We start the process very early on with full
transparency, and our customers always
remain our priority. Most of our existing
and new clients came to us through
personal referrals. People buy from people
and do not believe otherwise. EMW strives
to make each and every project a success,
not only technically but also business wise,
which is a win-win for everybody.
Define EMW's strategy for the next 12
months.
Our strategy mainly revolves around two
main pillars: customers and employees.
We will continue to provide our customers
with the best possible solutions that
meet and exceed their business needs
at the same time invest in training and
educating our current and new resources.
We will concentrate on providing the
best of breed products and services in
the collaboration contact centers, state
of the art infrastructure technologies
especially the wireless LAN and continue
with financially solid partners. Again as
mentioned before people buy from people
and therefore integrity and trust remain
our top priorities.
EMW ME
PO Box 454518
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
P: +971 4 368 6700
F: +971 4 390 8680
www.emw-me.com
15
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
Mahindra Satyam
Bobby Gupta, VP and MENA & Turkey head of Mahindra Satyam
The company
M
ahindra Satyam is a leading
global business and
information technology
services company that leverages deep
industry and functional expertise,
leading technology practices, and an
advanced, global delivery model to
help clients transform their highest-
value business processes and improve
their business performance. The
company's professionals excel in
enterprise solutions, supply chain
16
management, client relationship
management, business intelligence,
business process quality, engineering
and product lifecycle management, and
infrastructure services, among other
key capabilities.
Mahindra Satyam is part of the
$15.4 billion Mahindra Group, a global
federation of companies and one of
the top 10 business houses based in
India. The group focuses on enabling
people to rise. Mahindra operates in
the key industries that drive economic
growth, enjoying a leadership position
in tractors, utility vehicles, information
technology, vacation ownership, rural
and semi-urban financial services,
etc. Mahindra has a significant and
growing presence amongst others, in
the automotive industry, agribusiness,
aerospace, automotive components,
consulting services, defence, energy,
industrial equipment, logistics, real
estate, retail, steel and two wheelers.
Mahindra Satyam development and
delivery centres in the US, Canada, Brazil,
the UK, Hungary, Egypt, UAE, India,
China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia
serve numerous clients, including many
Fortune 500 organisations.

In perfect harmony
Bobby Gupta, VP and MENA & Turkey head of Mahindra Satyam, says the company
is riding the crest of a growth wave in the region, fuelled by strong fundamentals,
focus and investments.
Bobby Gupta, VP and MENA & Turkey head of Hahindra Satyam (left) with Nadeem Hood, group COO at CPI.
Mahindra Satyam was adjudged System Integrator of the Year at CNME’s ICT Achievement Awards last year for
demonstrating it can support customer expectations consistently, while growing as a company in the region.
Define Mahindra Satyam’s growth over the
last 12 months.
We have been able to sustain our growth
momentum, and we have managed to key in
some strategic wins over the last 12 months.
We have already announced our first quarter
financial results that ended on June 30, 2012,
by posting over $342 million. Our regional
operations have seen a 180% year on year
growth in new contract signings, and we have
managed to increase revenues across key
GCC countries such as the UAE, which grew to
150% and Qatar, which grew by 200%.
Our continued growth can be attributed
to strategic factors like skilled resources,
shared services and innovative pricing
models. To maintain this strong growth
trajectory, we will hire and train more
sales team while also beefing up our local
delivery capabilities – focusing particularly
in countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the
UAE. We are aiming to hit $50 million for the
current fiscal year for the MENA region and
our headcount is already 400, which shows a
100% increase compared to last year.
We are currently working with more than
20 engagements in the region, spanning
various sizes. We have also managed to sign
strategic outsourcing deals that amount
to over $10 million—adding nine new
clients from the government, education,
manufacturing, retail and energy sectors.
From a global perspective, Mahindra
Satyam’s active client count stands at 372 on
a consolidated basis. Some of the company's
recently signed clients include KAUST Saudi,
Dubai Holdings, Dubai eGov, a large Abu
Dhabi based government entity and a large
commodity based business in the UAE.
What are the trends that you see
influencing regional enterprise IT in the
next five years?
With business in the region looking at Opex
reduction, managed services and a faster
return on investment, we are seeing a big
traction for business intelligence, mobility,
infrastructure managed services and ERP.
Can you tell us about some of your key
implementations in the region over the last
12 months?
We have successfully installed and
implemented a strategic data warehouse and
BI program for VIVA Kuwait. This helps the
telecommunication firm to address growing
operational demands, which is revealed to
be more than 60 million Call Detail Records
(CDRs) daily and one million users and
historical data backlog since 2008. Since
TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
its installation, VIVA Kuwait has reported
positive results – meeting its SLAs and
delivering up to date information to business
users, ultimately increasing efficiency, saving
time, effort and money.
We have also signed a multi-million, multi-
year contract with Aspire Zone Foundation
in Qatar. This is a leading sports institute with
state-of-the-art academic, sports science and
sports facilities to provide onsite and offshore
support on various application development
and infrastructure service projects. Aspire
Zone utilised Mahindra Satyam’s expertise in
event and venue management technologies
as part of its ambitious sports event and
venue management solution roadmap.
What are your delivery capabilities?
We adhere to meeting set delivery
schedules. This dedication towards meeting
deadlines is reflected in the data warehouse
development - an implementation of 100
plus OBIEE operational and MIS reports
covering 17 subject areas and departments
leveraging industry specific iDecisions
framework and analytics solution within 14
calendar months for VIVA telecom.
In terms of post-implementation support,
we maintain a strong level of customer
service via its technical support team, which
is always on hand to render to key services to
our customers.
Also, one of the major advantages offered
by Mahindra Satyam across its clients
is quick RoI and benefits achieved. For
example, the BIDW implementation for VIVA
telecom has enabled the telco to nurture a
single source of telecom system data that
facilitated a generation of various operations
and MIS reports, which has enabled faster
decision making.
The technology stack implemented
offered their IT team in addressing
new enhancement requests in-house,
tremendously reducing dependence of third
party vendors.
Mahindra Satyam
PO Box 30810
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
P: +971 4 391 1700
F: +971 4 391 1713
www.mahindrasatyam.com
17
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
Injazat Data Systems
Injazat Data Systems is a leading Information
Technology and Business Process Outsourcing
& Managed Services provider in the region.
Injazat offers a broad range of services from IT
strategy, IT consultancy, systems integration to
comprehensive outsourcing of IT and business
functions, delivered from the region’s most
sophisticated and advanced Tier IV design
www.injazat.com certified data centre facility.
Injazat has the capabilities to manage,
enhance and support the IT and business
ITQAN
ITQAN is the UAE’s leading SI known for
providing enterprise clients with world-class
solutions addressing their local business
needs. ITQAN offers a suite of key services
to combine the right hardware and software
solutions that deliver real business benefit to
enterprise customers, specialising in the public
and government sector, healthcare, oil and
gas, and education
www.itqan.ae With an impressive customer base of
more than 300 clients, ITQAN boasts of a
multi-national team of more than 100 IT
Jeraisy Computer & Communications Services Company (JCCS)
Over the past 18 years, JCCS has established
its reputation within the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia IT industry as a reliable and professional
technical service provider. Its major areas of
services spans across networking, security,
application services, and boasts of technical
skills and capabilities that address both
www.jccs.com.sa enterprise IT and telecom markets.
Key Information Technologies (KIT)
Key Information Technology ( KIT ) has been
in the forefront of Information Technology
Solutions provider in the UAE and the Middle
East since 1980. With offices in Dubai , Abu
Dhabi , Bahrain and representation in the
Middle East , KIT is very well positioned to fulfill
www.kit.ae the IT needs of business in the Middle East.
Key Information Technology (KIT ) is an IT
solutions provider in enterprise computing,
servers, storage, networking, power protection,
18
processes of large and small organizations.
To complement this, Injazat also has the
expertise to develop overall IT strategies and
help clients stay on the edge of business and
technology innovation.
To strengthen its offerings and
develop local knowledge equity, Injazat
uniquely leverages on HP and Mubadala
as shareholders, which participate as
active stakeholders in Injazat’s on-going
development and outreach.
professionals and offices in major UAE
cities. ITQAN is an ISO 9000-2008 certified
organisation and was the first system
integrator in the region to gain the ISO
20000 certification (in 2007) and has
recently added a third ISO certification,
the ISO 27001 standard. ITQAN is still
the only system integrator to receive
the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Quality
Appreciation Certificate & the Dubai
Quality appreciation award (the Emirates’
equivalent of EFQM).
JCSS has partnerships with technology
leaders which enabled it to leverage
advanced technologies and create effective
solutions tailor-made to meet the customers’
special needs. The company is a gold
certified partner of Microsoft, Cisco and
HP, and has formed alliances with Avaya,
Juniper, VMware and Oracle.
security, wireless, mobile solutions,
software, consulting and outsourcing.
KIT caters to the IT products and
service needs of governments, corporates,
multinational companies, hotels &
restaurants, banks, educational institutions,
healthcare, small and home offices in
partnership with brands like Dell, APC,
Micros-Fidelio, Microsoft, Acer, Cisco,
Avaya, Oracle, and Verbatim.
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
HELP AG
The company
h
elp AG is an enterprise security
reseller and security system
integrator that offers end-to-end
solutions and services addressing all aspects
of enterprise IT security. As a multi-award
winning systems integrator, the company
differentiates itself from its competitors
by complimenting its impressive vendor
portfolio with world-class consultancy
services, technical capabilities and excellent
customer support. The company's continued
investment in staff and technology means
that it can proactively deliver services,
operational support as well as turn-key
management of security solutions for
customers who wish to get superior
management of their security solutions.
In light of the increasing cyber-attacks in
the region, the information security market is
now one of the top five investment areas of
enterprise customers. help AG are uniquely
positioned to address this market as it
specialises solely in information security. The
focus on this niche segment coupled with
the fact that over 80% of its staff serve in
technical roles makes help AG the company
to beat in the enterprise IT security market.
Technical proficiency
The key to help AG's approach in the Middle
East market has always been excelling on
the technical level, delivering constant high
quality consulting and implementation of
security solutions. Even if there is a lack of
features in the vendor's solution, help AG
has the resources to develop applications
to overcome the limitations faced – a truly
unmatched level of technical skill and
innovation within the reseller community.
This is why even when products or solutions
stop delivering, help AG continues by
customising and adding functionalities
through in-house development of solutions.
20
Stephan Berner, MD, help AG
Vendor independence
Another unique aspect of help AG is that
it does not allow vendors to dictate terms.
Vendors are identified and key partnerships
are formed based on the vendor's ability
to solve unique problems and the
company never allows vendor pressure
to determine which solution is chosen for
the implementation. help AG constantly
tracks market trends and identifies solutions
which best address them. An example of
this is its recent partnership with Excitor.
Recognising the growing popularity of the
'consumerisation' of IT, the technical team at
help AG conducted a thorough analysis of
the solutions being offered and found that
the vast majority of these did not offer 'true'
security as they did not clearly distinguish
between personal and corporate data on the
user device. Excitor's DME platform on the
other hand adopts a unique containerised
approach and help AG decided to go with
this as it is confident that this is the best
solution for its customers.
For help AG, the focus has always been
on delivering the right technical solutions to
the customer for their specific problem. And
while this may not be popular with vendors,
it has gone a long way in building lasting
trust-based partnerships between help AG
and its customers.
Certifications and accreditations
In order to ensure that its engineers have an
in-depth knowledge of the products offered,
help AG focuses on achieving the highest
possible partner level with a number of
its partners, such as F5 Gold Unity Partner,
Palo Alto Platinum Partner, Symantec
Encryption Solution Specialist, Symantec
Data Loss Prevention Specialist, Symantec
IT Compliance Solution Specialist and Blue
Coat Gold Partner. Most recently, help AG
achieved the status of Elite partner in both
Network Infrastructure and Security within
Juniper Network's J-Partner program and is
now on the fast-track to becoming a Juniper
Operate Partner.
The security specialist has also signed
support partner agreements within multiple
partner programs. This has not only
allowed the company to excel in technical
solution delivery to customers but has also
strengthened its vendor relationships. In
www.helpag.com

Don’t underestimate your attacker.

They only need to be lucky once.

Secure your business with help AG. help AG is an information security service and solutions provider. Known for its unmatched
technical expertise and support services, help AG understands the correlation between technical and strategic information security
and brings you the best solutions available on this planet.

Strategic Consulting • Technical Services • Support Services

 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
2011, help AG won the following prestigious
vendor awards- Symantec Security MENA
Partner of the Year; Palo Alto Partner of the
Year; and F5 Unity Partner of the Year.
Superior customer support
Another key market differentiator is help
AG's professional customer support ticketing
system that streamlines the processing of
customer support requests, enhancing overall
support delivery of help AG services. help AG
currently handles more than 500 customer
support incidents a year- all within the
stipulated SLAs (Service Level Agreements).
The customer support system currently
allows customers to engage with help
AG in a number of different ways: toll free
24/7 telephone number, email integrated
ticketing system, and access to help AG
support services over a web application. All
active support customers are provided with a
unique system account allowing immediate
SLA reporting and case tracking.
International standards
help AG works in close collaboration with
leading manufacturers of IT security– its
qualifications, certifications and well tested
business processes are the guarantee for
quality in implementation and operation
of IT security. In addition, help AG supports
organisations in implementing and
achieving certification of international best
practice standards, such as ISO/IEC 27001 (for
information security), ISO 22310 (for business
continuity), ISO/IEC 20000-1 (IT service
management), the ADSIC Security Standards
and PCI-DSS for the security of payment card
data security. In Dr. Angelica Plate, help AG
has the only expert in the region actively
participating in international standardization
as editor of ISO/IEC 27001.
Initiatives and undertakings
help AG remains dedicated to generating
awareness about the latest IT security trends
affecting the region. In order to do so the
company has implemented a number of
initiatives which have helped its customers
make informed decisions regarding their
security roadmaps.
Learning lab
In 2011 help AG introduced the 'Learning
22
Lab' sessions which is course material
developed and delivered by help AG.
An example of this is the help AG web
application security training module, which
is a 4 day training course covering all aspects
of advanced web application hacking, giving
customers' engineers a better understanding
of how to protect against such attacks.
These training courses are delivered by help
AG security professionals and have been
extremely well received by the customers
who have been looking for vendor neutral
and unbiased description of technical
problems without the focus on pushing
technology solutions or boxes. This initiative
was only started in the 4th quarter of 2011
and help AG has already trained three
organisations (Energy, government and law
enforcement sectors) through individual
sessions.
Security Spotlight Forum (SSF)
This is the third consecutive year that help
AG is hosting its flagship Security Spotlight
Forum. This quarterly event, which is
conducted in collaboration with four of its
vendor partners, is aimed at CIOs and IT
decision makers and features presentations
on the the latest security related trends and
technologies. It also gives attendees the
unique opportunity to familiarise themselves
with actual demo equipment from
participating vendors.
CIO Circle of Trust
help AG also routinely hosts its 'CIO Circle
of Trust'- an event which brings together
CIOs from help AG's customer companies
in an environment which permits them
to exchange experiences about the IT
implementations in their organizations. This
event is completely vendor unbiased which
is why it has received an excellent response
from enterprises in the region.
help AG LABS
Over the last five years help AG Middle East
has been delivering penetration testing
and vulnerability assessment as part of
its focused security portfolio, allowing
it to manage the entire lifecycle of IT
information security including planning,
implementation, testing and operations.
Thanks to an overwhelming response and
staggering market demand, this has now
gone from being a small part of help AG's
service offerings to a focused business unit
for the delivery of unparalleled services
within the field of vulnerability assessments,
penetration testing, secure application
consultancy.
Furthermore, help AG LABS will conduct
applied security research on identified issues
in software implementations and operating
systems and then communicate with
vendors and the security community in order
to ensure proper security incident response.
help AG demo evaluation facility
help AG has also addressed the issue of not
having demo equipment by partners and
vendors by introducing the concept of the
help AG evaluation demo facility, which carries
test equipment of every focused technology
supported and deployed by help AG Middle
East. This allows both help AG engineers
and customers to test functionalities and
solutions. These demo boxes are available
either at help AG facilities or are used in the
proof of concept and test deployment and
verifications at customer sites.
Growth
help AG continued investing in its technical
team through 2011 and added almost
40% additional staff in different technical
positions. The security specialist now
employs one of the largest teams of IT
security professionals in any consultancy
company in the Middle East and intend to
further this with the addition of 15 more staff
members by the end of the year.
This year, help AG opened an office in
Doha, Qatar to better serve the numerous
requests from customers in Qatar which
is a market that offers a huge potential for
growth. The company also managed to
grow its business by 67% year-on-year and
saw both positive cash flow and increase in
profit levels.
help AG
PO Box 500741
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
P: +971 4 440 5666
F: +971 4 363 6742
www.helpag.com
About Mahindra Satyam
Mahindra Satyam is a global business consulting and information technology services company leveraging
deep industry and functional expertise, leading technology practices and a global delivery model to help
businesses transform their processes and improve performance. The company's professionals excel in
enterprise solutions, supply chain management, client relationship management, business intelligence,
business processes, engineering and product lifecycle management, infrastructure services, among
other services.

The company has development and delivery centres in the United States of America, Canada, Brazil, the
United Kingdom, Germany, France, Hungary, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, India, China, Malaysia,
Singapore, and Australia and serves numerous clients, including many Fortune 500 organizations.

Mahindra Satyam is part of the USD 15.4 billion Mahindra Group. The Mahindra Group employs more than
144,000 people in over 100 countries and operates in key industries that drive economic growth, enjoying
a leadership position in tractors, utility vehicles, information technology and vacation ownership. In 2011,
Mahindra featured on the Forbes Global 2000 list, a listing of the biggest and most powerful listed
companies in the world. Dun & Bradstreet also ranked Mahindra at No. 1 in the automobile sector in its
list of India’s Top 500 Companies. In 2010, Mahindra featured in the Credit Suisse Great Brands of
Tomorrow. In 2011, Mahindra acquired a majority stake in Korea’s SsangYong Motor Company.
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012

NANJGEL solutions
The company

N
anjgel Solutions is a one-stop-
shop service provider for a
variety of business needs. It
provides business and IT solutions,
services and trainings in the region
through its robust delivery processes,
people and technologies.
Nanjgel says its mission is to focus
on the success of its customers and
engender long term partnering
relationships, as it continues to deliver
business and IT based solutions and
products that provide impact on its
strategic business goals.
Whether an end-user is looking
to develop a new network solution,
planning a technology upgrade,
developing a Wireless solution
or troubleshooting an existing IT
requirement, Nanjgel says its certified
staff and partners has the right solution.
The company also partners with several
hardware and software vendors, internet
service providers and sub-contractors
to provide one-stop-shop IT integration
services. It says these relationships
enable it to offer its customers high-
volume pricing, direct delivery and better
warranty programs.
Nanjgel offers 24X7 support from its
HQ in Dubai within contractual SLA terms,
which includes penalties and rebates
too. Pre-sales and post-sales support is
provided through phone, online chat,
client visits, WebEx and the company has
an internal dedicated certified support
team. Nanjgel offers standard (8x5)
and premium (24X7) support on post
implementation to ensure immediate
onsite support within two hours from the
opening of a support ticket .
Jude Pereira, MD at Nanjgel

24

The right solution
Jude Pereira, MD at Nanjgel states that providing effective integration
of business demands with the right software is the reason behind the
company’s consistent success.
1. Define Nanjgel’s growth over the last 12
months.
We have enjoyed 100% growth over the last
year. Most of this has come from just acting
on business demands – a lot of enterprises
are looking at certification and compliance,
and handling security threats at large. Our
success has rested on the capability that
we possess to prove to the management
that the organisation is secure in real terms.
I mean, not just by saying that these are
great products, but by being able to prove
that we can provide near foolproof security
by ensuring that the right set of products
are deployed in your organisation. We map
technology and business demands to the
product set that we have, which typically
does not happen very often in the region.
2. What are the trends that you see
influencing regional enterprise IT in
the next five years, and how is Nanjgel
working to provision these technologies
to end-users?
We try to be one step ahead of market and
demands. We have a constant eye on the
latest technologies and the latest reports
coming out from analysts like Gartner and
IDC. We know market trends in Europe
and US. We try to adapt to that. We are
very dynamic in providing solutions to
the customers. The product set that we
provided customers four years ago does
not exist with us. We are very dynamic and
proactive in provisioning the right set of
technologies to customers.
In terms of technology, definitely the
trends would include data loss prevention
(DLP), data warehousing, business
analytics, all from security point of view and
encryption. In terms of business demands
the trends are geared towards more real-
time reporting and more detailed granular
reports, rather than just assumptions.
The classic examples would include retail
organisations, insurance or shipping
agencies. If customers usually ask for some
information, traditionally there would
be just one mail going back. However,
businesses have to be able to give more
than a single reply, they should be capable
of giving options.
Technology has to address business
demands, and it is not just about addressing
needs, it is about providing reports as well
now. It is all about instantaneous business
performance assessment.
3. What is the relevance of a good SI to a
successful IT project in an enterprise?
The systems integrator that works with
an organisation should be the one that
understands the business needs of the
customer and meets it with the right
technology. Typically, the vendor does not
understand what the customer needs here
in the region. They are very different from
customer needs in Europe or the Americas.
The SI therefore, has to understand the
product, understand the customer and
customise it for local requirements. This is
where the biggest gap exists.
4. What are the points end-users should
keep in mind when choosing an SI to work
on a project?
That is a million dollar question. An SI
should have all the right ingredients
in place and should be able to identify
business opportunities, map them to
partnering with the right vendors and
products, and have a good infrastructure in
place to support both business demands
and deployment demands. It is about have
the right resources and the right tool sets.
The most important consideration for
end-users is understanding the experience
that is possessed by an SI’s engineers. It is not
just about certification – experience is most
important. They should also check and cross
reference implementations done by the SI.
The end-user should also confirm that all
TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
the people who were involved in delivering
successful projects for the SI are still within
the firm and have not left the same.
5. What are the most common mistakes
that end-users make which endanger a
project’s capacity to deliver on its goals?
A lot of time they assume that they will
get a lot of benefits without making sure
on whether the product can deliver on
those requirements and whether an SI
can customise the product to deliver on
expectations using that tool. They fail to
gauge the situation properly and validate it.
6. How does Nanjgel work with clients in
order to ensure that their projects give
them the business benefit they require?
In our region its only 10% of the clients
that really have the time to maximise what
they have deployed. A large portion of
them don’t have the time or resources to
maximise on their investment. Either they
get a bad name or they keep quite. We are
providing them with onsite resources to
make sure that they can maximise tools for
them.
7. Define Nanjgel strategy for the next 12
months.
We are just sticking to the basics. I was
reading a recent report where the CEO of
GE has said that they were able to gain
16% profitability in the last quarter, just by
sticking to the basics. We are not going to
be talking more philosophy or technology
– we are going back to basics on what we
are good at and stick to that. We are also
very clear that we work only with certain
segments in the market. We don’t feel a loss
by not being a part of the hotels industry
or the real-estate industry. We focus on
government, finance, oil and gas, and the
airports sector overall. We stick to what we
are best at and focus only on those areas.
Nanjgel
PO Box 500804
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
P: +971 4 433 0560
F: +971 453 7281
www.nanjgel.com
25
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
Intertec
Naresh Kothari, MD at Intertec
Delivering productivity
Intertec’s MD Naresh Kothari describes the IT trends that will affect
regional enterprises and explains how organisations can choose the right
systems integrator.
1. Define Intertec's growth over the last 12
months.
We have had a sustained growth of 25%
over the last 12 month period.
2. What are the trends that you see
influencing regional enterprise IT in the next
five years, and how is Intertec working to
provision these technologies to end-users?
Regional companies are looking for cost
effective solutions which will help them
deliver better, faster response to their
customers securely. This involves many
areas of business—including customer
care, complaint management, compliance,
mobile services, CRM and BI.
Intertec has partnered with quite a few
solution providers as well as developed its
own IPR to deliver in most of the solution
areas. Cloud hosting, mobile applications
and BI will be important areas over the
next two years other than security and
26
we have invested in all these areas and
delivered some of them while others are in
development.
3. What is the relevance of a good SI to a
successful IT project in an enterprise?
A good SI has a very important role to
deliver a successful project over a non-SI.
An SI has internal technical capabilities
on multiple technologies and products,
so it can integrate them and provide a
seamless solution to a customer to meet
its business objectives. An SI will also use
project management methodology to
deliver successful projects.
4. What are the points end-users should
keep in mind when choosing an SI to work
on a project?
End-users must check that the project track
record delivery is on time and within the
budgeted cost. They must also check that
project managers are PMI certified and
technology is provided by certified persons.
5. What are the most common mistakes
that end-users make which endanger a
project’s capacity to deliver on its goals?
End-users do not get a detailed SOW from
the supplier and agree the deliverables in
writing has been a major cause of failure of
projects. Further, the end-users change the
scope in the middle of the project which
impacts delivery, and end-users often do
not delegate a full time staff member from
their side to accept the project on each
stage basis.
6. How does Intertec work with clients in
order to ensure that its projects give it the
business benefit it requires?
At Intertec all sales and business team use
the mission statement of the company to
help in their customer business needs and
what are the critical success factors. Based
on this an initial understanding document is
prepared followed by an SOW with business
benefits.
7. Define Intertec's strategy for the next
12 months.
The next 12 months are very critical due to
market dynamics. We will develop market
segmentation deeper and create more
selling opportunity. We will also develop
two to three IPRs in niche areas, which
will help customers manage and analyse
their business better, increase revenue or
decrease cost.
Intertec
PO Box 27130
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
P: +971 4 222 1338
F: +971 4 227 4537
www.intertecsys.com
Cisco: Nominated Best
Global Commercial
Partner (2012)
 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
MDS Computers
MDS Computers is an IT Systems Integrator
providing different products & services ranging from
hardware, software, and consultancy, with offices in
Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
MDS offers following range of services:
www.mds.ae • System Integration
• Data Center / Critical Infrastructure Consultancy,
Integration & Operation.
• Software Solutions & Professional Services
SBM
SBM was established in 1981 as a general
marketing and service representative of
IBM in the Kingdom, and since then it has
emerged as the leading IT company providing
end-to-end enterprise IT solutions across all
industries. Its pool of strategic alliances has
grown to encompass Cisco and SAP, among
www.sbm.com.sa others. SBM’s capability as a total solutions
provider is further enhanced with its portfolio
of services in networking, systems integration,
Seven Seas Computers
Seven Seas is a leading system integrator and
an ICT solution provider in the UAE. Seven
Seas Computers is an ISO 9001:2008 certified
company since 1983 and a Tiered partner
to all major technology vendors and are the
pioneers in delivering technology solutions
and services in enterprise Computing,
networking, security, voice, DR, access control,
www.sscomp.ae video conferencing in addition to outsourcing
and managed services.
28
• Computer Systems & Networking
• Stand by power Systems & Telecom Shelters
Being nominated as the Microsoft Gold Partner
in the UAE, the Preferred Partner of Hewlett
Packard (HP) & awarded "HP Software Platinum
Partner", MDS Computers provides full IT
Solutions for Enterprise customers & Small /
Medium sized Businesses including Hardware,
Networking, Security and Infrastructure.
consultancy and implementation in
addition to operations apart.
SBM has a full company organisation
designed to make it flexible and adaptive
to the changing and developing
requirements of its customers and has
access to IBM’s worldwide practices,
resources and knowledge bases to
implement major ICT solutions in
Saudi Arabia.
With over 300+ ICT trained and certified
professionals, Seven Seas Computers
delivers cost effective and efficient design,
project implementations, maintenance
contracts to further provide the customer
with highest level of service in all industry
verticals such as Large and Medium
Enterprises, Airlines, Government, Oil & Gas,
Banking & Finance, Hospitality, Healthcare
and Education sector.
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 TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012

paramount
@ssuring Value

Paramount Computer Systems

The company

F
ounded in 1992, transformed
in 1999 and re-invented
in 2007, Paramount as a
company is 'work in progress'.
Paramount is a leading regional
provider of technology and services
for securing the information
assets of enterprises. From the
development of a security policy and
security awareness training, through
to the delivery of complete end-
to-end solutions (that encompass
perimeter security, secure content
management, identity and access
management and vulnerability, risk,
policy and compliance management)
Paramount has enabled various
enterprises in the Gulf region to
understand, monitor and mitigate
the risks in their information
infrastructure.
Paramount has established a
reputation for providing practical
solutions that are both business
driven and cost-effective. This has
enabled the company to secure
the IT infrastructure of leading
government undertakings, banks
and financial institutions, airlines
and transportation companies,
telecommunication authorities,
universities and large corporates in
the region.
Paramount follows the 'people,
process and technology' approach
when it comes to delivering
information security to its
customers. Therefore the company
always seeks to partner with
international vendors that share the
similar viewpoints.
Premchand Kurup, CEO, Paramount Computer Systems

30

Security specialist
Paramount Computer Systems believes in process and procedure to provide
its end-user the best in systems integration. CEO of the firm Premchand
Kurup talks about the elements that set it apart in a competitive environment.
1. Define Paramount’s growth over the
last 12 months.
We have grown in double digits on all
the lines – revenue, gross profit and
net profit. We achieved that primarily
because we don’t have a vendor
concentration risk in our business, no
customer concentration risk and no
geographic location concentration risk.
We have seven offices across different
cities in the region. From the vendor
perspective we have McAfee, Websense,
Fortinet, RSA – we have multiple vendors
in our basket. We have focused on our
own value-add within the company, and
have always operated with a customer-
backwards approach and not vendor-
forward approach. These are the reasons
we have enjoyed this growth.
2. What are the trends that you see
influencing regional enterprise IT in the
next five years, and how is Paramount’s
working to provision these technologies
to end-users?
You have to look at this from the context
that we are focused on information
security – we are a pure-play information
security services and technology
provider. The three areas that we see
affecting IT in a big way in the next five
years, which will also impact the way
customers architect security, are BYOD at
one end, big data at the other end and
cloud in the middle.
Mobility and BYOD will become a
reality soon in the region. At the other
end of the spectrum there is big data.
This involves the data that is being
created by all those devices out there –
there are more than two billion users and
three trillion devices on the internet, and
all of them are creating data.
We think that these three are going
to be the technologies that are going
to have a significant impact on IT, and
therefore have a significant impact on IT
security as well. We have commenced our
experiment in all these three areas. We
are playing in big data space with security
incidence and event management. SIEM is
going to change significantly in the next
few years because of big data. We have
a few proof-of-concepts running among
some key customers.
3. What is the relevance of a good SI to a
successful IT project in an enterprise?
The SI makes all the difference.
Technology is just one small part of any
project. The team that is delivering on
that technology implementation is, if you
ask me, the most crucial thing. First, they
need to have the right knowledge, skill
and experience.
The company that is delivering
on the project should also have a
methodology on top of the knowledge
and experience. There should be clearly
defined implementation and project
management methodology. This makes
all the difference.
4. What are the points end-users should
keep in mind when choosing an SI to
work on a project?
The customer needs to ask at the pre-
sales stage what is the knowledge,
skill and competency of the team,
the implementation and project
management methodology that is being
used and the methodology of ongoing
support. Unfortunately customers tend
to relegate this to the background, and
focus on the vendor’s technology. There
is very little difference in the technology
between most major tier one vendors,
the difference is achieved in the way
a technology is implemented and
configured. A mis-configured firewall is
worse than having no firewall. There is
a whole host of firewalls out there with
TOP 2O | SYSTEM INTEGRATORS 2012
paramount @ssuring Value
all ports open, and customers don’t even
know this. There is a lack of competency
and experience, and among the vendor
community, there is also a lack of
integrity to the customer.
5. What are the most common mistakes
that end-users make which endanger a
project’s capacity to deliver on its goals?
The biggest mistake is not clearly defining
expectations. It has to be defined and
both sides have to understand them,
the timelines for delivery and what has
to be measured for success. If all these
are clearly understood every project will
be a success. This is invariably what is
not done – failed SAP and Oracle ERP
packages run into hundreds.
6. How does Paramount work with
clients in order to ensure that their
projects give them the business benefit
they require?
Before the start of any project we
determine the knowledge and skill sets
that is required to deliver the project.
Then we assemble a team to ensure that
there is internal clarity on the skill.
We make sure that the deployment
methodology as per in-house IT is
followed. We have an independent
project manager and a post-
implementation audit. All this is possible
only if the customer is actually paying for
the services. If he expects all of this to
come for free, then a big challenge arises.
7. Define Paramount’s strategy for the
next 12 months.
The strategy is to grow our information
security business and simultaneously
incubate this new company in the
cloud space. We have identified several
shortcomings, and we are working on
fixing this. This will enable us to scale the
information security business.
Paramount Computer Systems
PO Box 25703
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
P: +971 4 391 8600
F : +971 4 391 8608
www.paramountassure.com
31