Driven with a sense of optimism especially with the industries like Banking and Energy, this financial year 2020, the most of the firms across the Middle East as well as Africa turf are expected and all set to shell out in excess of $30 billion (Dh110.1Bn) on the digital transformation project.
As per the words stated by Jyoti Lalchandani, Group Vice-President and Managing director for MEA and Turkey at International Data Corporation, “the overall net worth of the Information Technology (IT) spend out in the MEA will be $90bn during 2020 and out of which the one-third part will be directly sent on towards digital transformation drive.”
Mr. Lalchandani also added that “With the active participation of an added number of industries like banking and energy, pushing forward for the latest technologies to transform their operations there would be a significant surge in digital transformation expenditure.”
As per the IDC forecasts Banking and Finance Industry tops the charts on spending a significant worth on acquiring the latest technologies that are estimated to be $13.23Bn for this year and which is only subjected to surge to touch $15.24bn by 2023, estimated growth of 4.7 percent at the compounded rates.
Resource Industries that also includes Oil, Hydrocarbon, and Gas Mining industries are estimated to spend $5.33Bn on the technology front this year. It is anticipated to rise to $5.79Bn in the upcoming three-four years period.
Dubai Internet City (DIC), one of the prominent investment zones within the Emirates, foresees a lack of fine talent as a hindrance within the current digital transformation drive.
Ammar Al Malik, director of DIC stated that “The government is pushing digital transformation in an exceedingly huge method and positive results are before everyone… Dubai smart Internet City is additionally taking part in an important role in attracting new talent and technologies.”
Mr. Malik stated that “But we have a tendency to still got to do a lot of and therefore the trade is facing a talent shortage.”
Currently, over 25,000 individuals are engaging at DIC and therefore the authorities expect this range to achieve 40,000 within the next six to seven years.
Korn Ferry, a Los Angeles-based service industry firm, expected that there’ll be a worldwide technical talent shortage of over eighty-five million individuals, which is roughly equal to the population of Germany, over the subsequent 10 years. This would thus end in $8.5tn in unrealized revenues, it added.
A talent shortage can impact the region in 2 ways that, stated Mr. Lalchandani.
“It can prevent investment and force the businesses to modify a lot of. I won’t say that with automation there’ll be job cuts … rather, it’ll result in job rationalization as new styles of jobs are going to be created and firms will be needed to upskill their current workers,” he said.
Technology corporations agree there’s a skills gap within the region that’s pushing back the speed of digitization.
Charbel Khneisser Middle East and North Africa regional director at Riverbed Technology stated that “Our regional customers face plenty of ability shortage particularly within the fields of performance-oriented jobs that involve fast trouble-shooting, analyzing large knowledge and predicting future trends.”
“This retards the pace of digital transformation efforts,” he added.
California-headquartered Riverbed has over 1,000 clients within the Middle East, Saudi Arab and UAE regions– the Gulf’s largest economies – its biggest markets. Mr. Khneisser added that “To minimize the impact of talent shortage on the companies’ bottom line, we offer them watching tools or computer code to perform varied tasks.”
