Zain teams up with Microsoft to drive digital transformation in Kuwait SME sector
Kuwait’s leading digital service provider to fuel entrepreneurship, job creation and innovation with Microsoft cloud services, including advanced artificial intelligence solutions
KUWAIT: Zain, the leading digital service provider in Kuwait, yesterday announced a partnership with Microsoft to accelerate digital transformation among its SME customers, through the provision of trusted cloud services. The partnership will allow existing Zain customers to benefit from launch offers and special promotions while connecting Kuwait’s entrepreneurial community to the advanced tools and technology platforms needed to grow and thrive in the global digital economy. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will gain access to solutions such as Office 365 and other Business Intelligence tools in order better empower their employees, engage their customers, optimize operations and transform products and services.
Eaman Al-Roudhan, Zain Kuwait’s Chief Executive Officer, commented: “Our collaboration with Microsoft comes under the umbrella of Zain’s vision to expand our strategic partnerships ecosystem with global technology leaders around the world to offer the latest and most advanced business solutions to the Kuwaiti entrepreneurial community. It is of paramount importance to us that we support homegrown talents in their endeavors to create jobs and make their mark on the regional and global stages.”
The SME sector in Kuwait is one of the key drivers to steadfast economic diversification. For Kuwait, the need to push for SME’s - in addition to large-sized enterprises - that are focused on the technological sector is also of paramount importance, in terms of strengthening the nation’s innovation capabilities. In line to this objective, the government has also established national funds to help create jobs, increase private partnerships and upscale income diversification within small, medium, and large sized enterprises.
Recently, Kuwait has sought to expand its SME sectors to support national economic-diversification programs,” said Charles Nahas, Regional General Manager, Middle East Cluster (MEC) Microsoft. “Microsoft remains committed to helping Kuwaiti SMEs achieve more through the power of digital transformation. As the result of our partnership with Zain, the trusted Microsoft Cloud will help these businesses engage customers, empower employees, optimize operations and reinvent products and services.”
Zain’s Microsoft Office 365 bundle will comprise of a number of subscription-based innovative solutions that include Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange Online, both which offer increased productivity, efficiency and reduced costs, both on-premise and oncloud. Businesses of all sizes can enjoy access to their productivity applications anywhere and at any time with all the necessary upgrades at no cost. Customers will also have access to a variety of complementary services, including 24/7 support and consultancy from Zain and Microsoft’s teams. A number of additional services are also available for customers to ensure they get the best out of their service experience, such as on-boarding and migration as well as mobility bundles, including the all-new revolutionary 5G technology.
During October 2018, Zain signed a partnership agreement with Microsoft to offer various cloudbased services to large enterprises and small-medium businesses across Kuwait. The partnership was signed during the 38th edition of The Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX Technology Week 2018). The international event, hosted in the United Arab Emirates, was organized by the Dubai World Trade Centre, and featured the biggest global companies, organizations, and entities from the Telecom and IT industry. As part of this partnership, Zain packaged its own tools, products and services, and combined them with Microsoft’s cloud solutions into one offering for its customers in the country, making the most out of the intelligent cloud.
The move comes at a time when Kuwait and other GCC nations are engaged in economic expansions fuelled by transformative technologies like cloud and artificial intelligence. In a 2018 Microsoft digital transformation survey among more than 1,300 regional ICT decision makers, almost half (48 percent) said their organization had yet to move any of its IT infrastructure to the cloud. However, more than 73 percent plan to do so in 2019.
The results reflect a widespread acceleration in migration to the cloud and related technologies, such as artificial intelligence. Around two in five Middle East organizations (39 percent) have already adopted AI solutions and more than one third (37 percent) are planning to adopt in 2019. Because of these findings, and others like them, Microsoft decided to build two dedicated cloud datacenters in the neighboring United Arab Emirates, to serve Middle East customers.