In conversation with Andrew Hanna, CEO – ZainTECH, as he discusses their GITEX Global 2024 participation, their complete portfolio and how they are empowering customers in their digitalization and transformation journey
Tell us about your GITEX 2024 participation, what innovations did you showcase this year?
It’s our 2nd year to participate in GITEX and we showcased a full spectrum of offerings. ZainTECH’s portfolio spans across infrastructure, cloud, multi-cloud environment, professional services, managed services, digital solutions, and cybersecurity portfolio. We also highlighted partner solutions around data and AI, particularly our data science and data engineering practice, as well as our drones and robotics solutions.
Our presence at GITEX is a really good opportunity for customers to come into the one place, meet up with the team, and understand the customer transformation journey; all the way from offering them real time decision-making and capabilities, to more importantly, seeing how their story can be told. Even in the way that we designed and laid out our booth, it is very much to tell that story where customers can see, what stage they are at in their digitalization journey, and how the components of our offering and proposition come together.
You mentioned your drones and robotics division, is this industry specific?
Actually, initially, a lot of the thinking was that it is industry specific. But the reality of the matter is, drones and robotics are really a data collecting tool. If you take that approach to it, then you’re applying it to every and any industry, it’s not a problem at all. And the way that it would work essentially is, we’re doing work in oil and gas, we’re doing work in retail, in construction, in asset inspection, and in critical asset inspection. We’re doing a lot of work on those areas. So, we are focused on industries that are very asset oriented. You can literally send somebody out with a truck or a helicopter to do it, but today, we can do that in a matter of a week with a drone, if not even a few days. And then we obviously have the intelligence and the AI built into the software to be able to extract real time data, and offer that value to the customers immediately.
How is ZainTECH enabling customers, enterprises, large enterprises with their digital transformation goals?
At ZainTECH, we keep saying something very simple to customers, and it sits extremely well with them, and this is: “listen, you have investments in technology, but you’re never going to see the value from that unless you’ve set out to actually ask what is the value I’m getting from our technology investment?”. We want to show customers that. We want to work with them on a journey to extract value from that investment.
I’ll give you an example: a lot of customers want to move to cloud, but let’s be honest, moving to cloud on its own will give you marginal benefits. You need to start to modernize your applications, turn them into cloud native, and then have the journey of ‘what does the cloud mean for me’, and ‘how do I secure myself within that environment?’ that’s when you start seeing real value.
A lot of the customers made the investment in cloud, but they never asked, ‘okay, what’s next?’. That’s where we come in and say, ‘Okay, you’ve made the investment, now let’s take you to the next level. Let’s bring in the right services, the right managed services, the right professional services.’
We look into modernizing their applications and their environment to really show the benefits of this engine. I would say it’s like buying an expensive racing car, but putting bad tires on it, it’s never going be able to race.
How is ZainTECH integrating emerging technologies like AI, GenAI into their offerings for their customers?
Use cases. Very specific use cases. Working with partners that solve a problem using AI. I think the word AI is a nice to have. I think it’s a catch all phrase. Yes, there’s a lot of hype, but I think our job is to sift through the hype and to say to customers, listen, you know, what is it you want to do? How can we use AI?
How can we extract and interrogate and run models on top of your data to actually bring you value. But then, you actually end up with very fundamentally simple questions like, do you know what data you’ve got? Most customers will be well advanced, some may not be. This is not a fault of their own, but it’s the level of stage of their evolution. So, let’s take a couple of steps back, AI models without data are pointless. How can we train these models? How can we actually apply intelligence to what you are doing? Some industries are very well advanced, some industries are not.
So discussing that with the customer and taking them through the journey, and asking these questions makes a difference. And that’s when they start responding with understanding and how it can be applied; whether in their call center, a certain service, or automating certain processes. Then we break it down into smaller parts that are relevant for the customer’s business, and based on that, they see value.
Any big announcements you’d like to revisit that you made during GITEX?
As ZainTECH, we made lot of announcements during GITEX 2024. We continue to release them and publish them. So, stay tuned for that. We’ve done a lot of work with the hyperscalers across all the region. More so, we’re doing work with the hyperscalers and the partners, to really take their solutions to market and bring some of the intelligence that we have developed to market.
In summary, we’re doing a lot of work on transforming customers that are utilizing, AWS or Azure or Oracle, but bringing the level of intelligence on top of that as well. This is really where we’re going as a next evolution for us.
