In the face of COVID-19 coronavirus, the UAE’s banking and finance, education, and retail sectors are accelerating digital transformation to deliver business continuity, customer happiness, and smart services. The Dubai Department of Economic Development recently mandated 80% of private sector employees to work remotely. As a result, the BFSI, education, and retail sectors have led in innovation, argues Condo Protego, a UAE-based IT infrastructure and information management consultancy and solutions provider.
By 2022, KPMG predicts that 80 percent of revenue growth will depend on digital offerings and operations, meaning early adopters will have a competitive edge. The UAE’s banking and financial sector has already been using Big Data, AI, and machine learning to personalise customer services. Now, the challenge is moving desk-bound employees to remote working. Firms have had to purchase hardware, secure access to data and applications, and adopt collaboration platforms.
About 1.1 million public and private school students have moved from the classroom to e-learning platforms such as Google Classroom, ClassDojo, and Seesaw, with distance learning now through the entire Spring 2020 academic term. Supporting remote learning, over 42,000 educators received e-learning qualifications from the UAE Ministry of Education and Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University.
As UAE malls have closed for the foreseeable future, retailers and restaurants are re-orienting to deliveries and developing plans to launch virtual malls. Personalised customer shopping offers, geo-location services, and targeted marketing are delivering the goods and services that maintain business and society.
“In the face of coronavirus, remote work, distance learning, and virtual malls are examples of the UAE’s private sector supporting short-term business continuity, happy customers, and digital resiliency, and transforming industries and business competitiveness in the long-term,” said Andrew Calthorpe, CEO, Condo Protego.
“UAE organisations should turn to knowledgeable and experienced channel partners to align strategic business goals with information management tactics in hardware acquisition, IT infrastructure, and business software,” added Andrew Calthorpe.
