Maged Eid, vice president of Nexthink, said that the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT)’s Egypt’s 2030 Strategy for digital transformation is the right way forward in achieving economic progress. During his interview with Daily News Egypt, Eid talks about current developments in the Egyptian market, and the Middle East market at large, and where he believes the country should go from there.
Egypt is applying its own strategy of digital transformation. How does that affect the Egyptian market? Do you think that there are opportunities for your company to contribute to the implementation of this strategy?
Digital Transformation is disrupting the public sector globally. I believe the MCIT’s implementation of Egypt’s 2030 strategy for digital transformation is the right way forward to achieve economic progress, international competitiveness, and improve services. As we can see, the government has initiated 20 different projects since moving ahead with this strategy. We believe this will help to create further jobs, especially in the tech sector and provide a host of opportunities for Egypt.
We can definitely help organisations and governmental efforts to accelerate their Digital Transformation agenda and strategy.
The key thing to understand is that any transformation needs technology like ours to analyse data to be able to provide insightful meaning. Our software gives IT more visibility and insights by combining certain sets of metrics with employee feedback of their actual experience. This enables an organisation to make smart real-time IT decisions, which will help it achieve its core business objectives.
What is your vision for the market in the Middle East and Egypt, especially during the coming period?
Digital innovation is a major driver of opportunity, productivity, and creativity. Egypt is one of our key markets and we are working very closely with our customers to achieve their digital transformation goals.
What are the prospects for growth in the technology market in the region and Egypt in light of the increased dependence on modern technologies such as AI, the Internet of things, and cloud computing?
AI is progressively becoming a disruptive technology that is redefining lives and jobs. It has become an integral part of how digital transformation impacts industries. According to IDC, the next four years will see the MEA government sector spend $32bn in IT, with digital transformation being the top priority for governments.
AI will drive further investments in these technologies, especially from the public, education, healthcare, service, and manufacturing sectors. The Egyptian Government recently announced that it aims to have 7.7% of its GDP derived through AI by 2030.
What are the most prominent solutions offered by your company that may gain opportunities in Egypt?
Nexthink helps IT teams meet the needs of the modern digital workplace, as our products allow enterprises to create highly productive digital workplaces for their employees through a unique combination of real-time analytics, automation, and employee feedback.
On average, every employee loses 22 minutes a day trying to deal with IT issues and only 50% of problems are ever reported to the IT department. What typically happens is that a company invests a lot in the back -end IT infrastructure, but they don’t take into account the technological experiences of an employee (end-user). Why is this important? If an employee does not have the right tools or capabilities, they are less likely to be productive and motivated to do their jobs.
Nexthink’s platform provides a robust way of gathering metrics and end user sentiment in order to proactively find problems that the IT department were previously unaware of – enhancing productivity and collaboration. Today, Nexthink is the only company to provide enterprises with a way to visualise, act, and engage across the entire IT ecosystem to lower IT cost and improve digital employee experience.
As well as being able to monitor and measure the digital employee experience, we have two modules that can enable companies to deliver continuous improvements – Act and Engage. Act remediates problems quickly by pin-pointing the issues across the entire employee network, assessing the impact and taking immediate action within seconds.
Engage goes a step further and engages with the end-user, breaking down the wall between IT and employees. For example, we inform the user that we are aware they have experienced a performance issue and the problem has been resolved and to rate their experience with IT. This gives the organisation an opportunity to make the end-user part of the decision-making cycle, which will help to better align the business while increasing productivity and delivering higher end-user satisfaction with IT.
What are your plans regarding cooperation with the Egyptian government in implementing projects, especially as Egypt has become a promising market in information technology in light of the government adopting ambitious plans in this sector?
We work with several Egyptian government agencies to help them digitally transform their businesses and services.
How do you see your company’s presence in the region and is there a plan to expand?
We have a strong presence in Egypt and it is a key country for Nexthink’s business growth. Some of our key customers are from the government, defence, financial, hospitality healthcare, and manufacturing sector.
In 2020, we will look into regional expansion by increasing our team strength and strengthening our partnership with our channel network.
What is the rate of growth expected to be achieved in the near future?
This isn’t information that we would share publicly. We have experienced phenomenal growth over the last few years and fully expect that trend to continue as the demand for digital experience management continues to grow within enterprises across the world.
