As Egypt continues efforts towards achieving its digital transformation goal, one of the key factors of reaching the country’s 2030 Vision, the role of software and tech companies becomes more important than ever.
Software AG has recently expanded its operations in the Middle East and Turkey (MET) region with foray into Egypt.
“Our new office is a testament to our long-term commitment to Egypt and to providing opportunities that create value and delivers breakthrough innovations with our shared ambitions of accelerating streamlined citizen services in line with Digital Egypt and the country’s digital transformation at all levels,“ Rami Kichli, Senior Vice-President, Software AG, Middle East and Turkey told Daily News Egypt.
Daily News Egypt interviewed Kichli, to find out more about the company’s expansion objectives in Egypt, and future plans.
What are the company’s growth and expansion objectives in Egypt and your strategy to achieve these goals?
The Egyptian market presents a significant growth opportunity for Software AG and fits right in the centre of our rapid geographical expansion of the MET region. We focus on Egypt through two distinct dimensions –
Addressing the Egyptian market transformational requirements across major public-private entities that we already collaborate with, including government, finance & banking, telcos, utilities, oil & gas, and the vibrant manufacturing sector amongst other key verticals. Moreover, as pioneers of open banking solutions in the country, in line with Egypt Vision 2030, we deliver smarter solutions to customers through Software AG’s financial technologies to build customised open banking solutions that are adaptable and tailored for the Egypt market. Through our open banking platform, we aim to further strengthen the financial system in the country and complement Egypt’s overall aim of fintech, to secure financial inclusion. With this, we bring to the country, our success and expertise built globally. We see the voracious appetite for transformation and how the Egyptian government is mobilising the private sector along with the public sector into the journey of digitization and providing elevated services to the nation’s constituents.
The second and more vital dimension which has been well planned and evaluated over the last 2-3 years is steering towards establishing Egypt as a nearshore centre for Software AG for the entire MET region. Egypt was a clear and obvious choice due to the incredible Egyptian government’s support through facilities and rebates received in setting this up. This is another growth opportunity for Software AG and we look forward to building a top-notch service centre in Egypt. Another aspect that made Egypt our unanimous choice was the fact that Egypt has a considerable supply of young talent that are technology educated and equipped with very high qualifications and language skills that can help deliver these services, a great fit for multinationals like Software AG to the rest of the region.
The above two dimensions summarise our approach to Egypt over the next 3 years with a considerable impact on Software AG’s overall MET business.
What is the company’s expertise in the technology sector; explain the product stack and how it will benefit the technological advancement of the country?
Software AG offers a product stack across Integration and API management, IoT and Analytics and Business Transformation requirements of enterprises. Our success in the last decade and more in providing this to our customers, speaks for our credibility and capability in helping governments transform and focus on elevating services to its stakeholders. At Software AG, we provide governments across the region with a platform that allows them to plan the architecture for services transformation with a futuristic vision of a city or a country. Through this transition, they can provide ‘seven star’ or the best available services. We also deliver these services via the creation of apps that constituents will use along with its monitory services to create visibility on how these new services are performing at all levels of leadership in a state or country for continuous improvement possibilities while also maintaining efficiency.
We have already commenced working closely with Egyptian government entities for such initiatives. Our ambition and aspiration are to be the single platform for the Egyptian government in the journey of service excellence. This will have a significant and measurable impact on citizen engagement across various touch points in the entire spectrum of audiences for the Egyptian government. For instance, tourist journeys are critical for countries like Egypt which has heavy tourist traffic inflow into the country. It significantly matters how a tourist engages when he arrives in the country, his experience across different touchpoints and the overall experience. These are important aspects of national transformation and we are aligned and equipped and committed to support them in this goal stated by the Egyptian government.
Which government sector companies will benefit from Software AG’s offerings and what are the public sector companies currently partnered with the company?
Certainly. As already impressed, the public sector and its ambitions for digital transformation in Egypt are well known and we pledge our support to the government. While we have already commenced work with many government organisations, with most projects underway, it may be premature to name them. Digital Egypt is a key focal point and together we aim to expand within the length and breadth of the public sector and become the single largest platform for service excellence in Egypt.
Can you define your role in Egypt across the public and private sectors?
We started our cooperation with Egypt’s government in 2020, with Digital Egypt towards building Egypt as a digital society. Since then, we’ve been working to build digital blueprints of government services to enhance the performance of ministries and other government agencies and raise the quality and efficiency of services that are provided across the country.
The digital blueprints will eventually serve to be seen as a service catalogue designed to guide the different services of the Egyptian government.
Moreover, our digital transformation journey for the nation has also been supported by training over 500 government employees on the fundamentals of using a digital platform, sharpening their skills to elevate services with Software AG’s learning program. We’ve also trained them in Business Process Management (BPM), as a discipline to understand the key components in order to improve services for the government with the use of a Software AG platform. Our trainings will continue and we expect to train another 500 employees over the next few months.
What is your strategy when it comes to dealing with the global economic crisis, growing inflation, and currency exchange rates?
We always look at a long-term strategic view, that goes beyond current challenges that may exist across geographies and at different points in time. At Software AG, we build operating models that help us manage these challenges in the short term while never losing sight of the long term. For Egypt, in particular, we have a very long-term view towards the development of Egypt as a digital nation, in spite of the current challenges, inflation, currency devaluation etc. with a firm belief of the market as a strategic investment.
Our new office is a testament to our long-term commitment to Egypt and to providing opportunities that create value and deliver breakthrough innovations with our shared ambitions of accelerating streamlined citizen services in line with Digital Egypt and the country’s digital transformation at all levels.
Moreover, we will also continue to invest in the country in growing our resources and professional services, increasing our workforce significantly and expanding our partner ecosystem to implement solutions that transform organisations across various sectors to achieve the national digital transformation goals. We are on our journey to double our commitment to our partner ecosystem, making significant investments in placing our partners at the centre of our go-to-market strategy.
