As companies in the Middle East accelerate their digital transformation efforts, the cloud is emerging as a core component for success. Cloud-enabled technology empowers Middle Eastern businesses to adapt to the rapidly evolving business environment and navigate the modern digital economy.  

In this blog, we will showcase the cloud’s critical role in driving digital transformation and how the Middle East region can make the most of emerging innovations.

How Cloud Accelerates Digital Transformation

Cloud computing, expected to be a $2.3 trillion market by 2030, is a core component of digital transformation.

• Agility: The cloud provides access to scalable resources on demand, allowing organizations to adapt to changing needs and innovate faster and quickly.
• Scalability: Businesses can meet varying business requirements by leveraging the ability to scale up or down resources as needed.
• Cost efficiency: The cloud eliminates upfront capital investments and streamlines operational expenses by paying only the resources organizations use.
• Time to market: The cloud allows rapid application delivery and iteration through instant access to development tools and infrastructure.
• Compliance: Modern cloud providers offer up-to-date security features and tools, helping organizations meet regulatory requirements and maintain data integrity and privacy.
• Global reach: The cloud also enables firms to deploy applications and services across multiple geographic locations, thereby enabling global reach.

Why Middle Eastern Companies Are Embracing Cloud

According to the EMEA Cloud Business Survey 2023, 68% of Middle Eastern companies plan to migrate most of their operations to the cloud within the next two years. This surge in adoption is driven by a combination of global, sector-specific, and local factors, including:

• Government leniency in digitizing products and services is a huge factor driving the widespread adoption of cloud and related technologies. Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have clearly defined technological advancement goals in their national transformation visions. Saudi Arabia plans to digitize 70% of patient activities by 2030 to reduce human dependence and improve healthcare delivery.
• The region’s economic diversification beyond oil and energy is also compelling companies to explore (and exploit) the promises the cloud offers. With price jolts, volatile demand and supply, and natural disasters making the region vulnerable to macroeconomic instability and higher economic risks, venturing into new areas of business has become a regional trend—with the cloud playing a huge role.
• The continued remote working trend among the Middle East’s general workforce is also a prime driver of cloud adoption. Cloud computing enables remote workers to seamlessly access enterprise data, collaborate with peers, and meet shared goals regardless of location or device.
• Established firms in the Middle East face increasing competition with the emergence of new-age startups. Cloud technology allows them to keep up with digitally savvy newbies and compete with them in a highly dynamic and volatile business environment.
• Companies in the Middle East are also actively looking to support AI initiatives. Modern AI tools may not integrate seamlessly with on-premises systems, requiring companies to modernize and migrate applications to the cloud.
• The Middle East region is also now looking to accelerate product development and use cloud-native tools, such as DevSecOps, microservices, and serverless computing, to accelerate code creation. The cloud can enable them to reduce operational overheads, enhance agility, and encourage rapid innovation.
• The growth of smart cities is another reason the cloud is gaining momentum in the Middle East. The region is pioneering the development of smart cities and must embrace cloud-based solutions to enhance public services via intelligent traffic management, connectivity, innovative waste management, etc.

Cloud Adoption Challenges and Solutions

As the Middle East looks to generate a value of as much as $183 billion by 2030 via cloud adoption, roughly 6 percent of the region’s current GDP, several challenges emerge.

Here’s looking at the top hurdles that come in the way of effective cloud adoption and the possible solutions:

• Skills gap: As companies in the Middle East recognize the role of the cloud in transforming business and customer outcomes, they often face the challenge of hiring the right talent. With more than 90% of organizations worldwide expected to feel the pain of the IT skills crisis by 2026, amounting to some $5.5 trillion in losses, finding, hiring, training, and retaining a qualified pool of cloud experts has become difficult. To overcome this, companies can engage with competent cloud consulting and design partners and get access to on-demand experts instead. These experts, skilled and certified in the latest cloud innovations, can ensure a smooth transition and optimize cloud ROI in the long run.
• Building a future-ready cloud roadmap: Embarking on the cloud journey isn’t just about implementing a state-of-the-art system. Companies must build a future-ready cloud roadmap to drive maximum value and returns from their cloud investments. To do this, they must conduct a holistic assessment of their current IT landscape, business objectives, and technology needs. By analyzing existing infrastructure, applications, and processes, they can comprehensively understand their cloud requirements and take necessary steps to accomplish their cloud goals.
• Aligning cloud capabilities with business needs: As Middle Eastern companies accelerate their digital transformation efforts; they must also align cloud capabilities with business needs. Instead of simply adopting out-of-the-box solutions, they must opt for customized cloud solutions that align with their business goals. Skilled cloud consultants can help design and implement a robust cloud architecture focused on scalability, security, and cost-efficiency, ensuring optimal performance in the cloud environment.
• Minimizing disruption during migration: As firms migrate data and workloads to the cloud, they often face disruptions in day-to-day business processes. To overcome this, it is essential to have a robust business continuity and disaster recovery strategy in place. A qualified cloud consultant can help meticulously execute the migration strategy and manage infrastructure and applications’ installation, configuration, and modification. Certified professionals can also enable seamless integration of cloud solutions with existing business applications and minimize downtime and disruptions.
• Ensuring 24/7 monitoring: As companies move to the cloud, they must also monitor their new IT environment to identify challenges and capitalize on opportunities. Embracing managed services is a great way to receive 24/7 support post-migration, ensuring the cloud environment remains efficient, secure, and reliable. A proficient managed services team can proactively monitor and manage cloud infrastructure and ensure it is consistently optimized via round-the-clock support and incident response.
• Catering to data localization requirements: Cloud initiatives in the Middle East require data residency and other compliance requirements. Companies can embrace cloud-powered data centers, renting physical space and virtual infrastructure to meet local and regional requirements. These local data centers, powered by the cloud, offer complete security and compliance, enabling firms to access tools and other resources using different services and store specific categories of data within national borders.
• Maintaining security: Cloud security is always a concern for companies in the Middle East. Companies must implement industry-standard tools and processes to ensure data and assets are protected 24/7. A managed services partner can help ensure the cloud environment meets relevant security and regulatory requirements, safeguarding the business against emerging threats and breaches.

Accelerate your Cloud Journey with enreap

Cloud technology is becoming indispensable to digital transformation initiatives in the Middle East. It empowers businesses with the capabilities they need to thrive in a highly competitive and volatile landscape, helping them drive innovation, enhance operational efficiency, and achieve scalability.

Are you looking to harness the full potential of the cloud and turbo-charge your digital transformation? Explore our cloud consulting and design services, designed to architect tailored cloud solutions that align with your business goals.