2013 has been a year of strong growth for the regional ICT industry. While government and public sector continues to be a major contributor to IT spending, the industry witnessed significant budgets being allocated to communication and banking sectors. UAE this year unveiled ambitious plans for smart city development and the Dubai 2020 announcement is also likely to spur increased investment. The success brought on by these investments will inspire additional IT spending in other countries of the region as well. Perhaps most importantly, 2013 has been a year wherein a lot of the buzz words have seen actual implementation. Cloud services are now being locally offered and solution providers are teaming up with large telcos to deliver these services, securely and with high availability and performance. Prologix has seen an opportunity here and has tied up with du to offer document management services delivered through the cloud. 

 

Organisations have begun to implement comprehensive mobile device management solutions that enable advanced device administration and the development and management of enterprise mobile applications. Another area for positive growth has been in the contact centre space. Organisations have been realising the need to provide better customer service and opting for locally deployed contact centers.

 

In 2013 market recovery was sluggish and confidence was low till the last quarter of 2013. During the last quarter confidence was regained as new infrastructure projects started taking shape. However 2013 also saw the IT Industry face significant new challenges. While Mobility and BYOD has been a positive gain for end users, it has left IT managers and IT companies scrambling to keep up with mobility security concerns. Enterprise and SMBs face challenges in terms of protecting their data from internal and external hacking, and limited budgets is creating pressure on IT companies to provide solutions to meet these challenges. Mobility has also created infrastructure and storage challenges for companies. IT infrastructure, which predominantly catered to a single user, has to now cater to a user with multiple devices, increasing the burden on the network and calling for better planning of bandwidth. 

 

 

 IT companies will constantly be challenged to find the right balance between providing solutions, which meet renewed security challenges and at the same time providing it in a manner which does not hinder end users in performing their tasks.

 

In 2013 Prologix has seen a revenue growth of about 40%. The business has expanded by opening offices in Kenya, Sri Lanka and Qatar. It initiated partnerships with Cambium Networks, Digital Lightwave, Agilent Technologies, Totolink and Level One. End user gains included Hilton, Globacom, Access Kenya, Aujan Industries, Jotun Paints, Abu Dhabi Education Council, Air Miles, LifeCare International, amongst others. It has also tied up to offer retail brands like Totolink, Aztech, RedAngel, ADDCOM, Nxware.

 

The challenges in 2013 included finding vendor partners in test and measurement, radio frequency and wireless and telecom. Prologix also faced an uphill ask increasing its MEA channel partner reach but finally added 1,500 more partners by end of 2013. Across 2014, Prologix is investing to build its service and repair centre to support partners.  But to remain competitive, channel players will need to increase the breadth and width of their business including additional specialisations.