Muscat: The 4th COMEX Conference 2013 took place on 24th March, 2013 at the Grand Hyatt Muscat under the auspices of H.E. Dr. Said bin Khamis al Kaabi, Chairman of the Public Authority for Consumer Protection. Mr. Fahad Sultan Al Abri, DG of the Digital Society Development Division of ITA brought the theme of the Conference Empowering SMEs through ICT to the forefront opening the topic for discussion. A keynote presentation was delivered by Mr. Simon Field, Executive Partner at Gartner on how to maximise the use of ICT and impact SMEs, followed by the Chairman's remarks by Mr. Neil Hannah, Director of the Sas Programme and United Kingdom Business Incubation (UKBI) Representative, after which the first session of the Conference kicked off.
The role of the government is of paramount importance to encourage the use of ICT among SMEs, coupled with support from the SME management system, as this will have a favourable impact on the production process and business operation style of an SME. Focusing on the role of the Government in empowering SMEs in Oman, Ms. Maha Mohammed Albulushi, Senior Project Specialist, ITA, highlighted the Sas Programme, which is an ITA initiative designed to help support and promote SMEs. The adoption of ICT by SMEs is barred by many challenges including a lack of finance and a lack of technological awareness and technology complexity, but once these challenges are overcome, the result leads to promising opportunities which were highlighted by Mr. Todd M. Dick, Vice President Corporate Unit, Omantel.
Taking a foreign SME-ICT adoption story into account can help decision makers apply similar lessons to the situation closer to home. The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) launched the SME Infocomm Package (SIP) in 2008 and it is now part of a national effort to boost infocomm adoption among the SMEs in Singapore. This was touched upon by Mr. Melvern ONG, Deputy Director / Head, International Operations Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, as he guided attendees through the Experience of Singapore Helping SMEs Adopt Infocomm.
ICT can be used by SMEs to bring about increased product quality, personnel development, increased flexibility, but can offer decreased costs and time saving strategies. In other words it leads the SME to Connect, Collaborate and Transform themselves, a phenomenon on which some light was shed upon by Mr. Den Sullivan, Head of Architectures and Enterprise, Emerging Markets, CISCO. His Majesty Sultan Qaboos has constantly supported the cause to promote SMEs in the Sultanate, so as to encourage the youth of the country to use their skills and talents to take up entrepreneurial ventures. Following this line of thought Mr. Taavi Einaste, Head of Nortal`s eHealth Business Unit provided insight on how to encourage people to become entrepreneurs.
Bringing the first session of the Conference to an end, a panel discussion moderated by Mr. Hannah focused on ICT Strategies to promote the SME sector, to improve business effectiveness and create new business opportunities. This panel discussion saw first session speakers Mr. Melvin, Mr. Field and Mr. Todd along with Mr. Omar Al-Ismaili, Area Sales Manager, CISCO benchmark the best ICT best practices in SMEs, discuss ways to overcome the main barriers to ICT adoption of SMEs in Oman and decide ways to strengthen SME workforce skills for ICT.
Most business are at the early stages of adopting cloud computing solutions in Oman, as they are fast realizing that cloud based networks lead to improved business communications with clients and suppliers and escalated business activities. However it is not just big businesses that benefit from these solutions but SMEs as well; and, that is what Mr. Sadi Awienat, CTO and Global Services Lead for EMC Gulf Region, expanded upon during his presentation on How cloud technology could transform your business. On the same wavelength as Mr. Todd in the first session, Ms. Heba ElBanna, MD, AHCCINC - CANADA took attendees through the challenges and risks involved in successful business transformations.
Besides cloud based solutions, along similar lines Mr. Jason Bath, Director, DATABASE AND TECHNOLOGY from SAP and Mr. Khalid Alhosni, Chairman, AlJazeera Global Service & Investments, Oman highlighted other ICT Practical Solutions for SMEs. They were followed by Mr. José L. Cervera, Director, DevStat, Spain who elaborated on the results of the survey of Oman ICT Usage in Business 2012.
A lot of businesses are now adopting social networking as business tools rather than its former use as a networking tool. With respect to SMEs, a Social Networking Platform can also Drive Revenue, boost efficiency and Innovation as explained by Mr. Advit, CEO, ODigMa, India.
The second panel discussion for the day focused on the smart use of ICT in SMEs to compete in this new digital economy. Moderated once again by Mr. Hannah, the discussion saw second session speakers Mr. Advit and Ms. Heba, along with Mr. Fawzi Al Harrasi, Managing Director, Exceed IT Services and Ms. Maryam Al Alawi, Founder-CEO, Soshteck, reviewed the future of SMEs in terms of expected trends, financial aspects, strategies to turn challenges of ICT adoption to advantages and effective management of social media risks.
Held under the patronage of e.oman, and organised by OITE Conferences, COMEX Conference 2013 received support from Omantel as Main Sponsor; SAP AG and Cisco as Platinum Sponsors ; Petroleum Development Oman as Gold Sponsor and AHCCINC and Bahwan - IT as Silver Sponsors. The duration of the Conference was from 9:00 am to 2:30 pm.
For more information please contact Mr. Zaheer Ahmed, Sr. Manager, COMEX Conference 2013 at 968 9630 1981 / zaheer@oite.com.
© Press Release 2013
