Annual CIO Connect Summit 2016 hosted by EMC in Abu Dhabi
Adrian McDonald, President, EMEA at EMC

Annual CIO Connect Summit 2016 hosted by EMC in Abu Dhabi

EMC recently hosted its annual EMC CIO Connect Summit 2016 in Abu Dhabi on May 25-26, 2016. Held under the theme “Digital Transformation” and sponsored by Intel, Wipro and Riverbed, the event took place at the YAS Viceroy Hotel.

The summit, which was attended by CIOs and senior IT professionals from key industry verticals across the region, focused on communicating the dire need to leverage scalable digital competencies among businesses to achieve greater agility, growth and innovation. The conference was designed to enable CIOs develop a smart collaboration between IT and innovation in order to drive business transformation and allow enterprises to capitalise on the competitive advantage it provides.

Habib Mahakian, VP Gulf and Pakistan at EMC, inaugurated the event with a welcome note, after which Steven J. Frantzen, Senior VP, MEA, IDC, presented his keynote on the importance of engaging, innovating and excelling in the digital economy of today. Adrian McDonald, President EMEA at EMC also keynoted at the event, and discussed the core tenants of successful business transformation, including strategies, practical implementations and real-world outcomes. He also spoke of the recent acquisition of EMC by the Dell, and stated that at $67 billion, this was one of the largest IT acquisitions in history.

Commenting on the acquisition, Adrian McDonald said, “Michael Dell privatised Dell a few years ago.  He has the Dell assets, EMC, VMware, Pivotal, SecureWorks, RSA and VCE. He has this phenomenal set of capabilities and he has put all of those together to form Dell technologies. EMC II will become Dell EMC. In essence, there will be three business parts to Dell Technologies – Dell EMC will run the enterprise and consumer businesses while Dell will run the corporate and mid-market business.”

Speaking at the event, McDonald also stated, “IT is undergoing a very big change at the moment. We need a new DNA for our organisations – a new way of thinking, a new appreciation for the opportunities. The most successful CIOs  in the industry act as agents of change and innovation within their companies and attempt to build a coalition of thought and ideas. They deal with key ideas like how companies can become software driven, and how companies can move from ‘buying applications and building infrastructure’ to ‘building applications and buying infrastructure.’ CIOs are instrumental in fostering digital innovation in an organisation, both internally and externally”.

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