Pg 06

Protector in Chief

When Markets Correct, How Do You

Pg 11 Optimize Your Business?

Operation: No Code.
Pg 16 Fulfilling the dream of technology democratization and giving
power to the masses

Pg 20 Video is the New Audio

What’s Inside?

Money Heist
Pg 28 Cybersecurity challenges in the banking industry and solutions
to address them

Pg 30
Lessons from a SaaS
Founder
Understanding customer psyche to
make a mark in the game of SaaS
for SMBs

Codes in Containers
Pg 34 The new-age app deployment model is revolutionizing healthcare
tech as we know it

Pg 38 Work from Home - a double edged sword

It’s make or break for BFSI

Pg 44 Can AI save traditional financial services sector facing neobank
and nonbank challengers?

A-Cube tech strategy for financial institution

Pg 48 What digital lending fintechs should learn from Amazon,
Google and Facebook
 Pg 50
Pg 74
How the tech world is
impacting the Ukraine War MeghRaj
The kingdom in the
cloud.

AI and ML 101 for Business

Pg 78 Leaders

Pg 82

MENA Forecast
Cloudy with a chance for SaaS

Pg 56 Food for Thought

All the world’s a stage

Pg 62 The ins and outs of global SaaS expansion
that every business leader must know

A for analytics, C for cloud

Pg 66 Learn the ABC of Cloud Analytics from
a founder

Pg 70
Changemaker
Khadim Batti, the founder
A Game of Snakes and Ladders
and CEO of Whatfix
understands change.
Pg 88 A 5G perspective on opportunities and
hurdles for SaaS in India.

Harvesting the Cloud

Pg 90 Impact of SaaS platforms on the
agriculture sector.
If data is the new oil and if the
cloud holds all the data, what do
you make of the countries that
could potentially be leaders in
both cloud tech and oil reserves?
One word comes to mind -
Superpower.
The countries in the MENA region
are at a geographical advantage.
They share several cultural,
economic, and environmental
similarities and half the world’s
oil and gas reserves - the
perfect recipe for the economic
dominance powered by the nexus
Written By
Harsha Vardhan
Sr. Sub-Editor, SaaS Industry.
82 April 2022 · SaaS Industry
of oil wealth and cloud technology.
To the uninitiated wondering, what
is MENA? It refers to a group of
21 countries (as per the World
Bank) situated in the Middle East
and North Africa region. Out of
the 21 countries, 13 are net oil
exporters and together account
for 58% of the world’s oil reserves
while having only 3% of the world’s
population.
However, as the entire world is
slowly moving towards renewable
energy, the countries in the MENA
region are looking to diversify
their economy, which is entirely
dependent on earnings from
crude oil. MENA countries have
identified that one of the ways
forward to maintain their economic
stronghold in the post-oil era is to
invest in emerging technologies
that operate on the cloud.
A report from technological
research and consulting firm
Gartner says that the end-user
spending on public cloud services
in the MENA region will total $5.7
billion in 2022, an increase of
19.2% from the previous year.
What will power MENA to economic dominance
in the next decade - Oil Reserves or Cloud
Technology? Smart money is on the Cloud.

SAAS FOCUS
Gartner’s findings indicate that
MENA’s shift from an oil economy
to a data-led economy will boost
public cloud growth in the region.
Gartner says that MENA CIOs are
also increasingly adopting the
cloud to secure the quickest time
to value for their IT investments
made over the last two years.
We turned to Darryl Cox, CEO of
International Markets for ESDS
group, for his expert opinion
on the subject. Darryl has 20
years of experience in enterprise
transformation within technology
industries across Europe, India,
and especially the MENA.
He said, “The subscription
business has witnessed remarkable
growth in the past couple of
years (in MENA), especially post-
pandemic where we are seeing
across the industry a shift to
digitization adoption leading to
a surge in demand for SaaS and
other cloud-based technologies.”
Darry’s views mirror Gartner’s
projections that MENA CIOs
will spend the most on cloud
application services (SaaS)
this year, including business
intelligence apps, customer
experience and relationship
management, email and authoring,
content services, and supply
chain. This segment will see
total spending of $2.3 billion, an
increase of 16% from 2021, and
will account for 40% of the total
investment made on public cloud
services.

“COVID-19 has been a forcing function that has

accelerated the digitization of these businesses as we
start and see a shift towards a truly digital economy. Key
decision-makers are turning towards the cloud to realize
the quickest time to value their IT investments,”

Darryl Cox
CEO of International Markets for ESDS group

Growth Potential
Darryl notes that the COVID-19
pandemic has undoubtedly
accelerated the need for cloud
adoption as more businesses
transitioned to remote and
hybrid work environments. SMBs
especially have a lot to gain from
cloud adoption now that the
recovery has begun.
“SMBs have historically been a
sector that’s been underserved by
software companies. However, this
is no longer the case. COVID-19
has been a forcing function that
has accelerated the digitization
of these businesses as we start
and see a shift towards a truly
digital economy. Key decision-
makers are turning towards the
cloud to realize the quickest time
to value their IT investments,” he
explained.
Especially in the latter half of 2021,
businesses have shown renewed
interest in IT projects as the impact
of covid-19 declined in the region.
According to the latest prediction
by International Data Corporation
(IDC), the overall spending on
Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) across the Middle
East, Turkey, and Africa (META)
will top $229 billion this year, an
increase of 2.7% over 2021 as
the market continues to rebound
from the turbulence of the last two
years.

SaaS Industry · April 2022 83

IDC PROJECTIONS FOR 2022
Darryl notes that the COVID-19
pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated
the need for cloud adoption as more
businesses transitioned to remote
and hybrid work environments. SMBs
especially have a lot to gain from cloud
adoption now that the recovery has
begun.

“SMBs have historically been a sector

that’s been underserved by software
companies. However, this is no longer
the case. COVID-19 has been a forcing
function that has accel erated the
digitization of these businesses as we
start and see a shift towards a truly
digital economy. Key decision-makers
are turning towards the cloud to realize
the quickest time to value their IT
investments,” he explained.

Especially in the latter half of 2021,

businesses have shown renewed
interest in IT projects as the impact of
covid-19 declined in the region.
According to the latest prediction by
International Data Corporation (IDC),
the overall spending on Information
and Communications Technology (ICT)
across the Middle East, Turkey, and
Africa (META) will top $229 billion this
year, an increase of 2.7% over 2021 as
the market continues to rebound from
the turbulence of the last two years.

The pandemic and the paradox

Despite the predicted growth, cloud and SaaS
technologies are still only emerging in the MENA
region and are not widely adopted like the rest of the
world which took to the cloud at a rapid pace once
the pandemic set in.
In spite of the region’s tremendous potential, there is
also resistance and challenges in equal measure for
cloud adoption compared to the pace of adoption in
the rest of the world.
This fact is highlighted by an interesting paradox
mentioned in the finding of the World Bank’s report
on ‘The Upside of Digital for MENA.’
The report says, “While the MENA populations have
embraced social media use – more than expected
given their GDP per capita – the populations’ usage
of the Internet and digital tools like mobile money
to pay for services is lower than expected given the
countries’ income levels.”

For startups in the MENA region, the pandemic This is clearly highlighted in the graph where ‘red’
situation has been a case of extremes of either a represents the MENA, and the other colors represent
disaster or a major catalyst for growth. the rest of the world. We see that about 66% of
MENA populations use the internet, whereas only

84 April 2022 · SaaS Industry

61% do in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and only 54% do in East Asia and the Pacific.

Interestingly, Digital payments’ use in developing MENA countries is only 32% compared with 43% in LAC.
With the exception of Iran and the United Arab Emirates, most MENA countries have fewer mobile accounts
than expected, given their income levels.

The GCC’s share of the population with a mobile money account (21%) is lower than Sub-Saharan Africa (24%)!

Pains of the Pandemic

The pandemic has also had significant adverse
outcomes, especially in women’s human capital loss. Large Underutilization of
The World Bank projects that around 700,000 women
lost their jobs in the Arab world due to the Covid-19 Human Capital for Women
pandemic.

Before and after Covid, MENA’s average HCI (Human

Capital Index) value was estimated to have declined
by more than 25% for men and more than 66% for
women when accounting for the proportion of the
working-age population who are employed.

A survey by Wamda and Arabnet on the Impact of

the COVID-19 outbreak on the Entrepreneurship
Ecosystem (2020) says that young Saas startups
suffered quite a bit, with more than three quarters
(76.7%) still between seed and preSeries A stage.

The survey says that the economic impact has been

severe for them, with 70% confirming that they have
suffered losses. Travel restrictions were cited as one
of the biggest impacts of the pandemic by 36.7% of
SaaS startups, with half stating business development
had been affected.

SaaS Industry · April 2022 85

 Cybersecurity Challenges and
solutions
Among the foremost challenges
to cloud adoption in MENA seems
to be cybersecurity or at least the
perception of reduced security
infrastructure.
Darryl said, “Attacks have become
more sophisticated over the last
two years, and the MENA region
is not immune. The malevolent
nature of these attacks has forced
security leaders to relook at their
security strategy and ultimately
increase their security and risk
management spending for
business future-readiness.”
Gartner forecasts that an increase
in cyberattacks, threats to cyber-
physical infrastructures, and the
malicious nature of ransomware
will drive MENA end-user
spending on security and risk
management to grow 11.2% in
2022.
The statements on cybersecurity
stand valid as there have been
high-profile breaches in the MENA
which have made the news in the
past decade, including the hack
in December 2016 on the Saudi
Arabian government and the 2012
attack on Saudi Aramco, which put
roughly 10 percent of the world’s
oil and gas at risk.
In the Gartner Security & Risk
Management Summit earlier this
year in MENA, principal research
analyst at Gartner, Shailendra
Upadhyay, commented that the
malicious nature of the attacks
has forced security leaders in the
region to relook at their security
strategy and increase their security
and risk management spending to
make their businesses future-ready
This year Cloud security is forecast
to record the highest growth in
MENA at 33.8%, followed by
data security, growing at 21.9%.
The region’s strategic focus on
public cloud growth, intended to
smoothen its shift to a ‘data-driven
economy’ from an ‘oil-exporting
economy’, will contribute to
the fast development of these
segments.

SaaS Growth and Spend Across the Years.

26.4 19.9 20.9 Application Security 63 75 91

40.7 33.8 34.9 Cloud Security 20 27 36

6.9 4.5 4.8 Consumer Security Software 207 216 227

26.9 21.9 19.2 Data Security 89 108 129

SPEND in Millions
GROWTH (%)

13.2 9.4 10.3 Identity Access Management 195 214 236

19.5 14.6 14.3 Infrastructure Protection 433 496 567

13.1 14.8 17.2 Integrated Risk Management 36 41 48

13.3 10.7 10.0 Network Security Equipment 399 442 486

12.9 9.8 10.7 Security Services 933 1024 1133

5.2 2.2 5.8 Other Information

29 29 31
Security Software

86 April 2022 · SaaS Industry

The Road to Cloud Superpower
Where MENA Startups are based
1.2%
ALGERIA
0.8%
MOROCCO
In 2019 when Microsoft opened
its very first data centers in the
Middle East, it represented a
significant milestone in the growth
of cloud computing in the region.
Additionally, the rise of renewable
energy and the subsequent dip
in oil prices due to COVID-19
expedited the transition towards
a knowledge-based economy to
reduce the MENA’s dependency
on oil exports.
But there has been a noticeable
lull since then due to the
challenges we listed. Though
MENA’s forecasted end-user
spending on public cloud services
increased to 19.2% in 2022, it was
slower than the growth of 21.6% in
2021.
Despite the challenges and slow
down, the potential for cloud
technology adoption in MENA is
immense.
7.3%
JORDAN
0.4%
18.8% IRAQ
LEBANON
1.2%
PALESTINE
13.1%
EGYPT
1.2%
SUDAN
Commenting on ESDS groups’
MENA outlook, Darryl said, “We
continue to see growing demand
for our products and services
across the industry. While some
industries are slower than others
to recover from the COVID-19
pandemic, our focus will be to
capitalize on cloud adoption as
technologies adapt to the post-
pandemic business environment.
With this, we look forward to
continued success and growth
across the MENA region.”
Managing vice president at
Gartner, Miriam Burt, said,
“Underpinned by the GCC
Country Visions, the rapid
shift of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) countries from
an oil-exporting economy to a
knowledge-based economy will be
a major influence.”
Additionally, the direction and
guidance from the various
2.9%
KUWAIT
2.9%
BAHRAIN
0.8%
QATAR
24.9%
UAE
2%
2 %
OMAN
14.7%
KSA
governments of MENA in their
country vision statements, the
advent of 5G, increase in digitally
skilled local workforce, and rapid
digitalization of sectors such as
banking and retail, will present a
growth-conducive environment for
IT spending and cloud technology
growth in the region through 2022.
Concluding his observations
on cloud technology and SaaS
in MENA, Darryl said, “SaaS
technologies have made it
easier for enterprises and
solution vendors to effectively
deliver the necessary features
and functionality to end-users,
ultimately contributing to the
popularity of SaaS solutions over
on-premise software products.
Small, mid and large businesses
are taking full advantage of SaaS
and its benefits, and as these
options continue to expand, this
percentage will only increase.
SaaS Industry · April 2022 87
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