Ben Gale, Xerox

Partners and solutions expertise take Xerox beyond print.

ACN: What's your big focus going to be for this autumn in the region?

BG: This autumn expect big developments following a variety of announcements at GITEX. Xerox shall be delivering in a variety of areas:

colour everywhere, ensuring the deployment of the industries leading and unique technologies to small and medium businesses and our large enterprise customers.

Our team is driving a solutions lead approach, pairing Xerox products with value added partner software and services to deliver real benefits to our customers, be they large enterprises or small firms or consumers.

We're also continuing driving partnership for mutual success. We shall continue to announce new and exciting partnerships to take our ever expanding product line to market. Whilst growing our reach, we also will continue to strengthen our existing partners through support, planning, training and marketing events.

ACN: What are the big issues you see in the regional enterprise IT sector?

BG: The big issues revolve around forming correct partnerships, adding real value to end users and ensuring mutual benefit which enables us all to grow together, success through success. The region has in the past been accused of having a short-termist view, taking short term revenue at the cost of long term partnerships and business relations. This year has again seen a shake up of a number of the key players and increasingly providers are looking not only at cost, but long term support and viability from suppliers. Xerox with its 20 year plus heritage in the Middle East is constantly looking to develop its partners to enable that long term mutual growth approach.

We are still seeing convergence as a major issue for the enterprise sector, whether it is traditional with digital, or many devices into one, the multi-function argument, the customer quite rightly now demands more, expecting to pay the same or less. Right products, right price and right after sales support lead to customer satisfaction, the type of satisfaction which comes where a customer can rely on his IT partner to takes the reigns of non-core competencies enabling organisation to focus on their own competencies.

ACN: What are the hot technologies that are shaping enterprise IT trends?

BG: As previously mentioned, convergence and colour lead the way in the office enterprise space, however, the hot trend which is shaping the way organizations work is not technology based, but a services lead approach. It is the organizations which can adopt an approach to blending the right mix of people, processes and technology which will lead the way. Xerox with its heritage in leading with services, specifically in the fields of document outsourcing and management is leading this way through a combination of experience, client focused consultancy and a lean six sigma approach to reducing costs and complexity in organisations.

ACN: How can enterprises maximise their IT RoI?

BG: For enterprises to maximise their IT RoI, the key has been the shift in IT. The move has seen the smarter organisations move their focus from a capital T and a small I where the approach has been technology led to a more information rich approach.

Information is the life blood of any organisation and the way it flows, the people it touches, the processes it supports and the bottlenecks which can occur are critical. Only once that focus has shifted to - in effect - create a view of capital I, small t, can the business understand which technologies will best support the correct flow of information.

Enterprises should also look to outsource non core areas of their business with trusted partners. An increase in focus on key support functions, either in IT or other areas through a structured methodology enables RoI to be tracked and gauged so investments can be increased or reduced accordingly.

ACN: Why should CEOs care about IT?

BG: IT remains both the back bone and front office for a majority of organizations, from large to small, from e-commerce to simple web presence. IT can drive cost and complexity out of a business or leave it gasping for breath with ineffective systems causing bottlenecks and customer delays and complaints.

CEO's are charged with delivering share holder value or returns for owners and investors, the CEO who does not have a care about IT and its effect on their business is putting large areas of their business at risk.

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