My precious

Ruth Fletcher, Indigo Director

That's quite easy - the BlackBerry. In the professional services recruitment industry you need to be on call 24/7 and people need to feel like they can get hold of you and that is certainly the case with running the business as well.

So for the good of your business, making yourself available - even on weekends - is extremely important.

I am very happy with my BlackBerry. I am a creature of habit. Its convenience and capabilities ensure it has paid for itself several times over.

I think people are extremely technologically dependent these days. In our business, we've got a CRM database that basically manages our processes and supports the consultants and the business, but fundamentally, it is only as useful as the data we input and only as good as the consultants we recruit. Data storage and process streamlining are important but in our business I think quality staff will always be the most important thing.

Mohammad Ali, CIO Warid Telecom International

Since we are a telecoms operator, the ability to charge or bill customers is essential, which makes our billing application, called Tabs, critical.

The program is developed by a regional company and it is used by a number of operators, including Etisalat. It enables the provision of customer care services without the need for integration and provides a number of cost savings, thanks to a group level agreement with the developer. We are working on ways to come up with more cost-effective infrastructure and platforms with the vendor.

The aim is to allow us to use less expensive hardware and open-source software to run the application.

Tabs has come a long way in the last four or five years since we've been using it. It is very flexible and we've been able tp adapt it to support new applications. It's working very well for us.

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