2009 IT Agenda

zoom

ACN speaks to some of the region's top IT managers to find out what plans and strategies they will be adopting in 2009.

Esam Hadi, superintendent of business support, Aluminium Bahrain (Alba)

We had a big agenda planned for 2008, but 2009 will be different. Normally we do a lot of work with implementation, enhancements and things like that. Unfortunately this year, because of the financial situation and the worldwide recession, we thought we would wait for at least a few months before we start work on our agenda.

What we are planning to do this year is address some of the things we may have been neglecting previously.

We will be doing more training, because we have a large number of new users who have joined Alba and we are trying to establish what their needs are. We have been trying to do this for some time but we have never done it quite well enough. So our plan will be to focus on training for SAP, SharePoint and similar initiatives in the future.

It's also a good opportunity for us to have a break. A lot of our IT employees couldn't go on leave last year because our department was overloaded with so many commitments, so in that way it could prove to be a good time. But obviously we do need to make sure the users get what they need, which is mostly training.

Looking at the financial crisis, thankfully our business is very strong and the market is good for us because people still need aluminium within the region and outside it. If more companies go down around then world then eventually we might too.

But companies like Pepsi and Coca Cola will still need cans and aluminium will still be required in cars and aeroplanes.

In terms of our business productivity we are still producing our maximum output, so we aren't really afraid of what could happen in the market. It's just a good time for us to lie down and wait to see what happens.

From a solutions and system point of view, most of the technology we need is already there. So we are going to be focused on looking at ways to make sure that we are more productive and have more user-friendly systems - the latter being one of the things that a lot of enterprises are lacking across many aspects of their IT systems.

What we will be looking for is a solution that can integrate all the various systems together so that you can work from one place and one system without all the complication. People want everything to be easy and all in the one place these days.

If we could get everything onto a BlackBerry I'm sure most would be happy with that. The main trend in IT at the moment is ensuring user-friendliness so employees will be both more productive and effective.

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

READERS' COMMENTS

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Enter the words above *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM