At this year’s GITEX Global in Dubai, amidst ambitious tech showcases and industry buzzwords, ZainTECH stood out not with spectacle, but with clarity of purpose. Led by CEO Andrew Hanna, the digital solutions arm of Zain Group is steering the conversation away from hype and towards measurable value. Hanna makes a compelling case for a “value-first” approach – one rooted in resilience, relevance, and deep partnerships.
Crafting journeys
Hanna described ZainTECH’s presence at GITEX as a chance to tell stories that resonate with real business problems. “When you tell them that as a journey, it makes a huge difference,” he said. “They go, ‘oh, now I see it, now I understand.’” Rather than simply showcasing products, ZainTECH aims to pull together customers, partners and its own team in one place, part of a shared ecosystem where innovation is not isolated but collaborative.
He explained that no single company in this industry can go it alone. ZainTECH works with giants like Microsoft, AWS, Dell, Cisco and Oracle to bring together best‑in‑class components. “I do not want to or pretend that I am an expert in everything,” Hanna said. “Be good at certain things that make a difference and then find people that are better than you in other parts, is how you become relevant and can offer real value to customers.”
Resilience in practice
For Hanna, resilience means more than resistance to disruption—it means building infrastructure and environments able to change shape as needs evolve. “How do you protect your infrastructure? You protect it by making sure that it can stand all the changes that are coming on top of it or around it. You need to ensure that it can handle tomorrow’s needs on your current business infrastructure,” he said. He also stressed data sovereignty, hybrid models, and secure relationships with hyperscale providers, reflecting the complex regulatory and technical terrain in which many of ZainTECH’s clients operate.
Data protection, local data storage, and hybrid cloud are central to that resilience. Hanna highlighted the need for infrastructure that reflects customer demands around data being in‑country, hybrid usage, and strong security. In his view, resilience is built into designs that anticipate the unknown as much as they serve current needs.
Although many companies proclaim “AI‑first” strategies, Hanna cautions against focusing on the trend rather than the outcome. “I would rather say that it’s not AI first as much as value first,” he remarked. He shared that many clients are under pressure to adopt AI simply because it’s fashionable, yet lack clarity about how it will add tangible benefit. “If I continue to have value or value creation as my North Star, by asking what am I doing? How am I bringing value to customers?, it becomes our guiding principal”.
He believes every business can adopt some form of AI – even modest automations or efficiencies in repetitive tasks but warns that not all organisations are ready at the same level. “It really depends… on different levels of engagement, different levels of interaction and depth,” he noted. The journey is discovery, infrastructure readiness and thoughtful deployment, not simply following the hype.
2025 reflections and 2026 ambitions
Reflecting on ZainTECH’s performance so far, Hanna revealed that the company had doubled its business year on year and intends to carry that momentum into 2026. “We will actually be doubling our business in terms of revenue, profitability, … number of new customers … we hope to continue to exceed that,” he said, attributing success to maintaining relevance to the client’s world.
He also underlined efforts in talent expansion and localisation. “There’s an aggressive expansion of talent and localisation. Making sure that we put in the right components in the local area … and by continuing to have regional partnerships.” He ended by saying that the theme of this year – “digital, intelligent, resilient”, had struck a chord with consumers and that he expects it “to bear a lot of good fruit in the next 12 months.”
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