Page 19 - SAMENA Trends - September 2021

INTERVIEW SAMENA TRENDS

As we move ahead, the Etisalat Group’s Expo 2020 is a prime example of Etisalat’s humidity, soil moisture, temperature, and
strategy will remain open to growth solutions aimed at enhancing the digital other important parameters critical to the
opportunities through a majority control experience for visitors with technologies healthy growth of the mangroves.
of well-positioned operators in target such as AR/VR. Services being hosted on
geographies. With the world continuing the private and public clouds are one of Another major step was our green efforts,
to adjust to the ‘new normal’, the Group the key priorities to provide redundant, fast where we have increased business via
will also stay focused on its strategic and available connectivity between Expo our digital channels, digital payments
objectives of maximising value from its 2020, its site offices, partners, public and allocation and implemented digital self-
core business; growing revenue from its enterprise services. serve options. The brick and mortar
digital/adjacent services; transforming experience was transformed to both
into an efficient, agile, digital Group; and Our IoT platform connected over 1 million online and digital retail with self-service
expanding and optimising its portfolio in SIMs with renowned entities such as touchpoints expanding the rollout of
order to balance growth and shareholder Emirates Transport and Xtramix for fleet ‘Smart Stores’.
returns. solutions and Ministry of Interior for
Hassantuk Smart Fire Alarm solution, As part of our efforts to move towards
Q. What were Etisalat’s main goals this which have had a massive impact on a paperless environment, we have also
year? saving lives and enhancing the state of achieved many automation initiatives,
A. This year Etisalat has remained focused security for the country. including the switch of paper billing to
on pursuing its vision of transitioning digital copies as part of the Etisalat ‘Go
to a complete integrated ICT/digital Q. Can you give us insight into Etisalat’s Digital’ drive.
solution provider securing its position sustainability initiatives and objectives?
as an industry leader by working on A. We believe in the positive impact Etisalat also undertook a series of energy
our main goals: reshaping the lives of that technology can bring and strive to conservation mechanisms, including the
consumers, accelerating the economic adopt technologies that ensure long- installation of high-efficiency cooling
growth of businesses and enhancing the term benefits to our environment and the systems at various Etisalat exchanges
competitiveness of the countries in which climate. Sustainability remains at the core and data centres and AI features at mobile
it operates. of our strategy and operations aligned access sites.
with the UAE Vision 2021 and the United
With changing market dynamics, the fo- Nations Sustainable Development Goals Over the past 10 years, Etisalat has
cus was combining organic and inorganic (UN SDGs). replaced all the cables, deploying to date
growth opportunities to position Etisalat over 10 million km of fibre optic cables,
as the regional leader in Internet of things The ‘Connected Mangroves’ conservation saving over 3,044 GWh of energy per year.
(IoT), cloud, security, edge computing project in UAE is another noteworthy This has also resulted in the annual savings
and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This was project combining IoT, cloud, mobile of over 1.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
achieved by capitalising on opportunities broadband technology that will help better in greenhouse gas emissions.
such as megaprojects and smart city and manage the growth of new mangrove
Industry 4.0 projects across multiple verti- saplings by monitoring water level,
cals, including health, education, logistics
and oil and gas (O&G). We also focused on
taking all necessary measurements to pro-
tect our employees and provide the latest
solutions to our customers

Q. How are you making an impact in the
ICT and digital domain with your solutions
especially for the public and private sector?
A. Etisalat’s 5G network will amplify the
use of these futuristic services, target new
opportunities, and implement 5G use cases
across verticals. Our teams are constantly
working on opportunities to deploy
services based on emerging technologies
such as IoT, cloud, big data, AI, robotics,
autonomous, AR/VR, becoming a trusted
partner that supports transformation in
a digitally disrupted and fully connected
world.

19 SEPTEMBER 2021