The ideal platform to transform your business

Shaista Shaw, head of global marketing, OmniClouds, speaks on the company's unique proposition to empower organisations to reach cloud services - or even their local and international branches - economically and reasonably where they pay as per their usage

Tell us about OmniClouds and its operations.

At OmniClouds, we solve complex problems with simple strategies, with one of the world's most comprehensive platforms to cross the chasm of the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) sector. OmniClouds has a simple proposition - use the technology; don't buy it. Instead of investing in ICT, you should be simply using it to grow your business. This greatly reduces Capex and Opex for organisations, making it much easier to launch and create leaner, more versatile verticals that can address a disruptive market environment.

What products does OmniClouds offer its customers?

We provide a range of services catered towards SMEs, bigger corporations as well as industries such as retail, automobile, education, finance, contact centres and more. To name them - OmniBranch to connect your branches, OmniConnect to link you to the cloud, OmniRemote to enable remote working, and OmniSec to take care of your security needs. By combining our products and services, we support businesses and companies to scale their operations and reach new markets.

What does OmniClouds offer to strengthen the SME sector?

The GCC, especially the UAE, takes great efforts to encourage homegrown businesses. For SMEs, it will be no less than 40-50 per cent in terms of transforming Capex required into Opex. At OmniClouds we help customers assess their digital needs and then recommend a cloud provider or any other services needed. We are vendor-agnostic and work with all the top services. This is a safe expense for SMEs as they are not investing in routers, switches or servers and because of our pay-as-you-go model, ICT expenditure can be need-based.

What strategies is OmniClouds adopting to address the growing concern of security and data privacy?

Yes, it differs from one industry to another industry. There are two important things I would like to mention here, the first one is regulations and the second is all of the technology that accompanies cloud access and it must provide secured connectivity to these applications and information. In a nutshell, we do ensure that the users' information and access to the clouds are highly secured. Our cloud partners like Microsoft, AWS, ensure that the application itself and access to the data are entirely safe within their premises.

Why is the education sector a key market for OmniClouds and what type of services do you offer in this sector?

Both public and private institutions in the region were quick to take advantage of the unique structures that cloud computing and remote education provides. We offer students flexible monthly plans for access to all their online course materials from kindergarten to grade 12. We have created credits with some Education Ministries in the Middle East where OmniClouds is partnering to transform education from certificate-oriented to knowledge-based with access to thousands of library and approved curriculums at a record low latency.

How has 2020 influenced your plans for 2021?

People will share everything - a ride, their home, the office and computing resources. The world has become a place where remote interaction is a must. Cloud is the future and the present in the IT world. Our governments are adopting cloud solutions and people will adopt this technology when they realise that it is safe, cost-effective and easier to operate. We are helping organisations in these areas to transform and economise their business. OmniClouds is also working on the next generation of AI technologies, from software that lets banks identify customers on the end of a video call using facial recognition technology, to mesh networking that can route around physical Internet infrastructure in an emergency or the developing world. We have ideas for temporary buildings that could be classrooms by day and libraries by night, filled with digital books and learning materials. We will continue to push the boundaries and expand into several more countries this year.

• KT Engage