IFS Connect Middle East 2023: Empowering businesses with Cloud, AI, and sustainability

Tell us more about IFS Connect Middle East 2023? How was the response from your customers and partners? Do share the key takeaways from the event

IFS Connect Middle East was attended by over 250 individuals and received an incredibly positive and warm response. It showcased the strong relationship we have with our ecosystem of customers, prospects and partners in the region.

The content was meticulously curated to specifically meet the unique requirements and challenges of the Middle East market. Our audience was able to explore the latest advancements in IFS Cloud, along with cutting-edge technologies in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Field Service Management (FSM), offering valuable tools and insights to our customers for achieving business agility, strength, and resilience.

Notably, in a post-event survey, 100 per cent of the customers and partners expressed their intent to attend the Connect event again in future, further highlighting their satisfaction with the event.

“Experience Your Future” was the central theme of IFS Connect – what inspired this? Tell us more about how IFS cultivated this experience for regional customers, partners and peers at the event.

The last three years have affected businesses in all industries regardless of geography and size – from the pandemic to economic turmoil and geopolitical unrest. The only constant has been risk mitigation and businesses who rapidly leveraged technologies such as Cloud and AI have evolved the ability to foresee, prepare and react in a timely manner and still achieve growth.

The theme – 'Experience your Future' was an acknowledgement of this with the goal to help companies see that it is possible and what their future could look like with the right modern technology and how this would boot innovation, people productivity and build agility in how they are equipped to respond to macroeconomic events.

Showcasing IFS technology on the ground in terms of what is already available in IFS Cloud, our focus on digital and AI, automation and end-to-end connectivity through our own experts as well as customer stories was central to helping others customers imagine and experience what their future business could look like.

Tell us more about your latest IFS Cloud release. What can regional customers expect from IFS Cloud?

The latest update to IFS Cloud will support customers as they enhance business agility, build resilience and mitigate risk in a world of constant change. Every IFS Cloud release strengthens the IFS vision to deliver capabilities for an intelligent autonomous enterprise. With a focus on automation, AI and Machine Learning (ML), IFS Cloud optimises people, assets and services to drive value and empower transformation. IFS Cloud offers the tools designed to help businesses:

• Optimise people, assets and services
• Connect global operations
• Achieve ESG goals profitably

Using the latest release of IFS Cloud, organisations are empowered to deliver faster time-to-value and respond effectively to changing conditions while ensuring long-term sustainability.

Take us through your sustainability and ESG initiatives. Are you participating in COP 28?

At IFS, we see a future where technology enables long-term sustainable value creation, supporting entire industries to become more socially and environmentally responsible. We honor this vision by holding ourselves and our value chain to the highest ethical standards, and by reflecting our commitment to sustainability in our product development.

The year 2022 was an important year for the IFS ESG approach. We developed our Sustainability strategy around three key pillars: ‘Excellence in Our Business’, ‘Supporting Our Customers’ and ‘Making a Broader Impact’. We made significant progress against our targets in these areas, which included using 100 per cent renewable electricity across our operations, increasing volunteering with over 600 colleagues taking up the opportunity.

Sustainability is embedded in the core of IFS products, for example through support of re manufacturing processes and circular economy principles, as well as route optimisation technology that promotes more responsible methods of production, consumption and doing business. In 2021, we formally established ESG as a product area to further support customers with their broader sustainability goals and bring a cohesive ESG strategy to our product. (IFS Sustainability Report 2022 and ESG Fact Sheet)

Winners of the 'IFS Change For Good Sustainability Awards 2023' will get the chance to attend COP28 in Dubai as part of their celebrations. These awards are being held for the third consecutive year to recognise sustainability excellence within our customer community, at both a business and individual level.

• KT Network