EC News DeskAl Khayyat Investments, a UAE-based conglomerate, has selected Dell Technologies to support its ambitious growth vision and boost its digital transformation drive.
A family-owned business, founded in 1982, AKI today has earnings of over $1 billion and 5,000 employees. With close to 40 years of regional expertise, AKI’s eight autonomous business operations cover pharmaceuticals, consumer, retail, hospitality, fitness, landscaping, environmental services, automotive and strategic investments.
In today’s hyper-connected retail space, as customers look to brands to deliver exceptional service, AKI’s customer-focused offerings continue to make a mark in the region’s retail sector. The company has plans to build on this success by incorporating digital-led solutions to transform customer experience across all retail touch points.
This offering has become increasingly crucial as customers now expect a second-to-none, seamless experience between a brand’s in-store and online retail channels. Additionally, while customer data can help brands create an omnichannel experience that allows consumers to interact across all channels and devices, it also means that the amount of data gathered by businesses keeps growing at an alarming rate. It is therefore important to make sure all the data is being used efficiently and not contributing towards a data silo problem.
For AKI, this meant finding a technology solution that could handle the huge amount of data and ensured it benefitted rather than overwhelmed the business. With Dell Technologies’ hyperconverged best-of-breed solutions such as Dell EMC VxRail, Integrated Data Protection Appliances and integrated software applications from Dell Boomi, AKI has been able to address their growing retail business needs while ensuring their operations remained highly available, reliable, and agile.
AKI also leveraged Dell’s ‘PC as a service’ solution for configured laptops and desktops and now stands to benefit from having a modernized employee experience while relying on a single provider to take care of all their IT needs.
Sajid Lokhandwala, CIO, Al Khayyat Investments
“Today customers have access to a gamut of information and demand a highly personalized, seamless experience across every channel. We needed a technology partner who understood this changing market dynamics and had the expertise and solutions to take us to the next level, from the store to the data center to the cloud. Working with Dell Technologies allowed us to become more efficient throughout the retail value chain from collecting and analyzing data to improving margins, decreasing costs, and reducing security risks. We are on a transformation journey with an ambitious growth vision and having the right partner offers us a competitive advantage in a fast-paced marketplace.”
Walid Yehia, General Manager – UAE, Dell Technologies
“The retail industry has been the regional economy’s driving force and today stands at a tipping point fueled by new market opportunities and massive digital transformation drives. With strong business confidence placed on the retail sector, technology has a key role in ensuring these expectations are met. Our solutions help the retail industry to innovate and modernize their IT Infrastructure and stand out in a highly competitive market. Dell Technologies’ tailored multi-cloud, data protection and as a service solutions will not only allow AKI to keep their customers at the centre of their operations but will also help them advance their digital transformation journey.”
