GEC NEWS WIRETell us about yourself and your role as a CIO/IT Head in this company.
AG MELCO (AG Mitsubishi Electric Corporation) is the region’s largest vertical transportation provider with branches in 16 locations around the MENA region. I head corporate IT at AG MELCO with responsibility of overall budgets, strategic planning, IT alignment, ERP and corporate systems. I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science & Engineering from JNT University, Hyderabad, a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago and a Master of Business Administration also from IIT, Chicago. I lived in Chicago for over a decade before moving to Dubai.
What are your business models and how has digitization played a key role in your organization?
With the MENA region’s infrastructure spend set to top USD 280 billion by 2018, one of the region’s largest players of people-moving machinery, AG MELCO, has ramped up its support for mega-projects with an enterprise-wide digital transformation with SAP. For many of the Middle East’s mega-projects, AG MELCO supplies, installs and maintains vertical transportation equipment that funnel tens of millions of annual visitors and supports economic growth.
AG MELCO needed real-time visibility and decision-making to gain a competitive edge. Replacing legacy IT systems with digital transformation based on SAP S4HANA and integrating all business processes and departments on a single platform, AG MELCO has implemented seamless and real-time decision-making. As a result, AG MELCO is driving cost optimization, operational efficiency, and enhanced customer service on their installations.
AG MELCO’s digital transformation show-cases global best practices in co-innovation to drive new digital business models, and business competitiveness by deploying appli-cations such as business intelligence, customer service, finance, human resources, payroll, procurement, project systems, and sales. With over 350 SAP users, the SAP S4HANA ERP platform provides real-time visibility, cost optimization, operational efficiency, and enhanced customer service.
What kind of technology trends do you anticipate in 2018 for your organization?
In our organization for 2018, we would like to continue our venture into cloud computing as well as partnering with business units in identifying appropriate technological opportunities and providing applications to enhance operational efficiencies and strategic growth. We are also looking into making our workforce mobile, automating business processes (RPA) to improve visibility, control costs and reduce waste.
The key themes of May issue are Big Data, Li-Fi and Financial Services. Would you like to share with us your opinion on one if these topics?
In the realm of Big Data, with our state-of-the-art ERP and Business Warehouse we are assisting us in strategic decision making through advanced data analytics using the power of HANA’s in-memory database. Other applications are looking at collecting and analysing Big Bata from sensors on our equipment to provide real-time visibility into equipment health and assist with predictive maintenance as well as pay-as-you-use business model. With Big Data, the possibilities are endless and imagination is the only limit!
