Channel Post speaks to Sebastien Pavie, the Identity and Data Protection Director for Middle East and Africa at Gemalto, about the company’s plans for 2017
How has 2016 been for your company and business? What were your major achievements in the year 2016?
2016 has been a challenging year as the global and regional macroeconomic climate has softened IT spending in the region. However, despite this downturn, it has been a good year overall with several key milestones and success stories in the Middle East and beyond.
This year, Gemalto was selected by Jordan’s Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology (MoICT) for the country’s ambitious new citizen ID program. Beyond the region, Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s most popular retail bank and one of the largest banks in the Eurozone accelerated its digital transformation with Gemalto’s PIN by e-Channel.
Paris Airport selected Gemalto to ease and secure passenger flow at border control with e-Gates. Car manufacturer PSA Group (Peugeot, Citroen) is equipping millions of connected cars with Gemalto’s Machine to Machine (M2M) solutions and finally Carrefour’s retailer payment cards went mobile due to Gemalto’s Trusted Service Hub.
Gemalto also recently announced the acquisition of 3M’s identity management business, which provides a full spectrum of biometric solutions. This acquisition will further strengthen our positioning in over 100 government programs worldwide. In the GCC, Gemalto has developed a strong footprint, providing eID cards and eResident permits.
Did you enter / expand your operations into new markets in 2016?
As enterprises in the region increase their investment in robust security solutions, Gemalto has extended its network of partners and expanded resources significantly, particularly in Africa, KSA and the UAE during 2016. With a stronger network of affiliated partners in the region, Gemalto has entered into new markets to meet the evolving needs around cloud applications and mobile devices. This enables secure access to online resources and protects the digital interactions of employees, partners, and customers with market-leading strong authentication and digital signing products.
How was the technology and telecom market in general in 2016? Was there any increase in business?
We have seen that mobile operators are continuously looking for new revenue streams to offer more services to their subscribers. This results in increased investment from two key fields within the telecom sector:
- Authentication as a service: By offering strong authentication and secure access to mobile operators, Gemalto’s technology permits MNOs to deliver fully-automated, strong authentication from the cloud. This enables their corporate customers to protect cloud-based and on-premises applications from any device with user-friendly token options.
- On-demand connectivity (ODC) solutions: The success of the IoT revolution depends on two key areas: security and connectivity. Enterprises depend on mobile operators to provide robust and reliable network and out-of-the- box connectivity, provided by on-demand connectivity solutions. ODC solutions deployed by MNOs enable end-users to connect to any devices on the spot, anytime, anywhere, within a few clicks. We have seen high momentum on ODC solutions and eSIM in the region, with Du and STC demonstrating such out-of-the-box connectivity through Gemalto’s leading technologies.
What are you expecting for the next year for the economy and the markets?
As KSA, UAE and Qatar represent the three strongest markets in the region, we expect to see a growing need for security as the economy turns to digitalisation. We have seen growth in smart government, big data, cloud computing and virtualisation across multiple sectors in the region. That said, Gartner predicts that The Middle East’s IT spend is projected to reach USD 243 billion by 2018. Gemalto is constantly on the pulse with new and innovative technologies to support this transformation.
