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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Digitally smart businesses have better rate of success, survival

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SALALAH, Nov 24 - Digital transformation is an important way to move forward and scale new heights for businesses because it is not only in their interest, but an essential and unavoidable upgrade. A senior business executive said this while pointing at positive indications in Oman at a time when the country has the highest level of young population which is well versed with smart phones and new technologies. “Oman has two major key advantages. First, mobile internet penetration is more than 95 per cent in the country and second, it has highest level of young population well versed with new technologies, said Vir Vijay Singh, a senior business strategist and an IT expert, in an interview with the Observer.


He raised an alarm by citing a global data which suggested that at least 40 per cent of businesses would collapse globally in next 10 years for want of necessary IT changes to accommodate new technologies


“Hence digital transformation is the way to move forward and scale new heights. By 2023, the global digital transformation market, that is growing year on year basis at the rate of 18.1 per cent, would be worth $665 billion,” he said.

Commenting on Oman’s preparedness to meet this challenge, Singh said, “In retail industry we can see companies are launching new mobile apps and going online to reach out to their customers and provide ultimate customer experience.”


“Customers are also looking forward to go online and buy products like electronics, apparels, fashion stuff, grocery, restaurant food and services like money transfer, insurance, banking through smart phones and tablets… Examples are food aggregation like Talabat and Akeed, and hypermarkets like Carrefour, Lulu and Sharf DG. E-commerce sites Amazon, Ali Express, Namshi, and Noon.com have a common platform from where customers prefer to do their shopping.”


He cited some upgrades in Oman in taxi services like Marhaba, Mwasalat, Otxi, and some developments in Uber and Careem, as positive examples of Digital transformation and added that recently Omantel also launched efloos.com, a digital mobile wallet apps to support customers to do online transaction.


Singh, however, put stress on more ‘digital transformation disruption’ among the companies dealing with insurance, finance, tourism, food, automotive, transportation, logistic, and utilities of other Omani Industries.


“On global scale today’s top 10 companies in Fortune 500 list are IT based companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook etc. Fifteen years before, these companies were not in the list… Digital transformation will change the way we live our life. We spend more time on digital device like PC laptop mobile tablet and surround our self than ever before.”


Companies thus will have to offer their product and services to consumer by going digital. Their reach and response would faster and quicker than ever before to customers.


“Going digital also brings lots of challenges of security and control. IT security on end users devices will be also a big challenge to handle and it also show big potential for business. Also the government will have to build more compliance and regulations to control the digital world,” he said.


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