“Amid the regional economic recovery, the attraction of the cloud is clear — it is a great place to stage proofs of concept safely and cheaply and become an early adopter,” Smith said.

What IT is sorely lacking is consolidated thinking. Many services profess to help you create a view of your multi-cloud resources, SaaS apps and collaboration services, but few give a control plane for full visibility. We might know where things are, how they are working, but we need to start pooling this data to start identifying overlap to minimise inefficiencies.

A study by Accenture revealed that less than half of new employees receive cybersecurity training and regular updates throughout their career. Just four in ten respondents said insider threat programs were a high priority.

In 2022, digital transformation projects will advance moderately from 2021. Underpinned by GCC Country Visions, the rapid shift of the GCC countries from an oil-exporting economy to a knowledge-based economy will be a major influence.

According to Gartner analysts, by 2025, more than 85% of enterprises will have adopted a cloud-first strategy and will be unable to properly execute their digital plans without the use of cloud-native architectures and technologies.