EMC highlights rise of the strategic CIO at CIO Connect Summit 2015

EMC^® today announced the opening of the annual EMC CIO Connect Summit 2015 for Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Taking place at the Hilton Prague, Czech Republic, on 26th and 27th May, the summit is designed to help CIOs identify and leverage new opportunities as enterprises across the region continue to invest in third platform technologies to drive innovation and competitive advantage for business.

Held under the theme “Redefine Possible”, this edition of the event brings together an audience of over 100 visionary CIOs and senior IT professionals from key industry verticals across the region as IT roles and responsibilities continue to evolve to unlock greater enterprise value.

A global study of 10,451 IT business decision-makers across 33 countries, conducted by Vanson Bourne, reported that while IT today is no doubt considered a business enabler, 47% of respondents in the EMEA region believe that spending is fast moving out of the IT department’s control. As Line of Business executives continue to play an increasingly active role in the procurement of third platform technologies, the remit of CIOs today is transforming to focus on more strategic market-driven initiatives. These are then supported by a mix of internal and brokered IT services aimed at driving competitive advantage, enhancing shareholder value, simplifying the business, and winning and retaining customers.

Mohammed Amin, EMC’s Senior Vice President, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa and Middle East, opened the event with a presentation highlighting the opportunities ahead for IT leaders to transition into the role of strategic CIOs so as to provide an agile and contemporary mix of services. The presentation shed light on EMC’s objective to help IT leaders seize these opportunities, redefine their IT agendas to meet business objectives and enable their transformation journeys to become genuinely software-defined enterprises, leading to greater business agility and efficiency.

Following this message, speakers at the event showcased best practices on the application and deployment of the Software-Defined Data Center, and of Cloud, Flash and Big Data technologies within a range of industries – all enabling IT to achieve the agility, scalability and efficiency that the business needs today. The summit also featured a session on the need for scalable innovations in the establishment of smart cities to enable smarter, safer service infrastructure to cater to the demands of constantly connected communities.

The EMC CIO Connect Summit 2015 spans two days of interactive presentations, panel discussions and workshops aiming at enabling IT leaders to exchange insights and expertise as they seek to redefine the IT agenda and business processes, and to drive competitive differentiation and performance enhancements. 

Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Middle East: “As enterprises continue to turn to their IT organizations to better leverage the converging trends of cloud, social, mobile and big data to redefine business performance, CIOs and Line of Business (LOB) executives acknowledge the need to work closely together to enhance enterprise value and achieve strategic business objectives. It is apparent from our conversations with customers that the heavy consumerization of IT has driven the demand for IT departments to revamp their approach and perception. We look forward to working with our customers across the region to aid this transition in the role of IT to deliver greater value to business.”