KPMG: 98% of Saudi CEOs set to invest in cloud technology in 2021  

JEDDAH: Senior company executives in Saudi Arabia are embracing the digital revolution, with 98 percent planning to raise their investments in cloud computing this year, according to a new survey.
Cloud computing is at the top of the technology agendas for CEOs in the Kingdom, with investments in artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and 5G also popular, according to the global consultancy firm KPMG’s 2020 CEO Outlook survey.
While technological advances can bring security challenges, 88 percent of Saudi-based CEOs see technological transformation as an opportunity rather than a threat.
“The pace of technological adoption has quickened this year as organizations react to the new working reality. Most of the CEOs believe the pandemic has accelerated the creation of a seamless digital customer experience and [that the] creation of new digital revenue streams has advanced during the pandemic,” said Mazhar Hussain, chief disruption officer at KPMG in Saudi Arabia.
“Nonetheless, the pandemic has seen an uptick of cyberattacks, which has increased awareness and investment into cybersecurity. The number of vulnerabilities in most organizations’ operations has increased with remote work. Hence, companies must resist the urge to direct budget cuts toward preventative cyber measures and [view] the sharp increase in global cybercrime as a reason to keep advancing their cyber defenses,” he added.
At the same time, the pandemic has shaken CEO confidence in global economic growth, according to the KPMG survey. Almost 32 percent said they are less confident about global growth prospects in the next three years than they were at the beginning of the year.
While cloud computing investment is a priority, a survey in January by German business software company SAP found that while more than four-fifths (89 percent) of Saudi senior public sector executives agreed that data sharing helped them to improve on how they connected with citizens, many had not invested in training to implement this.
SAP found that while 83 percent of respondents said data sharing improved their innovation in current goods or services, only 22 percent did this with partners. And when it came to training, only 33 percent of respondents had retrained employees on how best to analyze data. This skills shortage was cited by 61 percent of respondents as being a barrier to meeting strategic change initiatives.