Bassem Bouzid has been appointed to the position of regional VP and GM for HP Enterprise Services for the Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa (MEMA) region. In his new role, Bouzid will provide leadership for HP’s Enterprise Services business in Greece, Turkey, the Middle-East and all of Africa. HP stated that Bouzid’s appointment is a “clear demonstration of HP’s strategic focus to develop its Enterprise Services business in this important growth region and to become the recognized leader in services.”
Prior to this appointment, Bouzid was sales VP for the Energy and Distribution Industry (EDI) within HP Enterprise Business, Europe, Middle East and Africa(EMEA). According to HP, Bouzid’s focus will be on growing the IT outsourcing and application services business throughout the region, targeting the energy, financial services and telecommunication sectors as well as digital health solutions. In an interview with Arab News, Bouzid added that he hopes to be working with the government and education sectors as well.
Asked how Greece was added to the Middle East/Africa grouping that usually only includes Turkey from outside the immediate regions, Bouzid advised that HP felt there was some potential to increase the sharing of resources.
“The issue is the critical mass that each market would require on its own,” Bouzid remarked. “Everyone is aware of the financial crisis and the situation in Greece. There are more commonalities between Greece, Turkey and the Middle East, than between Greece and some of the Western European countries and we want to cover Greece because there is still a good market there. The requirements, the cost base, the type of solutions needed in Greece are more those of growing markets than mature markets.”
Bouzid believes that his appointment is another incremental move in the massive corporate transformation that HP has undertaken over the last four years.
“We have greatly expanded our sales coverage related to global enterprise accounts,” he said. “Now we have more dedicated coverage on what we call the Global 2000 accounts. These are the 2000 largest IT spenders globally. In the Middle East and Africa there are a few of those and in Saudi Arabia, it’s one of the highest concentrations of those clients that we have.”
With Bouzid’s focus on enterprise services, it immediately comes to mind that he will be HP’s regional team leader for outsourcing, encouraging local enterprises to contract HP to take over some or all of their IT operations. Bouzid immediately clarified that for HP, enterprise services are not just manpower outsourcing. Their offerings span requirements from helping companies set up their technology - be it hardware, software or business applications - to running their operations.
“Outsourcing, in the definition of outsourcing in Western Europe, is shifting workload. There are usually just a few items you can play with when you are going into outsourcing to generate savings and improvement,” Bouzid said. “Of the items you can play with or the levers you have in the outsourcing world, the first one is labor arbitrage. This one has been used extensively in the region by bringing to the region the offshore resources that are used in Europe remotely. So there was already a shift of the low level commoditized activities. That’s the first level. Usually, that is not sustainable because markets grow, economies grow, salary base grows and quickly your business case falls apart.”
He continued, “The second level that you use, which is more sustainable, is transformation. You take an operation and you transform it so you require less technology. You automate more intelligently. You need staff with higher skill levels in order to operate such an environment. Usually this is more sustainable because you are really changing an environment long term. Rather than taking jobs away, in fact it creates space for those highly skilled people in order to be able to operate these environments. Low cost people aren’t brought into the region because certain operations run remotely.”
HP is investing in offshore centers to run remote operations cost effectively. They already have a large operation in Egypt and some resources in Tunisia and Morocco, as well as a significant resource base in Saudi Arabia. Bouzid stressed that the way HP is approaching outsourcing should create space for local engineers who are returning to the region after education abroad.
“Ours is a really different approach to enterprise services,” said Bouzid. “The new Saudi graduates are very skilled. Many are returning from having their education in Western Europe or North America. They are keen to get back into their home country and show what they can do. The Indians, the Egyptians and other workforce that have been employed in the region have really been on the low cost end. They haven’t been on the transformation end, and that’s our focus.”
Asked how Greece was added to the Middle East/Africa grouping that usually only includes Turkey from outside the immediate regions, Bouzid advised that HP felt there was some potential to increase the sharing of resources.
“The issue is the critical mass that each market would require on its own,” Bouzid remarked. “Everyone is aware of the financial crisis and the situation in Greece. There are more commonalities between Greece, Turkey and the Middle East, than between Greece and some of the Western European countries and we want to cover Greece because there is still a good market there. The requirements, the cost base, the type of solutions needed in Greece are more those of growing markets than mature markets.”
Bouzid believes that his appointment is another incremental move in the massive corporate transformation that HP has undertaken over the last four years.
“We have greatly expanded our sales coverage related to global enterprise accounts,” he said. “Now we have more dedicated coverage on what we call the Global 2000 accounts. These are the 2000 largest IT spenders globally. In the Middle East and Africa there are a few of those and in Saudi Arabia, it’s one of the highest concentrations of those clients that we have.”
With Bouzid’s focus on enterprise services, it immediately comes to mind that he will be HP’s regional team leader for outsourcing, encouraging local enterprises to contract HP to take over some or all of their IT operations. Bouzid immediately clarified that for HP, enterprise services are not just manpower outsourcing. Their offerings span requirements from helping companies set up their technology - be it hardware, software or business applications - to running their operations.
“Outsourcing, in the definition of outsourcing in Western Europe, is shifting workload. There are usually just a few items you can play with when you are going into outsourcing to generate savings and improvement,” Bouzid said. “Of the items you can play with or the levers you have in the outsourcing world, the first one is labor arbitrage. This one has been used extensively in the region by bringing to the region the offshore resources that are used in Europe remotely. So there was already a shift of the low level commoditized activities. That’s the first level. Usually, that is not sustainable because markets grow, economies grow, salary base grows and quickly your business case falls apart.”
He continued, “The second level that you use, which is more sustainable, is transformation. You take an operation and you transform it so you require less technology. You automate more intelligently. You need staff with higher skill levels in order to operate such an environment. Usually this is more sustainable because you are really changing an environment long term. Rather than taking jobs away, in fact it creates space for those highly skilled people in order to be able to operate these environments. Low cost people aren’t brought into the region because certain operations run remotely.”
HP is investing in offshore centers to run remote operations cost effectively. They already have a large operation in Egypt and some resources in Tunisia and Morocco, as well as a significant resource base in Saudi Arabia. Bouzid stressed that the way HP is approaching outsourcing should create space for local engineers who are returning to the region after education abroad.
“Ours is a really different approach to enterprise services,” said Bouzid. “The new Saudi graduates are very skilled. Many are returning from having their education in Western Europe or North America. They are keen to get back into their home country and show what they can do. The Indians, the Egyptians and other workforce that have been employed in the region have really been on the low cost end. They haven’t been on the transformation end, and that’s our focus.”
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