Al-Futtaim Technologies (Managed Service Division: MSD), was named ‘IT Department of the Year’ at the prestigious ACN Arab Technology Awards ceremony held in Dubai last week.
MSD is Al-Futtaim group’s internal IT Infrastructure Service Provider and presently services over 60 Group companies in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Egypt.
Al-Futtaim Technologies won over eight other finalists for the category. This is the third major award for Al-Futtaim Technologies this year. The company had previously won the Enterprise Reseller of the Year award at the Channel ME awards in March and the Best Systems Integrator award at the Network Middle East awards ceremony in September.
Recognising the outstanding work of the region's IT community, the awards ceremony was attended by over 300 senior executives and industry titans from across the region.
Al-Futtaim Technologies was selected for the award on the basis of its ability to deliver projects by providing a very robust, reliable and scalable infrastructure that has brought about fundamental changes to the Al-Futtaim group’s infrastructure and operations while also reducing the need for more resources.
Santosh Shetty, Operations & IT Manager MSD, Al-Futtaim Technologies said: “The team was able to deliver key projects which were of a pioneering nature. Having recognised that existing technologies could not deliver business needs, MSD took a bold step in recognising and implementing a new network based on Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) thus helping the Al-Futtaim group to meet growing business demands.”
The MSD also undertook two other major projects: to implement new office automation technologies and to adopt Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) based IT Service Management. The projects were implemented in more than 160 offices and show rooms of Al-Futtaim across the UAE.
“The projects also challenged the team to newer heights to solve technical and logistical issues while ensuring there were minimal disruptions in the delivery of the projects,” added Santosh.
Venkat Raghavan, General Manager, Al-Futtaim Technologies said: “This is the third award for Al-Futtaim Technologies in the space of eight months reaffirming our market-leading status. I am delighted for Santosh and his team whose hard work has been recognised in this way.”
The MSD is responsible for IT infrastructure management for all Al-Futtaim group companies and includes Server & Storage, Networks (Voice and Data), Data Centres, Service Delivery (including Service Desk), Desktop Services and Security. The end-to-end services provided to the group companies include consulting, design, deployment and support of infrastructure for business applications including ERP, Messaging and Retail Solutions among others.