ARC adopts a Consultative and System Integration approach towards its customers’ needs & requirements

Mohammed Zameer
General Manager
Al Rostamani Communications
speaks to Teletimes
on the occasion of
10th anniversary of ARC
Interview: Khalid Athar
Teletimes – Please tell us about Al Rostamani Group, its history and specifics of group’s communication business unit.
Mohammed Zameer – Al Rostamani Group is one of the largest and oldest business conglomerates in the United Arab Emirates. Founded in 1957 with the late Mr. Abdullah Hassan Al Rostamani as Chairman, the group has grown steadfastly and conscientiously over the last 55 years with the guiding principles of commitment, care and vision with a genuine concern for the community. The group has a number of businesses in areas such as general trading, automobiles and heavy equipment, travel, foreign exchange, financial services, property development, construction, infrastructure development, telecommunications and information technology services.
Al Rostamani Communications (ARC), a member of  Al Rostamani Group, was established in 2002 to address the IT needs of the Telecommunication and Enterprise industries by offering end to end solutions
ARC adopts a Consultative and System Integration approach towards its customers needs & requirements. It first understands the specific requirements and then develops a customized technology solution by carefully selecting the right mix of products from its end to end solutions which include IT Infrastructure, Enterprise Communications, Networking Systems, Data Centre Solutions, IT Security, Applications and Telecommunication infrastructure. ARC’s core competency lies in its vendor certified engineering resources that seamlessly conceptualises, builds, integrates, supports and manages the solutions across the lifecycle, through its professional services which often not only matches but exceeds the customer experience & expectations.
TT – During the last ten years of its operations, what major milestones have been achieved by ARC?
MZ – In the last 10 years, ARC’s business has grown from an initial few telecom orders with one customer to a complete systems integrator across both the Enterprise and Telecom segments, addressing the telecom service providers, TRA, and more than 100 top Enterprise customers in the UAE. With four distinct vertical profitable business units addressing Infrastructure, ICT, Telecom and Professional services it has increased its staff strength from 10 to more than 250 delivering  consistent profitability and growth  since its inception.
TT – What are the present key areas of growth in UAE’s ICT sector?
MZ – Data storage, Virtualisation, IT security, Data Recover & protection, Unified communication, Cloud computing and Data centres are the key areas of growth in the UAE and across the Middle East.
TT – You have established partnership with eminent ICT solution providers around the globe. Please share some details of these partnerships.
MZ – ARC has partnered with Fujitsu for servers, NetApp for storage systems, VMware for virtualisation, McAfee for security, Symantec for backup solutions, Schneider for infrastructure, Alcatel Lucent & NEC for voice & Unified  communication to name a few.
TT – Please tell us about your regional business focus with reference to GCC states?
MZ – Presently ARC is  well established in the UAE and rated as one of the top five system integrators in the UAE  and top 20 in the GCC. It also has plans to expand to other GCC countries namely, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
TT – Machine 2 Machine communication is gearing up its popularity in households market. Does ARC have plans to address segment of communication?
MZ – ARC, in partnership with Digi International, is one of the pioneers to adopt M2M technology in the UAE to create end-to-end solutions that drives business efficiencies.  It is also one of the first SI companies to release the GSM/GPRS routers in the market for ATM machines, POS systems and SCADA applications for Data acquisition. and the first to promote Zigbee transmission for M2M solutions. ARC provides Consultancy, Solution Design, Implementation and Managed services for M2M solutions with the iDigi concept. It’s targeting its efforts on Home automation, Control systems, Utilities and Energy segments where M2M penetration is at its maximum.
TT – Is the ICT industry becoming more competitive and challenging in the GCC region?
MZ – Yes it is becoming more competitive and challenging. This is mainly due to the fact that the differential between various products & technologies is narrowing and as a result, the final decision is on pricing. Also due to the policy of major product vendors to have multiple channel partners, established system integrators who work closely with the customer from the point of inception,  have to compete in pricing with last moment vendors whose only strength is to go on low margins as they don’t have the cost of developing customer & pre-sale efforts.
TT – What changes do you observe in the communication needs of the society while keeping in mind the growth of Broadband services?
MZ – Social Media has become an integral part of the  new generation and communication technology and  marketing ideas have to be devised around this core behaviour which will give a boost for the Broadband services.
TT – Please share your views on the benefits brought in by cloud computing to enterprises and businesses.
MZ – Cloud computing is not a new concept. At the start of the computer revolution, there used to be a client server architecture which was an earlier form of Cloud. However due to the limitation of bandwidth between the server and client, it could not flourish. Now with the availability of Broadband it makes sense to have cloud architecture. However before it is fully accepted by the Business community there are issues which need to be addressed and most important of them all is Security and Migration of applications to cloud.
TT – Please share your brief professional career path. What are you future growth vision to expand company’s presence?
MZ – I am an Engineer in Electronics and Communication with an MBA and  a post graduate in Business Research. I have a good blend of Knowledge of technology and establishing New Business ventures due to my various responsibilities during the past 30 years.
The future growth is expected from Data centre solutions, Storage, Security, Virtualisation, Consultancy on Data centre commercialisation, and managed services.
TT – Your thoughts on TELETIMES International.
MZ – One of the most established Telecom Magazines of the Middle East, Asia and Africa regions and a very interesting read as it provides up to date market information. I read it regularly to understand the latest development in the products and Markets. I wish them all the best.