END USER INSIGHT
About Gulf Bank
Gulf Bank is one of the leading conventional banks in Kuwait with total
assets of KD 6 billion for the year ending December 31. The bank provides
a broad offering of consumer banking, wholesale banking, treasury and
financial services through its large network of 58 branches and more than
200 ATMs in Kuwait.
The bank was founded in 1960 and is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange
(Boursa Kuwait) since 1984.
The bank is currently ranked ‘A’ by the four leading international credit
rating agencies: Moody’s, S&P Global Ratings, Fitch Ratings and CI
Capital Intelligence.
Gulf Bank is strongly committed to giving back to Kuwaiti society through
its corporate social responsibility programme. The bank supports numerous
events focusing on youth, education, health and fitness, helping the
underprivileged, women’s empowerment, as well as promoting Kuwait’s
heritage and culture.
We spoke to Osamah AlAbdullah,
Deputy General Manager – Information
Technology at Gulf Bank Kuwait, to find
out more about how the solutions are
helping to futureproof the organisation. How is your organisation
approaching the Digital
Transformation process and
what has been the impact on
the organisation?
What were the key requirements
when you were looking for a
solution/vendor? Gulf Bank (GB) is in the initial phase of
implementing its Digital Transformation
roadmap. This is a particularly
challenging process as it requires a
complete culture change alongside
investment in both technology and
people. Having said this, GB is making
strides in the right direction. We believe
partnering with Dell Technologies is one
of the first steps in realising our Digital
Transformation vision.
We were looking for a state-of-the-art
solution with a lower TCO to replace
the existing EOS systems, purpose-built
to meet the demand of our future with
active/active metro clustering and better
data protection.
Are there any other trends
you expect to see within the
data centre space or any
emerging requirements?
Automation and orchestration of the full
data centre is one of the emerging trends
bound to dominate the industry.
Havier Haddad, General Manager – Gulf
at Dell Technologies, added: “It is always
great to see established organisations
look at technology as a platform to
uncover the answers of tomorrow.
Therefore, we are pleased to be a part of
the transformation journey embarked by
Gulf Bank.
Why did you select Dell EMC?
Data is a critical asset to a bank.
Hence, Dell Technologies was selected
as their solutions are built on proven
technologies and methodologies.
Moreover, they have strong local
presence pertaining to vendor and
partner support.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
How will the solutions future-
proof the organisation?
These solutions will provide higher
availability, resiliency and protection for
our mission critical applications and data.
Furthermore, they help us allow us to use
our data centres to its optimum.
“Their vision to modernise and simplify
data management to unlock new
enterprise capabilities and offer more
value to their customer, is something we
advocate completely. We look forward to
helping Gulf Bank build a benchmark by
being fully committed to investing our
expertise in this relationship.” ◊
Issue 04
49