Muneeb Anjum, CEO, AHAD, a Dubai-based firm that provides cybersecurity, Digital Transformation and, risk management services and solutions. Anjum talks about his currently role and how AHAD is working with partners and developing its channel business in the Middle East market.
Describe your current job role and the parts that are somewhat challenging?
I operate in the capacity of CEO and Business Head overlooking, shaping and executing macro and micro strategy at AHAD. My current job role is the most exciting journey and an adventure personally, as it included finding an investor, onboarding likeminded cofounders, hiring trustworthy and reliable team, setting up and running a new venture while economies globally suffered with COVID-19 at it’s very peak.
Can you explain how your company works with channel partners?
With the channel, we operate primarily helping them address the key challenges around strategy and execution. This includes helping them diversify their portfolio and increase their profitability while delivering quality solutions and services that have a real impact on businesses. We take necessary steps unique to each partner and this involves helping them on emerging trends, market insights, awareness and enablement for preparation to champion their own pre-sales activities to self-sufficiently hunt and executive their own deals. There remains the other category of partners who tend to be focused around using their circle of influence to become door openers and requiring our technical assistance so together, we reach the milestone and a successful sale.
How do you ensure channel partners flourish in a highly competitive market?
A major focus is aimed towards how their existing customer base can benefit from additional and complimentary solutions and services which they are presently lacking and are essentially required to address major challenges. This includes helping them to move away from run-rate based fulfilment and low margin business to lucrative, high margin and high value offerings.
What are the latest trends you see emerging across the channel?
There’s a rapid shift from perpetual licensing to subscription-based offerings and that too is now evolving to move towards consumption-based models. This offsets prior expectations where channel sales now have to move away from securing that one major deal to meet their quota, to now securing multi-year recurring revenue. This tends to bring higher focus to higher customer satisfaction as channel partners could easily loose clients if the technology is poorly configured, developed or not meeting it’s primary objectives.
What is your management philosophy?
Our management philosophy can be summed up by the very famous quote by Bruce Lee “Be Like Water”. Water can be formless and it has no shape, it becomes whatever it is poured into, whether it be a cup, a bottle, or a teapot. Hence we too aim to mould as per the situation and requirement to provide the very best and frictionless experience to all parties dealing with us.
When you look back at your career, what has been the most memorable achievement?
Throughout the 16+ years of my professional career, the most memorable was my first major order where I helped a major hospital in the UAE with their cybersecurity and Digital Transformation initiative. Not only was it a confidence booster but the experience it provider was not short of a roller coaster ride from start to finish. It is an unforgettable experience for me especially when you are in your early days of your professional career and in many ways it helped to make me grow and mature into what I am today.
What made you think of a career in technology?
In my early days, I was studying medicine however, I soon made a switch to computer science. It wasn’t only after my high school when I actually got my first personal computer.
What do you think will be the hot technology talking point of 2021?
Looking at the present situation and forecasting ahead in my opinion, 2021 will still be overshadowed by how organisations in various industry verticals will navigate the ‘new normal’. This means a lot more focus will shift towards security by design, raising the bar for defence in depth and embracing Zero Trust. This makes secure access service edge (SASE) my hot technology talking point for the year ahead.
What are your personal interests and where do you like to spend most of your time after work?
Being born as a millennial there’s a lot of interest leaning towards getting to know and learn about latest technology innovations and trends. Besides having followed Japanese Anime for over two decades, I have made it a habit whenever there’s free time on hand. Lastly, nothing beats gaming when I want to engage body and mind. Every few years I self-assemble or upgrade my gaming PC as I believe you cannot get the best experience unless you are tinkering and operating your own machine.