Celebrating Collaboration: Highlights from the UAE Partner Festival 2024

[UKIMEA_Insights]

November 2024 saw our UAE Partner Festival welcome delegates from UAE to share insights on emerging technologies, strengthen partnerships and hear the latest HPE plans for the new year.

Held at the Intercontinental Mina Al Arab in Ras Al Khaimah, the event offered a platform to explore HPE’s priorities, channel strategies and joint opportunities for growth. It was also a chance to celebrate our partners and recognise their outstanding achievements.

Watch the event highlight video here 

Looking at trends and focusing on the future

With over 130 attendees including partners, distributors, sponsors and our own team members, the event opened with HPE’s Managing Director for Emirates and Africa, Ahmad Alkhallafi who warmly welcomed our delegates and outlined HPE’s overarching strategy for FY25. Charlie Tunley, UKIMEA Channel & Partner Ecosystem Director then explained more about HPE’s channel strategy before UAE Sales Director, Tim Aldridge looked at HPE’s priorities for the UAE. These presentations focused on increasing cooperation and collaboration in the region, covering key focus areas for the forthcoming year.

“The UAE Partner Festival was an excellent event that showcased our commitment to partners in the region. It allowed us to share our Channel Strategy and priorities for the UAE.” – Charlie Tunley

Centre Manager for HPE Digital Life Garage, Rebecca Wright, then gave an overview of the customer centre, explaining how partners can make the best use of this innovative resource. Offering an immersive experience to visitors, our partners can welcome their customers to the centre, bringing innovation to life and accelerating business development and outcomes. This proved to be a real eye-opener for many delegates who haven’t had the opportunity to visit the Digital Life Garage yet, and we hope to welcome them soon.

The morning session finished with an informative presentation from the Services team, highlighting how HPE Services can enhance partner value and customer experience by aligning support services with customer needs. Ryan D'Souza - CSLV Business Development Lead - and Izelda Warne - Channel Services Sales Manager - explored the extensive Services portfolio, uncovering opportunities for business growth and profitability. They showcased the improvements in customer support with HPE’s Digital Experience through the HPE Support Centre, and how partners have embraced this new initiative, allowing them to co-deliver a premium service experience through HPE Complete Care Partner Led Experience. This presentation provided an incredibly informative insight into how partners can leverage HPE services for competitive advantage, before we launched our Partner Advisory Group.

Talking collaboration, trends and future success

We invited 13 C-Suite leaders to a separate breakout space, forming our first Partner Advisory Group, which aims to collect insights and collaborate to enrich the future development of our partnerships. We held lively discussions around predicted market trends, how we can work together to maximise opportunities and what success looks like in 2025. This valuable information will help strengthen our partnerships and improve our services.

Meanwhile our sponsors shared their expert views on a range of topics, including data resilience with HPE & Veeam, modern data centres, empowering enterprises with open source and the 2025 focus areas for our alliance with Microsoft. As our ‘platinum sponsor’, Intel also looked at bringing AI everywhere, rounding off our engaging sessions with industry insight.

Awarding our stars of 2024

Recognising the achievements of our partners was a key element of the festival, with five awards presented to worthy winners who demonstrated outstanding performance in FY24.

UAE Top Partner of the Year was awarded to Mideast Data Systems, who exemplified success in the UAE last year. They were recognised for their outstanding revenue achievement, organisational transformation to align seamlessly with HPE's strategy, securing landmark HPE GreenLake wins, and excelling across HPE’s diverse portfolio.

Scooping the UAE Growth Partner of the Year award was Royal Technology Solutions, with remarkable revenue growth, focus on strategic UAE customers and outstanding collaboration and leadership in expanding HPE's presence in critical sectors. 

Picking up UAE Rising Star Partner of the Year was Atom Options Computer for their outstanding growth and ability to thrive in HPE’s competitive ecosystem.

Innovative Incorporation Trading was awarded UAE Transactional Partner of the Year, honouring their unrivalled contribution to transactional business with the highest numbers in the UAE.

UAE Distributor of the Year was presented to Ingram Micro, highlighting their excellence in revenue generation, year-on-year growth and strong support across volume and value businesses.

Time to unwind

After a day of networking, presentations and awards, attendees were treated to a luxury desert experience. The evening offered the chance to see wild animals in the conservation area, glimpse the sun setting over the desert and dine under the stars. This was the perfect way to unwind and enjoy the surroundings together.

Reflecting on the event, Managing Director for Emirates and Africa, Ahmad Alkhallafi shared, “The UAE Partner Festival event was a great success, fostering meaningful connections and reaffirming our commitment to collaboration and growth in UAE."

Attendees were also keen to share their appreciation for the event:

Murtaza Kapasi - Director at Innovative Incorporation Trading LLC commented that the event was, “Very well organised event, honoured to be part of it. Thanks HPE.”

Eddy Abboud - Vice President at MDS Computers added, “Beautiful and insightful event. Thank you team for all your hard work and organisation! Well done.”

We look forward to welcoming our partners once again at our next partner festival.

Watch the event highlight video here 

Ukimea Insights
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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