RIYADH — International Data Corporation (IDC) confirmed that the latest installment of its cutting-edge IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit will take place on Sept. 8-9 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh. This year's edition will run under the theme 'Where IT Meets Business' and will drive home the importance of closely aligning IT and business functions at a time when organizations across the region are faced with the challenge of implementing emerging products and services while simultaneously trying to improve operational efficiency. The event will attract more than 200 of the Kingdom's most influential CIOs, technology decision makers, and government advisors from across a broad vertical spectrum. "The annual IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit continues to grow from strength to strength and plays an important role in both shaping and reflecting opinion across the region's constantly evolving ICT sector," said Abdulaziz Al-Helayyil, IDC's regional director for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain. "IDC recognizes that the ability to rapidly correlate IT project spending with critical business priorities is essential, with CIOs increasingly required to demonstrate the business value of their projects and embrace the strategic benefits their businesses are striving to achieve. Against this backdrop, the IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2015 will explore the need for IT plans to include strong business justifications alongside the well-worn IT metrics that typically examine application delivery in isolation." The exclusive, invitation-only event will also see the official launch of IDC's IT Executive Programs in Saudi Arabia, and to mark this occasion IDC will be hosting a series of informative workshops on the first afternoon of the Summit. Presented by some of IDC's most senior global thought leaders, the workshops will help today's time-constrained IT executives make more effective business decisions. The Summit will also launch vertical-focused tracks, with the spotlight shining on the region's government, banking and finance, and energy sectors. And with the event representing the largest social gathering of CIOs in Saudi Arabia, numerous local ICT vendors will join a host of major global giants to present their unique insights into the latest trends shaping tech adoption across the wider region, while a variety of senior line-of-business executives will also be on hand to offer that all-important non-IT perspective. — SG
