Smartworld signs deal with EFS for managed services

Global MS market worth $193 billion by 2019

Arabian Gulf’s MS market to be worth $3.1 billion by 2018

Smartworld to carry out 24/7 monitoring and management of mission critical applications

Agreement to help EFS focus on its core business 

Deal to tackle the challenges of downtime, Service Level Agreements (SLA) breach and standards of support  

Dubai, June 1, 2015: Smartworld, the leading system integrator and Digital ICT service provider in the Middle East, has signed an agreement with EFS Facilities Services, the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (MEASA) region’s leading Integrated Facilities Management service, operation and maintenance solution provider to provide managed services to their network, security, systems and application infrastructure with data recovery.

Under the yearly renewable agreement, Smartworld will provide 24/7 monitoring and management to EFS’s mission critical applications.

EFS has embarked on the project to offload its specific IT operations to Smartworld as the managed service provider and focus on their core business. EFS currently manages over 300 contracts with a contract backlog of AED 2.5 billion in 19 countries across the MEASA region. 

Smartworld, a joint venture between Etisalat, the Middle East's leading telecommunications operator, and Dubai World Central (DWC), has a strong track record of successful deployments and implementations of state-of-the-art ICT system in the region.

Simon Williams, Sales Director, Smartworld, said: “We are happy to be associated with EFS as their managed services provider. With our extensive experience and professional services, we will be able to meet their expectations smoothly and efficiently and keep up their confidence in us in the years to come. With us taking care of their specific IT requirements, EFS will be able to devote their efforts on core businesses, thereby enhancing their competencies and bottom-line.”  

Tariq Chauhan, Group CEO, EFS Facilities Services, said: “We are confident that Smartworld will be able to meet our needs and address the challenges we faced in relation to our networks. Information technology is critical to EFS which in effect will raise our service standards to our clients and enable us to focus on our core business.”

Under the deal, EFS will be migrated from the existing data centre to Smartworld data centre within a month. Through the successful implementation of the project, EFS will enjoy higher SLA’s and higher standard of services from Smartworld.

The global Managed Services (MS) market will be worth $193.34 billion by the year 2019, according to a Markets and Markets study. The study expects an increasing adoption of managed data center and managed network services. According to a Frost & Sullivan study, the Managed Services market growth within the Gulf Cooperation Council states is set to reach $3.1 billion by 2018. Managed Security Services saves at least 40 per cent of operating expenses (OPEX) compared to companies which have their own internal security operations center and teams.