Simon Howwels, GM at GCG Enterprise Solutions, discusses how a business’ internal operations must already be well organised to guarantee success using Enterprise Research Planning (ERP) and artificial intelligence within the current digital transformation era.
The most costly realisation in digital transformation is often the one that comes too late: technology alone cannot fix an organisation operating on outdated workflows.
Across the UAE, organisations are investing in ERP platforms, AI pilots, cloud migrations, and digital operations, yet many find that approvals still move through email chains, documents remain fragmented across systems, and compliance continues to depend on manual intervention.
This is the defining challenge of the current transformation era, and it is one GCG Enterprise Solutions encounters consistently across the government, banking, healthcare, education, and real estate sectors it serves.
The UAE has set a clear direction. The UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025 and the UAE Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031 are inspirational frameworks with operational expectations. For public sector entities, the mandate is clear: faster services, stronger governance, and measurable efficiency gains. For private enterprises, the pressure is equally real, improve customer experience, increase agility, and demonstrate ROI on technology investment.
Yet the gap between ambition and execution remains wide. Many organisations are still navigating legacy systems, fragmented information, and process bottlenecks that slow decisions and increase risk. Some have already invested heavily in transformation programmes without seeing the returns that were promised.
The reason, in most cases, is sequencing. ERP systems deliver value when processes are standardised and governed. AI performs when data is accurate and generated through efficient workflows. Digital platforms succeed when the internal operations behind them are seamless. Without these foundations, organisations don’t digitise their business, they digitise their inefficiency.
This is why business process automation and Enterprise Information Management have moved from back-office concerns to leadership priorities. Before selecting a platform or pursuing an AI use case, organisations need to answer more fundamental questions: How does work actually move across departments today? Where do approvals stall? Where is data duplicated? Which manual processes create the most friction, cost, or compliance exposure?
With over two decades of experience supporting organisations across the UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, GCG Enterprise Solutions has built its reputation on answering exactly these questions. From landmark managed print services contracts with federal government entities, to digital transformation projects spanning records management, intelligent capture, and systems integration, GCG’s approach has always been to establish the right operational foundations before layering in technology.
That combination of regional expertise, sector depth, and long-term partnership is what distinguishes sustainable transformation from expensive experimentation.
The next phase of competitiveness in the UAE will not be defined solely by who adopts AI fastest or deploys the largest systems. It will be defined by who builds organisations capable of using them well, with the processes, governance, and infrastructure to match the ambition.
For leadership teams, the question is no longer whether to transform. It is whether the foundations beneath that transformation are strong enough to carry what comes next.
Image Credit: GCG Enterprise Solutions
