BR Exclusive! Dell CEO: Romanians have the talent of working with technology in their DNA

Dell Technologies recorded revenues of USD 79.9 billion in the 2017 fiscal year on non-GAAP standards, with an operating income of USD 6.9 billion, after paying approximately USD 10 billion in gross debt. The company is one of the biggest in the world and one of the leaders in technology.

We talked with Aongus Hegarty, president of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Dell EMC about how the technology is changing our lives and how is Dell EMC is set for the future.

“I have become the president of EMEA two years ago. It is my second trip this year to Romania and now I came for a 400 people conference. It is a great place for conferences, with airport close to the hotel and with all infrastructure you need,” said Hegarty, that has attended a Dell Finance conference at Marriott Hotel with 400 participants.

Dell Finances is the financing division of Dell EMC and it is offering end-to-end solutions to the customers. “We have a team of 400 people working hear in Bucharest that team supports and offers solutions to customer global. We have determined six or seven years ago that we need to have some financing products for the customers so we specialized this division in order to cover their needs, specially for working capital,” explains Hegarty.

The financing division appeared due to the needs of the customers and is a move to the direction of PC-as-a-service solution, which is not so capital consuming as it was before. “And we can offer end-to-end solution, something that our competition can’t,” says Hegarty.

Dell is a company that started as an entrepreneurship by Michael Dell over 30 years ago. “We developed organic until 2007 when we started to buy five or six companies every year. In this way we could cover all the fields in IT,“ says Hegarty, that shows that creating Dell EMC was the peak of this transition and the company ended up covering all the needs of the customers, from servers to security and financing.

The company has a strong division in Romania and the presence of Dell here is not accidental.

“We see in Romania some of the most innovative uses of technology and early adopters of technology. This is why we have grown our presence so we have now over one thousand employees. Is a great area for innovation whether if it is for Dell financial services or for security and cyber-security,” says Hegarty that shows also that Romania was the first country globally to implement the company’s new V-block solution.

Bringing technology together

“All industries are changing towards digitalization at a great pace. So we invest more and more in research and development, we just announced that we will invest USD 4.5 billion in this direction in the next years. Is all about digitalization today,” says the head of Dell EMC EMEA.

Along with the modernization of data centers and any other equipment used, there is a second very important thig.

“There is a significant demand for talent people, a talented work-force in IT and it is more demand in the digital skilled place than there is supply. Romania is a very good location to hire people with those kind of skills. You are well equipped for technical, analitycal, security, financial type of skills. Also Bratislava is a good place for this kind of people. It is something in your DNA as a group of people, something that is very, very strong,” says Hegarty.

There is also change in the way people work, with millennials asking for more flexibility. Today the employees have all the tools they need everywhere, so the need to be in the office for the job is no longer necessary.

A major step in this direction came from Windows 10, which offers very good security for any device, no matter if it is on site or not. This is also a reason why the adoption of Win 10 is the fastest of all Microsoft operating systems. “We have many projects for upgrading to Win 10 all over the world, even in Romania,” says Hegarty.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is the buzz word of the moment and we can see more and more human and machines working together. “This is where AI or virtual reality comes into place,” says Hegarty.

But the ‘digital revolution’ comes also from the entrepreneurial sector with people innovating and bringing a lot of new ideas that can be disruptive for old industries. “We have also a Women entrepreneur campaign, that started because women represent 50 percent of population, but only 20 percent of the business,” shows Hegarty.

On the other hand, entrepreneurs are working with the innovation coming from the big companies through research & development, where the investment is of billions of dollars every year. The innovation on the side of the companies is enabling entrepreneurs to innovate further, to create and come up with new things. “And that is driving everything forward at the pace we see today,“ says Hegarty.

“The technology is changing the lives of everyone in the world. I was in Ethiopia a couple of months back, and there we have a very large project going with the Ministry of Education and an NGO. We use the technology to change people’s lives: what we do is put technology in 1,200 schools with 1.3 million students. That population will come in the next decade with new skills, they will be transformed and will have a much better chance to grow. So it depends on how we use technology in order to improve and enhance our lives.”

DMCA

PROTECTED