2021: A Year of Action

Dictionary.com’s word of the year in 2020 was “Pandemic”. Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year in 2020 for UK, Canada and Australia was “lockdown”. Merriam-Webster’s word of the year was “Pandemic” as well.

No matter the word we choose to define the year, everyone agrees that 2020 was an unprecedented one with extraordinary events that have changed the way we work, live and interact with each other.

For Arc, the organisation I have the honour of leading, the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns had its effect on our plans as I am sure it did with every enterprise, venture or individual across the globe. As a new entrant to the telecommunication infrastructure sector and a joint venture of two of the leading telecommunication service providers in the Middle East, we’ve been privileged to have the support of EITC (du) and Batelco. The pandemic also brought new opportunities and new business ideas which we have incorporated to our way forward.

 Challenges and Learnings

We have stayed on course with our work building a regional interconnect platform to enable customers to seamlessly connect across the regions’ commercial and communication hubs. However, 2020 has forced us to relook at some of our tactics, slowed some decision making, and given us some unexpected barriers in general.

On the bright side, 2020 also allowed us to build a great “Launchpad” that includes a stellar team of industry talent, expertise and drive to build a unique platform. Arc designed its regional networks, the framework of its software-defined network infrastructure, and backend systems to support our customers’ needs and requirements. We’re ready to make the most of 2021 and built a lot of momentum in 2020 despite the challenges. 

We’ve spent hours talking to our customers globally, in the quest to get insights into customer needs and challenges. We believe we have a great understanding of our customer needs, the telecoms environment across the region, and the strategic socioeconomic movement in the region. Its perhaps our biggest learning from the year 2020. There’s strong demand for our services and the pandemic has shown the value that agile network infrastructure can deliver to our customers and the wider economy. 

A Year of Action

For Arc 2021 is the year of “Action”. We will use the Launchpad we created in 2020 to catapult into 2021 with solutions that will address our customers’ needs effectively. Currently most regional solutions offered by service providers including Arc are a patchwork of different networks stitched together. We want to move from that to purpose-built solutions that are robust and at the same time flexible enough to give our customers the ability to use as per demand.

Our tagline is “Giving You the Edge in the Middle East” and that’s what Arc will deliver into 2021. We will take our customers to the edge of the network in the Middle East through our partner data centres in the region and deliver seamless connectivity solutions. We are making it simple and easy to connect and optimise applications and services across the Middle East. It is in 2021 that our vision for the market will become reality.

I personally thank every Arc team member, Arc partner and service provider who has helped and contributed and wish everyone a wonderful and safe 2021.