Bahrain-headquartered 2Connect has announced plans to expand its innovative portfolio of products and services to the Saudi Arabian market. Launching state-of-the-art Managed Information Technology and Related services through a branch office, 2Connect IT Services, marks the company’s first steps towards becoming a regional entity.
“We are energized about our new avatar,” said a visibly excited Fahad AlShirawi, Managing Director, 2Connect. “2Connect is now building upon its role as a network operator and exploring new avenues of delivering value to our clientele.”
With a fully staffed office in Riyadh looking to provide managed IT solutions, 2Connect IT Services is to start operations as early as next week. The company offers smart building management solutions, customized systems integration suites, fully outsourced managed security, wholly managed network environments and a full range of unified communication products.
“2Connect has always been proud of being in the forefront of the communication revolution and this new venture is another extension of our core mandate - to make the life of our customers a little bit easier,” said AlShirawi. He added, “By expanding on our portfolio of turn-key state-of-the-art services through the provision of fully managed communication services that outsource an organization’s requirements from the desktop out, 2Connect is a step closer to being the only partner our customers will ever need.”
Further expanding on their current plans for this new venture, AlShirawi commented, “On the large scale we are looking to provide our solutions to not just individual organizations or buildings but entire private campuses and even cities. However, it is important to note that at this stage, we are looking at a partnership model to be able to quickly expand with a win-win setup.”
When asked about why Saudi was the first country chosen for such an expansion AlShirawi said that ‘Quite simply, it’s about the network. In Bahrain, 2Connect can deliver the necessary bandwidth for such Services to function properly at a reasonable cost. In the Region, the only country with enough competition to allow for cost effective connectivity that will enable us to treat a wide area network as if it is a local area network is Saudi. Today, inside Riyadh, a DS3 or STM1 is very cost effective allowing us to connect campuses to our Network Operation Center with real time capabilities and response time. Across the Kingdom, the VPN offerings available from various suppliers also make for such a capability.
“As we look for network operators to partner with in KSA, our venture is already garnering considerable interest from clients in both Bahrain and Saudi. I am confident that 2Connect will have some more exciting announcements in the upcoming weeks,” concluded AlShirawi.
