GCC considered early adoption security tech market

Nadim Abdulrahim says the GCC often adopts security tech without fully understanding it (Supplied Image)

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The GCC is considered an early adoption market when it comes to picking up security technology, especially when compared to Europe and USA, a leading securities expert has said.

In an interview with MEP Middle East, Nadim Abdulrahim, the regional director of Siemens’ Fire Safety Security for the Lower Gulf, said he has noticed that clients in the GCC always want the latest in security technology, usually even before it has been fully proven.

“They definitely adopt it very quickly, sometimes they don’t even know why, but they just want it! It’s like a new car, they just want the latest. As a result, there’s a bit of a misconception in the market as to what is really the best,” he explained.

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“(Therefore), one of the challenges a consultant has when setting the specifications is to make sure that the client actually knows what they’re getting and to make sure that the client is actually educated to make sure that they make the best use out of the system, and get the best functionality out of it,” he added.

However, Abdulrahim said that this attitude is slowly changing as the market matures and larger, more corporate clients enter the field. Of these markets, Dubai is probably the most mature, while Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain continue to play catch up.

“The larger clients, the corporate clients, they definitely know what they want. So too clients who come from abroad,” he said, and added that the government was also catching up very quickly in regards to what worked and what didn’t, and were quite specific as to what they wanted from security consultants.