The new leader

Alaa Al Shimy, the new general manager for the Middle East at HP ProCurve, aims to triple the company’s business in the region by 2010, and has set the ball rolling to reach the ambitious goal.

Taking on the mantle of the leader in any organisation can be difficult, but if it involves as big and reputed a name as HP ProCurve it could prove to be an herculean task. However, Alaa Al Shimy, the newly appointed general manager for the Middle East at HP ProCuve, remains upbeat and confident about his new role in the firm.

"I have been playing leading roles in the region for the company. I know the company and therefore, I have hit the ground running," says Al Shimy.

Al Shimy certainly does not lack for experience in the region. Previously an employee of Compaq, Al Shimy had taken on several prominent roles in HP before taking on his new post. Backed by all this experience, Al Shimy seems ready to lead HP ProCurve to the next stage of growth in the region, and he has several plans on what he wants to achieve for the company and how he will do so.

"We don't want to be a box mover. At HP, there is ProCurve, printers, personal computing, high-end servers, software, consultancy and services. This is HP's portfolio, and this is the direction for us. We are not  going to move boxes. We are going to understand our customers' business needs more, translate it into the right solutions, including the different components of the solution, and the network will remain one of these," states Al Shimy.

According to him, moving forward, HP ProCurve will not only be focusing on its switching range, but will also be working on mobility, security and datacentre solutions built around the networking infrastructure.

"We have a lot of plans for expanding our portfolio. We are expanding our security portfolio, our mobility portfolio, and we are expanding our switching portfolio. You will see a lot of announcements regarding a wider portfolio of products and solutions from us in 2009. The changes are being made in order to make our portfolio bigger, which will make us more competitive in the market, and this will involve more integration with HP to leverage its overall capability," states Al Shimy.

Supported by these new products and solutions, Al Shimy wants to take HP ProCurve to more places in the region and make it a bigger name than it already is.

"Growth is the main objective for us now and for that we need to have a footprint in different countries. Historically, if you consider HP, we have a footprint in almost every country in the region. However, ProCurve  has traditionally been squarely focused on three major cities in the Middle East - Riyadh, Dubai and Cairo," he says.

"Our strategy moving forward, and that is starting immediately, is to have more geographical coverage in the region. We will start to have more people on the ground in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and in other countries. I want to grow, and my biggest challenge is to get the most suitable and most competent resources from the market," states Al Shimy.

Al Shimy is driven by the objective of tripling HP ProCurve's business in the region by 2010, and he is putting in place measures to reach this ambitious goal.

"We are hiring more people in specific locations, as I had mentioned. To reach our objectives, we need more resources on the ground. I want these people to be in the specific country, and not working out of Riyadh or Dubai. I want these people to be close to the customers and partners, therefore we will be hiring in these countries," states Al Shimy.