Hilal Arnaoot, CEO
The Innovator of IT
Hilal Arnaoot, CEO of Ebla {the company that has been incorporated when there were over 30 companies categorized as IT providers}. With his skills as a renowned entrepreneur; the company excelled over the others with a single goal focusing on a specific area. So he selected one of the new technologies in the field at the time which was Image Management and workflow (now called ECM). Also, Hilal invested in educating the market, then with tireless efforts and follow-ups, he was able to sign multiple contracts and with his dynamic view of the market, the company was always up to date in all what is related to technology enhancements and advances to stay at the same pace as the global market in this field.
“From the different successful implementations and enhanced experience in the local market, I have always advised the team to look into the different implementations, study the differences and similarities of these implementation and come up with a product that combines all the features and make it generic to satisfy all the customers and prospects,” says Hilal. and with that; Ebla, today has become a leading IT solutions vendor in the Middle East focused on delivering a range of business solutions to their customers in the region. EBLA supports a full range of Enterprise software solutions from two of the leading software vendors in the world – IBM and Microsoft.
" From the different successful implementations and enhanced experience in the local market, I have always advised the team to look into the different implementations, study the differences and similarities of these implementation and come up with a product that combines all the features and make it generic to satisfy all the customers and prospects. "
Coming from a sales background, it has been easy for Hilal to present the business to customers and introducing new business or generating new business. The company came up with a new solution that superseded both in terms of functionality and enhanced security in an extremely tight schedule. “We were able to achieve this based on our development methodology.” During the years, EBLA faced many competitors, some of them faded due to lack of expertise. Even during the furriest year where there were over 7 main competitors, Hilal put a road map to enhance the skills of his team as well as gave the company slogan “Every Installation is a production success” and personally followed up on this to make sure it is met. Further, and most importantly, when EBLA faced their competitors, Hilal advised his people to concentrate on the company’s strength, success and experience, feature rich feature of their offering, rather than on the competitor weakness which gained the trust of the customers and prospects.
Hilal’s most sacred personality trait is his ability to be flexible. “’What I know, won’t get me where I want to be a quote which has influenced me deeply. With the rapid advancement in technology, one has to be dynamic, flexible and adaptable,” he adds. For example, two renowned names in the industry and clients of EBLA, wanted EBLA to add more technologies to their portfolio. Since EBLA didn’t have the experience, they could have rejected the opportunity which would result in loss of extra revenue. But Hilal worked relentlessly and gathered the knowledge to enhance his client's portfolio allowing the company to grow further.
For future entrepreneurs, Hilal strongly recommends them to study the market demand, consult different people where they lack knowledge, then start small and grow slowly. “Do not over expand. Always have a mitigation plan and be as dynamic as possible,” he adds. For the road ahead EBLA is focusing on a cloud roadmap and they have introduced multiple products some of which are in the testing phase right now and the others are in development progress. “We also see these products supporting multiple platforms/technologies and not only the vendors we represent. Another main area we are focusing on now is Cyber Security,” concludes Hilal.
Company
Management
Hilal Arnaoot
CEO
Description
EBLA provides full range of enterprise software solutions from two of the leading software vendors in the world – ibm and microsoft.