Growth not restricted to historical colonisers; World gravitates towards knowledge and capability: Altivate CEO Ali Abuhassan

The tech world has traditionally faced the West. But once in a while, there comes a disruptor. With extensive experience in the consulting space in the Middle East, Ali Abuhassan looked to India to expand his firm, Altivate.

Prior to founding this company, Abuhassan provided strategy consulting services to the SAP executive management board. During his time there, he supported 310 deals with a pipeline value of over $4 billion, and developed product strategy for more than 21 products. 

Abuhassan was one of the guest speakers at Malayala Manorama’s headliner business summit in Kochi. Altivate is a digital transformation consulting firm focused on business applications, and is recognised today as one of the most successful SAP consulting firms in the Middle East region. 

Furthermore, Altivate is an SAP Gold Partner, an Amazon Partner, a Google Partner, and a Microsoft Azure Partner.

Here are select excerpts from the interview:

Q: Altivate is one of the few companies with headquarters in Saudi Arabia but have offices in Jordan, Egypt and now in Kochi and in Hyderabad in India. Why come to India expansion when everybody else is looking outside?

A: Originally, when over 10 years ago I started working with a colleague based out of India, she started to grow the team from herself to two people.

She trained at home and then grew that delivery centre into about 90 people here in Kochi and then into Hyderabad and in other regions—be it manpower, knowledge, and now, even skillset.

We're not necessarily looking at manpower per se; we're also looking at culture, capability to learn, corporate culture, and individual culture, if you will, and societal culture.

We are also developing skills that are unique, and that's what we've been able to achieve, not only masses and bodies.

That's something that you can achieve in many parts of the world, but I think the uniqueness that we found here is the ability to have a unique skillset within the fields that we're operating in. That's something that has been very fruitful for us.

Q: As a business consultant in the SAP ecosystem, what do you think about new technologies and the disruption they bring, especially for businesses in the Middle East and in India?

A: I think I'd start with something a bit simpler, which is we're looking or we're working in automation of businesses, business process optimisation.

We're looking at digitalisation in general, and that's something that's pervasive, that's very hot. This proliferation of AI and cloud has helped immensely for us.

Everybody wants to do digital today, and more so with AI, so we're in a sort of catch-up mode—the market in general or the markets that we serve. Beyond that, you go into cloud solutions and into AI… that's what's hot today.

AI is still trying to gain a foothold into what people exactly want to do; it's a hype. We work with customers to rationalise and pick low-hanging fruits where they're able to capitalise on the new capabilities that have been introduced in the past one to two years.

Q: Are you saying that AI is a bubble, but it's not going to burst?

A: Yes. As with any technology, you get a lot of hype. People wanted to do cloud, people wanted to do web 3.0, metaverse, decentralised currency, and so on.

But I would say the biggest hype that we've seen in a very long time is AI.

There's a lot of hype around it. People are still not sure why they want it. Now, from grocery stores to huge corporations, everyone wants AI.

But what will happen is that it will fizzle down into something that's more rationalised, and you'll start having an understanding of where and how it can be used as it matures. It will mature over a period of time. There are capabilities that customers and governments will be able to pick up along the way, and that's what we're doing.

Q: You're from Jordan. You have your business in Saudi Arabia. You are an English as a second language speaker. India is an English as a second language country. And now, you are moving away from the western approach of making a company and incorporating in North America and Europe… instead, you're coming further east to India. Is this a spirit of decolonisation?

A: I think there isn't necessarily a single formula to say the West is doing it right. I think there is a lot of opportunity in the East and in working together to be able to go into regional and global markets.

I recall one person from Jordan who had a logistics and freight forwarding company. He said you don't have to be big in London and in the US in order to be international.

There are so many other markets. There are a lot of other countries—there's India, there's Africa, there's the East, and so on.

Working together, you can sell and buy from each other; you can innovate together. It is endless opportunities; it is not restricted to the historical colonisers. If you decolonize your brain, you'll find these opportunities of working together and in new markets, and in markets that you can serve and benefit from mutually, and that's what we've been doing.

Skills, education, capability, and culture—that is what drives success. Education is not restricted to any particular part of the world. There is always an opportunity as long as you have the persistence and perseverance to find it, and opportunity meets preparedness. That's what we've been able to find in India and taking that to other countries.

Q: Going forward in the long term, do you think the ‘Global South’, led by BRICS nations, will emerge as better leaders, or do you think it will still be led by the ‘Global North’, led by North American and European nations?

A: I think the Global South has a lot of skill, a lot of potential, and the ability to sell and capitalise on opportunities globally.

There is no restriction to say that it has to be US-centric or European-centric. India has proved to be a prime example of that. There are a lot of companies in India that are selling globally in Canada, in Saudi Arabia, in the US, and they have proven to be very resilient, very capable. Zoho is an example. Freshworks is another example.

There are companies that are regional and focus on the Global South that have been extremely popular. You don't have to crack or be successful in the West in order to be successful; you can do a lot of work in the Global South and prosper.

Q: How is your business, Altivate, differentiating itself in a new world of AI and Trump tariffs?

A: If you look at the world, it gravitates towards a centre of knowledge and capability, and that's what you want to develop.

You want to be unique in a sense where you don't have to particularly sell, but the demand comes to you. What we're developing here in Kerala is capability and products that we believe and we know where we've done product-market fits.

We've done surveys that show what we're developing is in demand in the Middle East and in other parts of the world. To elaborate, our team based out of Kerala, based out of India, and based out of other countries as well, have been doing quality assurance for products that are developed in Europe and developed in the US.

We believe that uniqueness enables us to develop a demand or a pull for our skill set in these other countries. Push, not so much.

Diversity is key, and that's what we've been successful in capitalising on.

Q: So, diversity, skill, knowledge, and technological advancements—keeping up with the technology—that’s the recipe, right?

A: I would mix passion and persistence into that; if you have that sort of cocktail, you have a secret formula.

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