News

SWVL Plans To Lay Off Around 400 Employees

The announcement of the layoff didn’t mention how the decision would affect SWVL’s planned expansion to Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States.

Published

1 month ago

June 1, 2022

David Morelo

swvl plans to lay off around 400 employees

SWVL, a Dubai-based provider of technology-enabled mass transit solutions, has announced its plan to lay off 32 percent of its workforce (around 400 employees) to better cope with the new economic reality the company has found itself in over the past several weeks.

Since SWVL listed its shares this March on the Nasdaq through a merger with women-led blank check company Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital, its valuation has dropped from $1.5 billion to $500-$600 million.

SWVL is just another name on the growing list of companies that have been negatively affected by the current global economic downturn. Even though the company hopes to become profitable again next year, it sees the layoff as the only way forward.

“Over the past few weeks, Swvl has been hit like others across the globe with changes to its financial realities. While change is often unexpected, we believe that any attempt to resist it instead of adapting to it will prove futile,” says SWVL CEO Mostafa Kandil. “Today, with the current global economic downturn, as much as we did everything we could to put people first, we now know that we are not able to keep everyone unimpacted.”

Despite the major setback, SWVL is determined to keep developing its proprietary technology stack and building on its recent acquisitions, which include TaaS and SaaS businesses Argentina’s Viapool, Turkey’s Volt Lines, Spain’s Shotl, and Germany’s door2door.

Also Read: How To Find Remote-Only Tech Jobs In 2022

The announcement of the layoff didn’t mention how the decision would affect SWVL’s planned expansion to Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States. Currently, SWVL operates in Argentina, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UAE.

Other technology-enabled companies that have recently announced layoffs include online payment and checkout platform Bolt, German on-demand grocery delivery company Gorillas, and Swedish fintech provider of online financial services Klarna.

News

Cisco Unveils Strategic Vision For Enterprise Cloud Security In MENA

At the heart of this vision is Cisco Security Cloud, a global, cloud-delivered, integrated platform for end-to-end security across hybrid multi-cloud environments.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2022

David Morelo

cisco unveils strategic vision for enterprise cloud security in mena

The global pandemic has accelerated cloud adoption by forcing companies to embrace the hybrid work model. But as companies move more and more of their information technology systems to the cloud, they discover that traditional security measures become less and less effective. To help cloud adopters of all sizes overcome the challenges associated with enterprise cloud security, Cisco has unveiled its new strategic vision for the MENA region.

At the heart of this vision is Cisco Security Cloud, a global, cloud-delivered, integrated platform for end-to-end security across hybrid multi-cloud environments. The platform unifies the management and policy administration of public and private clouds to protect users, devices, networks, applications, and data.

“With the complexity of hybrid work, continued acceleration of cloud adoption, and the ever-advancing threat landscape, organizations are looking for a trusted partner to help them achieve security resilience,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. “We believe Cisco is uniquely positioned due to its scale, breadth of solutions and cloud-neutral business model to meet their needs.”

Cisco Security Cloud is based on the zero trust security model, which, as its name implies, describes an approach to security where no access request is trusted without verification regardless of where it comes from.

Also Read: Is Your Phone Hacked? How To Find Out & Protect Yourself

To make the verification process as robust and user-friendly and possible, the necessary identity checks take place in the background, allowing users to focus on their work without being constantly interrupted by log-in prompts and other identity verification mechanisms.

Cisco is also building session trust analysis using OpenID Foundation’s Shared Signals and Events standards, which allow cloud services to instantly communicate security alerts and status changes of users.

These and other parts of Cisco’s new strategic vision for enterprise cloud security should help companies accelerate their cloud adoption initiatives. According to a survey of IT professionals in the Middle East, a lack of cybersecurity is among the main reasons why such initiatives proceed at a slow pace.