Zebra unveils next-gen enterprise tools to futureproof frontline performance
From AI-powered productivity tools to real-time asset tracking, Zebra's Innovation Day in the Middle East offers a glimpse into the future of enterprise efficiency.
Zebra Technologies hosted its Innovation Day, drawing key partners and customers eager to explore the next wave of enterprise transformation. At the centre of the discussions was how emerging technologies—like AI companions, digital twins, mobile dimensioning, and real-time location systems—are redefining how businesses operate in dynamic sectors such as logistics, retail, manufacturing, and healthcare. Hozefa Saywala, Director for the Middle East at Zebra Technologies, unpacks the company's latest offerings, the value they bring to frontline operations, and how Zebra is helping businesses navigate technology decisions with long-term impact.
Interview Excerpts:
What is the objective of Zebra's Innovation Day, and what is it trying to achieve?
The purpose of Innovation Day lies in its very name. With rapid technological disruption all around us, customers and partners are eager to understand which technologies are worth adopting to solve business challenges—and whether those solutions will remain relevant in the long term. Through Innovation Day, we aim to educate our ecosystem on the technologies shaping the future, their current maturity levels, and how they can drive sustainable value. It's about helping businesses make informed, future-ready decisions.
How is Zebra's AI Companion redefining frontline productivity, and what specific GenAI capabilities make it a game changer for industries like retail and logistics?
Traditionally, getting information meant navigating multiple systems or screens, just like using a search engine where you sift through several links for an answer. Zebra's AI Companion changes that by enabling workers to ask a natural-language question and receive summarised, context-specific responses derived from proprietary enterprise systems like ERPs, not just from the web. This tailored delivery of information empowers frontline workers with faster, more relevant insights, making AI not just smart but operationally impactful.
With real-time data becoming the new gold, how do Zebra's RTLS and environmental sensors ensure both accuracy and affordability in tracking assets and sensitive goods?
RTLS, or Real-Time Location System, gives businesses a visual map of their operations. Whether tracking shipments, assets, or staff across a facility or during transit, RTLS enables accurate, real-time monitoring using technologies like RFID and ultra-wideband. Environmental sensors go a step further. For example, temperature-sensitive goods like food or pharmaceuticals can be monitored through visual indicators or electronic sensors that provide alerts if storage conditions are breached—allowing for corrective action before damage occurs. Zebra offers both affordable visual solutions and intelligent, connected ones.
How are customers using mobile dimensioning to optimise warehouse operations and reduce costs?
Logistics firms long struggled with whether to charge by weight or volume. Light yet bulky items like bubble wrap can distort pricing models. Mobile dimensioning solves this by allowing Zebra's mobile computers—equipped with special sensors and software—to instantly capture an item's dimensions on the go. This eliminates the need for fixed stations or manual measurement, improving speed, space utilisation, and accuracy in pricing and operations.
How will Zebra's emerging technologies disrupt logistics, retail, manufacturing, and healthcare sectors to bring out the best for the consumers?
Across every major industry—Zebra is there. Our emerging technologies are designed to make everyone and everything: Visible, Connected, and Optimised. Data informs our decisions, our priorities, and our actions. It is driving the future, across industries, and how we choose to use it matters. Our solutions bring people and technology together to maximise data and the insights derived from it. Businesses are freed from inefficiency, so they can focus on what really matters. And workers intuitively know what action to take next.
Our solutions provide real-time insight that allows workers to make informed decisions in the heat of the moment. When workers are equipped with crystal-clear operational visibility, they're also empowered to make the most of every minute they have, every decision they make, and every customer they serve–from the front lines to back of the house, and at every point in between.
Our ecosystem is built on IoT connections that drive industry foward–from the technology itself to the people who use it, to the end customers we all ultimately serve. We offer solutions designed to meet the needs you have today, and the agility to scale for tomorrow. Because when your systems, your people, and your information can stay connected as your needs evolve, the potential for growth is endless.
In today's remote and mobile workforce landscape, how does Zebra's Workcloud Sync offer a secure alternative to consumer messaging apps?
Consumer apps like WhatsApp pose significant data security risks, especially when used for sensitive business communication. Zebra's Workcloud Sync is a secure, enterprise-grade communication and task management platform. It supports encrypted messaging, voice and broadcast calls, task assignment, tracking, and collaboration—all within a closed ecosystem. This ensures that enterprise data remains protected while enhancing operational efficiency across teams.
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