A few years ago, I walked into a newly handed-over office tower in Dubai, the kind of building that photographs beautifully for a launch brochure. The lobby was stunning. The boardroom had a wall of glass overlooking the skyline. Taped along the base of that glass wall, just out of camera range, ran a thick bundle of cables leading to a screen clearly added after the fact.
Nobody had planned for that screen when the room was designed. It got squeezed in once someone realized the space needed one, and the cabling paid the price. I've seen some version of that story more times than I can count, and after eighteen years in technology, the last fifteen of them spent deep in AV and workplace systems across the GCC, I've stopped believing it's a one-off mistake. It's a pattern. And the pattern almost always comes down to timing.
Technology Stopped Being an IT Problem a While Ago
Ten or fifteen years ago, technology decisions mostly lived with the IT department. They chose the gear, ran the cables, and everyone else worked around whatever showed up. That arrangement has quietly fallen apart.
Today, technology touches far more than infrastructure:
A meeting room shapes how a team actually collaborates
A workplace layout influences retention and morale
Technology has moved from a support function into part of the culture and design of the workplace itself
The projects that go smoothly are the ones where this shift gets recognized early, where the people making decisions stretch well past the IT team and into design, operations, and leadership.
Early Planning Beats Clever Planning
If I had to compress everything I've learned into a single line, it would be this: technology can't be the last thing anyone thinks about.
Too many projects bring the technology conversation in after the architecture is locked, the interiors are chosen, and most of the budget is already spent. By that point, every technology decision turns into a workaround. Screens get forced into spaces that were never built for them. Cabling gets routed around walls that are already finished. Costs climb, not because the technology was wrong, but because it showed up too late to matter.
Every genuine success I can point to shares one habit. Technology planning starts at the same table as workplace planning, not several meetings later. When architects, interior designers, workplace consultants, and technology advisors are in the room together from day one, the finished space feels designed on purpose rather than stitched together under deadline pressure.
The Best Projects Are Never a Solo Act
Something I've learned the hard way in this region: technology projects are rarely about technology.
They're really about getting a room full of different disciplines to agree on the same goal before anyone opens a spec sheet. Business leaders, workplace strategists, architects, interior designers, IT teams, and AV consultants all see a project through a different lens, and that's the whole point. Handled well, the friction between those perspectives produces sharper decisions than any single expert could reach alone.
The strongest outcomes I've seen were never driven by one loud voice in the room. They came from real back-and-forth between people who didn't agree with each other by default, and who were willing to work through that instead of avoiding it.
Start With the Question, Not the Product
There's a trap I still watch experienced teams fall into. The conversation starts with a product name instead of a problem.
Someone already has a specific display brand or booking platform in mind before anyone has answered the more basic questions:
How do people actually work together in this space?
What outcome should this room, floor, or building create?
What does the business genuinely need from it?
That one shift, from "what should we install" to "what are we actually trying to achieve," changes nearly everything that follows. It reshapes room layouts, infrastructure choices, and how the systems get used once the doors open.
It helps to answer that question before a single vendor enters the conversation. Scoping the need on its own, with no brand already attached, keeps the requirements honest. The specification ends up shaped by what the business truly needs, with vendors brought in afterward to compete against that standard, rather than setting it.
Don't Plan for Perfect, Plan for Change
Workplaces don't sit still. Hybrid schedules, shifting expectations, and technology that improves every year and a half mean that whatever gets installed today will need to flex tomorrow.
I gave up chasing the "perfect" system a long time ago, mostly because perfect always comes with an expiration date. What I aim for now is a setup that can:
Grow as the team or space grows
Get upgraded without a full rebuild
Be reconfigured without ripping everything out and starting from scratch
The organizations that build that kind of flexibility into their plans early are the ones who aren't scrambling to catch up three years down the line.
People First, Always
After two decades watching workplace technology evolve, the most important lesson hasn't changed at all: technology exists to serve people, not the other way around.
The best systems are the ones nobody even notices, because they simply work. When people can focus on the conversation in front of them instead of fumbling with a remote, the technology has done its job. That kind of simplicity is never an accident. It comes from understanding the people, the space, and the business need long before any equipment gets ordered.
The GCC remains one of the most exciting places in the world to build workplaces, and the pace of investment here isn't slowing down anytime soon. My biggest takeaway hasn't shifted since I started: technology doesn't build great workplaces on its own. Thoughtful planning, real collaboration, and a genuine understanding of people do that. Everything else is just equipment.
