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Honeywell Executive Expects Strong Growth In MENA Region | |
| Sumita Pawar |
A report says Honeywell expects the Middle East and North Africa to be high-growth areas this year.
as it looks to increase the use of artificial intelligence in buildings and turn to pre-Covid capacity in the aviation sector.
Ben Driggs, president of high growth regions for Honeywell, said in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, "The region is a logistics hub, an aviation hub, and I think tourism will come back for the region as well. There's strength really across the board."
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Honeywell's two largest industries are aviation and energy.
"Regardless of what happens macroeconomically, which is uncertain, both of those industries have a lot of tailwinds and are doing well.""The world continues to open up, so there's continued aviation growth," Mr. Driggs said.
"Obviously, the Middle East plays a critical role in that." And we expect that to continue as, you know, parts of the world open up, and then energy, whether it's traditional forms of energy or new sustainability, renewables, and newer forms of energy, has a lot of room to grow, he added.
According to him, high-growth regions—wwhat could also be referred to as emerging markets—aaccount for about 30 percent of Honeywell’s revenue.
The US engineering and technology conglomerate is in the building, aerospace, automation, and chemicals businesses, among other sectors.
The report stated, "Artificial intelligence is, as a result, an area for growth as industrial labour becomes harder to source and companies seek maximum output from existing facilities in an efficient way, as well as in the aftermath of COVID and related restrictions that came into play during the pandemic."
AI is "really reaching its peak now," Mr. Driggs said.
He tries to explain with an example, saying, "The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company uses Honeywell technology for its predictive maintenance project, which is part of Adnoc’s efforts to improve its operational efficiency."
"Adnoc is an example of really taking the industrial digital transformation to the next level in order to enable an integrated picture to enable remote monitoring and sort of remote operations in a much more real way," Mr. Driggs said.
Beyond industry, "you see it more and more on the consumer side."
The report mentioned that people are getting used to having so much power in their hands while also being able to control things remotely.
"I know what's going on in my building—energy usage, air quality, security, and reliability of the equipment in the building—and that expectation is just there, because people are seeing it all over." "And you're seeing great advances in people wanting that smart building concept," said Mr. Driggs.
There has been a positive knock-on effect from all of this, supporting the push to reduce carbon emissions, as the report highlights.
According to the International Energy Agency, in 2021, about 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions resulted from the use of fossil fuels in buildings, with another 19 percent from the generation of electricity and heat used in buildings.
"It’s another way to address the sustainability challenge." And we want to use less energy. "Well, what do digitalization, smart algorithms, and AI do? They enable you to optimise your energy consumption in buildings or in an industrial setting, and that is really powerful," Mr. Driggs said.
In aviation, the push for greater sustainability has resulted in innovations in the fuel used by airlines. Producing sustainable aviation fuel is one of Honeywell’s biggest areas, Mr. Driggs concluded.