Dubai’s scale is turning Indian tech firms into long-term operating partners

For Indian technology companies, Dubai is increasingly being viewed not just as a regional sales market, but as a place to build long-term, repeatable business through multi-year service contracts embedded in the day-to-day operations of banks, government entities, retailers, and industrial firms.The shift is being driven by scale. As Dubai’s economic expansion translates into sustained growth across sectors, enterprises are looking for technology partners that can stay with them beyond implementation, running cloud estates, managing IT operations, strengthening cybersecurity controls, and supporting compliance and resilience as systems become business-critical.What is changing the math is scale. Dubai’s growth trajectory is expected to drive significant workforce expansion by 2030 under the emirate’s long-term development agenda.

As organisations grow larger and more interconnected, reliability, compliance, and continuity are increasingly taking precedence over one-off technology implementations. Rather than treating Dubai as a sequence of projects, many firms are positioning themselves around ongoing responsibility: platform operations, governance, and continuous improvement. The demand for specialised talent, in this framing, is a consequence of growth, because once systems must operate reliably at scale, organisations tend to lock in long-term operating models.

This shift is also visible in how technology talent is being deployed in Dubai. Mercer’s latest Global Talent Trends research notes that high-growth markets increasingly rely on globally mobile technology professionals to support core digital operations, particularly in areas such as cloud management, cybersecurity, and platform reliability. For Indian technology firms operating in Dubai, this has translated into sustained demand for specialised skills that support the day-to-day running of enterprise systems, rather than short, project-led engagements.Sumanta Roy, President and Regional Head– Middle East & Africa, has argued that the region’s technology trajectory is structurally different from older markets. “The Middle East is uniquely positioned because it doesn’t carry decades of legacy data like some of the more mature markets. That gives the region a head start when it comes to adopting newer technologies such as AI and cloud at scale,” Roy said.This alignment is increasingly reflected in enterprise infrastructure decisions.

Zoho Corporation’s launch of new UAE data centres - anchored by a facility in Dubai that supports both Zoho and ManageEngine cloud platforms, underscores how enterprise expectations are shifting toward locally anchored operations for performance, security, and compliance. As digital systems become central to business continuity, particularly in regulated sectors, data residency, governance, and compliance have moved firmly onto the boardroom agenda.Zoho has positioned this investment as a response to customer demand for stronger data control rather than routine geographic expansion. “With this move, Zoho Corporation will be enabling businesses to store their data locally, strengthening data sovereignty, and supporting the National Cybersecurity Agenda,” said Shailesh Davey, Co-founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation, adding that the expanded local infrastructure would support enterprises and government organisations adopting cloud-based digital transformation. ManageEngine¹ CEO Rajesh Ganesan, commenting on the UAE data-centre push, framed the decision less as geographic expansion and more as a trust and accountability issue for CIOs. He has been quoted as saying, “For us, this is not just about opening another cloud location. It is about staying true to our commitments. We manage our customers’ data, and we are fully responsible for it. That is a promise we do not want to dilute by passing it to third parties.

” The same pattern is reinforced in KPMG’s Global Tech Report 2026², which identifies talent availability and operating resilience as key constraints to scaling enterprise technology at pace. For Indian technology firms, these conditions are precisely what create long-duration contracts: when cloud governance, data security, uptime, and compliance become foundational, clients want partners who can own outcomes over years, not quarters.

This supports a durable corridor of Indian talent into Dubai, particularly in roles such as cloud reliability, cybersecurity architecture, identity governance, and platform operations.In the coming years, as Dubai’s enterprises scale further and technology becomes even more embedded in how the city functions, the India–Dubai tech relationship is likely to deepen, not merely through new market entry, but through long-term service partnerships that become part of how the emirate runs.Click this link for more on Business in Dubai.Reference/s: Disclaimer : This article is part of a featured content series on Business in Dubai.