‘Managing an excellent, passionate team gives me a great sense of pride’ – CEO Christian Sammut

Under the leadership of CEO Christian Sammut since August 2011, BMIT Technologies has strengthened its position as a leading data centre, cloud, and managed IT services provider. Today, Christian has his sights set on transforming the company into a fully-fledged digital enabler for businesses – both locally and internationally.

As the CEO of one of Malta’s leading technology companies, Christian Sammut has plenty of milestones under his belt. But throughout his successful 10-year leadership at BMIT Technologies, one particular achievement stands out among them all – that of leading the company to being listed on the Malta Stock Exchange.

“That said, overall, I’d say it’s the ongoing transformation we’ve made at BMIT Technologies that stands out the most. Originally, we were a data centre focused on providing customers with infrastructure, but we have since evolved into a digital enabler for businesses. Today we advise and help companies to identify their needs and requirements by deploying and providing support solutions on a 24/7 basis,” says Christian.

BMIT Technologies has been growing year-on-year but proof of its success and transformation has been its listing on the Malta Stock Exchange in 2019. “It continues to be a significant achievement for the company, the team, and myself – it was the cherry on the cake following many strong years of business. We are now looking for a new cherry!” the CEO smiles.

With years of experience in business management, for Christian, working alongside driven and professional people remains one of the top privileges of the job. “Managing an excellent, passionate team gives me a great sense of pride,” he says. “I like motivating the people around me, supporting and empowering them to do their job, which is solving customers’ business issues. We do this by researching technologies as they develop and investing in our people, infrastructure and systems, so that together we can deliver solutions to solve our customers’ challenges.”

For the CEO, a great sense of satisfaction also comes from helping customers make best use of the technology they’ve already invested in. “Often, we just skim the surface of the potential of any technology that is available to us. But by properly exploiting it, we help our customers become more agile and efficient, not only within their own business but also in the delivery of products and services to their own customers,” Christian explains.

The success of BMIT Technologies, specifically over the past year, is plain for all to see, says the CEO. And, despite the various challenges the company faced, it continued to grow and provide value to customers through its delivery of a wide range of products, services and technology solutions. “All this has resulted in a positive performance, strong financial results and continued delivery of value to shareholders,” shares Christian.

Through its expanding portfolio of products and services, BMIT Technologies has also diversified its client base under the CEO’s tenure. As the nature of its services initially revolved around its main functions as a data centre, the gaming sector made up its core customer base.

“Because of the strategies we put in place and the investments we made over the years, we’re now not only a data centre provider but also a cloud and managed IT services provider, offering customers a one-stop shop for their technology requirements,” says Christian. “Today, more than half of our customers are non-gaming and come from different sectors, primarily in Malta, including financial services, professional services, tourism, transportation and manufacturing.”

The gaming sector, however, remains an important one for BMIT Technologies, and is an area where the company continues to invest and focus. In December 2020, it announced a partnership and investment in artificial intelligence company EBO.ai to offer a specialised AI- powered solution to its customers in the online gaming sector.

“AI is everywhere and has become mainstream. It is applied in all aspects of our lives, and it is also a fact that the internet, 5G, IoT and the application of such technologies will create masses of data which is growing at an exponential rate,” says Christian. “This data is of no use unless we are able to collect it and analyse it.  AI is one technology in this process that will help us make effective and efficient use of the data we are creating and collecting.”

As a result, looking at AI was a natural evolution for BMIT Technologies. “Prior to our investment in EBO.ai, we first partnered with them to offer our own virtual agent solution to our customers within the online gaming sector. We have done this successfully over the past year and are proud to have onboarded a number of reputable customers.”

The CEO asserts that participating in this new area of technology has opened new opportunities for BMIT Technologies, enabling it to provide the service to gaming players both locally and internationally. “For our customers, our virtual agent allows them to intelligently automate and improve the quality of their own customer interactions in a more effective and cost-efficient manner.”

While 2021 continued to be an uphill battle against COVID-19, BMIT Technologies faced accelerated demand for its cloud services as more businesses sought digital solutions for their operations. Christian asserts that the cloud has commoditised many technologies, and its scale has enabled more cost- effective use of all types of technology, which previously could have been out of reach for a number of customers.

“Another area of demand and growth for us, particularly when COVID-19 hit, was remote work enablement; where customers needed our help migrating their systems to a data centre or the cloud, or required infrastructure so that their employees could work from wherever they needed,” says the CEO. “We are also seeing a growing need for businesses to comply with fiscal and regulatory obligations. I believe that information technology can truly help businesses overcome some of the challenges (from a data management perspective) that compliance brings about.”

On a personal level, 2021 has also been a year of growth for the CEO. Just as technology evolves, he too has evolved and learned from the challenges he’s faced over the past 12 months, as well as from the successes achieved and mistakes made. “But what I’ve really come to acknowledge is that, alone, I am no one. Whatever my role, I have to build a team of experts, colleagues and friends around me, to support me, advise me, correct me, but more importantly, to execute the strategies we craft together. This combination has been so important for BMIT Technologies’ success and of course my own.”

Looking ahead to the next 12 months, Christian believes that 2022 is an opportunity for Malta to make another leap in terms of its digitisation, by adopting and applying technology across many more industries. “Because it is always changing and complex, some companies can see technology as a burden. But it’s not; it provides huge opportunities, but businesses will only take advantage of them if they seek the assistance of providers like us to help them on this journey.”

Christian says that, throughout 2022, BMIT Technologies will continuously look, listen, learn and invest in new offerings, in response to the myriad changes taking place in economies, technology, customer requirements, demands, likes and dislikes.

“As a listed company, we are constantly looking at and exploring ways to expand further – organically and through investment. We plan to do this both locally and internationally,” the CEO explains. “By the end of the year, I would like to see BMIT Technologies completely transformed from an infrastructure data centre provider – which is our legacy – to a digital services provider that includes security, compliance and digital transformation. This is the journey we have been working on and it is now coming to fruition.”

This article is part of the serialisation of 50 interviews featured in MaltaCEOs 2022 – an annual high-end publication bringing together some of the country’s most influential business leaders.