50 Processes, 45 Minutes to Go Live: How Kissflow Became Mai Dubai's Automation Engine
It took Mai Dubai 45 minutes to build and launch a live merchandising module. Not 45 days. Forty-five minutes. That kind of speed captures something broader playing out across the Middle East: enterprises want automation that delivers results in weeks, not quarters, and they are finding it on platforms that were once seen as tools for simple approval workflows.
Kissflow, the Chennai-headquartered low-code platform recognised by Gartner in its 2025 Hype Cycle for Enterprise Process Automation, is at the centre of this shift. Over the past two years, it has won enterprise customers including Coca-Cola, Mai Dubai, Kanoo Group, and Leadway in South Africa, while building a dedicated regional team in Dubai.
The timing is right — the Middle East’s digital transformation market is projected to reach $179.7 billion by 2030, growing at over 25 per cent annually. Within that, low-code and no-code platforms have emerged as a preferred route for enterprises looking to automate quickly without the overhead of traditional software development. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 80 per cent of low-code users will sit outside traditional IT departments — a trend that aligns with the kind of adoption Kissflow is seeing on the ground.
Competing for the Enterprise
The low-code space is fiercely competitive. Microsoft Power Apps benefits from deep integration with its Office and Azure ecosystem, Appian and ServiceNow bring heavyweight process automation and IT service management capabilities, and OutSystems and Mendix target professional developers building complex custom applications. Each brings a different heritage and a different price point to the table.
Kissflow differentiates at the intersection of simplicity and cost — combining no-code and low-code in a single environment, enabling rapid deployment without specialist consultants. While ServiceNow and Appian come with higher price points and longer implementation cycles, and Power Apps requires multiple products — Power Automate, Dataverse, and others — to replicate what Kissflow delivers in one platform, Kissflow pitches speed-to-value as its core advantage. For enterprises in emerging regions where fast results matter more than ecosystem lock-in, that positioning is proving effective.
Prasanna Rajendran, EMEA VP, Kissflow
A Different Kind of Market
Prasanna Rajendran, who leads Kissflow’s EMEA business and has spent two decades at the company, said the Middle East’s decision-making culture plays directly to that strength. “The Middle East is completely different compared to Europe and India,” he said. “In Europe, transformation is done in increments and driven by IT. They are still not very comfortable about citizen development and they talk a lot about compliance-first. In the Middle East, everything is driven by business outcomes. Leadership is involved in any such decisions, and CIOs are expected to deliver results within months, not years.”
That top-down, outcome-driven culture has proven to be a powerful accelerant. Rajendran said the company’s three primary markets — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa — are all showing strong momentum. “There is a rapid adoption happening in these regions because they possess a very strong vision for digital transformation,” he said.
Kissflow’s regional journey followed a deliberate arc. In its earlier years, the Middle East business was largely inbound and mid-market, driven by digital campaigns and SEO, which brought in around 200 to 250 customers organically. Departments would adopt the platform independently — HR teams automating HR processes, finance teams automating approvals. Over the past four to five years, however, the approach became far more structured. Kissflow established a local team in Dubai staffed with professionals who bring 15 to 20 years of regional experience — people who understand the decision-making structures, stakeholder expectations, and procurement dynamics of enterprise selling in the Gulf. “‘Cracking’ the market was not about one moment,” Rajendran said. “It was a progression: first gaining traction digitally, then building a regional team, and then moving upmarket into enterprise.”
Mai Dubai: 50 Processes, Half the Cycle Time
If there is a single customer story that encapsulates what Kissflow is doing in the region, it is Mai Dubai. The UAE-based bottled water company purchased the platform in November 2024 and has since automated close to 50 to 60 processes — spanning sales order creation, invoice approvals, discount approvals, and a range of workflows that sit outside its core ERP system. As a lean team, Mai Dubai moved at remarkable speed, significantly reducing manual effort and cutting cycle times by 50 per cent. The team also identified and removed non-essential steps from its workflows, tightening operations further.
Critically, Mai Dubai adopted a platform approach — standardising all processes across multiple departments rather than cobbling together point solutions. That decision reflects a broader trend Kissflow is observing across the region: enterprises want unified platforms that deliver governance and agility in equal measure.
Adrian D’Cunha, Head of Information Technology at Mai Dubai Bottled Drinking Water, summed up the impact: “Kissflow bridged the gap between speed, efficiency, and governance for us. What started as a simple approval workflow evolved into a full-fledged application platform — deployed in weeks, scaled internally without third parties, and even extended to vendors. From building workflows in hours to launching a live merchandising module in 45 minutes, Kissflow has truly been a game changer.”
Adrian D’Cunha, Head of Information Technology at Mai Dubai Bottled Drinking Water
Expanding Across Departments and Industries
Mai Dubai’s trajectory follows Kissflow’s broader enterprise playbook: land with one high-impact use case, prove value quickly, and expand. Coca-Cola, for instance, began with direct procurement — a core function that involves sourcing raw materials needed to operate. That is not a peripheral workflow; it signals deep trust in the platform. Since then, the company has expanded into fleet management and other operational processes.
“Most companies do not begin by trying to transform everything at once,” Rajendran explained. “They typically start with one department or a small set of high-impact use cases. That allows them to prove value quickly, manage change more effectively, and build internal confidence before expanding.”
At Kanoo Group for example, the citizen development model has gone further still — the CFO personally built around 15 to 20 finance workflows on the platform, bypassing the traditional IT development cycle entirely. “What companies want is empowerment with guardrails,” Rajendran said. “They want business users to be able to create forms, capture data, and automate simple workflows, while IT retains oversight, governance, and security. That is how we position Kissflow.”
To maintain its edge as competitors sharpen their enterprise propositions, Kissflow is also betting on vertical specialisation. The company is building dedicated marketing, sales, and delivery capabilities around retail, FMCG, real estate, construction, and manufacturing. “We are not just saying, ‘Here is our platform, and it can do many things,’” Rajendran said. “Instead, we are approaching the market by saying, ‘Here is how Kissflow creates value for a retail business,’ or ‘Here is how it helps a manufacturing company solve real operational problems.’ Customers do not just want product features. They want to know whether you understand their business.”
In retail, the use cases are particularly compelling: procurement, vendor onboarding, store launch workflows, and operational coordination across distributed networks. A delayed store launch means delayed revenue, and Kissflow helps orchestrate the approvals, checklists, and dependencies involved so companies can see where bottlenecks are and act on them. In manufacturing, the platform supports plant-level approvals and vendor management. In construction, project-based approvals, contractor onboarding, and compliance workflows are common. Across each sector, the pattern is the same — the ERP remains the system of record, and Kissflow provides flexible workflow automation around it.
AI on the Horizon
Like every low-code vendor, Kissflow is investing in AI. Rajendran, however, is careful to ground the conversation in practical outcomes rather than aspirations. “The real question is not whether AI exists in the platform,” he said. “It is where it adds practical value and how responsibly it is introduced.”
Today, the platform allows users to describe a process in natural language and receive a suggested workflow structure — including recommended forms, fields, and approval steps. The system can also identify issues such as duplicate parameters or unnecessary complexity and suggest improvements. Looking ahead, Kissflow’s more ambitious direction involves agentic AI — intelligent agents that could handle tasks like travel booking or procurement coordination within the platform. “That is the broader promise of agentic AI: not just assisting with workflow creation, and actively participating in business workflows,” Rajendran said. “Governance remains essential. Enterprises will want to know what the agent can do, what it cannot do, and how those actions are governed.”
What Comes Next
The global low-code market is projected to grow from $37 billion in 2025 to nearly $377 billion by 2034, and the Middle East’s appetite for digital transformation — fuelled by national visions, leadership-driven adoption, and a pragmatic focus on results — makes it one of the most attractive regions for platforms like Kissflow. Rajendran sees the opportunity clearly. “Enterprises are not simply asking whether something can automate a workflow,” he said. “They are asking whether it can scale, whether it can be governed, and whether it can support long-term standardisation. The next phase is about scaling that momentum carefully and proving value in a way that is specific, measurable, and relevant to each industry.”