How this Philippine company innovates to stay at the forefront of digital transformation

From secure online payment platforms such as PayMaya to online booking apps like Grab, technology is part of everyday life for most Filipinos. But this wasn’t always the case.

Buzz around digital transformation only peaked globally between 2014 to 2016. UnionBank of the Philippines brought the term to the country when it started its own transformation journey in 2016, investing 90% of its capital expense – around US$58 million – to do so. It was a success: The bank saw improved quarterly numbers.

These results encouraged other business leaders to explore the growth possibilities that digital transformation could unlock for them.

“Businesses need to transform digitally to adapt to the changing market demands in order to grow and become more significant in the subsequent years,” says Jovy Hernandez, president and CEO of ePLDT. A subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), the company focuses on enabling digital business solutions in the archipelago.

Jovy Hernandez, president and CEO of ePLDT / Photo credit: ePLDT

While companies agree that digital transformation is the future, plenty struggle to successfully make the transition. In the Philippines, many brick-and-mortar organizations still use legacy platforms and traditional business methods.

According to Cobena Business Analytics and Strategy’s 2019 Digital Transformation Survey, the majority of the enterprises in the Philippines – including the government – were stuck in the initial stages of their digital transformation journey. Family-run corporations cited the generation gap as a hindrance in their efforts. Other barriers, such as a lack of resources and adoption guidance, don’t help.

These are the issues that ePLDT aims to address with its end-to-end information and communications technology (ICT) services, designed to help enterprises jumpstart their digital transformation.

Digital transformation to the rescue

When ePLDT first stepped into the ICT scene, its goal was to establish a network of purpose-built data centers to support parent firm PLDT and its wireless telecommunications arm. Today, ePLDT controls the largest network of data centers in the Philippines, consisting of 10 interconnected facilities called Vitro across Metro Manila and beyond.

The company has expanded its suite of ICT solutions through the years. In 2012, its cloud services were introduced, followed by its cybersecurity security offerings in 2016, and most recently, its managed IT solutions in 2019.

Its services have had a social impact. The Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) sought help from ePLDT to ensure that its systems – which handles confidential data – would be able to fend off cyber attacks. This is particularly important for the emergency operations center, which serves disaster-stricken communities across the country.

Existing PDRF security technologies received upgrades via ePLDT’s managed security service, which included management and maintenance for its firewall. The foundation could also count on a 24/7 cybersecurity team, courtesy of ePLDT’s security operations center-as-a-service.

On cloud nine

Beyond protecting mission-critical data, ePLDT enables firms to become more agile and flexible and lowers the cost of ownership of data through its managed, hybrid, and end-to-end cloud services.

These capabilities caught the eye of one of the Philippines’ financial services providers. As part of the company’s digital transformation initiatives, it sought help from ePLDT to move its on-premise IT infrastructure to the cloud and to outsource its operation and maintenance.

“To date, ePLDT cloud engineers and experts have gained over 700,000 hours of combined experience in cloud support and management,” shares Hernandez.

As solutions, ePLDT presented its Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service, as well as access to system operations. Together, these helped the financial services provider to save on IT infrastructure costs, which allowed it to focus on strategic initiatives and to respond efficiently to business demands across its 200 branches across the Philippines.

Photo credit: Pixabay

Staying ahead of the curve

Staying at the forefront of digital transformation doesn’t happen on its own. Investments in the latest technologies and best practices is something ePLDT constantly works on, and its efforts through the years have been rewarded through various certifications.

“Our Vitro Data Centers are ISO-certified for our quality, information security, IT service, and business continuity management systems,” says ePLDT’s Hernandez. “Moreover, our data centers are also in compliance with the global standards set by the PCI Security Standards Council, Philippine Economic Zone Authority, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and NTT Communications.”

To optimize its 20-year-old data center, Vitro Pasig, ePLDT partnered with French multinational firm Schneider Electric in 2019 for a three-year transformation project. The tie-up will equip the data center with new technology and infrastructure that will allow it to generate more power and accommodate the increasing application requirements of its customers.

Beyond infrastructure, ePLDT says it also invests in its employees through training and certification programs.

The data center operations team, for example, undergoes Design & Build training frameworks so they can eventually acquire certifications that will allow them to properly operate and fulfill the business resilience and design requirements of Vitro Data Centers.

Under its managed IT services, employees undergo training programs in partnership with organizations such as Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, and Red Hat as well.

Ultimately, ePLDT’s main goal is to support organizations in the Experience Age, especially those working towards digital transformation.

“We will continue to explore new ways to enable the growing digital transformation needs of our customers,” Hernandez says.

To learn more about ePLDT and its services, visit its website.