Addressing the rising adoption of cloud and mobile computing in the enterprise, Globe Telecom has created an Information Technology (IT)-Enabled Services Group (IG) that aims to cater to the IT requirements of both small and medium businesses and large companies.
At a recent press conference to introduce the new group , Gil Genio, Globe’s executive vice president for corporate strategy and business development, said that organizations and Chief Information Officers today are compelled to embrace the modern era of computing, where applications are increasingly being accessed from the cloud and employees want to work on their personal devices.
The IG executive team (from left): Michael Sy, Head, IT Enabled Services for ITES Products & Services; Reynaldo Lugtu, Jr., Vice President; Gil Genio, Executive Vice President for Corporate Strategy and Business Development; and Christopher H. Cheng, Vice President for Professionals Services. PHOTO BY MELBA BERNAD
In data centers, the cloud computing segment is one of the biggest beneficiaries of growth in the corporate sector and the burgeoning of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. However, the uptake of cloud computing services is restrained to some extent due to issues regarding data security and control. These concerns are especially pertinent in sectors such as banking and financial services as well as the government.
While the private cloud is still the largest cloud computing component in the enterprise market, public cloud deployments are expected to rise to prominence as enterprises outsource their non-core operations. Furthermore, due to the prohibitive costs of private cloud solutions, SMEs are expected to flock to the public cloud.
Globe is riding a wave of opportunity as the increased availability of bandwidth, proliferation of connected devices, and regulatory compliance requirements have caused explosive growth in data loads. In particular, the need for enterprises to improve efficiency, agility and cost effectiveness in order to maintain near-100 percent uptime, is triggering demand for hosted, as-a-service type, solutions. Additionally, lack of in-house capabilities and the need to cut costs stoke demand for hosted services.
“With the Information Technology (IT)-Enabled Services Group, we not only provide the infrastructure behind [cloud computing], we also deliver applications and the way people access them, as well as security and storage,” explained Genio.
“Our focus is offering our target market segments with IT-enabled services that include data center, business applications and cloud services, with a mandate to grow the ICT business of Globe. We envision ourselves to be a major player in the ICT industry and eventually be the market leader in this space,” adds the newly-installed Vice President of Globe IG Reynaldo “Rey” Lugtu, Jr., considered one of the venerable pillars of the local IT industry with his over 2 decades of experience and expertise.
He said that he has seen the huge growth in the local IT sector over the years, paving the way for the telco’s timely entry in the industry. “With Globe well-entrenched as a leader and innovator in core telecommunications services like mobile, broadband and data, IG is poised to help sustain overall business momentum by tapping new markets and customers with our suite of ICT solutions.”
“IG presents a lot of opportunities for Globe to offer ICT-based products and services to small and medium businesses as well as large enterprises. We have in our fold world-class infrastructure such as our industry-accredited data centers, cloud offerings, storage applications and our portfolio of business applications like machine-to-machine (M2M), HealthCloud and the recent Telecom Asia nominee for best cloud service, our very own Globe PayrollCloud, among many others. We are likewise constantly developing business applications for different business-to-business segments.”
Christopher H. Cheng, Vice President for Professionals Services, says the IG is being supported by Globe Telecom’s six data centers, one of which is in Cebu.
Lugtu forecasts that the Philippine IT industry’s growth will continue unabated. “It’s going to be more dynamic and challenging with newer technologies in the pipeline to business operations more efficient, so companies will be seeking help from partners like Globe, particularly from my team. We will continue to innovate and focus on our business customers by beefing up our infrastructure and developing relevant applications for them.”
IG’s IT infrastructure products and services include hosting and collocation services, business continuity recovery services, virtual private cloud, dedicated private cloud, back-up-as-a-service, disaster recovery-as-a-service, and managed security services.
Business application services include fleet management, fixed asset management and security and surveillance.
Horizontal and vertical applications include PayrollCloud, HealthCloud, and Google Apps.
