As the advertising, public relations, and chief information arm of the Philippine government, the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) is tasked to disseminate accurate, timely, and relevant information to Filipinos. With its aim of becoming the top destination for up-to-date information about government advocacies and programs amidst social media, the agency decided to enhance its capabilities through office productivity tool G Suite offered by digital services provider and local cloud computing pioneer IPC (IP Converge Data Services, Inc.).
“It is our mandate to provide information about government programs, projects, and services to improve lives and encourage an open dialogue between Filipinos and the government. With this, the PIA is embracing digital tools to enhance how we do public service. We found a great partner in IPC,” said Harold E. Clavite, Director-General of the Philippine Information Agency.
Because the agency is tasked with information dissemination and promotion of current government efforts, its employees deal with materials that take up much email and storage space, such as photos and videos.
“The file limit for attaching files given by our previous email services provider served as a roadblock for us that we had to transfer large files on foot with the use of USB flash drives and hard drives,” recounted Clavite. “But as a national agency with 16 regional offices and 72 provincial information centers across the country, this was unacceptable so we decided to look for a better option.”
According to David R. de Leon, IPC Chief Operating Officer, PIA’s decision to embrace digital tools such as G Suite supports their mandate and advocacy. “IPC is proud to support the PIA in their ongoing efforts to keep the public well-informed and empowered. We laud the agency for embracing today’s technology to better serve the public.”
As a long time Google Cloud Partner, IPC has the expertise necessary to position and deploy G Suite, among other Google Cloud products, to organizations of various sizes and objectives. With G Suite, PIA’s employees now have 30GB for file and email storage (15MB more than the free individual version) and an unlimited online storage for standard quality photos and documents in Google Drive.
G Suite is not only about email and storage, however. This single package of various workplace productivity tools includes video and voice conferencing, chat messaging, sheets and slides created using the native apps, basic website development and hosting, calendars and notes, all with the capability to share and collaborate online, anytime, anywhere, on any device.
“Our Director-General has been heralding to use digital communications and technology as tools to reach out to grass roots and far flung barangays and capitalize on the advent of social media, and G Suite has helped us achieve this,” said Buena de Guzman, Officer-in-Charge of PIA’s Communications Group. “Additionally, its feature of seamless collaboration is a great help to ensure quality in our releases.”
PIA also notes that the G Suite service added a sense of legitimacy and professionalism within the workforce. Before, employees felt uncomfortable signing up using with their personal emails because it sounds informal and unprofessional. But now with their business emails, employees have an increased sense of credibility and pride to represent PIA.
