THE $15.5-billion software industry could outpace the growth of the international labor market, should the Philippines continue to develop information and communications technology (ICT)-driven sectors and establish a favorable cloud-computing environment.
The forecast was made by Philippine Software Industry Association President Jonathan Defensor de Luzuriaga, who spoke about the process of transforming the Philippines into a digital economy through enterprise cloud applications during the Philippine Cloud Summit last week.
He said the key areas to focus on developing include the leveraging of the ICT sector to enhance the country’s competitiveness, the expansion of access to high-speed and affordable Internet services, and the deployment of cloud services for disaster resiliency.
“We have to educate our people on the digital economy,” he said.
“We also have to bring Philippine talent home.”
These, Luzuriaga said, could result in the industry being the “next ‘overseas Filipino worker’ phenomenon.” He did not provide a time frame, however, but said these requirements should be met “to be able to reach this status.”
IP Converge Data Services Inc. (IPC) President Reynaldo R. Huergas noted that ,while the Philippines has witnessed increased cloud adoption through the years, there is a lot of room for progress.
“Through the years, we witnessed an upward trend in terms of cloud adoption as more and more enterprises are beginning to appreciate its benefits. As CEOs and CIOs [chief information officers] embrace digitization through software-as-a-service, employees stand to experience the ease and benefits of automation and real-time collaboration, instigating a significant boost in workplace productivity and operational efficiency,” he said.
His group encourages companies to take advantage of the opportunities presented by cloud technology and data analytics in order to reap the harvest of a growing digital economy. “We believe that no business should be left behind. Leaders must be able to make calculated and well-informed business decisions on the fly. Cloud technology and data analytics go hand in hand to ensure that they are equipped in this area. And we at IPC are ready to make that shift as effortless as possible,” Huergas said. He added: “With the trends we’re seeing now, we can only believe that cloud computing is the future for every enterprise, and will soon be considered the industry standard moving forward.”
The Philippine Cloud Summit was spearheaded by IPC, a unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. The annual industry event highlighted “The Enterprise Cloud Journey” that businesses must take to bolster success in light of the upcoming Asean Economic Community.
Aside from Luzuriaga and Huergas, CloudSigma CEO Robert Jenkins and Adatos Managing Director Drew Perez also shared their insights to the business community during the forum.
Jenkins discussed the business benefits of cost-efficient and on-demand technology and touched on understanding supply and demand from an information-technology capacity standpoint, and how infrastructure-as-a-service can significantly improve a company’s financial health. He also addressed the issue of security in the use of cloud computing.
“There is no one golden setting that is going to protect a company from security threats. Security is tackled on a requirement-basis and a layered approach, including physical data centers and encryption, among others,” he said.
Perez, on the other hand, discussed how data science can help open-growth opportunities. He further shared how real-time information “can be used to make sound business decisions faster, and how to unlock the business potential of stagnant data archives.”