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MANILA, Philippines - Businesses in the Philippines are taking a more optimistic and proactive view of IT investments despite the current weak economic condition, according to a recent study conducted by the International Data Corporation.

An EMC-sponsored IDC whitepaper titled “Is Your Company at Risk? Preparing a Strategy for Information Management" showed that in comparison with the global trend which projects a more cautious business overview, Philippine businesses show a more upbeat outlook.

“Businesses in the Philippines see these challenging times as an opportunity to focus their priorities on improving customer service levels and employing technology to deliver value to the bottom line,” says Ronnie Latinazo, Country Manager of EMC Philippines.

“By leveraging and investing in technologies, companies will gain a competitive edge once the economy is on the upswing as they will be ready to manage the surge in customers and better equipped to meet more stringent customer demands.”

The whitepaper, conducted by IDC through a survey of 405 IT executives across India, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand, also revealed that improving customer service levels continues to be the key challenge amongst businesses in the last six months and over the next two years. Companies place emphasis on customer service as a critical component that could provide enterprises with a competitive advantage and differentiator.

“Technology is no longer meant for such basic operations as streamlining processes or facilitating information management as it has now been elevated to play a critical role in enhancing customer service levels to boost business growth," Latinazo said.

Facing challenges and setting priorities

The common challenges amongst the five Asian countries surveyed over the next two years are enhancing customer service, keeping IT costs in check and expanding into other markets.

Latinazo said companies are under tremendous pressures to achieve higher levels of efficiency with the existing technology they have now because IT budgets are oftentimes reduced or unchanged despite an increase in demand for constant upgrades. He said IT departments are often mandated to do more with less and companies that do implement new technologies must justify the business value and ROI of the IT budget.

While companies see customer service as a key challenge, it is also seen as a competitive advantage and product differentiator. As a result, companies from the five countries indicated that they intend to deploy technology products and services in more innovative and strategic ways.

“Within the Philippines telecoms industry, the challenge is now about which telco can offer the most value-added and creative content in order to expand consumer offerings that provide end-to-end solutions on the go,” Latinazo said.

“As such, telcos require highly available, high performance and secure information infrastructures that are both manageable and efficient.”

He noted that deployment of technology products and services in more strategic and creative ways will also enable enterprises to derive more value from the investment. Companies that make improvements to the robustness of its IT infrastructures will be able to maximize data protection and storage applications as well as consolidate and streamline storage hardware and applications to better optimize its existing information infrastructure.

Public, private spending a top concern

The IDC whitepaper also revealed that minimizing costs, a perennial concern for businesses, is even more important in these challenging times as companies prepare for the economic upturn, and the public sector is no more immune to this than private enterprises.

“In the Philippines, the government is curbing spending by establishing an electronic procurement system which provides more transparency and stricter controls on the purchasing process,” Latinazo said.

The Philippines is one of 10 countries proposed for the piloting of the Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) program by the World Bank in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank.

“Additionally, electronic procurement strengthens procurement efficiency by facilitating public access to the procurement information, and expediting public services in a cost-effective manner,” he added.

Expanding territory

The challenge of expanding into new markets and gaining new market share from competitors is particularly evident in Philippines’ business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.

Latinazo said the local BPO sector is seen as one of the most aggressive frontiers in technology spending in its bid to attract more foreign direct investments. He said BPO companies are rushing in to merge, set up additional seats, consolidate their information infrastructure to streamline their operations and provide better customer service levels.

This trend is true for both voice and non-voice BPO services, as the country prepares to emerge as the next big BPO service provider after India.

“In order to succeed, BPO firms need the right information infrastructure to ensure that they have a robust and high performing system in place to meet the stringent demands of foreign investors in this space. The Philippines has formidable competitors in other Asian economies all vying for the same piece of the pie,” he said.