As the ongoing global economic slowdown prompts companies to become more cost-conscious, conveying the business value of technology – or selling IT – is turning into an important job for CIOs.

Over the past few years, IT has gained wide recognition as a vital component of the business. However, much still has to be done to completely convince the non-IT corporate denizens – especially those in top management – that technology does play a key role in business operations and that the IT department is not just a cost center.

With the creation of a C-level position that is now the CIO, serving as the voice of IT, many organizations have taken a huge step toward acknowledging the business value of IT. But although it has already significantly narrowed, there still exists a gap between the business and IT departments. And fingers almost always point to the CIO as the one responsible for bridging this gap.

Promoting and “selling” IT’s mission and services, therefore, has become a top priority for CIOs nowadays. Computerworld Philippines, in its third CIO Roundtable discussion for the year, gathered five CIOs and IT heads from different industries to discuss what strategies and methods they are using to communicate the value of IT in their respective organizations.

Rufino Villaluna, country technology manager for the Philippines at Standard Chartered Bank, said that, at the beginning of each year, he holds discussions with the business heads on what their plans are for the year and then he comes up with an IT roadmap wherein he identifies the business requirements, the infrastructure and systems currently available and the gaps that IT can fill.

According to Jose Ismael Robles, assistant vice president for IT, Paramount Life & General Insurance Corp., it is all about matching the right technology with the right application to meet a particular business demand and effectively communicating IT’s initiatives to all stakeholders.

“When I come across a technology that could possibly solve existing problems and solutions that could make our people’s work easier, I try to explain to management what the technology does and what it can do for the company; define the concrete benefits we can derive out of it and make them understand the value they will get out of every IT investment,” said Edwin Bañas, assistant vice president for IT-Infrastructure Management Division, Quedan & Rural Credit Guarantee Corporation (Quedancor).

Asked how the current financial crisis may impact the perception and communication of the value of IT among companies, Raul Rodriguez, executive consultant at the IPM Group of Companies, believes a company’s reaction to the crisis may depend on whether it has already found value in IT or has yet to do so. “A company that has yet to find value in IT, upon facing this crisis, will react by cutting down cost,” he noted, “while those companies wherein the value of IT has already been established may take a different approach and even turn to IT to help get them through the recession.”

“IT in our company is at the core or heart of the business. Before, the IT department was viewed as just a support team but as the business relied more on technology, its value became more apparent,” pointed out Ryan Patrick Fernandez, IT manager, Philippine Survey & Research Center.

Sponsored by security firm, Sophos Plc, the Computerworld Philippines CIO Roundtable discussion was held at the Renaissance Hotel in Makati City.

Excerpts of the discussion follow:

CWP: How is IT valued in your company? As CIO, is this how you want IT to be seen in your company?

Villaluna: Our company values IT as a strategic partner of the business. We work together with the business units to help them deliver. They are the ones who bring in the numbers, and we help them do that. In some organizations, IT may just be a support unit but in our case, we have always been considered a partner.

Fernandez: IT in our company is at the core or heart of the business. Before, the IT department was also viewed as just a support team but as the business became more dependent on technology, IT’s value became more apparent. IT is involved in the company’s everyday operations from simple Intranet messaging and networking, to sharing of spreadsheet and presentation files, up to the more complex tasks of finding new solutions and tools to help the company be more productive and efficient in what we do.

Bañas: IT plays a vital role in our company, especially in terms of communicating with our field offices. Technology makes it very easy for us to communicate with clients and the people in our field offices. However, since we are on a tight budget, there are a lot of IT projects that I have to put on hold now like the upgrade of our hardware and software infrastructure and the implementation of a real-time reporting system so that reports from our field offices can be accessed in real time.

Rodriguez: I’d like the company to see IT as a partner and an enabler of business as it enables the business to operate more efficiently and move forward into becoming more competitive.

CWP: How do you think will the current economic recession affect IT? Will it make IT more valuable to the company or will it cause IT to be seen more as just a cost center?

Villaluna: People do tend to look at IT as a cost center and it may actually be a cost center, but in our organization we find ways to reduce these costs or we recommend a change in the process or in how things can be done more efficiently. We also try as much as possible to make sure that our equipment are working efficiently. We actually have a policy wherein we have a technology refresh every three years. We change our hardware this often because we actually did a study and found that it is in fact cheaper to replace them than spend on maintenance cost.

Fernandez: I believe this crisis makes IT more valuable as it hits not only a few but most of the major businesses across the globe, including ours. As a result, management is now looking for ways to lower the cost involved in their IT infrastructure. Auditing the current IT infrastructure gives the company a clearer picture of what can be done in order to save. Based on my experience, they were able to better appreciate the value of IT when I presented the open source solution. Management was actually hesitant at first but when they saw the potential cost savings, they easily gave me the go-signal.

Rodriguez: I guess it depends on whether the company has already found value in IT in the first place, even before the recession. The company I work in, for instance, has not really found value in IT yet. It has used IT as a business with its medical transcription and call center business but it has not really leveraged IT as an enabler of business. Thus, the reaction that we had upon the dawn of this economic recession was to cut down cost and reduce all expenditures in IT. We are, for one, looking at migrating to open source as a cost-saving measure.

On the other hand, for companies that have already found value in IT, the picture may be different. I know of a utility company, for instance, that uses business analytics in light of this crisis and takes advantage of this business intelligence to analyze and look into opportunities amid the crisis.

CWP: But that this only apply to a company that has already found value in IT?

Rodriguez: That’s right, yes. A company that has yet to find value in IT, upon facing this crisis, will react by cutting down cost while those companies wherein the value of IT has already been established may take a different approach and even turn to IT to help get them through the recession.

CWP: A recent issue of Computerworld US mentions five new skills that every CIO should possess to weather the global recession and one of them is to market the value of IT to the company, particularly to show that IT may be a cost center but it can be a business partner too who will be able to tell you where you can spend more wisely. Do you agree that this is the job of CIOs and IT managers and is a skill that they should have or develop?

Rodriguez: I agree with that. The CIO certainly has a marketing function because he serves as the link between the business and IT. Thus, a CIO should be able to effectively apply IT to the business and ultimately improve the business through technology.

CWP: How exactly do you sell IT to the company?

Villaluna: At the beginning of each year, I would have a discussion with the business heads on what their plans are for the year then I come up with an IT roadmap wherein I identify the business requirements – what we currently have and what gaps are there for IT to fill. Being an international bank, we also have systems that are being rolled out globally, in all countries where Standard Chartered has branches. Some of these we may adopt and there are some that we do not. So I would also talk to some regional people and ask what their plans are for the Philippines, whether they intend to roll out some applications or if there is a new technology that they want to look into.

Fernandez: One particular challenge that I encounter is how to discuss a solution to top management in a non-IT way, that is, in terms that they will understand. Since, nowadays, they are already hesitant to invest on any solution to begin with, we then have to lay out the complete plan and clearly define the benefits that the IT solution will bring to the company.

The way I communicate the value of IT to the company is three-tiered: first, I have to keep the managing director informed; second, I maintain lateral communication among department directors; and third, I make sure that the IT department knows what is going on in the business side. Keeping the managing director informed is my top priority – any changes in the IT infrastructure, any new technology to be implemented and any IT-related change that needs top-level approval should be always personally relayed to him.

If some of the services that IT provides are somewhat not working in the way they are supposed to, then it is important that all directors and department heads are informed. We make sure we give them reports on what the problem is, what we are doing about it, how we are going to fix it, and the estimated time it will take to resolve the issue. We always try to instill in all of the employees the mindset that IT is not that complex. We try to strip off the mystery by making them understand what we do and by showing them how we work.

Bañas: When I come across a technology that could possibly solve existing problems and solutions that could make our people’s work easier, I try to explain to management what the technology does and what it can do for the company. I define the concrete benefits we can derive out of it and make them understand the value they will get out of every IT investment.

CWP: How about in your case at Standard Chartered, what are the challenges in promoting the value of IT?

Villaluna: The biggest challenge for me is to look for funding for my existing budget because, right now, it is really difficult to convince the business to invest, especially given the current crisis where everybody is trying hard not to spend unnecessarily. I try to do what is within my control, that is, to juggle around with the numbers we have and find the most strategic IT areas to invest in. What we are doing is really just managing cost and keeping it at a certain level, at a particular ratio versus our income

CWP: In IPM’s case, you mentioned that your company has yet to realize the value of IT, how are you promoting IT and what are your challenges in doing so?

Rodriguez: Right now at IPM, I’m just trying to see where IT can add value to the business. For the construction business, for instance, most of the project management work is done through Excel spreadsheets so I try to introduce and expose them to certain project management tools and even accounting tools. I ask vendors to come in and make presentations to make them aware of the solutions available out there. Also, since we are on a cost-cutting mode, I look into even the littlest areas where IT can help cut cost, something as small as printer ink cartridges and how can we save on these by networking printers rather than having one printer for every department, things like those.

It helps a lot to sell or promote IT projects when, first, the one promoting the project is in a C-level position, this is why the CIO is really in a position to promote the value of IT because he is in a strategic position. Second, I think it will help a lot if the users themselves are the ones to initiate a major project. Even if the idea comes from the IT department, the requirement or the need almost always comes from the users so it would be easier if they themselves champion such projects.

CWP: In the of Paramount, is it difficult to sell IT to the company?

Robles: I think the kind of management we have is very IT-oriented so the push to develop our IT infrastructure is actually coming from the top.

CWP: How do you find the right balance between what the business demands and what technology can deliver?

Villaluna: Basically, what happens now is we have two types of projects: those that are IT-initiated and the others which are business-initiated. What we’ve done with the latter is we normally would get somebody from business to champion a project such that they become the project manager and we become a member of that committee. Before, the IT department is always expected to drive any IT-related project, but we have turned this around and now ask the business to spearhead the project while we support it.

Fernandez: Technology nowadays can range from the simplest to the most complex solutions you might want to implement. It’s just a matter of what or how and why you need such technology. Finding the right balance is about implementing a technology that will help your organization solve current issues while also keeping in mind how it can help the company in the future. My motto in finding balance is “use the right tool for the right job.” Implement a solution that fits your requirements, is scalable, efficient, and cost-effective.

Rodriguez: IT should naturally follow through on the business requirements and demands. For example, if there’s a requirement to shorten the receivable cycle in the company, IT becomes a natural solution, say by implementing something like hand-held computers, a faster billing system or having an electronic payment systems. These things can shorten the billing cycle. This is an example of meeting the business demands and, I believe, it’s not really about achieving a balance but more about marrying business demands with IT where IT and business become one and the same and the business demands become IT demands as well.

Robles: For me, this is like having a .45-caliber gun and using the bullets of a .38-caliber revolver; it simply does not work that way. So my philosophy is there has to a right technology and a right application to meet a particular business demand.

Bañas: I think it’s all about finding and implementing a technology that fits your needs and is necessary to the business. No matter what type of business demands you have, as long as you have the appropriate technology in place, it’s easy to manage a business.

CWP: Do you think that the commoditization of IT has somehow lowered its strategic value?

Bañas: I don’t think so, because if you really value IT in your company, no matter how much the value of the product is, you should invest on it so that you can efficiently and effectively manage your business.

Villaluna: I think it’s a case-to-case basis. Let’s say in my case, technology changes so fast and we sometimes think that we may be lagging behind in adopting the latest technologies, but in our organization, we look at it from a broader perspective and don’t just say “that’s a good technology, let’s implement it.” Being part of an international firm, everything is evaluated at the group level and controls have to be in place, because one of the worst things that could happen is if we take a step forward and implement something only to expose the company to risks.

There are, of course, some initiatives which we are able to push through on a local group level. We even do small program development ourselves but we still have to advise them about what we are developing and explain that it is designed to address a local requirement. When we develop these programs, everything has to pass the group standards and somebody from the regional office has to certify that it meets all the standards.

Fernandez: I believe we can look at this based on two situations: for an IT- related company, the strategic value of IT may have lowered especially for companies that offer IT services like BPO, software customization, technology builders, system integrators, because a drastic drop in prices will most likely occur. Competition in this space will rise and having many players offering the same services will just make the situation worst, causing not only the value of IT to become lower but such companies that offer similar services may end up closing down.

On the other hand, IT being a commodity for corporations and enterprises is good because, like in our case, we can choose what solutions we want to implement. We can pinpoint who among the wide variety of players can deliver the solution and we can also play around with the numbers and refine budget allocations for such projects.

Rordriguez: By strategic value, we mean something that gives the company competitive edge, right? I have two views about this. I could perhaps cite the deployment of ATM (automated teller machines) as an example. I think the first ATMs in the country were installed by BPI and when they did, that gave them a strategic edge. However, when ATMs became very prevalent or were commoditized, BPI lost that edge but they still had to maintain the ATMs. In that case, the commoditization or prevalence of a certain technology does not add strategic value any more. However, my other view is that commoditization of IT can, at times, provide strategic value. An example is the wireless technology. The mindset before was to get the most profits from the A and B market, but as the SMS has helped the telcos earn revenue from lower down the pyramid to include the C and D market. With the increasing prevalence of such technology, say I work for a water utility company, I can then consider sending our customers’ billing through SMS, which might speed up the collection and allow us to remind them when their due date is near, ultimately reducing the possibility of getting their water supply cut off.

CWP: What technologies have had an impact or may have an impact on how IT is being valued in your company?

Bañas: I think VPN (virtual private network) and IP-PABX technology may have a significant impact in our company. I have wanted to implement these because they could address our communication and report submission issues.

Fernandez: One technology that has had an impact on how IT is valued in our company is data management. Data for us is very important, which is why we implemented data backup and recovery in our company. It’s a serious business for us to make sure that the data is always available so we invested on hardware that will hold the data coming from desktop PCs, laptop computers and our main servers.

Security is another thing, we are all aware that threats such as adware, viruses, phishing, backdoors, spyware and spam are very cumbersome issues that IT heads face on a daily basis. In our office, we deployed a managed antivirus solution and implemented application control, content filtering, and spam filtering to make sure that e-mails going in and out of our network are secure. Lastly, we also make sure that firewalls on all our sites are secured and locked down to avoid potential break-ins and to avoid denial of service attacks.

Communication technology has also played a major role in promoting the value of IT in our company as all our employees access now largely depend on their e-mail for internal and external communication, even while they are out of the office.

Villaluna: Document imaging is probably one of the technologies that we believe may have an impact on promoting the value of IT in the company. Being a bank, we have customer data which we have to archive for as long as a particular account is in existence and even after the account is closed, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas regulations require us to keep it for another 10 years, so we are talking about a perpetual archive which would, of course, translate to cost, where the storage company is the only one making money. So what we have done recently is to conduct a study and consult the Central Bank about whether we could archive documents by scanning them and keeping digital copies instead. These are among the things that we are looking at now.

One other thing that we are looking at which I think has been implemented in Standard Chartered in Singapore, is the work from home policy which they call the “mobile desk” where you no longer have your own desk, such that, whenever you come to the office, you just plug in your laptop to connect to the network. But the premise is, of course, that you very seldom have to go to the office. We are looking at implementing this in our operations here in the Philippines as well, at least for the sales and marketing people, because this will translate to savings on rent and utilities. We might even be able to give up a few office floors.

Robles: One particular IT project, which is actually ongoing, that is very important to us right now is document imaging. We have a whole floor full of insurance policy documents, which we are trying to archive and make available over the Internet so that we can quickly and easily access any file or information that we may need in the future. We expect this to have a very big impact on our operations because, aside from the convenience of finding documents, this would also save us office space, which is very expensive nowadays.

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By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines

Taking advantage of promos that are light on the budget, Filipinos actually prefer by-the-bucket services offered by telcos, Smart Communications Inc. disclosed at the launch of their new unlimited voice calls offer recently.

Bucket promos essentially comprise more than half of network revenues, the telco said, ringing in majority of SMS sales from its 38-million subscribers. “Bucket promos have become a bigger portion of our revenue, and in some areas, it is even the lion’s share. It’s a growing trend,” shared Danilo Mojica, wireless consumer division head, Smart.

Their Alltxt offering is actually one of the well-received services they have introduced, easily attracting millions of Smart users nationwide, Mojica added.

Following this trend, the major telco player is rolling out an unlimited voice call service aptly dubbed “Smartalk,” which shall begin implementation on June 26, said Annie Naval, group head for marketing, Smart.

“We are introducing a new unlimited voice calls service through Smartalk, which lets you call anytime, anywhere for a limitless amount of time using only one sim, one number and one phone,” Naval explained, adding that users only need to send an SMS or buy from e-load resellers in order to avail of the service.

Mojica conversely dismissed issues of network clogging due to the rollout of the new service. “We have tested the service for a month in Cebu, and all the elements have satisfactorily passed our tests,” Mojica assured. “Our networks can definitely handle the traffic Smartalk will cause our stations.”

Orlando Vea, chief wireless advisor, Smart, seconded Mojica’s claim. “Everytime we introduce a new product, we setup the necessary facilities to accommodate the users,” he said, alluding to their recent HSPA network upgrade.

The new service, according to Smart, is available to both postpaid and prepaid subscribers, at P100 and P500 denominations for 5 days and 30 days respectively. Postpaid subscribers have the option to include the offer on top of their monthly bill.

The promo is currently limited to Smart-to-Smart and Smart-to-Talk N Text calls, because the company has no plans of extending to off-network calls as of the moment, Vea said.

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By Jenalyn Rubio

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In a world still significantly dominated by male leaders, Accenture top executive Beth Lui, was among the first few women who have managed to prove that IT is indeed, also a woman’s world.

Although gender is no longer an issue in this type of work nowadays, Lui shares that her manager back when she was just starting her career told her to “be better than the guys to clearly stand out.” “The advice worked because I learned to aim higher,” the IT veteran discloses.

A certified public accountant (CPA) by profession, Lui graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Sto. Tomas and has been in the IT industry for more than 20 years now. Right after taking the CPA board exam, Lui applied with the audit division of what was then Arthur Andersen (what is now the IT and outsourcing firm, Accenture) and was offered to join the management consulting division. She started as a software developer and eventually moved up the ranks to designer, team manager, and senior executive.

Today, Lui is the country managing director and concurrently the lead for technology of Accenture Delivery Centers in the Philippines, overseeing the overall delivery of technology services such as systems integration, application outsourcing and infrastructure outsourcing.

NO MAGIC FORMULA
According to Lui, when she started her career, she never imagined that she would someday be the country managing director of a giant IT and outsourcing firm like Accenture, sharing that she just took each challenge one day at a time.

“I do not think there is a sure route or magic formula for success. When I started working, my manager told me that in order to stand out; I should strive to be the best. And some 20 or so years later, I still continue to strive to be the best in everything that I do,” Lui says, adding that even in her current position, she still looks forward to learning new things.

According to her, the opportunities to find solutions to problems, to meet, interact and learn from people, and to experience life in various situations are what inspire her to get up each morning and go to work.

Her biggest challenge professionally, the veteran shares, is to constantly look for ways to do better. On the personal side, meanwhile, she says it would be striking a work-life balance. The executive also acknowledged that without a steadfast commitment to client service and a great team to work with, she would not be where she is today.

“At Accenture, we tell our people that there is great power in our personal expectations – we achieve what we believe we can achieve. It is also very important to have a work-life balance so that we can sustain the time and energy commitment to achieve high performance, everyday,” she further shares.

Looking forward, Lui says she wants to continue growing Accenture in the country, for it likewise continues making significant contributions to the outsourcing industry and the Philippine economy.

Asked what legacy she wants to leave behind, Lui says she wants people to realize that Accenture is capable of achievements and industry leadership in the Philippines. “I would like to be remembered as a leader that demonstrated a ‘can do attitude’ and this is something that I would also like my colleagues to espouse. For the industry, I hope that one day, the Philippines will become the globally preferred location for IT and BPO outsourcing.”

SIDEBAR
Favorite Technology: cellphone and laptop (Both allow me to stay connected while allowing me to stay back.)
Favorite non-work pastime: Traveling, playing piano, and being with my pets (of course in addition to my family and friends)
Philosophy in a nutshell: Embrace change. Because change signifies a new beginning.
Something people don’t know about you: I still have to think about this.

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By Elmar M. Gomez

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Internet and mobile phone are two technologies that have had great impact on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) during the last 10 years. This column will illustrate how MSMEs can use these two technologies to remain competitive. You will notice that I use the words “remain competitive” and not “gain business advantage.” To survive, MSME have to use these technologies in their business operations. MSME have to do better that just use e-mail, surf the Internet, and do texting on the mobile phone. They have to know how to use Search (e.g. Google Search), Friendster, Multiply, You Tube, Flickr, blogs, eBay, Facebook, Twitter. I hope this column will be able to help MSMEs.

Our company is an MSME. We hope that it will be grow big someday. We use the Internet and mobile phones for our business operations. We also use the Internet and mobile phones as platforms for the service which our company provides. Previously, I worked in local and multinational information and communications technology (ICT) companies. I consulted with businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGO) and politicians on how to use ICT in their work.

Let me present some sample illustrations that demonstrate how to use ICT in MSMEs. To understand the context, I should let you know that I was born and raised in Aklan, and regularly return for visits.

GOOGLE SEARCH
Consider an entrepreneur we’ll call Naomi. Naomi has a spa business in a provincial capital. At certain times of the month, business is brisk especially on pay days. However, there are days when business is slow. She is willing to offer promo prices during lean days. She spends on posters, radio plugs on the local radio station, and flyers. But these cost money every time she uses them.

Since Naomi has broadband Internet access, I told her to do a Google Search on “0917 Aklan.” The results were mobile phone numbers that start with 0917, sometimes with corresponding names, that are most probably from the province of Aklan. She did it again for another mobile phone number prefix and ultimately did searches for all mobile phone operators’ prefixes. In this way, she acquired a harvest of mobile phone numbers that she can send SMS messages to promote her spa. Using a Globe number to send to Globe, Smart for Smart and Sun for Sun, she was able to send SMS at no cost by using the unlimited text service of the mobile phone operators.

The above example is not meant to suggest that MSMEs discontinue their existing ways of promoting their businesses. It shows that there is another cost-effective way to reach a certain market niche.

FRIENDSTER
There is another way for MSMEs to communicate their message to their target market. This is to use Friendster. This column assumes you know how to use Friendster. What I am going to illustrate is an example of using Friendster to send messages to your identified market niche.

Last April 27, I did a location search on Friendster for users who are from the different towns of Aklan. I added the number of registered voters as of April 30, 2007.
Tables 1 and 2 show the result. Table 3 has the election 2007 results in the province.

If I plan to run as a board member of the Eastern District of Aklan, this information provides the following insights:
1. Friendster users from the Eastern District make up about 70% of the total votes of an elected board member with the lowest number of votes.
2. Kalibo has the highest Friendster penetration, which is expected for a capital town.

I can bet my depreciated peso that for the same amount of money my opponents invest to communicate once with voters offline, I can communicate my campaign message better, with more relevance, and many more times and probably to more voters using Friendster. This means that I do not have to spend as much money as my opponents to communicate more effectively. That extra money I save I can allocate to more strategic needs like ensuring the integrity of the voting process.

This same search result on Friendster can be used by MSMEs to shout out their marketing message to their local target niches.

These two examples are some of the uses of the Internet and mobile phone in the business of MSMEs. In my next column, I will show examples on how to use other tools and networks like Multiply, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

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By Michael Alan Hamlin

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As Frank Holz notes in his Inside Outsourcing column in this issue, the latest periodic survey conducted by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) and Outsource2Philippines (O2P) revealed a mixed forecast for the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. While 49% of respondents said their firms will expand headcount at least 11% to over 200%, 51% said they would expand their workforce only marginally, stay the same, or decrease the size of their workforce. (Disclosure: My firm developed and deployed the survey for BPA/P and O2P, in which I have an interest.)
However, only six percent of respondents said they would actually decrease the size of their workforce suggesting that whatever impact the global financial crisis is having on the industry isn’t dramatically slowing development. Almost 40% of respondents said their firms will grow significantly, between 16% and 200%. About 85% of respondents said that the crisis has had an impact on their firms, but only five percent said that impact was very significant. Sixteen percent said the impact of the crisis was significant, and 35% said it was moderately significant. Forty-five percent said the impact of the crisis was minor or nil.
Those responses don’t tell us if the impact was negative or positive, but two thirds of respondents said it affected demand, and 36% said the crisis had an impact on expansion plans. Access to funding and payment terms were both identified by 28% of respondents as areas of their businesses impacted by the financial crisis, and 14% of respondents identified a variety of other issues.
When the respondents were asked how they were responding to the crisis, the results were perhaps their most revealing. More than half, 58%, said their response to the crisis was to introduce new services, suggesting that the crisis has created new revenue opportunities for these respondents’ firms. However, 36% of respondents said they had decreased capital investment as a result of the crisis, and only nine percent increased capital investment. This seems to suggest that new services are replacing old ones. But read on.
To determine the vulnerability of sectors to the financial crisis, we examined the results for a growing number of sectors (most respondents identified one of the 25 sectors provided). This showed that firms offering back office services (data processing, HR, finance & accounting, document management, claims & transaction processing, etc,) were most profoundly impacted by the crisis. These firms represented about 63% of respondents that indicated the crisis had very significant impact on their firms and 36% of the firms indicating that the crisis had significant impact.
Next we looked at response to the crisis by sector and found that respondents representing back office services providers accounted for more than 60% of respondents who said their firms are accelerating expansion and only 35% of firms that are postponing expansion. This sector also has the most firms that are introducing new services, about 38% of all firms that are doing so. These results appear to suggest that firms seeking opportunity in the recession are fairing much better than those that may simply be trying to wait out the downturn.
We also wanted to see how firms of varying size have been affected by the crisis. Back office services providers accounted for 66.7% of respondents representing firms with more than 15,000 employees, 71% with 5,001-10,000 employees, and 86% with 1,001-2,500 employees. Only 5.5% of respondents representing firms with over 15,000 employees indicated the crisis had moderate impact on their firms. None indicated any other degree of impact. This suggests that large firms have been substantially unaffected by the crisis.
That’s not necessarily the case for small firms. Firms with 101 to 500 employees represented 25% of respondents who indicated the crisis has had very substantial impact on their firms, 48% who indicated significant impact, and 22% who indicated moderate impact. But there is again a caveat. Respondents representing firms of this size also accounted for 42% of respondents indicating the crisis has had no impact and 29% of those indicating minor impact.
Again, these results seem to indicate that firms that respond in innovative ways to the crisis are faring better than those that aren’t, regardless of size. There’s one other related result that is worth mentioning briefly, and it has to do with value added.
Ninety-five percent of respondents said their firms provide moderate, high, or very high value-added services, and 69% indicated their firms provide high or very high value-added services. This result, along with the high propensity to introduce new services, suggests that the Philippine BPO industry is moving strategically up the value chain.

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By Ryan Flores

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According to a study conducted by Digital Philippines, SMEs account for 99% of the total number of registered business establishments in the country today. They employ 67% of the total population and comprise 60% of the total number of exporters in the country. The survey also found that 72% of SME employees use SMS via mobile phones to transact business, 23% use handheld devices such as Palm Pilots or Pocket PCs, and 90% use PCs, though only 70% of which have Internet access, putting themselves and their companies at risk every day amid the rapid proliferation of security threats.

Trend Micro examined the surfing habits of 1,600 SME employees in various countries and found that they were more likely to engage in activities that pose security risks to their employers’ businesses such as checking personal emails, launching downloaded executable files, and making online purchases at work. Pilferage and laggard or abusive staff have been identified as two of the most common problems SMEs face.

Extensive customer knowledge often set SMEs apart from their large counterparts. Many SMEs operate as family businesses and are managed by their founders or their descendants who know a lot about their customers and the business but may not know that much about systematizing business processes. More often than not, they don’t even see themselves as likely targets of security threats so they don’t really accord that much priority to IT security. Some of them may not even be aware of how important their assets are, particularly to their competitors, nor that hackers, spammers, and other malicious users don’t really care who they prey on. Everyone is fair game. A company’s size does not matter; all that matters to them is the number of successful malware infections, compromises, phishing attacks or stolen information.

Just like large enterprises, SMEs also need protection against the ever-increasing number of malware and digital threats. However, given the limited resources of SMEs, they should take three things into consideration before buying security software:

• All in one suite
• Easy to install and manage
• Support quality

All in one suite

Separately buying antivirus, anti-spam and web filtering software involves a significantly higher cost of acquisition compared to purchasing product suites that incorporate all these technologies into one package. Of course, this is not exactly applicable to large enterprises that require best-of-breed products to ensure the best protection possible, but for an SME, this purchasing strategy makes the most economic sense while providing adequate protection.

Easy to install and manage

Since SMEs do not have a dedicated IT staff, having a suite that is easy to install and manage is critical. It is counter-productive if a security suite needs to be configured, re-configured, and maintained. In the end, employees are better off doing their actual jobs rather than troubleshooting a complicated piece of software.

Support Quality

Murphy’s law states that “whatever can go wrong, will go wrong,” so expect your security software to crash at least once in the most unexpected circumstances. When this happens, having a technical support that can help you sort things out is gold. You wouldn’t want a vendor who takes your money, then leaves you alone to figure out what went wrong.

With these in mind, it is worth your while to do a little research. Various reviews are published in the Web, and vendors should be able to provide you with answers regarding total cost of ownership and technical support quality. In the end, security products are investments to make sure the business continues, and having a worry-free security suite takes out all the hassles of owning one.

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By Michael Alan Hamlin

As Frank Holz notes in his Inside Outsourcing column in this issue, the latest periodic survey conducted by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P) and Outsource2Philippines (O2P) revealed a mixed forecast for the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. While 49% of respondents said their firms will expand headcount at least 11% to over 200%, 51% said they would expand their workforce only marginally, stay the same, or decrease the size of their workforce. (Disclosure: My firm developed and deployed the survey for BPA/P and O2P, in which I have an interest.)
However, only six percent of respondents said they would actually decrease the size of their workforce suggesting that whatever impact the global financial crisis is having on the industry isn’t dramatically slowing development. Almost 40% of respondents said their firms will grow significantly, between 16% and 200%. About 85% of respondents said that the crisis has had an impact on their firms, but only five percent said that impact was very significant. Sixteen percent said the impact of the crisis was significant, and 35% said it was moderately significant. Forty-five percent said the impact of the crisis was minor or nil.
Those responses don’t tell us if the impact was negative or positive, but two thirds of respondents said it affected demand, and 36% said the crisis had an impact on expansion plans. Access to funding and payment terms were both identified by 28% of respondents as areas of their businesses impacted by the financial crisis, and 14% of respondents identified a variety of other issues.
When the respondents were asked how they were responding to the crisis, the results were perhaps their most revealing. More than half, 58%, said their response to the crisis was to introduce new services, suggesting that the crisis has created new revenue opportunities for these respondents’ firms. However, 36% of respondents said they had decreased capital investment as a result of the crisis, and only nine percent increased capital investment. This seems to suggest that new services are replacing old ones. But read on.
To determine the vulnerability of sectors to the financial crisis, we examined the results for a growing number of sectors (most respondents identified one of the 25 sectors provided). This showed that firms offering back office services (data processing, HR, finance & accounting, document management, claims & transaction processing, etc,) were most profoundly impacted by the crisis. These firms represented about 63% of respondents that indicated the crisis had very significant impact on their firms and 36% of the firms indicating that the crisis had significant impact.
Next we looked at response to the crisis by sector and found that respondents representing back office services providers accounted for more than 60% of respondents who said their firms are accelerating expansion and only 35% of firms that are postponing expansion. This sector also has the most firms that are introducing new services, about 38% of all firms that are doing so. These results appear to suggest that firms seeking opportunity in the recession are fairing much better than those that may simply be trying to wait out the downturn.
We also wanted to see how firms of varying size have been affected by the crisis. Back office services providers accounted for 66.7% of respondents representing firms with more than 15,000 employees, 71% with 5,001-10,000 employees, and 86% with 1,001-2,500 employees. Only 5.5% of respondents representing firms with over 15,000 employees indicated the crisis had moderate impact on their firms. None indicated any other degree of impact. This suggests that large firms have been substantially unaffected by the crisis.
That’s not necessarily the case for small firms. Firms with 101 to 500 employees represented 25% of respondents who indicated the crisis has had very substantial impact on their firms, 48% who indicated significant impact, and 22% who indicated moderate impact. But there is again a caveat. Respondents representing firms of this size also accounted for 42% of respondents indicating the crisis has had no impact and 29% of those indicating minor impact.
Again, these results seem to indicate that firms that respond in innovative ways to the crisis are faring better than those that aren’t, regardless of size. There’s one other related result that is worth mentioning briefly, and it has to do with value added.
Ninety-five percent of respondents said their firms provide moderate, high, or very high value-added services, and 69% indicated their firms provide high or very high value-added services. This result, along with the high propensity to introduce new services, suggests that the Philippine BPO industry is moving strategically up the value chain.

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Even as a student, Rolino “Jun” Bucao has been a proponent of educating people about IT; so after getting a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at the University of the Philippines, he went to teach at the Central Colleges of the Philippines for two years. There he taught IT subjects to students in all levels while being laboratory custodian, a position he previously held when he was still a student.
“I have always been very fond of teaching and would have stayed being an educator. Unfortunately, other than being grossly overworked and underpaid, I found myself being behind in technology since there are not enough opportunities to learn and apply new things,” shares Bucao.
To address his desire for higher learning, Bucao decided to practice his profession and, thus, worked as the MIS head of Beatriz Marketing and Trading Corporation, the sales and marketing arm of the roofing division of the Jacinto Group of Companies. A year after, he transferred to Far East Bank and Trust Company and became an analyst/programmer, providing support to the Trust Banking Group (TBG). There he worked for 8 years, including his one year stint at BPI (where he helped with the integration of the Trust systems of both banks) before finally joining Banco de Oro (BDO).
“In my current job, it is a ‘must’ to stay updated; I am also able to mentor and teach the members of my team. I’m actually being paid to do something I like,” cites Bucao. At BDO, he was senior manager of the group handling outsourced IT projects. Now, he takes care of the bank’s front-end and channels system.
“I am currently heading the IT development team providing support to the TBG. Our team is in charge of the maintenance and development of systems primarily related to electronic channels for both retail and corporate clients including ATMs, POS, mobile banking, Internet banking, phone banking and the debit card system of BDO,” says Bucao. His team also manages the BDO systems interfacing with different partners, such as Megalink, ExpressNet, Bancnet, Mastercard, Visa and telco companies (Smart, Globe and Sun Cellular), in addition to providing support to the remittance unit of the bank.
According to Bucao, the banking industry is very competitive in nature, thus it relies heavily on IT for product development, which require ingenuity on the part of his team. “I find it fulfilling and challenging to find the technology appropriate to these business initiatives and try to deliver them in a timely manner without sacrificing the quality of these products once they are introduced,” he explains.
Quality means keeping the response time to the absolute minimum, resolving problems at the soonest possible time, and satisfying clients with the bank’s product offerings. “To be able to do all of these, my team and I have to be updated on the latest in technology to keep up with the business and the market,” relates Bucao.
Technology briefings, information from the Internet and the constant exchange of ideas among his team, keep them updated. “I have always made it a point to know and understand what everybody else is doing. I do not limit myself only to the people directly reporting under me but I check on all the other people who report to them as well,” notes Bucao.
What keeps Bucao going is finding fulfillment in what he is doing. “I will probably keep doing this job as long as the challenge is there and the hunger to learn still exists.” Right now, Bucao hopes to make all their systems stable and error-free, that’s why enhancements and modifications are being made continuously to cope with increasing transaction volumes, new requirements, regulatory compliance, and innovation.
Outside work, bowling, badminton, watching TV and doing online shopping are just some of the things that keep him busy. “I used to spend more time playing badminton (at least three times a week) but my current work load wouldn’t allow me to do so. I also enjoy going out with my family and friends to visit different tourist spots in the country,” states Bucao.
Aside from these, he also heads the reunion preparations (Silver Jubilee) for HS Batch 1984 of the PUP Laboratory High School, making him even busier. “I would normally keep my weekends for family and leisure but that alone is proving difficult since most of the systems I’m handling are up 24×7. Still, I do have people who can already handle the trivial issues so I’m now getting more out of my weekends (and my non-working hours). It only gets disrupted whenever we have shortage of personnel due to resignations,” quips Bucao.

DOSSIER
Name: Rolino “Jun” C. Bucao, Jr.
Title: Vice President and Head of ITD-Transaction Banking Systems
Company: Banco De Oro Universal Bank
Favorite Technologies: Java, Unix, any SQL database
Favorite non-work pastime: Badminton, shopping whether in the mall or online, and watching TV (sports, news and movies).
Philosophy in a nutshell: “We find ways!”

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By Tom S. Noda

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Surpassing failure and frustration indeed justifies destiny’s realness in life. And for Gladys Lumbuan, fate became true by simply keeping the dream alive and going along with the streams of the times.

Failing to achieve her goal of finishing an information technology (IT) course in college, Lumbuan still managed to become a successful IT professional. She is currently the chief information officer (CIO) of Sky Cable Corp., a top cable company in the Philippines, where she heads the company’s information technology and telephony division.

Lumbuan recalls she failed to pass an entrance exam in the University of the Philippines (UP) in 1983 for the BS Computer Science course.

“I did not make it,” she says. “I ended up taking my second choice course which was BS Social Sciences. But on my sophomore year, I applied and was accepted to transfer to the College of Engineering, for the BS Industrial Engineering (BSIE) course.”

But the IT college entrance exam was not Lumbuan’s final duel with the dream profession. After earning her BSIE degree, Lumbuan worked for a while as research assistant at the UP Engineering Research and Development Foundation in 1988, and then moved to SGV Consulting, Inc. in the same year, where she would have another crack on IT.

Lumbuan shares she took a battery of IQ tests at SGV where she scored high ratings in logic.

“The company considers high ratings in those areas as a necessary skill for computer-related jobs and my assessment was even strengthened when I was sent to Arthur Andersen’s training class called Computers in our Practice School, where I received the highest rating granted to any training participant in a class,” she says.

Lumbuan says there was just no looking back at that moment as SGV immediately assigned her to handle various computer programming projects related to the manufacturing industry—the area where most BSIE graduates like her were mostly employed. “The assignments had tapped both my skills in computers and IE,” she claims.

After her two-year stint with SGV, Lumbuan served in four different companies before joining Sky Cable, and these are: Avon Products Manufacturing, Inc. (EDP supervisor, systems analyst/programmer from 1990 to 1995); Digital Equipment Filipinas, Inc. (industry solutions team manager from 1995 to 1997); Eastern Telecommunications Phils., Inc. (information services manager from 1997 to 2000 and later as assistant vice-president, head of information services department from 2000 to 2003); and Institutional Synergy, Inc. (IT consultant from 2003 to 2004).

Lumbuan cites that “faith in God, self-confidence, hard work and a supportive spouse” were the factors that helped her attain a successful career in IT.
Being an IT professional for 25 years, Lumbuan advises IT professionals should know very well the business of one’s company, its product, customers, the supporting technology and processes.

“You should always be accountable to the results of your performance and must do the extra mile as you work on your deliverables,” she says, noting that establishing amiable relationships with peers is a plus; and that one’s integrity should never be compromised.

Lumbuan adds one’s subordinates will work effectively if objectives are clear with them and if their significant contributions are recognized, as well as if they know that they are known in some personal level.

“Job satisfaction is not all about getting good money. It’s being appreciated for the worth of the work that you give,” she says.

A mother of three children, Lumbuan dreams someday of having a Web-based business of her own that will provide professional services.

TIDBITS
Age: 43
Status: Married to Alex, an engineer. They have one daughter and two sons, ages 14, 12 and 7, respectively.
Favorite Technology: The Internet
Philosophy in a nutshell: “Integrity is the most valuable and respected quality of leadership. Always keep your word.” by Jim Rohn
Hobbies and Interests: Tinkering on tech gadgets, home decorating, shopping, fashion and entertainment magazines.
What people don’t know about you: I deliver inspirational talks to female inmates in the city jail. I can prepare Lasagna and Shepherd’s Pie.

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By the Computerworld Philippines Staff
Published in the March 2009 print edition of Computerworld Philippines

The company IT department, already commonly seen as a cost center, is now the focus of even more intense scrutiny by top management as news reports about the ongoing global economic slowdown fan anxiety in all industries. According to analyst firm, Gartner Inc., the IT mantra “doing more with less” is quickly being replaced by “doing less with less” as most IT departments across the globe begin feeling the pinch of the crisis.

In line with this, Computerworld Philippines, in its 1st CIO Roundtable discussion for the year, gathered CIOs and IT executives from different industries in the country to find out exactly how the global slowdown is affecting local firms, particularly their IT departments.

Sponsored by Sophos Plc, the roundtable discussion—a lively and insightful exchange among the Computerworld Philippines team and the six invited IT executives—revealed that, contrary to what most people expect, the present scenario is not “all doom and gloom” for local IT departments. IT in fact, tends to take center stage nowadays; as top management increasingly looks to it to help the business cut costs and improve efficiency through technology.

Dennis Bancod, executive vice president for IT at Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), acknowledged that, being in financial services, their company is being impacted by the crisis. He said, however, that they are not changing any strategies, particularly in the IT department, as it has always been their philosophy to remain prudent and spend only on what they need.

Lorraine Belo, CIO of construction supply firm, Wilcon Builders Inc., agreed. “We more or less still operate the same way regardless of the economic situation, in the sense that we do not really overspend on things, even before the crisis,” she said. “We just spend on whatever is needed.”

Although situations may vary with each company, one industry that is not quite feeling the pinch yet is the real estate sector, according to Jay Estaris, CIO of the Century Properties Group. “I think people are still investing in the Philippines and, for a company like ours that is used to operating in adverse situations, you just try to operate the best way you can and assume the worst while hoping for the best,” he noted.

For his part, Marcelo Trinidad, IT manager of home and construction materials suppliers, Ceramic Plaza Inc., said that during tough times, the pressure is even greater for IT to help the business weather the storm. “It’s really up to us in IT to try to make all these processes more efficient, so this year we are really expected to do more,” he pointed out. “This year would be a very busy and challenging year for us because we have to reinvent ourselves and raise the bar to be able to do more for the business.”

“I think most IT departments have been trained to work on a minimum budget and to do multi-tasking. However, the owners of CDO have always been very supportive of the IT department and they recognize that if you do not spend on IT you end up spending more,” said Leonides Tolentino, senior manager, management information systems, Foodsphere, Inc., better known for the brand it carries—CDO.

“The crisis gives us more opportunity to align with management because, being a food manufacturing business, we were traditionally not IT-centric but now, management realizes that a lot of opportunity to weather the storm is actually coming from different technologies,” added Rogelio Tayamora, IT director, Pepsi-Cola Products Phils. Inc.

Excerpts of the discussion follow:

CWP: Is your IT department already feeling the effects of the global economic crisis?

Bancod: I guess our industry, among those represented here, is the most affected because the current economic crisis is really a crisis on the financial services industry and when the financial sector is hit, as a consequence all the other industries would eventually be affected as well. Now, as whether the IT department is feeling it, I would say “Yes.” But this crisis did not blossom overnight, the signals have been felt from as early as the middle of 2007 and the recovery is probably going to take another 12 to 18 months. So, at least from our perspective, as early as the middle of 2007, we knew that we had to do something to be able to weather the storm.

Estaris: I can’t really speak for everybody in the real estate industry but we have noticed that the sector is quite impervious to the effects of the crisis. I think people are still investing in the Philippines and, for a company like ours that is used to operating in adverse situations, you will try to operate the best way you can and assume the worst while hoping for the best. With our IT department in particular, we have not really experienced any difficulty that may be attributed to the ongoing global crisis.

Trinidad: Our industry is closely related to the real estate sector and, so far, I have been talking with architects and contractors and most of them are even looking forward to a good year because they say it is during these times that the price of construction materials goes down.

Tayamora: Our company sells food and beverage products so we are very much affected by trends and changes in consumer spending. On the IT side, since Pepsi here in the Philippines is part of the larger, global Pepsi-Cola family, we are also affected by the changes and directions that our parent company in the US puts in place. The direction for us now is to hold on to the “Cash is king” motto. We want to protect our cash so, in the process, we have become stricter with credit. The idea is not to spend ahead of the curve. Anything that we want to spend on, either in marketing or development, should really present a solid return. In the process, the IT department is also affected but we are actually quite used to this as we have always been quite conservative with our initiatives. The good thing is we have a long-term plan in place so we can better gauge which projects we can work on now and which ones could be shelved for a while.

Tolentino: People may stop buying construction materials or real estate properties, they can stop investing in banks, but people will always have to eat three times a day, so our company being in food manufacturing is doing just fine. We did well in 2008 and we are optimistic that this year, although we may see shifts in consumer spending or preferences, we can still do well. From the IT perspective, it being a cost center, I think most IT departments have been trained to work on a minimum budget and to do multi-tasking. However, the owners of CDO have always been very supportive of the IT department and they recognize that if you do not spend on IT, you end up spending more because of productivity loss or even loss of sales opportunities, say when the system goes down for example. So they realize the importance of IT. I even increased our budget for this year because we have to ensure our system is highly available and we will be working on a lot of additional projects for the finance department along with some initiatives on business intelligence.

CWP: What areas have been affected—or do you think will be affected—by the global crisis?

Trinidad: Among the companies present here, ours is probably the smallest, and this I think is a good thing given this economic crisis, especially because we are not highly-dependent on external providers and almost all of our systems are developed in-house. Reading about all these software companies that are being impacted by the crisis along with other big companies that have big investments in large banks that are in trouble, I can imagine how much of a nightmare it would be for IT professionals to wake up one morning and find out that they can no longer get support for their mission-critical systems. In that sense, I believe we are not that affected, also because we really have a good and devoted team capable of working on and fixing things internally.

Estaris: At Century Properties, all IT projects that we have dreamed up for the past two years are still going on. We are still delivering these projects, hopefully on schedule and on budget. Given that, while I believe in tested products, right now we are servicing the needs of the organization more with home-grown applications and most of these are Internet-driven applications. On the other hand, I would imagine that if I was still on the other side of the fence as a vendor, this crisis would be creating certain difficulties because the focus of the clients right now has shifted from those issues addressable by IT to concerns about prices. So I would imagine there maybe a slowdown in vendor driven-applications but, internally it’s not affecting us at all.

Bancod: First, you have to be prudent enough to make sure that you weather the storm and, at the same time, you want to also look at it as an opportunity and see which areas you can exploit in a crisis situation. For us, the way IT would react to that is not really with just IT per se but it is really about making sure that the we keep our close ties with the business and see how they are going to react in such a situation and be able to exploit and support the opportunities that they would identify to weather the storm.

Tayamora: For us at Pepsi, the key word is also “prudence.” IT follows whatever direction the business takes, especially in view of this slowdown. This crisis even gives us an opportunity to take a closer look at our current setup, review what we could do better and what we may be doing wrong. It also gives us more opportunity to align with management because, being a food manufacturing firm, we were traditionally not IT-centric, but now management realizes that a lot of opportunity to weather the storm is actually coming from different technologies. Thus, the crisis somehow has had a good impact on the IT department because it brought us closer to management.

Tolentino: All IT projects are a go for our company but a few of the areas that may be affected this year are in the acquisition of new technologies. That may slow down this year. We could also possibly delay the purchase of licenses and maybe wait for the best time within the year so we can buy in bulk and take advantage of discounts. On the training side, I know of some companies that have held back on training their IT people but I believe now is the best time to equip your people as IT gains more importance in times like these.

CWP: What technologies do you think will help your company respond to the expected tightening of economic conditions?

Tolentino: I am looking at two areas which I believe will be vital to the business: one is a security and productivity tool and the other is business intelligence. The reason I mentioned security is because our business is built around the formulation of all our products so we have really strengthened our security system and put in place the necessary layers of protection. Business intelligence, meanwhile, will also play an important role in the business because it will help us in the analysis, not only of day-to-day sales and production reports, but also in predicting possible changes in market behavior so we can better address and more quickly adapt to what the consumers want and would want in the future.

Tayamora: We are also looking at a business intelligence system that would allow us to mine all our transactional data. Pepsi offices are geographically spread out so data is also widely spread out and the key is to be able to narrow the gap between information turnaround and decision-making. Security, of course, is an ongoing initiative within Pepsi.

Estaris: I think I’m fortunate to be in a company that has a visionary for a leader. He has made it clear to us what the battle plan is and, simply put, it just means that all the departments have to work harder. Given that, we in IT are focusing our applications development work and even our network operations projects on three key areas: conventional efficiency and empowerment tools for the various departments so that they can operate their lean teams efficiently and cost effectively, and a non-conventional portion where we are focusing on executive decision agility. We need to provide information as quickly and as accurately as possible given that the decision-makers and owners have to react very quickly to whatever is happening in the market.

CWP: In Wilcon, are you looking at any particular technologies that you think will help you respond better to the tightening economic conditions?

Belo: In terms of strategy, I think we more or less still operate the same way regardless of the economic situation in the sense that we do not really overspend on things, even before the crisis. We use open source, for example, because it does not cost much so we channel the money in necessary spending, like, say, in hardware. Another technology that we are looking into is wireless. We are planning to have our sales staff use a wireless PDA (personal digital assistants) probably later this year because, right now, our sales staff takes the order then goes back to the computer. A lot of time is wasted on the side of the customer which also means less sales for our staff. Overall, our strategy in IT is really simple: we just spend on whatever is needed.

Trinidad: We are also looking at open source because it is really cost-efficient. One other technology is Voice over IP (VoIP) to reduce the communication costs between our branches.

Bancod: RCBC, as you know, has been in the market for so long and IT in the bank is really in a mature state already, so we have very few gaps. Our strategy with technology remains the same because we believe that it is not really technology but the business that dictates any changes. So it would really depend on how they would respond to the crisis. Say they see potential in the property sector, then it would be our task to come up with new products and services that could be launched to cater to that particular industry. Other than that, I do not see any major changes in our IT strategies.

CWP: How will this crisis affect, if at all, the IT manpower?

Bancod: My philosophy is the same with both IT manpower or resources—just get the resources that you need and maintain that. I don’t think this crisis has serious implications on IT resources. My view is we have to see the opportunity in this. Getting IT talent has always been a battle. In 2007, we lost all of our talent to a big business process outsourcing firm; I think it’s time that we try to get them back. So these layoffs we have been hearing of may be not be all bad. But, of course, you still have to be prudent so as not to upset your bottom line. Balance your needs based on your plans and match that with the human capital you require.

Estaris: With or without this crisis, the IT department is under constant reevaluation; we need to, at least internally, justify our existence and make our company understand that whatever manpower we have right now is the ideal minimum headcount. So, with this crisis, it is going to be “business as usual.” We will keep producing the applications that the business needs.

Belo: We are opening stores and we, in fact, just hired one more IT person so it is very unlikely that we will reduce our staff because we actually need more.

Trinidad: I think at times like these, the people in other departments should be more afraid about losing their jobs than the IT people because this is when the company really takes a close look at internal improvements and the IT department is usually the enabler of all these improvements because IT is needed now more than ever.

Tayamora: Our philosophy at Pepsi is we just get the resources that we need so our 11-man team does a lot of multitasking. We also outsource most of our processes because it’s working for us, so I don’t believe that we really need a very big team.

Tolentino: As I mentioned earlier, I am even spending more on training now because I believe this is vital to the development of my core team. IT people are a rare breed, you have to challenge them, you have to give them technologies to play with. So one way for me to retain my core team is to train and equip them.

CWP: Are there current IT strategies (either in terms of technology or management) in your company that you think needs rethinking to address any forthcoming downturns?

Estaris: Any good company or any good IT department should constantly reevaluate its strategies; it should change constantly depending on what the market requires. So all our projects are constantly being reevaluated. They always have to be aligned with corporate needs and corporate directions and we have our regular meetings with top management to make sure that what we are doing is right.

Bancod: When you talk about IT strategies and how these are being affected by the current economic situation, I believe there will be no significant changes. It would all still be about your bottom line, generating new revenues, reducing cost, and so on. What I think is unique in this situation and how IT units, particularly in financial services, may be affected, is you would want to anticipate how the regulatory bodies would react to the situation. During the 1997 Asian crisis, a number of reforms, like Basel II, were instituted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and all the banks had to comply. This crisis would institute a new set of reforms that would be triggered globally and the Bangko Sentral would probably adopt and, as a consequence, they would most likely ask all the banks to comply with those. So if there’s an area in IT strategy that may change that would probably depend on how we are going to respond to the reforms that they will institute.

Tayamora: In terms of strategy, we really just align our initiatives with those of management and support which direction they want to go. We’ve been doing a lot of planning and we have been executing projects based on a long-term plan, so every year we just build on what we had accomplished. If the business wants to rethink some strategies because of a new opportunity, then we do what is needed from our end to support that. We are still primarily a manufacturing firm so the IT department is just really there to ensure that business processes go well based on our long-term plans.

Tolentino: We also plan ahead so should there be any rethinking of strategies, this would depend on the company’s priorities, so we would probably be prioritizing less-effort-but-more-impact projects as we constantly strive to achieve cost benefits.

CWP: As the IT head of your respective companies what do you think will 2009 be like?

Tayamora: I don’t know if it’s unique in our industry, but competition is really tight nowadays and, because of that, we have to be really good at what we do. I’m quite fortunate because we have a parent company that directs what strategies to undertake; you can be a maverick at times but there isn’t much room for that nowadays.

Bancod: I guess if you are driving a car and you’ve been driving it for like two years at 60 miles per hour, in 2009 you would probably want to drive at 20 miles per hour. If you are used to checking your map every once in a while, now you may have to check your map more frequently than before. That’s how we look at 2009. We know we need to be more careful and we know we need to be more prudent but, at the same time, we know it is still a very dynamic market and we need to respond to the needs of our market. For IT, I expect 2009 to be a very busy year and, for us, it’s really again an opportunity for the CIO to try to lobby for his internal projects.

Belo: It’s going to be busy, basically because we have been expanding so much. One of my goals is to still have the same amount of people but to have more efficient systems in place. For example in HR, we do not want to increase our HR staff anymore, so we want to automate more processes. We are also putting in place a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system, so we are going to be very busy making everything more efficient.

Estaris: In the IT department, we really just purchase what we need and always prioritize projects based on need. We do have to manage the expectations of other departments because they tend to keep on demanding stuff, say faster connections or faster generation of reports, etc. But this year, since we need to prioritize things, we probably would not be able to deliver all their wishes all at the same time.

Trinidad: During these tough times, it’s really up to us in IT to try to make all these processes more efficient so, this year, we are really expected to do more. This year would be a very busy and challenging year for us because we have to reinvent ourselves and raise the bar to be able to do more for the business.

CWP: Finally, how can IT vendors help your departments as well as your company as a whole hurdle the challenges that lie ahead?

Tayamora: Probably to be a bit more understanding because companies would definitely stretch their budgets now, and service quality should always be there. We don’t hook up with a lot of vendors; our philosophy is basically to establish long-term partnerships. So basically what we would want from vendors is for them to be more understanding, maintain service quality and also to have better control over their resellers.

Tolentino: On my part, it’s really my philosophy to not talk to sales people. I always ask to talk to the sales engineer who really knows the product because a sales person will sell you anything even when you do not need it and will tell you that something’s possible even when it’s not. My advice to principals, as well, is to not have too many resellers but focus on having a few reputable and reliable ones.

Bancod: I think because of the current environment what makes you re-think the way you deal with vendors is the support that you are getting from them, in other words, support capability. I think one new thing in this area, in response to the crisis, is somehow you now tend to be more comfortable with local partners because they are not that affected and you have to review the support capability of some multinational vendors. That, I believe, is one consequence of this crisis but, other than that, the way we deal with them will remain the same.

Belo: I always like to work directly with the principals because I have had bad experiences with sales people selling me products just for the sake of selling, even when you do not need the product. So what I do is, for example I want to buy a product from Microsoft, I talk directly to Microsoft and tell them what I want. I give them the specs and I ask them to recommend resellers, then I tell them “Okay, you can tell your reseller that I am interested.” I like how that is done because, if I go straight to the reseller, they will just call and call and, eventually, I will discover that I do not really need what they are selling, so that’s how we do things now.

Estaris: I think the struggle for us, rather than pricing or anything else, is that it’s very rare to find a vendor who really takes the time to understand your issues. Most of the time, they are trying to form-fit your issues according to their product and I don’t appreciate that. So my tip for vendors is try to understand the problem: what issues are keeping us awake and tell us how you are going to address those.

Trinidad: I guess, in general, vendors should really take a look from the point of view of the buyer. What we want is value for our money so, of course, price is an issue and good service should always be there. Also, they should provide real solutions and not just sell products. To do that, they should really assess what the client needs.

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By Paul Krill
InfoWorld (US

SAN FRANCISCO- Red Hat’s CEO, in a blog post on Monday, is endorsing the Obama Administration’s call for openness and participation in government by likening the President’s statement to the open source software movement.

Linking to a White House statement in which President Obama calls for transparency, participation, and collaboration in government, Red Hat president/CEO Jim Whitehurst said open source provides an answer to calls for transparency and participation.

“Red Hat is excited that the Obama administration recognizes the value of open source beyond software. Open source principles are changing how we learn, how we share information, how developers create, and how companies do business. Now it has the opportunity to change our government,” Whitehurst said.

“Open source can provide an effective way for government to cut costs and ensure open access to information,” Whitehurst said. “Lowering the costs of infrastructure will help provide resources for our government to focus on finding solutions to the challenges that lie ahead.”

[ See also: "Red Hat CEO questions desktop's relevance in Linux debate." ]

Linux and open source have brought choice and savings in the private sector, and some governments have adopted open source as an alternative to “expensive, proprietary technology,” said Whitehurst.

“Open source has already saved the federal government a substantial amount of money and can provide an opportunity to save millions more,” said Whitehurst, who also endorsed Open Document Format.

“We believe that the Obama Administration has an unprecedented opportunity to use open source to spark innovation and positive change. It won’t happen overnight, but all levels of government can make it happen if they work collaboratively and follow Obama’s rallying cry, ‘Yes, we can,’ ” Whitehurst said.

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By Leo King
Computerworld UK

LONDON - Some 46% of businesses have implemented open source software, or plan to pilot it this year, according to a Forrester Research survey of 2,200 IT executives in the UK, France, Germany, the US and Canada.

France and Germany lead the open source adoption, with 58% and 49% respectively, having implemented or planning to implement the software, Forrester stated in the ‘Open source software goes mainstream’ report. The UK is slightly behind this average, at 40 percent.

The main motivation to move to open source is cost savings, with 56% of respondents citing this. The “cost cutting crisis” during the recession should be seen as an opportunity to move to open source, the analyst house said.

And the planned implementation or expansion of open source software in businesses is higher than that of any other technology, including business process management, application lifecycle management and enterprise service buses.

According to Jeffrey S Hammond, principal analyst at Forrester, open source software is the “primary enabler of [open source] tech populism”. As more companies use open source, more levels in the IT department will gain a “proactive handle” on managing the technology, it said.

“Banning OSS will become an increasingly untenable option,” Hammond wrote. “The net result will reset pricing expectations in development shops and tilt technology selection away from single vendor stacks toward best-of-breed solutions at commodity prices - especially at the lowest levels of the application platform stack.”

In spite of this, businesses need to beware of “uncontrolled tactical use” of open source, and instead develop “sound OSS adoption policies”, Hammond said. A third of firms said they still have no formal open source policy.

Those working in firms that have not yet adopted open source should argue for it on the basis of the current economic climate, he said.

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By John E. Dunn
Techworld.com
April 15, 2009

LONDON- Small businesses uptake of cloud computing is heading for a mini-boom, UK online services vendor Gooroo has claimed, after carrying out its own survey of the sector.

The company found that 54 percent of those surveyed said they’d be using cloud services for key functions by 2010, 31 percent of whom described their plans as “firm”.

The fly in the ointment was that the sample size was very small - only 30 SME-level directors - and there is also the possibility that the survey was self-selecting because it was carried out using a survey of companies already interested in Gooroo’s services , but the detail offers interesting detail on motivation.

Around 65 percent of respondents said their primary motivation for investing in the cloud was to reduce IT costs, ahead of improved efficiency (50 percent), greater flexibility (50 percent), ease of setup (46 percent), and the ability to access business applications from any location (42 percent).

Important cloud apps for the sector were, predictably, accounts, (50 percent), e-commerce management (25 percent), enterprise resource planning (ERP, 21 percent), and customer relation management (CRM, 18 percent).

Another response suggested that the cost of conventional software licensing might be weighing on director’s minds - a total of 61 percent had postponed or were going to postpone software spending.

“The finding that surprised us was many SMEs were not just planning to use cloud applications to get new functionality: in many cases they wanted to replace software they already had; 90 percent of respondents said they already used an accounts package, yet this was top of the list of desirable cloud software,” commented Gooroo’s general manager, Dean Miles.

Drawing firm conclusions from a small survey carried out by a vendor with a vested interest in talking up the technology is treacherous. But it does suggest that the one sector for whom cloud computing could offer a technology boost for relatively little downside could be SMEs with under 50 employees, a segment not yet well served.

Surprisingly, the one application area not mentioned in the survey was security. Perhaps not coincidentally, Gooroo’s app focus is subscription access to ERP, accounting, and CRM.
Home

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By Thomas Wailgum CIO.com

FRAMINGHAM- For [small and midsize businesses, ERP implementations can be dicey endeavors. ERP rollouts involve not only huge capital outlays, but also long implementation times, significant IT resources and intense cultural change. These factors can be especially daunting to a small but growing business attempting to move off of familiar QuickBooks or Excel spreadsheets.

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The average SMB ERP implementation takes 10 months, though the installation work continues long after the go-live date hits, according to recent Aberdeen Group survey data of 920 SMBs. The financial costs can be just as significant: SMBs with less than $50 million in annual revenue will typically pay nearly $300,000 for ERP software and services, while larger businesses (revenues between $100 million to $250 million) will spend $1.4 million, the survey data states.

“Given this level of investment, one would think ROI would be top of mind for most companies,” writes Cindy Jutras, VP and research fellow at Aberdeen in a March 2009 report, “Measuring the ROI of ERP in SMB” (registration required).

But it’s not. The data shows that 52 percent of respondents “sometimes” or “never” estimate ROI in order to cost-justify an ERP project (48 percent “always” do it). And post-rollout, 75 percent “sometimes” or “never” measure ROI after the completion of ERP projects (just 25 percent do this “always”).

In other words, many SMBs feel “compelled to make this investment,” Jutras writes, “simply because they view ERP as a necessary infrastructure to support the business.”

Of course, Jutras’s point is that determining ROI pre- and post-rollout is key to achieving success with ERP projects, especially with resource-challenged SMBs in these tough times.

“A well-managed ERP implementation can be a continuing source of cost savings and operational improvements which help companies survive and thrive in these troubled economic times,” she states. “The strategic goals of standardizing and accelerating business processes and providing improved visibility are essential to improving business execution, which in turn supports the organizational goals of revenue and profit growth.”

During the last decade or so, enterprise software vendors and their customers have paid particular attention to cutting the total cost of ownership (TCO) of ERP applications. However, “focusing exclusively on TCO is no longer enough,” Jutras contends. “The focal point must now expand to include ROI of ERP projects in order to justify continued investment and maximize business benefits.” (For more on enterprise software, see the Enterprise Software Unplugged blog.)

The horrendous economic conditions that SMBs now face have pushed “reducing costs” to the top of the ERP strategies to-do list, according to the Aberdeen survey data. The mantra “must reduce costs” has displaced “growth expectations” and “customer service” as the leading ERP business drivers.

Jutras contends, however, that cutting ERP investment simply isn’t the right strategy right now.

“With the downturn in the economy, a knee-jerk reaction may be to stop any discretionary spending on ERP projects just when their cost-saving, operation-improving potential is needed the most,” she writes. “Given the current economic uncertainty, it is now more critical than ever to keep these projects alive.”

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By Tom S. Noda
Published in the March 2009 print edition of Computerworld Philippines

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Anyone can be a follower but not everyone can be a leader. And Victoria “Vicky” Agorrilla believes if you want to become a leader, you have to start acting like one and prove yourself.

“If you want to scale the corporate ladder, you have to prove your worth by being a good role model,” says Agorrilla, who currently serves as country general manager (CGM) of Lenovo Philippines.

Yet Agorrilla cautions in conditioning oneself in taking the leadership role. “You may start thinking and acting like a leader from the early stages of your career but should be careful not to give the wrong impression of being arrogant.”

An IT veteran for two decades, Agorrilla has been Lenovo’s CGM for almost four years now. She was even elected recently as president of the Information & Technology Association of the Philippines (ITAP) for 2009. She is also a member of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) since 2007.

Agorrilla notes “focus, good communications skills, and relationship building” are some of the elements for a successful professional career.

She says focus applies very much for sales people. She advises them not to spend too much time celebrating a successful deal since tomorrow is a new battle. “You can definitely have your 15 minutes of fame but every minute counts and someone is always waiting to outdo you.”

Agorrilla explains it is important to have good relationships with stakeholders, which includes business partners, customers and internal employees. “It is essential that we act in a professional manner. There should be a mutual understanding and respect for one another and in all circumstances.”

Having spent many years working with leading multinational IT companies, Agorrilla has equipped herself with a vast knowledge of the Philippine PC industry.

The executive shares “good education, experience and relationships” are the factors that contributed to her success.

“I’ve been through good times and bad times. And as the saying goes: ‘tough times never last but tough people do.’ And I am still here,” she quips.

Agorrilla adds good relationships are keys in any business and this applies especially if one’s job requires a fair amount of selling.

“Sometimes it is who you know that would help you seal that important deal,” she says. “If you’re an IT person looking to make a purchase, instead of approaching someone you’re not familiar with, it is only natural that you would go to someone you have dealt with before—be it your existing supplier, through referrals or even word of mouth.”

A graduate of prestigious schools in the country, Agorrilla toiled her way in finishing her studies at the St. Paul College of Manila and De La Salle University, along with some financial help from friends. She holds a degree on Industrial Communication and Public Relations as well as Bachelor of Arts in Economics, respectively.

Yet she says most of what she learned and applied in her career came from on-the-job trainings she received. “They provided very valuable lessons that I treasure.”

Prior to joining Lenovo, Agorrilla was with IBM PC Division as channel manager for distribution. She also served as PC business manager of Digital Equipment. She also worked with Compaq Corporation in various senior positions as dealer sales manager in ASEAN, Philippine country manager for Consumer Business, and Philippine country manager for Access Business Group. Agorilla also did a stint with HP Philippines as country channels manager.

“I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to work in a number of fantastic IT companies, allowing me to accumulate solid experience in the IT sector,” Agorrilla says.

Prior to her experience in the IT industry, Agorrilla spent five years working in a non-IT environment in the field of insurance and advertising sectors. She says the experience gave her the foundation for working in a corporate environment as she held roles ranging from personnel and HR (human resources), to treasury and marketing, and also insurance sales.

Tidbits:
Hobbies and interests:
“Music. I want to be a theatre actress or sing in the opera. In fact, I have considered volunteering to put up performances for a good cause such as providing entertainment for the less fortunate especially the aged people.”

Role Model:
“I admire philanthropists and the commitment and passion they put in their work. I hope to be able to do my part and help the poor and in the process get an opportunity to enrich my life as well.”

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By Tom S. Noda
Published in the February 2009 print edition of Computerworld Philippines

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Health care, nationalism, information technology. Put them all together and you get one heroic individual. And this is what Dr. Hypte “HR” Aujero, MD, turned out to be.

Only 29 years old, Dr. Aujero serves as assistant program manager of the National Telehealth Center (NThC), the premier center in the field of ICT applications for health in the Philippines.

Dr. Aujero says he found his niche in Philippine society by being a doctor involved in telehealth or E-Health—the practice of applying ICT for healthcare delivery and education for the underserved. It is an alternative means of delivering health services.

“At NThC, we use ICT to provide and support health care when distance separates the doctors from their patients,” Dr. Aujero says, referring to NThC’s three main arms such as E-Medicine, E-Learning and E-Records.

A distance doctor, Dr. Aujero uses whatever available ICT infrastructure to serve patients in different places all at the same time. For instance, he uses the Internet, a cell phone network, two-way radio, and other technologies, making obsolete, somehow, the “Doctor is Out” signage.

Pledging loyalty to his motherland, Dr. Aurejo was only 11 years old when he promised he’d never leave the Philippines. And the commitment still holds, he claims, finding sense and fulfillment in telehealth.

“Call me corny or mushy, but I do this because I love our country. And I want to be part of her when she rises again,” Dr. Aujero says.

Dr. Aujero explains telehealth’s logic rests in the fact that many health care professionals may not be able to reach all corners of the country. But technology as common as the cellular phone can be used almost anywhere as a tool for health care delivery.

“With the emigration of our talented health care providers and other professionals abroad, it is the public, especially those in remote and isolated areas who are greatly affected,” he says. “One thing that can complement the existing health system is telehealth community service.”

And despite the many greater opportunities abroad, Dr. Aujero confirms that his promise not to leave the Philippines doesn’t fade.

“I will do whatever small part I can in nation-building. I’d rather be part of the ones plugging the holes than the ones jumping ship,” Dr. Aujero says.

Earning a Doctor in Medicine degree at the University of the Philippines in 2006, Dr. Aujero joined NThC and became a project coordinator for the Buddyworks, an E-Gov funded project aimed at establishing a telehealth system with 10 sites in four provinces (Cagayan Valley, Capiz, Leyte, and Lanao del Norte) allowing doctors there to consult with specialists in UP-PGH using the Internet. From then on, he was assigned in different remote areas in the Philippines to do telehealth. Some of these places are Negros and the Batanes Islands, two isolated places lacking specialists and are very suitable for telemedicine.

Dr. Aujero shares he still pursues other advancements in the field of health science such as surgery and dreams someday of establishing a biotechnology firm or a telehealth-related company.

Tidbits
Age: 29

Civil Status: Single

Favorite Technology: Ever since I was in the Boy Scouts, my favorite invention of man is the knife. But on a more hi-tech view, it would have to be the Internet, mobile applications/devices and the digital camera.

Philosophy in a nutshell: Carpe Diem! (Seize the day!) and hope for the best but expect the worst.

Hobbies and Interests: Reading, traveling, swimming, skin and scuba diving, health care.

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By Jenalyn Rubio Comouterworld Philippines

“As ICT becomes the backbone of businesses, CIOs are also becoming increasingly essential and integral members of senior management teams,” Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) chairman Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua says during his keynote speech as he opened the Computerworld Philippines CIO Forum yearend event and Christmas reception.

Sharing the results of a 2008 global survey of CIOs conducted by the Center for CIO Leadership, which aimed to determine how CIOs assessed themselves based on four competencies, namely: leadership, business strategy and process, innovation and growth, and organization and talent management, the CICT chairman said survey responses revealed that CIOs are “ready and confident to assume leadership roles, and are being integrated in the decision-making process.”

“A CIO is basically the chief architect of ICT strategies among businesses and institutions, and has the potential to lead the transformation of these organizations They are also emerging as leaders of innovation with their knowledge of technology and how it can create new business opportunities,” adds Roxas-Chua.

Although there is no clearly-defined CIO position in the government, Roxas-Chua says the CICT acknowledges the importance of having a CIO in every organization, this is why one of the provisions in the DICT Bill, should it finally be approved by the Senate, is to strengthen the CIO Forum as the official CIO Council for government so that cohesive IT initiatives could effectively be pushed across the government.

According to the Secretary, the CICT also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chief Information Officers Forum Inc. (CIOF) for joint cooperation and coordination of ICT activities within the public and private sectors. The CIOF is an organization comprised of CIOs from different government departments and agencies.

“The MOU signifies a commitment toward closer collaboration and, in part, it defines and strengthens the role of the CIO in planning, reviewing, coordinating, and implementing government agencies’ ICT agenda.”

This MOU, likewise, affirms the commission’s commitment to continuous collaboration on national ICT priorities, mandating the review of the Government Information Systems Plan and the government agencies’ Information Systems Strategic Plans; the development and strengthening of ICT competencies of government CIOs; and the establishment of policy and technical committees on ICT procurement, e-governance, and interoperability between public and private sector ICT systems, says the CICT chair.

“It is very clear that the role of the CIO, both in the public and private sector, will continue to grow in importance. As the global economy relies more on the innovative use of technology, it is imperative that the CIO professional be able to take the lead in leveraging ICT to attain the goals of businesses and organizations,” adds Roxas-Chua.

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A gathering of all CIOs and IT executives who have shared their time and expertise with Computerworld Philippines’ various events and monthly print issues throughout 2008, the CIO Forum year-end event was highlighted by a panel discussion on “Bridging the Digital Divide: The CIO from the CEO’s Perspective,” where three chief executives shared their views about the role of the CIO today.

“I want my CIO to be a leader, to be able to anticipate what I want and what the company needs,” says Alberto Lina, chairman of the Lina Group of Companies. Believing the CIO of today is just a heartbeat away from becoming the CEOs of tomorrow, Lina advises guest CIOs present at the event to take advantage of the information that they have right at their fingerprints and to harness this to enable them to play a more strategic role in the organization; so strategic, in fact, that they may even end up knowing more about the company than their CEOs, Lina says.

Asked what would be the criteria in choosing “the perfect CIO,” Edwin Domingo, head of marketing and business development at Eastern Telecommunications Philippines Inc., says there is actually no perfect CIO. Domingo was presenting on behalf of his boss, Mario Locsin, president & COO of ETPI. “There really is neither a perfect CIO nor CEO, it’s actually not about each individual but how these individuals work as a team.” According to Domingo, the CIO, aside from being technically competent, should, above all, function as a team player and have the attitude of a businessman.

Meanwhile, George Tan, president and CEO of Digital Paradise Inc., agrees and says that CEOs are really always looking at value for money in the business and the CIO should be able to do his job as a business partner and also help in developing the right culture for the company.

“The CIO should know how to align IT with the overall strategies of the company. CEOs still look for technical skills but they want business skills combined with that, so being well-rounded is very important,” says CICT Chairman Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua.
For CIOs aspiring to be CEOs someday, Domingo has this advice: “You have to be able to communicate to the CEO. You must have the CEO attitude, understand the business in the same level that he does and apply your CIO skills to be able to improve on it.”

Roxas-Chua’s Tips:
- Be part of the overall strategic plan of the company.
- Well-rounded personality. Those who do not think just one way. Even though we still need the technical skills we also want the well roundedness combined with business skills.

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By Melba-Jean V. Bernad
Published in the December 2008-January 2009 print edition of Computerworld

SINGAPORE—Chief executive officers (CEOs) worldwide are expecting significant changes in the months to come but feel that the ability to manage change—an opportunity for chief information officers (CIOs) to be the “catalysts for change” in their organizations—has not grown at the same pace.

However, change is just one challenge CIOs are faced with. In a Global CEO Study conducted by IBM Corp. this year, the collective insights of over 1,000 CEOs representing 32 industries have been collated into five core traits of what IBM dubs as the Enterprise of the Future.

The traits are:
1. Hungry for change. “The next four to five years is going to be very tough, thus, CEOs are expecting faster, broader more uncertain change in their companies,” says Colin Powell, IBM Asia Pacific consulting services leader. “The world is shrinking, creating the need for speed and change.”

2. Innovative beyond customer imagination. Powell says CEOs now recognize that customers are more informed and intelligent, thus, they want their organizations to be effective at engaging the new and changing customer. “CEOs want to satisfy the information omnivore,” he points out.

3. Globally integrated. Jeanine Cotter, vice president for systems services of the IBM Global Technology Services group, says CEOs are moving aggressively toward global business designs, deeply changing their capabilities, partnering more extensively and using mergers and acquisitions to grow.

4. Disruptive by nature. “CEOs don’t want to stay in their comfort zone. They want a disruptive business model that is adaptable to different ways in doing things,” says Powell.

5. Genuine, not just generous. Explaining the fifth trait, Cotter says responding to customer expectations of corporate social responsibility is an opportunity for CEOs to differentiate themselves from the rest. Cotter says CSRs include manufacturing products with right governance, such as “going green” and making sure product components are safe. “CEOs see CSR as an engine for growth, thus, they want to include it in their values and business strategy,” she notes.

With the identification of these five core traits, Cotter says CIOs are expected to play two key roles in the transformation of the enterprise to that of the future. The roles are as catalyst for change across the enterprise as the service provider and ally of the CEO, and as leader of the transformation of the IT organization into a model of the enterprise of the future.

“The CIOs direction is needed to deliver results in each area of the enterprise of the future vision,” says Cotter. To enable change, she says CIOs must apply unique IT applications and mitigate risks associated with new opportunities.

Explaining how CIOs can “innovate beyond customer innovation,” Cotter says CIOs must turn information into business insight. “They need to empower customers by giving them secure access to relevant information,” she adds.

Meanwhile, to allow the enterprise to be globally integrated, CIOs are advised to remove operational, technological, and cultural barriers.

“Build on common standards and shared services,” suggests Cotter. “Create a collaborative working environment.”

To enable a disruptive business model, Cotter says CIOs need to remove obstacles to business model changes and facilitate rapid integration of acquisitions and mergers.

Lastly, to support the CEOs vision of a “genuine, not just generous enterprise,” CEOs need to initiate green computing campaigns, reduce the environmental impacts of their technology infrastructure, and enhance workforce mobility alternatives.

IBM Services
To help CIOs respond to budget pressures and build the organization as an “enterprise of the future,” IBM’s Global Technology Service (GTS) group aims to help improve the ROI of IT initiatives by cutting operational costs; leveraging existing infrastructure; increasing productivity of a lean IT staff; and helping with financing.

“ÏBM can help companies cut costs while maintaining or improving IT performance,” says Ruth Seah, Asia Pacific director for infrastructure services at IBM GTS. Seah adds that IBM can conduct an assessment to identify costs savings, simplify and consolidate computing and networking, and virtualize IT to reduce costs and enhance performance.

According to Seah, IBM can help defer capital expenditures by helping companies get more from their existing infrastructure. Strategies include network optimization, server virtualization services, and storage optimization. To reduce downtime and breaches, IBM’s solutions include information protection services and Internet security systems.

“We can help companies improve productivity and take pressure off their staff by managing some, or all, of their IT environment for them,” says Seah.

Catalyst for Change
The Enterprise of the Future provides CIOs an ideal opportunity to be the “catalysts for change” in their organizations. Specifically, it can allow them to:

• Identify and leverage cross-enterprise synergies
• Lend an unbiased, informed voice to the company’s strategic direction
• Increase the flow of knowledge
• Establish enterpise-wide standards
• Weave collaboration into the fabric of the organization
• Develop a corporate risk strategy

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By Patrick Thibodeau
Computerworld (US)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sun Microsystems Inc. Chairman Scott McNealy wants President Barack Obama’s administration do what the United Kingdom, Denmark and other countries have done: Encourage, as a matter of policy, open-source software adoption.

Although open-source platforms are widely used today in the federal government — particularly Linux and Sun’s own products, Solaris and Java — McNealy believes many government officials don’t understand it, fear it and even oppose it for ideological reasons.

McNealy cited an open-source development project Sun worked on with Health and Human Services Department, during which a federal official said “that open source was anti-capitalist.” That sentiment, McNealy fears, is not unusual or isolated.

“If you think about it, proprietary software is the software equivalent of a planned economy led by a dictators, whereas open source is all about choice, the market economy and multiple competitive players,” said McNealy.

That’s the message McNealy and Bill Vass, the president and chief operating officer of Sun’s federal division, are now delivering. They have already met with Obama Administration officials to offer a paper on open source that has since grown into a discussion about the merits of having a federal CIO. The new administration has plans to appoint a chief technology officer, but not a CIO.

“There is not a corporation, a Fortune 1000 company, around that doesn’t have a CIO,” said McNealy. “Yet, the federal government dwarfs all those organizations and they really have an empowered, cabinet kind of position.”

The Obama administration has not yet spelled out its federal technology plan nor has it appointed all the key people it needs to run it. Meanwhile, outside observers are trying to glean broad policy directions from tactical moves, such as the use of the open-source content management system Drupal for the Recovery.org Web site.

The Fiscal Year 2010 budget released Thursday reaffirms plans to appoint “the nation’s first [CTO] to ensure that our Government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st Century. The CTO will work with each of the federal agencies to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.”

That’s little different from what the president said during the 2008 campaign, and it doesn’t provide specifics about what those best practices may be. But the Obama Administration has been soliciting advice — and McNealy’s arguments may be particularly well timed.

The open-source push is growing. Just this week, the U.K.’s Chief Information Council updated its policy on open-source software. That government has long encouraged its use, and noted that during the last five years “many government departments have shown that open source can be the best for the taxpayer.” The policy also said government agencies need to speed up open-source adoption and look to re-use software when possible.

One advocate of open source is Rick Dietz, director of IT for Bloomington, Ind. On its Web site, the city spells out its views clearly. “The city is committed to using and creating open-source software whenever possible.”

Dietz sees limits, however, particularly for specialized applications where open-source alternatives don’t exist. But he believes the Obama Administration could play a big role by encouraging its use.

“It would be an interesting project to look at what are the software needs across these government entities and then work on some uniformed, collaborative solutions,” said Dietz, ” so that governments aren’t spending tens of thousands of dollars to support a myriad of systems, all of which are essentially doing the same thing.”

The U.K. government’s position may grow more appealing to the U.S., especially as the deficit soars.

According to Vass, open source has won adoption among U.S. intelligence agencies because they believe it is inherently more secure in the development process. Even so, he said, one of the arguments used by other federal agencies in rejecting it concerns security issues.

Said McNealy: “You would be astounded to know how many people are scared to death (of open source) or have mandated out open source.”

And McNealy believes a federal CIO, with budget power similar to a corporate CIO, will be needed to bring about the changes needed to move toward software built on collaboration and re-use.

A long list of vendors have argued for open source, and the likely counter-attack by proprietary vendors was summed up last week in a study about how virtualization, cloud computing and open source could save governments big money. In response, Susie Adams, the CTO of Microsoft Federal, said that open source is “just another business model.”

But it is a business model that has won specific endorsements from other nations and places such as Bloomington, and it’s a business model McNealy intends to keep pushing at the Obama Administration.

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By AvantiKumar
Computerworld Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR- Malaysian broadband provider JARING Communications has launched new high-speed broadband packages to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) reduce IT costs during the economic slowdown.

JARING Communications chief executive officer Dr Mohamed bin Awang Lah said that JARING Biz-on-Net is available in three packages. “JARING Flite SME Gold, Silver and Bronze–tailored to meet the needs of different sizes of SMEs. These bundles range from broadband, web hosting, easy-to-use website builder, website visitor analyser, SME map locator to Internet telephony and e-mail services.”

“Our easy-to-use Website Builder provides tool for SMEs to build online applications e.g. automate common office procedures or deal business online and generate company’s multi-channel marketing and sales drives through e-commerce,” said Dr Mohamed. “The website visitor analyser helps SMEs in tracking and analysing the behaviours of visitors to their website which will be the basis for SMEs to determine the effectiveness of their website and the key to success in everything from sales and marketing to Customer Relationship Management.”

Focus on short-term business value

“Every business is challenged to focus on short-term business value while preserving a coherent IT architecture,” added Dr Mohamed. “Recognising this need, All-new JARING Biz-on-Net, is designed to ease upgrades and help customers reduce operational costs through total internet solution package that rides on reliable high-speed broadband connection.”

“Newly set-up SMEs can save as much as RM6,717.00 (US$1,831) in their first year of operation and focus more on their core business, increase productivity, enhance efficiency and effectiveness and improve their customer service rather than worrying about the upfront cost of acquiring products individually,” he said. “The bundles, which come in three packages, offer the same services at different levels of speed and capacities, depending on the size, scope, and general requirements of the client.”

“For SMEs, it is important to have a technology partner that is reliable and deploys the best solutions to help grow their businesses and be competitive. This is why JARING has included another unique feature in this bundle, known as SME Map Locator, an official business directory of the SMI (Small and Medium Industry) Association of Malaysia. The web allows quick identification by customers and partners and is able to link SMI/SMEs nationwide.”

“On top of that, subject to approval, newly start-up SMEs can take advantage of the Broadband Grant which is given in the form of a matching grant where 50 per cent of the approved project cost is borne by SMIDEC in the first year of operation,” he said. “The new JARING Biz-On-Net is available starting from a monthly cost of RM899 (US$245) for the Bronze package.”

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By Jenalyn Rubio
Published in the February 2009 print edition of Computerworld Philippines

---

When Ricky Banaag got his first glimpses of the first “personal computers,” little did he know that it would signal the beginning of a promising journey in the world of IT.

Banaag’s interest in IT goes back to his college days and his fascination over what was the “then-leading technology” TRS-80s from Radio Shack. “I recall how impressed we were that such computing technology was possible on a machine sitting at the desks of our professors at the college of Engineering at UP. At that time, computers were gigantic machines housed in a building which needed punch cards as input devices. Seeing the first ‘personal computers’ left me in awe,” shares Banaag.

Now country manager of Intel Microelectronics Philippines Inc., Banaag shares his IT career began when a college friend of his encouraged him to apply at IBM Philippines; he never left the IT industry since then.

Throughout his entire working life, Banaag says he has only worked for IBM Philippines and Intel. He held several positions and worked his way up the corporate ladder during his 14- year career at IBM. He was country manager of the IBM PC Company before joining Intel.

Having been with Intel for 11 years now, Banaag shares the thought of being in another industry “never really crossed” his mind. The veteran further says that he gets “extreme pleasure and fulfillment” from seeing how technologies from Intel have managed to change people’s lives for the better. He acknowledges, however, that his job is not always easy; one challenging part of which is finding ways to increase the adoption of technology in the country, which includes communicating the benefits that new technology brings to all PC users and increasing awareness and usage of emerging models.

Asked what he regards as his biggest achievement over his tenure at Intel, Banaag cites, “being able to play a major role in the increase of PC adoption by making it more available, accessible and affordable. Just knowing that the number of PCs is growing double-digit every year for the last couple of years is also an achievement.”

While such major achievements continue to fuel his love for IT and the industry, Banaag attributes his successful career to his family, who constantly “provides encouragement and inspiration” and helps him maintain a healthy work-life balance. The official says he also finds inspiration from the sheer pace of technology innovations that Intel continues to deliver.

“Being in a state of ‘constant learning’ also keeps me on my toes. I would love to see the day that every home in the country has a PC,” Banaag says.

TIDBITS:
Favorite technology: Anything that is Intel-based

Favorite non-work pastime: Listening to CDs and vinyl records

Philosophy in a nutshell: There are 3 types of people in this world. Those who watch things happen, those who make things happen, and those who ask “what happened?” Never be the third one.

Something people don’t know about you: I, together with some friends, own a French Bistro called La Regalade

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By Melba-Jean V. Bernad
Computerworld Philippines

With the global recession hanging over economies in Asia, IDC expects overall IT services growth in the region to slow down, forcing organizations to move back to basics with an increased focus on cost management and less so on business transformation projects.

In its annual Top 10 Predictions of the IT services market in Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), IDC also predicts that the economic slowdown will sustain demand for outsourcing services. The research firm believes that outsourcing and managed services will be more resilient to any curtailment in ICT spending than adjacent ICT areas since they tend to be longer term in nature and are largely driven by cost savings.

IDC also predicts that energy consumption and space constraints will continue to drive investments in transforming the data center, with virtualization and consolidation of the server environment being the initial focus. Despite vendors’ attempts to brand these initiatives under the banner of ‘Green IT,’ the underlying objective for most organizations is around infrastructure optimization to reduce electricity costs—not just environmental sustainability.

Other predictions of IDC include: the resurrection of SaaS and the increasing adoption of Platform-as-a-Service (Paas); remote infrastructure management; increased competition in the hosting and managed services space; and innovative and creative business models to reduce operations expenditure and to ensure that vendors are more accountable for the business outcomes of an engagement.

SMB War
Meanwhile, IDC expects the “war” for the SMB market to continue in 2009. This sector is expected to adopt the the PaaS models of delivering services via “the Cloud” in an attempt to drive down costs in the current economic environment. In addition, vendors are also moving towards standardizing their support service offerings, which will become even more appealing to the SMB market as they are price sensitive and looking for quick and expedient ways to scale up their business. IDC believes that vendors that are able to offer remote, host-based, automated delivery of services will gain favorable traction in this market segment.

“The impact of the global economic crisis on the services market has to be viewed from a number of perspectives and these are changing constantly,” said Philip Carter, associate research director, IDC Asia/Pacific Services research. “The recent Satyam saga is a very good example. The implication in terms of IT governance for clients dealing with services vendors, the offshore players in particular highlights how clients have to maintain a constant balance between cost and value.”

As a result of the current global economic crisis and its impact on the region, IDC has lowered its growth rate forecast for the APEJ IT services market for 2009 to a ‘post-crisis’ forecast of 9.6% from the previous forecast of 11.2%. This revised forecast implies a downside of US$6.5 billion for the IT services market between 2008 and 2012 in APEJ, of which, approximately $2 billion is expected in 2008 and 2009 alone (using a 2007 constant currencies exchange rate). Despite this, the APEJ IT services market is still expected to grow to $49.4 billion in 2009, driven primarily by continued demand for managed services and outsourcing, as cost management becomes a key focus for organizations in the region.

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By Computerworld UK staff
Computerworld UK

LONDON - Enterprises are increasingly looking at open source for critical enterprise date integration projects, according to a global survey of more than 1,000 respondents.

The survey, conducted by open source data integration provider Talend, said organisations trying to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for data integration software, were considering OSS.

This was not just for one-time projects, but also “for on-going mission-critical processes, to replace or complement their expensive CPU-dependent solutions,” Talend claimed.

The survey found 31.2 percent of respondents use open source tools in combination with commercial applications for data integration. Talend said: “In fact, open source solutions are often complementary to an existing proprietary solution that, for functional or cost reasons, is unable to address a specific need.”

The key drivers for using open source tools were ease of use (59%), performance (53.9%), and no vendor lock-in (42.5%), followed by licensing costs with only 42.1% respondents.

Yves de Montcheuil, vice president of marketing at Talend, said OSS’s cost argument is compelling for IT managers: “Open source solutions are continually evolving to meet market requirements. The TCO is significantly better than proprietary solutions and users confirm the ease of use and performance of these products.”

Montcheuil added that IT departments do not have to justify “significant up-front fees, a key consideration in today’s economic climate.”

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By Zafar Anjum
Computerworld Singapore

SINGAPORE - Consultancy firm IDC said that it expects the APEJ telecom services market to reach US$253 billion in 2009, representing a growth rate of 8.9 per cent.

Spending in enterprise networks is forecast to grow by nine per cent in 2009 reaching US$10.3 billion, it said. Growth will be driven by continued spending in datacenter networks and migration to an all IP platform. Carrier equipment market will grow moderately at 3.9 per cent with the total market reaching US$52.7 billion.

“The long term economic prospects in the region remains very promising, as such, we do not expect carriers and enterprises to hunker down and turn off the investment switch,” says Adrian Ho, research manager for IDC’s Asia Pacific Managed Services and Enterprise Network Group. “In such economic times, we expect carriers to continue to invest in next generation mobile and IP infrastructure and enterprises to focus on technologies that will allow them to drive IT and cost efficiency, from collaboration tools, software as a service, to data centre networking technologies.”

Top 10 key predictions

IDC made the following top 10 key predictions that will shape the telecommunication industry in APEJ in 2009.

1. Rethinking operator strategies in the downturn and planning for the upswing: In a recession, IDC expects consumers to be more careful about signing up for new services and SME and large enterprises will curtail spending growth in new telecom bandwidth and networking infrastructure. In a severe recession, markets will be characterised by significant job losses and bankruptcies among SMEs and enterprises. This will result in contraction in both telecom bandwidth and networking spending with carriers delaying roll out of new emerging technologies because of delays in adoption by weary consumers.

2. Virtual collaboration rises to the occasion in 2009: Results from IDC’s Unified Communications & Enterprise x.0 survey in 2008 shows that the need for collaboration is indeed the most compelling driver for adopting unified communications by enterprises in APEJ.

3. It’s all about virtualisation and optimisation in the next-generation enterprise data centre: IDC believes that organisations familiar with server and storage virtualisations will start to turn to the networks for further cost savings. Network will be the next frontier in data centre virtualisation.

4. Responding to network congestion: Femtocells the saving grace for incumbent operators: For operators that have licenses to provide both fixed and mobile services, as well as the necessary capital to fund upgrades of their networks, IDC believes that Femtocells will be able to offer scalable solutions to improve network coverage.

5. The age of reconfigurable radio base stations: The advisory firm believes that implementing Software Defined Radios (SDR), a software module that provides greater flexibility and functionality as compared to their hardwired counterparts, can help operators to better manage these BTS.

6. Alternative broadband for small businesses: Although WiMax network offers the same promises as HSPA/HSDPA network, the full prowess of this technology will not be seen until the appropriate business model and pervasive coverage area are established.

7. Moving the wireless backhaul to IP: IDC believes that because of pricing reasons or without the scalable bandwidth will force the mobile operators to migrate to IP.

8. The convergence of network operation centres: The consultancy firm sees the implementation of the converged Network Operation Center (NOC) as the next necessary and logical step in the evolution to next generation and convergence service infrastructure.

9. Resurrection of SaaS: The global economic slowdown has resulted in industry players intensifying their cost management agenda, leading to a paradigm shift from CAPEX to OPEX. This creates an opportunity for a SaaS ‘resurrection’.

10. The beginning era for Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer (ROADM): The continual rollout of Standard Definition TV (SDTV), High Definition TV (HDTV), Video on Demand (VOD), and more matured Metro Ethernet services have forced the operators to cater for heavier data transactions in the network. This may become a nightmare for network management. A more intelligent solution is required to help the network owners. The consultancy firm believes that Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) may be the solution for better network management.

According to IDC, these predictions draw upon the latest IDC research and a worldwide brainstorming exercise among IDC’s more than 900 analysts.

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By AvantiKumar
Computerworld Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR - Network firm Cisco Malaysia has launched a website as part of a campaign to increase the productivity of small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the country.

Cisco Malaysia managing director Anne Abraham said that the six-month integrated campaign–’One Voice’–is its first ever SMB campaign would transform the way that Cisco communicates with SMBs.

“‘One Voice’ will focus on business capabilities and the benefits of complete solutions rather than on products and technologies,” said Abraham. “Small businesses are the lifeblood of today’s economy and in today’s challenging economic environment, it’s critical that small-business owners have a technology partner that they can trust to help them find and deploy the right solutions to grow their businesses.

She said that Cisco valued the total global market for small-business networking and communications products and services at US$16 billion in 2009 with US$10 billion of this coming from companies with less than 100 employees.

SMB Malaysia

Abraham stressed that the Malaysian SMB sector is an important part Cisco’s Malaysian business. “SMBs contributed 35 per cent to the nation’s GDP in 2006 and are expected to make an increased contribution of 37 per cent to the national GDP by the year 2010.”

Cisco Malaysia director of commercial SMB, Stanley Lim, said: “The number one priority for small-business owners is growing their companies, not being technology experts. Small businesses learn about, and implement technology in very different ways from large enterprises. Cisco brings the technology conversation to a level small business owners can understand via campaigns which address business challenges, rather than technology.”

Investing in small businesses

Abraham said that the ‘One Voice’ campaign leveraged Web 2.0 functionalities and included an SMB seminar, 15 January, as well as:

- SMB Summit Site (www.cisco.com/web/MY/solutions/smb/index.html) for SMB customers and Cisco channel partners.

- Ongoing promotions and product bundles with selected partners and resellers for Cisco’s Unified Communications, switches, routers and wireless products.

In addition, Abraham said that the rollout of this campaign comes on the back of Cisco’s recent announcement of a US$100 million investment in its global small-business initiative. “Cisco has created the Cisco Small Business Technology Group (SBTG), which would develop technologies focused on six areas which small-businesses highlighted as top priorities for enabling business growth: connectivity, security, remote access, productivity, customer interaction and customer support.”

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By Computerworld Philippines staff
Published in the November 2008 print edition of Computerworld Philippines

Over the years, technology has radically earned a strategic place in the enterprise, with a growing percentage of local organizations’ budgets being allotted to IT investments. With government, however, this may not entirely be the case.

Although its awareness and interest in new technologies and innovation may more or less be at par with private firms, the public sector often finds itself at the mercy of whatever ‘modest’ budget is approved for its IT initiatives. This does not, however, hinder these government offices from constantly looking at ways to incorporate IT into their operations, believing technology is one of the best vehicles for delivering better service to the public.

At Computerworld Philippines’ 10th CIO Roundtable, four IT officials from different government entities shared how IT is helping them improve efficiency in their operations and delivery of public service, the primary challenges they face in relation to both eGovernance and eGovernment, and what eGovernance framework they believe would work best for the country.

Present during the roundtable were: Dr. Hypte “HR” Aujero, assistant program manager, National Telehealth Center; Myra Brucelo, chief of MIS, National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA); Atty. Maverick Sevilla, officer-in-charge of the MIS department, Pasay City government; and Claire Umali, IT division head, Mandaluyong City government.

Also present to share his reactions and insights about the role of IT in government was Carlo Francis Raymundo, program coordinator of the infrastructure governance and regulation program, Asian Institute of Management Policy Center. The CIO roundtable was held at the Dusit Hotel in Makati City.
Excerpts of the discussion follow:

CWP: How is information technology helping your agency serve the public better? What applications have you deployed that has made a big impact on your dealings with the public?

Sevilla: For the City of Pasay, we have instituted the GEMS (Government Electronic Management System) project and, as a result, various systems, such as the BPLS or Business Permit Licensing System, are now in place. The BPLS is used for the registration and securing of business permits. Pasay actually has 32 systems in place, but the one with the biggest impact is the treasury system which has computerized the collection, as well as the payment, of taxes and other government fees. But for the real thrust of computerization which is e-governance, we are still in the process of getting there. Because as far as the Pasay City government is concerned, there is a big difference between e-governance and e-government. We may have already attained an e-government stature with the many systems we now have in place, but as for e-governance, which involves building relationships not only within the government itself but with the people - our constituents - through technology, we are still going through the process.

Umali: The city government of Mandaluyong began its computerization program about 20 years ago in 1989, starting off with the Business License Tax Administration System. Since all of our computers were just standalone units then, it was only after four years that we started to make improvements on the network. After that, the next systems that we implemented were the payroll for our employee Data Management System and our HR System. We even included a Biometrics Attendance Monitoring System to encourage promptness and attendance among our employees and to discourage absences. Also, we were able to manage our service records well. In the past, only those who were “blessed” were exempted from filing their absences while the rest of the employees, particularly those on the grassroots level, suffered the most. As a solution, we put a Biometrics Attendance Monitoring System in place. However, we are still working to improve the system, which has been running for about three years now. But note that with such a system, we are already able to save around P500,000 a month in salary payouts. More importantly, our casual employees now get their salaries on time, unlike 10 years ago when they often had to contend with salary delays of about five days.

Brucelo: The main thrust of the National Commission on Culture and Arts is to provide public information on culture and the arts in the Philippines. From 1997 – when our MIS team was established – until 2003, the commission only had a static Web site. It just contained text and had no visuals. When I joined the commission in 2002, I encouraged my boss to join the Philippine Web Awards (PWA) and, since 2004, we’ve been a regular contestant of PWA. Because of this, our Web site went through the five stages of development prescribed by the National Computer Center to become an e-commerce and e-government site. And since we had to meet the NCC’s requirements at each stage, we did a lot of dynamic versions. Most of our viewers today are students, researchers, artists, local governments, organizations, and even people of different nationalities.

Dr. Aujero: We are all aware of some of the conditions that prevail in our country today, such as the limited budget allocations for health despite the ballooning population, the dispersal of Filipino doctors and nurses – and all other professionals for that matter – so specialists tend to aggregate in urban areas although we already have lots of specialists there. Most cardiologists, for example, are practicing in the big cities, but there are none in most rural areas. All of these contribute to the dismal Filipino health situation, so what the National Telehealth Center is doing now is come up with a solution or, at least, a part of the solution. Telehealth or E-Health, in a nutshell, is information and communications technology for the delivery of appropriate health services for the underserved. It is an alternative means of delivering health services but it is not the total solution.

At the National Telehealth Center, we use ICT to provide and support healthcare when distance separates the doctors from their patients. It is an alternative means of delivering expert care to underserved communities and geographically remote areas where healthcare expertise is largely unavailable. Created in June 1998 by the UP Board of Regents, NThC’s mission is to increase access to health information and services through ICT with our three arms: E-Medicine, E-Learning and E-Records.

E-Medicine, for instance, is a professional network, but it depends on the available ICT infrastructure, meaning whatever is available in that area, be it the Internet, a cell phone network, or just a two-way radio. It is a combination of the BuddyWorks Project, SMS Telemedicine, and the Telemedicine Project of the Department of Science and Technology. The BuddyWorks Project is an eGovernment Fund-supported telemedicine system that seeks to reduce the inequities in the Philippine health care system. It also helps curb the negative effects of the exodus of health professionals and, more importantly, it connects doctors wherever they are in the country through the DOST’s Telemedicine Project. It uses SMS (cell phone texting), the so-called Lifelink (RxBox computer/laptop) and the ECCS (Emergency Care Coordination System) to make possible real-time teleconsultation.

In 2005, we began this project aimed at giving specialist opinions to four different regions. We selected four project sites in Cagayan Valley, Capiz, Leyte, and Iligan City in Lanao del Norte. The project provides specialist opinions for those areas. It was another eGovernment Fund-assisted project of the CICT (Commission on Information and Communications Technology) and it was funded for about P43 million. The areas were selected by virtue of their remoteness.
E-Learning, meanwhile, refers to the program of upgrading the knowledge of health workers at all levels, from the municipal health office leaders and staff to community health volunteers. E-Records, on the other hand, is an open source-, Web-based electronic health records system for government health centers that quickly and automatically generate standard reports for local, provincial, regional and national use.

CWP: But are these ICT programs really benefiting your constituencies?

Umali: Yes. For instance, since our Business License System was put in place, our generation of business permits as well as the processing of those permits improved. Several years ago, we also included our Treasury office in the system. Previous to this, we did things manually and there were a lot of long queues. But with the establishment of our network, payments to the Treasury are now automatically updated in the database. Payment transactions have become faster and the long rows of people lining up in the Treasury have all been eliminated. Shortly after that development, we went ahead to improve our PATMS or the Property Assessment and Tax Management System.

In 1992, we started our Geographic Information System or GIS. We even got a budget from a congressman. But, unfortunately, nobody was interested in it at the time, and so we were the ones who build everything, like the data layers. Nobody from the Engineering and Planning office picked it up and so the project stagnated and moved very slowly until we finally contracted Geo Data to do GIS for us. But it didn’t provide us any instant relief as it was a very tedious process. We got copies of the land titles and then digitally generated the parcels from the technical descriptions in those titles. But now, we are really able to identify those properties that previously were not being declared to us.

Brucelo: We earn lots of praises but more from foreign nationals than Filipinos. Most of the time, we serve as research aides of foreigners in their search for our national artists. We provide information and we also have a library system. We allow people to browse all the contents of our books through our Web site. We also have an online query facility on Philippine culture. When I arrived in 2002, there was only at dial-up infrastructure at NCCA and we were only allowed to go online from 12 noon to 1 p.m., that was just about 20 hours a month! That was the tedious time before. I even told them that when it comes to PCs, the brand is not that important. I introduced them to open source – the white box computers – and we saved a lot. At that time I think our budget was only P1 million but now we have about P4.8 million. Our main office is in Intramuros and we don’t have a satellite yet or other branches, but we are working through our committees, several of them from the culture and the arts communities – teachers, researchers, journalists and many others. In addition to our online query, we also have an online registry. We invite all local artists from Luzon to Mindanao.

CWP: So your Web site is constantly updated?

Brucelo: Yes. Actually other researchers that query us are not all cultural organizations. We have the LGUs and also the broadcasting networks which are really dependent on us for information. We are inter-related with DepEd (Depart of Education) and CHED (Commission on Higher Education). Right now it’s a database driven Web site, so a lot of it involves digitalization of data. We already started the e-books, the timeline of the Philippines and the information of culture and arts. A log of e-books now is available online and we are upgrading the connection from dial-up to DSL but we are moving into a one-on-one connection like E-Meralco. We are trying all these now and we hope to have a wireless connectivity on December but this is still under a bidding process.

CWP: How big is your IT team?

Sevilla: Right now we have four regular programmers, one IT officer, and at the top of the organization background is my position, and under it is the IT officer 2 and below that are our programmers. One of the thrust of our budget proposal is to upgrade the plantilla positions because as soon as our contract with the company who did the project expires, the next thing to do would be to turn over the technical knowledge or technology transfer. Our difference from Pasay and Mandaluyong is that under our contract, it is the obligation and duty of the end-user to build-up the database. At the MITS (Management Information Technology Service) office, there was only assistance and we have to oversee how they do the data build-up. For example, from the assessor’s office, it is their function to build up the data. We constantly follow this up and those are the things we do with respect to other problems we encounter. Right now the COA is presently having a systems audit of the Pasay GEMS project.

Umali: Plantilla wise, we have 30 items occupied. There are people who handle hardware and others for system development and maintenance. And for people in the GIS, what we do in the implementation is, we form our end first then we turn over things to the users. Usually, the offices concerned are not really into it. So what we do is built-up the database then turn over the system and everything to them. During the database built-up, we ask a representative from those concerned so they could give us feedback.

CWP: Are the maintenance and the implementation of these projects done in-house or do you outsource?

Umali: No, we’ve been through several systems already and we started with systems development, which was outsourced. Our problem then was we were so dependent on the developer. We started with standalones, so when we upgraded we have to pay them again to re-develop the whole thing and every time we have changes in the tax rates we have to run back to them. So finally we decided to do an in-house system.

CWP: How does the NThC Web site works?

Aujero: The NThC Web site is like an e-mail that you have to log-in because we have issues in security and confidentiality regarding patients records that’s why there’s only limited access. We had on-site trainings since 2005 and so once in a while we go there. We decided to expand the E-medicine project to help those really in need because we found out that those centers in Capiz and EVRMC are regional centers themselves. They have a few specialists in there too. So we expanded this using text medicine to help doctors to the barrios because most of the time these doctors are the newly graduates. They don’t know anyone in the area and the only doctors they know are probably their professors or even some of their relatives. They don’t know how to connect, so we branched out with them. From four provinces, we are now all over the country. Actually there’s even one up there in Batanes, so from north to south there are doctors to the barrios that we are helping. So this included all equipment, all available infrastructure there is, because initially, we just use the Internet for the BuddyWorks project, even SMS, e-mail, and landline if they want to.
CWP: What major problems or challenges are you experiencing in connection with automating your agency’s processes? How are you resolving these issues?

Umali: Based on our operations, we are only a division under the city administrator’s office and during project implementation we sometimes encounter some problems since I deal with department heads and I’m only a division head. So we are looking forward to the creation of the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) so we can have an official identity and it would be easier to push for IT projects from our end and even get them declared as priority projects.

Sevilla: In local government, there must first be a law creating and institutionalizing a particular office or position before it can exist.

Brucelo: I think every three or five years, the National Computer Center and CICT ask different government agencies to submit an Information System Strategic Plan to evaluate all projects that need a budget for infrastructure and other requirements. Once you submit the proposal, you have to undergo a budget hearing in Congress and the Senate so they can determine how much budget will be given to you or where it will be placed in the list of priorities. Then after you get the approval, there is an annual audit that checks what happened to the project. It is also our only way to upgrade the salary level of our programmers, which is usually 25% less that than what an ordinary programmer in the private sector earns. Since the salary grade is standardized, it is hard for us to compete with the private sector and would often lose our staff to private companies. That’s why there is a high turnover rate in IT in the government.

Sevilla: Let me add to that. One of the downsides in government, especially in local government units, is that the MIS often becomes a training ground for these programmers. Once they secure the necessary certifications and service experience, they leave. That’s why we included in the contract that they must render service to the city government for a certain number of years so that there would be a chance for us to mine and benefit from their knowledge before we lose them. The contract also calls for the proper turnover of their work.

Brucelo: That’s the same with us. It’s usually factoral, so if you get six months of training, you have to stay for one year or if you get a one year scholarship you have to stay for, at least, two years.

Aujero: For me, I was only 11 years old when I promised myself that I will not go out of the country. that’s why I have stayed. At the NThC, we try not be personality-based when it comes to implementing projects, meaning we encourage interaction with different doctors to ensure continuity. Although sometimes we cannot avoid it. For instance, some patients would still send the SMS queries directly to me. I just forward them to the center because we want the projects to be known on an institutional level.

Raymundo: Government is not in the business of doing business. Its business is to serve the people. This is why I believe that the CICT should be elevated from being a commission to a full-fledged department, since this will give more value to ICT and make it more important in the Philippines. Migration is a choice and we can’t force people to stay, but, at the very least, we can provide an environment that would allow these people to give something back to the country. They say that innovation basically is making the most out of your limited resources, so collaborative efforts should be espoused, especially in an area with limited resources.

CWP: We’ve heard that sometimes the hindrance to computerization in government are the very people in government themselves. Is this still true?

Umali: Actually, what we are trying to do is to change the culture one step at a time starting with the training. Most people in government are afraid that, with computerization, they will lose their jobs. So we try to explain to them that computers will not take over their jobs. In fact, they will have more time to do other things aside from what the computers are already supposed to produce. We include both the department heads and their staff in the training program so there would be an understanding from all levels. For example, with our GIS project, we were supposed to turn over everything to the assessor’s office because that’s where the data transactions are done. But since they don’t want to be tied up with the project, we had to designate an IT staff. We even suggested that they absorb the staff in their plantilla so that they would not feel that they were being “invaded” when they create new items. So we really have to make adjustments.

Brucelo: One of the hindrances that we encounter during the computerization of our information system is the resistance to change, especially from the people who have been with the commission for a long time. They would complain that the system is not user-friendly or that there are a lot of bugs. And if you correct them and point out that they’re mistaken, they would take it personally. Since they are not happy with the system, they take it against you. So what we do is show them the value of technology by incorporating it in daily tasks like creating a database for easy reference or distributing memorandums and other documents via e-mail so that there would be less paper work. Simple things that would make their jobs easier and faster.

Raymundo: The end objective of e-governance is good governance, but in order for e-government projects to get off the ground, you need good governance. So it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. And this is where enlightened government leaders and the DICT come in because they have the clout and position to make things happen. I believe that people in government are not hired to be mere data collectors but to become knowledge managers. Why? Because the government is a policy-making body and so people in government not only need to collect data but should also make sure that the information they collect is analyzed and translated into useful policies and programs.

Brucelo: That’s why it’s always good to start with the head of management when pushing for change.

Aujero: For us, it worked the other way around because we started from the grassroots, wherein we offered our services to the local government units first. When these were well received, we spread implementation to other parts of the country.

Raymundo: That’s a good strategic model actually because there’s a saying “Think big, start small.” And right now, the way that I’m seeing it, the local governments and other organizations are in the best position to actually come out with something new and innovative. They serve as the proof of concept. Now the question is, “How can you replicate it as fast as possible?” That’s where the national government comes in.

Sevilla: The bottom line when it comes to subscribing to e-governance is really the political will of the leaders. Political leaders must be able to visualize how technology will affect the lives of their constituents. Local government unit leaders must recognize that ICT is a tool for achieving better governance.

CWP: In your opinion, what would be the suitable e-governance framework for our country?

Raymundo: I think Atty. Sevilla has already described it very nicely when he talked about shifting e-government and e-governance from mainly just using ICT to effectively deliver services to the public, to essentially coming up with better management decisions and, eventually, using the data collected to manage whatever available resources the national or the local government has domain over. The first question that we’d always ask people when we sit down with them to develop a strategy is: “For whom is this?” We caution them to think out of the box because sometimes your stake holders aren’t only external but also internal. Also, at the end of the day, we ask them “Why do you want to make things efficient for you clients or stake holders?” We are not only talking about reaching out to as many people as possible but also about the depth of the impact of giving quality service or even saving lives. It’s also about efficiency, which is where your back office benefits from e-governance. We often tell our stake holders in the Policy Center that every time they start anything that involves the government, there has to be clarity of function. To streamline the procedures these questions must be answered first. “What do you need to do?” “Is this process really necessary?” “Can there be a one-stop shop for this?” “Who will handle it?” But as you go on, I think the question of sustainability should not only be looked upon from the financial or technological side, but also on the political side and that’s where your coordination has to be really in place. Some e-governance activities in the Philippines are very personality-driven. That’s why I think there has to be an institution or mechanism in place that will make the beneficiaries of a project dependent not on any person or group of persons but on the project itself.

Brucelo: For me, the framework should focus on digitizing the data in order to systematize the process and make the information accessible in any form, whether it be through the Web, SMS or any other channel. However the manner of implementing this depends on the thrust of the agency and how it can help the public. For us, for instance, our focus is to provide information access especially in remote areas and even outside the country.

Raymundo: Once we know who you are serving, the challenge now is how to deliver the service. But we always have to remember that when we ask the question “How?”, we have to make sure that it’s accessible, available and, most especially, acceptable not just with the end-users but also within the government so that decision-making will be better. I think we are on the right path in terms of e-governance because there are sparks of hope in various small organizations and agencies. Now, the next challenge is scaling this up and I think that’s where the national government should come in. We found out in our studies, that the really good best-practices cases in local government and organizations happened because of a unique environment where there is a good leader and available funds. I think that in replicating e-governance success, the national and local government unit should step in with the help of all the other organizations within the area. More than half is done at a local government level, so now it’s more of integration on the national level. One more thing, of course, is the fact that when we look at e-governance projects, there must also be effective management and that’s where the challenge comes in.

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By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
Computerworld (US)

FRAMINGHAM - When you’re talking Linux, three big names always pop up: Canonical’s Ubuntu, Novell’s openSUSE and Red Hat’s Fedora. Ubuntu has ridden a groundswell of both consumer and commercial support to its current ranking as the most popular Linux distribution. OpenSUSE, with its business underpinnings, has always been popular in Europe and has been making inroads in the U.S. And it is largely thanks to Fedora that Red Hat has become the biggest Linux company with a major role in community Linux.

Each of these “big three” has recently released a new version of its distribution, which means it’s time to check them out and decide which is No 1. Or, more properly, which is No. 1 for what user.

To test them, I installed each distro on a Dell Inspiron 530S powered by a 2.2-GHz Intel Pentium E2200 dual-core processor with an 800-MHz front-side bus. The test machine had 4GB of RAM, a 500GB SATA (Serial ATA) drive, and an Integrated Intel 3100 GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) chip set. This is a standard 2008 computer, which retails for approximately $450.

I also ran each distribution on other PCs to get an idea as to how they worked on a day-to-day basis. For example, I ran openSUSE on a Lenovo ThinkPad R61, Fedora on a Gateway GT5622 desktop and Ubuntu on an older Gateway 503GR desktop.

The Linux distros all had several things in common. First, installing each of them was a no-brainer. I popped in the CD, DVD or (in Fedora’s case) a USB memory stick; got the computer to boot from the installation media; agreed on the time zone, the keyboard type and the new username; and then had a cup or two of coffee. At the end, each distribution was installed and ready to go.

In every case, there wasn’t even a hint of a hardware problem. It’s less trouble these days, frankly, to install Linux on a PC than it is Windows Vista.

The same was also true with getting each distribution to work with my hybrid Active Directory/Samba domain-based network with its server and NAS devices, and with a variety of Canon and HP printers. Within half an hour, I had each distribution working with my CIFS (Common Internet File System) and NFS (Network File System) servers.

In addition, installing new software with each new PC was a snap. On each system, I added the Banshee music player; Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Flash Player; and Crossover Linux, which allows users to run Windows programs on top of Linux. Once installed, all these programs, and more besides, ran as smooth as silk.

To date, none of these Linux distros have given me a lick of trouble, and they’ve worked extremely well. Now, more than ever, I can’t see any general reason why someone wouldn’t use one of these Linux desktops in place of Windows.

None of this should be surprising, since these distributions are identical at the core — all three are built on top of the Linux kernel 2.6.27 and use the GNOME 2.24 desktop. While their ingredients may be the same, though, the dishes made from them are quite different. What sets these three and other great Linux distributions apart is how they mix their ingredients together.
Canonical Ubuntu 8.10

Anyone who knows anything about Linux has heard about Ubuntu. It’s easily the most popular desktop Linux around. There’s a very good reason for that: Ubuntu 8.10, a.k.a. Intrepid Ibex, is easy with a capital “E.”

The GNOME-based interface is easy enough to use, but Canonical backs it up with a strong community. If there’s something you want to do on Ubuntu — anything at all — chances are you can find the answer on one of the Ubuntu forums such as the Ubuntu Forums and the Ubuntu Community Team Wiki. This support isn’t a feature per se, but it shouldn’t be underestimated. An open-source truism is you can always find help online — well, sometimes you can. When it comes to Ubuntu, though, you can almost always find help.

Of course, you may not need that much help. For example, with the new Network Manager 0.7 you can not only easily hook up to wired and Wi-Fi networks, but you can also now easily connect with 3G access points. I used an AT&T USBConnect Quicksilver USB device on my ThinkPad to get a 3G connection, and it worked like a charm. Since Network Manager treats all 3G devices as vanilla serial devices that use PPP (Point to Point Protocol) for network connections, it should actually work with more 3G devices than Windows does.

Another real plus is that Ubuntu 8.10 now includes Dell’s DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support). This feature will be invisible to most users, but the effect it can have on stability is profound.

DKMS automatically updates and downloads drivers that match your system hardware whenever you update your Linux kernel — even if your kernel doesn’t include built-in support for a graphics card or other device. Get it? With this, you don’t need to worry about your system working even if you add in new hardware or your distro updates its Linux kernel.

There are a few things I don’t care for with the new Ubuntu, though. The first is that, while you can set Ubuntu and its KDE-based cousin, Kubuntu, to use the older KDE 3.5.x interface, the distro now defaults to using the KDE 4.x desktop. Personally, I find KDE 4.x to simply be not as good as KDE 3.5x, and I know I’m not the only user who feels this way.

I also wish that Ubuntu had included OpenOffice 3.0 by default. As it is, the distribution comes with the older 2.4 version. Getting the new OpenOffice isn’t a big deal, but still, I’d just soon not have to worry with this 100MB+ download and update.

So who is Ubuntu for? To my mind, there’s no question about it — Ubuntu is the best beginner’s Linux in the land. It’s also more than good enough for experienced Linux power users, but if you’re just getting your feet wet with desktop Linux, Ubuntu is the Linux for you.

Novell openSUSE 11.1

If I could use one word to describe openSUSE 11.1, it would be “solid.” There may be a way to knock this version of openSUSE off-stride, but I haven’t found it yet. In the past, updating openSUSE could be a pain, thanks to what seemed like endless development problems with its update routines. Those finally appear to be history.

Where I see openSUSE operating best, based on my look at the release candidate, is in the office. Whether you use it as a desktop system or as a server, openSUSE is the most business-ready of the community distros.

It starts with Novell’s customized version of OpenOffice 3.0. With this version, you can read and write to all Microsoft Office files, including Office 2007’s Open XML formats.

On the server, however, is where openSUSE really shines. The installation routine lets you automatically set up Web servers, file servers, Internet services servers, database servers — you get the idea. Any Linux distribution makes a great foundation for servers, but only openSUSE makes it so easy to set them up.

OpenSUSE, like the other Linuxes, also comes with virtualization apps KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) and Xen. In addition, openSUSE includes my favorite virtualization software: Sun’s VirtualBox. In my experience, VirtualBox is the easiest virtualization program to set up and works extremely well on openSUSE.

Finally, while some people dislike Mono, the open-source Linux version of.Net, because of its Microsoft connections, openSUSE has the best integration of Mono and Linux. This functionality, combined with Novell’s other Windows-network friendly features, makes openSUSE not just the best of these distros for business use, but for integration with a business’ existing Windows infrastructure.

Since I’m frequently working in hybrid Linux/Unix/Windows business network environments, openSUSE is my own Linux of choice. If that’s you too, then you should look into openSUSE as well.

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By Dan Rosanova
CIO.com

FRAMINGHAM - The common business structures that enable large corporations to function effectively can actually inhibit the development of an effective service-oriented architecture (SOA). Most enterprise employees outside of IT work for a team, in a department, in a division or some similar hierarchical structure. This pattern of organization has effectively served large corporations, governments, and militaries for a long time. Understandably, people in such organizational structures see the world through the context of their position in this hierarchy. But the organizational structure can present challenges for SOA analysis when the IT solution requires input from representatives in all parts of the business.

Over the years, the software world has matured to the point where analysis and design are quite refined processes. Most people in the IT world are by now quite familiar with the main techniques used for gathering business requirements and developing system architectures. The role of Subject Matter Expert (SME, sometimes called a Domain Expert) is now commonplace on software development projects. This has served well for building line of business systems-software silos, if you will-that traditionally served the business unit for which they are built. Tapping directly into the knowledge of a business expert allows the development team to produce a solution that closely resembles what the business unit actually needs. This process is by no means simple, but it is at least common and well understood.

A unique SOA challenge is its need to bring together SMEs from across the enterprise. SOA builds a new collective knowledge base, representing how the business operates at a level above the individual business lines. This poses several distinct problems for the SOA analysis process. Representatives from every line of business need to be involved in analyzing the SOA’s needs and capabilities. If each business unit has its own IT staff, it may need to participate as well.

It’s not just an issue of getting more people to provide input, explaining what their department needs. As the number of people in this analysis process grows, so do the number of viewpoints. Business unit representatives may see the analysis skewed by their proximity to their unit of the business, neglecting the views and needs of other business units. This is really sort of to be expected, as each of these people function in an area they are familiar with and may not realize that other areas do not function in the same way. Usually, SMEs are leaders in their departments and may have an “It’s all about me” attitude; where me is really my department. This is rarely intentional, but represents the fairly common form of system bias in SOA and integration initiatives I wrote about earlier. I like to have meetings with many representatives together to encourage the participants to see the larger picture.

In my line of work I often work in meetings with representatives from Finance, Accounting and Operations (post-Sales), along with IT. These team members all have unique perspectives of a single flow of data throughout the enterprise, but each only sees one piece. The representation of this data is different for each department, but the underlying entities are the same: Orders and associated financial data.

Finance usually is concerned with how revenue is booked and earnings are calculated. Accounting really doesn’t care about those details, but wants to be sure that the General Ledger accurately reflects the intentions of Finance and meets GAAP and auditing requirements. Operations teams tend to be mostly concerned with moving orders through approval processes and between external systems, and often is unaware of how the financial aspects appear to either Accounting or Finance. A common conflict arises when Finance wants to recognize revenue that may be partially earned; Accounting says that will violate their GAAP; and Operations says you can’t split orders without breaking their processes. Discussing the issues with all these representatives concurrently allows them to understand how the other departments interact with different aspects of this same data. When leaders from each line of business are confronted with the realities of the other lines, it often softens their resistance to compromise. Ultimately, they are all on the same team.

By definition, SOA is about bringing people together to build systems that serve across the enterprise. That results in another issue: the effect of personality differences on the group dynamic. This is only made worse by all those meetings with many representatives, since the reason they’re all invited to participate is their differing needs. It is common for someone in the group (who generally is very persuasive or respected) to gain undue influence over the design decisions that come out of such sessions. To defuse this effect, I like to mix large and small group sessions, as well as one-on-one follow-ups (or pre-meetings, but be careful there). That helps sift through the plethora of information and divergent views that emerge throughout the process. This group dynamic effect is even more pronounced in a multinational enterprise.

The final issue is one that is common even in traditional software analysis: the communication gap. A question’s answer can be very different depending upon how the question is asked. This can be the result of both basic communication skills and the context in which the question is asked (to me, context is part of communication, so maybe I’m restating here). Often when discussing the details of an existing process asking an abstract question generates an answer that’s too specific. That is, the answer may be too implementation-specific, and does not help the enterprise architect to understand the scope of the problem as well as the specific variations of this use case.

For instance, the discussion might involve eliciting from the SME, “We need to receive orders in the formats A, B and C from partners X, Y and Z.” It is important to not get too lost in the specifics of the moment. This can lead you off the important trail of an abstract understanding, disconnected from implementation details. The subtle and damaging problem is that it may be difficult to get back to abstracts after being so specific. Yet, you still need the specifics. Oddly enough, the difficulty can be either with the SME or the business analyst; or it can apply to the group as a whole. Sometimes, you can’t help this. Just do your best to take notes; but be sure to be aware that the capability or service, is really receiving orders. There may be customer-specific implementation differences, but that is farther down the chain in the analysis process.

One trick I used a lot was to ask the SME the same question in three different ways, usually not in the same meeting. Often this exchange may follow a pattern like this:

o “So what are the possible workflows (state changes) than an order can follow?”
o “Are there any times an order can follow a path other than… (list from above)?”
o “What do you do if there is an exception and an order needs to make an unspecified state change?”

Using parts of information from the answer, restated in another way, really can cause SMEs to think beyond their immediate or current implementation. They’ll reveal more of the true requirement rather than the current capability. This is even more important when discussing business capabilities needed by a SOA.

To make this all run smoothly, establish a vision early on. Communicate it effectively with the SMEs and other members taking part in the SOA analysis. At first, your vision will just be what a SOA can do for the enterprise and how the process will begin. Over time, the vision evolves from the generic initial statements to a specific vision for the particular enterprise under analysis. This vision acts as a tool that allows you to convey the introductory and abstract concepts of SOA to the SMEs (who increasingly are aware of SOA) in a clear and non-technical manner. You may start communicating this vision, perhaps with senior IT management supporting you, but the enterprise will come to own it quickly and drive its evolution. This is where the pieces come together.

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By Jenalyn Rubio
Published in the November 2008 print edition of Computerworld Philippines

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For Edgardo Dajao, there are no real secrets to success—just plain hard work and learning from past mistakes. Better known as “Ed” by colleagues and friends, Dajao has spent more than half of his life as an IT professional who lives by his philosophy of learning from mistakes and always doing things better the next time around.

“Learning from my mistakes drives me to do better next time, and be more open-minded in exploring new grounds. It’s a balancing act between being a technical person and being a manager at the same time,” says Dajao, who is currently IT operations head and assistant vice president for IT at the Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB).

A graduate of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bohol, Dajao is a board topnotcher but the IT veteran shares it was only when he took a Masters of Engineering Degree at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok when he got really fascinated with IT. “Most of our research works and projects involved the need to run computer programs. That was when I decided to pursue a Major in Information Systems which, at that time, was relatively new,” Dajao says.

Before he joined PVB in 2002, Dajao has held several IT positions in companies like the Development Academy of the Philippines; John Clements Consultants Inc.; Guthrie-Jensen Consultants; Philips Semiconductors Philippines Inc.; and Astec International Limited (Philippines), among others, providing him with extensive IT experience in varied industries and environments.

“The thing about IT is that it is a very universal tool; as long as you understand an entity’s processes and business objectives, you can certainly apply IT in practically all fields regardless of your background. So there is never a limitation on when, where and how you use IT,” Dajao says, who adds that what keeps him loving his job is that the challenges of IT just keep on coming and evolving, leaving no room for dull moments.

Asked what the major challenges are in his current post at PVB, Dajao cites optimizing the utilization of existing resources as the most pressing. “It is how you can make or do more for less in terms of improving the business processes, getting the cost economics of your investments, and achieving efficiency and effectiveness both in the workplace and for your customers.”

Having grown with the IT industry over the years, Dajao says the role of the CIO has also evolved along with the industry. “The CIO of today should be that of a techno-entrepreneur whose main role is to be able to support and sustain the business challenges of the company. At the same time, the CIO must be the bridge to transform or harness IT into something very useful that would attract more customers, either through better product offerings or through more efficient services,” he explains.

Were he not brought by fate and his interests in information systems to the IT industry, Dajao says he would most probably have been an industrial engineer and had taken up operations research, but he realized that this field is very limited in the Philippines. One other thing that he loves to do, however, which he has in fact already been doing, is teaching; Dajao has been a professor at the Graduate School of Engineering at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.

Looking forward, Dajao says he wants to one day be remembered as someone who was always willing to teach and guide “neophytes” to be better IT professionals. Offering advice for future CIOs and IT professionals, he says, “Keep on learning from the front runners and keep abreast of what’s going on in IT. Never forget to innovate, don’t be afraid to lead the pack if there is an opportunity. If you don’t know, ask and never be shy to admit that you don’t know. And lastly, always share your knowledge with your staff as well as with your colleagues in the industry. One should never keep to himself the treasure of knowledge he acquired over time.”

TIDBITS

Name: Edgardo S. Dajao

Title: Vice President, Head of IT Operations

Company: Philippine Veterans Bank

Favorite Technology/Body of Knowledge: IT Information Library (ITIL)

Favorite nonwork pastime: Watching movies and concerts for the baby boomers

Philosophy in a nutshell: Do it better the next time around
Something people don’t know about you: Not many people know that I’m a teacher— both in an informal and formal basis; and I love to go fishing.

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