Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, entered the Philippine market in 2019. As the world’s third leading and Asia Pacific’s leading infrastructure-as-a-service provider with multi-industry experience, it committed to help the digitalization of Filipino enterprises from various industries with Alibaba Cloud’s services and technologies.
Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Philippines country manager Allen Guo is particularly optimistic about the Philippine digital economy. “I like this country for its mixed culture and innovative spirits. Many local young people started their own online businesses with innovative ideas, leveraging advanced technologies like live streaming, supply chain, block chain and omni-channel,” he says in an e-mail interview.
“I saw lots of local talents return to their hometown to explore new digital business opportunities, thanks to the booming demand of digitalization in the Philippines. Here, I have lots of opportunities to talk with these young people and business owners, from which I learned a lot on how to embrace and be ready for the digitalization wave in the Philippines,” says Guo.
“We are committed to empowering Philippines enterprises and SMEs to thrive through cloud and digital intelligence technologies,” he says.
Alibaba Cloud aims to be a trusted cloud service provider and partner in the Philippines, enabling local enterprises to adapt and thrive in the new normal by helping them to capture and capitalize on growth opportunities presented by digital transformation.
“To support the enterprises’ digitalization in the Philippines, Alibaba cloud has formed partnerships with more than 20 Philippine organizations across the retail, healthcare, fintech, Information and communications technology, business process outsourcing, media and education sectors. Our business goal is to support about 5,000 Philippine enterprises on their digital transformation journey by end of 2023,” Guo says.
Among its Philippine customers are mobile wallet GCash and livestreaming platform Kumu.
Data center
Alibaba Cloud is also about to launch a data center in the Philippines. Guo says this will allow MSMEs to have better access to reliable cloud infrastructure to efficiently meet their evolving needs and strengthen disaster recovery capabilities.
He says this will enable customers in the Philippines and Southeast Asia to deploy mission-critical workloads, enjoy more reliable cloud services and allow end-users to have lower latency. The data center will also offer a comprehensive suite of cloud products and services, ranging from elastic computing, database service, networking, storage, security, and middleware, to solutions that address vertical industry challenges, he says.
“As the only global cloud service provider with a data center on the ground, we believe we are well equipped to serve the strong customer demands on digital transformation in the Philippines,” he says.
Hybrid cloud
Guo says more businesses are adopting a hybrid cloud approach to enjoy the benefits of both public and private cloud. “Hybrid cloud deployments benefit from public cloud’s agility, elasticity and cost-effectiveness without compromising on the robust data security provided by the private cloud,” he says.
“With remote working becoming new normal, enterprises and SMEs will move more of their critical businesses online. Hybrid cloud allows businesses, especially SMEs, to house and scale their workloads based on compliance, policy, and security requirement and replicate business-critical data to the cloud,” he says.
Guo says hybrid cloud is the best option to protect and preserve businesses’ bottom lines while providing the flexibility to migrate data and apps at any given time. “Hybrid cloud gives businesses the option of buying IT resources when they need to. They can scale their computation resources effectively and efficiently, should there be a spike in online visits or orders through the store due to unexpected reasons [such as a flash sale] but without compromising their cyber exposure,” he says.
“With hybrid cloud models that are capable of seamlessly integrating local software to public cloud, enterprises can enjoy the advantages of public cloud without re-architecting their familiar on-premise work environment and succumbing to disruptions on network and security,” says Guo.
Future-proofing
Guo says as businesses move their critical businesses online during the pandemic, business decision makers should consider choosing trusted cloud service providers to manage their online footprint in a cost-effective, resilient yet secure way. “Cloud computing and data-based intelligent services are in a pivotal position to capture such growing demand and future trends in the post pandemic world,” he says.
“As employees adapt to new efficiencies in remote working, hybrid cloud can fundamentally protect their time in having to cope with IT changes or even learn a new digital workspace system from scratch. This also gives employees peace of mind in not having to struggle with yet another uncertainty, resulting in a happier and more productive workforce,” says Guo.
Guo says that as Asia Pacific’s leading IaaS provider with multi-industry experience, Alibaba Cloud is well-positioned to help its partners grow their businesses and better transition to digital.
“Alibaba Cloud provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services/products to empower customers with secure, reliable and robust infrastructure to achieve business success, ranging from elastic compute, database, security and network services to machine learning and data analytics capabilities,” he says.
“As more companies embrace cloud technology, staff skills and capabilities need to be enhanced to enable them to handle such technology. Part of our commitment at Alibaba Cloud is to elevate the knowledge and capability of Filipino IT professionals to make them fully adept in the field of cloud computing,” he says.
Training program
Alibaba Cloud launched a series of training programs in the country such as the Alibaba Academy program, the Alibaba Cloud Partner program and the Alibaba Certificate program. Alibaba Cloud aims to train 50,000 and certify at least 10,000 IT professionals by 2023 in the Philippines, according to Guo.
“We are committed to digital talent empowerment and we look forward to growing together with our clients and partners and being their trusted partners on the digital transformation journey,” says Guo.
