Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT)

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PLDT - Thinking Ahead

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company has constantly changed and restructured to become the leading supplier of domestic and international telecommunications services in the Philippines. PLDT is actively pursuing a convergence strategy through its three principal business groups - fixed line, wireless and ePLDT, the dominant carrier's information and communications technology company.

With the challenges of increasing competition, the growing demand for technologically advanced telecommunications services, and the increasing telephone density, PLDT continues to expand and modernize its network infrastructure, as well as business solutions, to become a one-stop shop for all telecommunication needs from voice, video or data.

Riding on PLDT's armory of strengths: industry specialists, unmatched national and global coverage, complete portfolio of networks (hybrid solutions), and network management systems (shared risks), PLDT through its PLDT Business Solutions brand has worked hard to become a stable and reliable partner of enterprises to offer Internet services, managed Internet solutions, global managed services, application and value-added services, managed access services, corporate voice, and SME bundled services. Under its wings are the PLDT Brains or Broad and Robust ATM/IP Networking Solutions.

Intelligent Network Solution

PLDT Brains is the very first Cisco-powered network in the country with the whole suite of intelligent domestic networking solutions that provides companies with simple and cost-effective Wide Area Network connectivity such as Domestic Frame Relay, ATM, and is the pioneer of IP VPN (Internet Protocol, Virtual Private Network) in the country. IP VPN allows users working at home or on the road to connect in a secure fashion to a corporate server.

PLDT iView is a new service under PLDT Brains that essentially allows company network managers to get various reports on the performance of their network in real-time, and since it's almost an up-to-the-minute generation of the network's performance, necessary courses of action are promptly rendered.

PLDT ENCOMPASS provides managed Local Area Network (LAN) solutions, together with PLDT Wide Area Network (Brains Services and Internet Services like Business DSL Services) for its clients.

Remote Access Service (RAS) offers outsourced dial-up connectivity to corporate customers, giving them the ability to give their mobile workers, telecommuters, and branch offices anytime, anywhere dial-up access to their corporate network.

PLDT Brains' derivative industry solutions include Shops.Work, the first networking solution in the country designed for retailers. This solution links all the stores or shops of a particular company, enabling it to electronically manage business transactions. This is made possible with the use of various PLDT managed networking and managed access products such as Brains IP VPN, RAS, and DSL (Digital Subscriber Line).

Another industry solution is PLDT Brains Continuum for financial institutions and large corporations that want to ensure continuous operations of their business in the event of any disaster. It provides the customer with the ability to recover from any planned or unplanned service interruptions.

Redefining the Business

"As early as 1999, we have made our decision to redefine our business. PLDT does not sell networks. We sell solutions. The whole idea is to increasingly add value to our offerings. Hence, the birth of i-View and ENCOMPASS," Nerissa S. Ramos, PLDT Vice President for Business Solutions.

Prior to launching the PLDT Brains solutions, Ramos added that PLDT was already offering Frame Relay and ATM to multinational companies in the early 1990s, in partnership with global alliances like WorldPartners, Equant, and Infonet among others. "Why did we start our international offering? Basically because the MNCs were the most ready to adopt these new network services. The domestic market came in three to five years later."

She claimed that the global alliances prepared PLDT for the domestic offering. Surveys made with foreign partners around 1997 to 1998 also gave the company indications on the types of solutions that would be required by its clients two to three years from then. Among these solutions included IP VPN, roaming services, and customer network management tools.

PLDT partnered with Fujitsu Philippines, Inc. through its networking and communications subsidiary, WeSolv Open Computing, Inc. to help put up the PLDT Brains network infrastructure.

"FPI has been very supportive and responsive to our needs," Ramos said. "It is a very professional company responsive to its clients needs. In a very competitive environment like telecommunications, it is very important for service providers like us to have dependable partners. FPI is one of them."

"Just like most companies, whether from telecom or other industries, we were faced with challenges from our clients to help them improve their bottom line by introducing savings on telecom expenses. Pricing is always the first to be hit. However, there are creative ways of helping clients save and yet be more productive without necessarily compromising our revenues. These creative ways form a win-win environment between our clients and us."

With the demanding service levels customers require from telecom carriers, PLDT has lived by the mantra of Operational Excellence, Customer Intimacy, and Product Leadership.

On Operational Excellence, PLDT is almost at the homestretch of its Data Re-Engineering Project, added Ramos. "The systems are in-place. The processes are continuously being improved through Q-life, which is an initiative aimed at making quality a way of life for everyone at PLDT."

With regard to Customer Intimacy, she said that PLDT's Corporate Business Group had introduced a new relationship management model aimed at solution selling and achieving maximum coverage.

On Product Leadership, Ramos explained, "We know that the only way to survive this very competitive industry is to innovate and differentiate. Thinking out of the box is a MUST. With Innolab, product concepts can now be readily tested for fast rollout. Opening the Innolab facilities to the academe, the government, and industry partners will facilitate incubation of new ideas for quicker commercial implementation."

She noted that most other carriers offer a limited number of data services. "PLDT's main competitive advantages are the full-range, as well as customized services it offers such as Shop.Work, Embed, and Resort Solutions, the vast resources it has at its disposal (manpower skills, network resources, and financial strength alike), and of course its continuous drive toward innovation by being first and best in market."

Driving Innovative Solutions

PLDT plans to continue building on its ATM/IP technology platform to offer innovative solutions to its clients. "We want to remain the first and best in the market. Innovation is also PLDT's creed and as such, we would like to be the first to know of new technological breakthroughs here and abroad," Ramos continued.

In the coming years, PLDT envisions itself as the market leader in data communications, cornering approximately 62% of the market. She claimed, "Brains is and will continue to be the driver of PLDT's domestic data revenue growth in the medium- to long-term future."

This vision requires a clear understanding of solutions beneficial to the marketplace. According to Ramos, service providers find themselves in a very challenging position of tying up together all players since their responsibilities are three-fold. "First of all, SPs need to understand the technology their partner vendors are offering and make the solution relevant to the marketplace," she noted.

"Next, it must keep in step with technology. This entails keeping track of network capacity to serve the growth of client needs and ensuring that its network is future-proof to adapt to the changing needs of the marketplace," she stressed. "SPs must work with the Philippine Government to help make regulations relevant to the times. A spirit of cooperation must pervade for any progress in ICT to occur. The traditional and outmoded model wherein the SP introduces technology and the government implements regulations should be changed. The government and SP should instead educate each other and work as partners in crafting the regulations. And lastly, the industry through the SPs should take full advantage of the innovative minds of our youth."

PLDT through its Industry/ Academe collaboration is doing just that with the recently launch PLDT Innovation Challenge which will be initially opened to UP Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Engineering students. The following are the objectives of this initiative:

• Enablement of homegrown concept/design/prototype of "devices/ applications" that could be used by industry (led by PLDT) for local implementation to reduce dollar-denominated technology imports and to, consequently, create a Phil-based capability to export solutions in the future (with vendors or directly by PLDT)
• Improvement in the process whereby winning teams could get funding, either from PLDT or from venture capitalists, should the output from the initiative lead to commercially-viable undertaking

Predicting the Future

In the course of managing and marketing PLDT Business Solutions, particularly PLDT Brains, one lesson Ramos concretely learned was that given the right quality of education, the Philippine market which is generally slow adapting is ready to accept the benefits of new technology"

Another important lesson learned was that technology by itself, however wonderful, would not sell if not translated to actual benefits. Making solutions out of technology is a must, she emphasized.

The most challenging aspect of her job, Ramos pointed out, is predicting the future needs of the country's largely price sensitive market, while developing solutions that meet these needs cost-effectively. "Another challenging aspect of my job is keeping in step with technological developments worldwide and ensuring that these technologies are made available to the local market."

Offering end-to-end business solutions, PLDT is maximizing the converging power of telecommunications to open windows of opportunity for various companies on how to use technology to improve their business. As a one-stop shop for business solutions, the company is continuously redefining its business to help change the way companies operate and help them become more globally competitive.

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