PH traders gain market edge with cloud tools

Philippine businesses using cloud-based tools may grow faster and become more competitive, as the global workplace becomes increasingly “mobile.”

Ricky Kapur, managing director for Asia at Google Enterprise, explained that such tools, like the Google Drive and Maps, have been enabling companies to improve productivity and reduce costs.

These cloud-based tools, which are among the solutions being offered by Google to businesses, ease access to information, data and email across stakeholders—even with the use of tablets and smartphones —using a secure platform.

Kapur said there was a pressing need for companies to adapt to these cloud-based solutions as studies show that 40 percent of workers will be “mobile workers” by 2015, which means that they will be heavily using the Internet to do their work.

According to Kapur, some Philippine businesses are already benefiting from the use of these solutions.

Fast-food giant KFC, which switched to Google Apps in June 2011, has managed to reduce time spent on IT support by 25 percent and speed up processes involving coordinating activities and collaborating across its chain of 230 restaurants, six plants and four satellite offices.

Airphil Express, which also switched to Google Apps a couple of years ago, was able to increase customer satisfaction when it took a more innovative approach using Google cloud tools such as Google Sheet and Sites to track inquiries.

Other solutions also allowed the company to reduce time spent on some menial tasks, translating increased employee productivity.

Google’s other customers in the Philippines include Manila Electric Co., Globe Telecoms and swine breeding farm Infarmco.

Google Apps is a cloud-based productivity suite that helps businesses connect and get work done from anywhere on any device.