Cian O’Neill, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft Philippines, shares the journey of a local shipping company as they reinvent productivity in their workplaces to better empower their employees & stay ahead of competition.
Small medium businesses (SMBs) form the backbone of Asia Pacific’s economy. According to the Asian Development Bank, from 2007 to 2012, SMBs comprised 98 percent of all enterprises in the Asia-Pacific, employed 66 percent of the national labor force, and accounted for 30 percent of total export value. Their contribution to the economy cannot be discounted, yet they face tremendous challenges to remain relevant in today’s business environment.
In addition, workplace dynamics are being altered with the emergence of the millennial workforce that grew up with Internet, and a growing group of workers seeking more flexible work arrangements. The proliferation of mobile devices and cloud technologies are changing the way people collaborate and communicate.
It is thus no surprise that according to the Microsoft Asia New World of Work Study conducted in 2015, close to three quarters (74%) of SMB workers are spending at least a day in a 5-day work-week working outside of the office. The survey also showed that 1 in every 2 devices used in the workplace today are employee-owned, and this trend has been augmented by increased mobile and network connectivity, as well as low cost devices available in market today.
However, SMBs do not have the luxury of scale, or the resources to address all these challenges. In fact, in many SMBs today, business owners and employees tend to wear many hats. A business owner is also likely the IT manager, and has to be responsible in making sure that emails and other technology services are working fine to ensure a smooth, day-to-day operation of the business.
It is crucial that SMBs are able to unlock the potential of New World of Work to stay relevant in today’s marketplace and talents. The concept hinges on three key attributes – People, Place and Technology, and enables organizations to gain new business insights, realize greater operational efficiency, communicate and collaborate in real time, all while reducing impact on the environment by driving a paperless workforce.
Back in late 2015, we conducted a New World of Work Makeover Contest where we sought to find SMBs that were in need to modernize their business. We received numerous entries, many of these articulated common challenges faced by SMBs today – which we sought to address to make a difference with our technology.
Over the course of six months, along with the support of Lenovo, Jabra and our partners, we worked with a local SMB to modernize their operations with new mobile and cloud technologies. This SMB faced a myriad of challenges – across people, processes and technology, and the opportunity has helped set in motion a course to support their ambitions. They have come a long way since we’ve first met to understand their business challenges, and I’m happy to share their progress today.
Making a little big difference: Wallem Philippines Shipping – Watch how they embrace the New World of Work with Office 365:
As one of the leading ship agents in the Philippines, Wallem Philippines Shipping needed to embark on a modernization journey to eradicate manual and paper processes across its teams, especially in an industry where time is of value to customers. It meant that the organization needed to ditch ageing systems, paper-based records as well as manual sales and tracking processes in order to be aligned to the pace of business.
The impetus for change came about during the APEC Summit held in Manila last year, where major roads were closed and resulted in Wallem’s employees not being able to be in the office to close and complete deals on time. For Management Information System Manager Noreen Magsumbol, it signified a need for the company to have the right tools to empower its employees to be able to collaborate from anywhere, and rely less on physically being in the office to get work done.
The improvements brought about by Office 365 have not been lost within the team. “The deployment of Office 365 has truly enabled us to be mobile, and for me, nothing beats mobility. In fact, it is the DNA of productivity, especially in our line of work,” shared Edu del Agua, Human Resources Manager.
With the deployment of Office 365 and SharePoint, Magsumbol also hopes to develop a knowledge management system to enable her teams to better analyze customers’ needs and preferences and provide better services. For now, it is about standardizing data entry and reducing manual processes to deliver the best services for its customers in order to stay on top of the fast-paced shipping business.
To learn more about Microsoft’s SMB solutions, click here.