BOOMI, which offers an integration platform, said businesses in the Philippines are showing “very high” interest in the technology, making the country its second most important market in Southeast Asia after Singapore.
“The Philippines is showing a lot of promise for me… in terms of interest. There are a lot of serious discussions… It helps that the interest level is very, very high,” Boomi’s General Manager for Asia Hon Chew Seetoh told BusinessWorld in a recent virtual interview.
Among the challenges faced by Philippine-based companies, especially those engaged in business process outsourcing (BPO) and manufacturing, is how they can improve operational efficiency.
“[Cloud] integration makes it easy for you to integrate from point to point or where you want to go,” Mr. Seetoh said.
“A lot of Philippine companies are not just servicing the Philippine market, but also the world. We call that trading partners (like BPO companies). The employers of these BPOs are spread out in the regions, so we can help connect all these parts of the supply chain in what we call the trading partners solution,” he added.
Another challenge is how companies can manage, harmonize, and use their data to accelerate their digital transformation journey.
“To do something in the new way, you have to figure out what it is that you are trying to do,” Mr. Seetoh said.
“Now, how do [integration and data management] solve problems in the Philippines? First, lack of manpower with the skill set required. Skill sets in integration are very hard to find even in the Philippines. If we can automate this task, we can then focus more on finding out new uses for the data as opposed to manually doing programming,” he noted.
“The value is in analyzing the data and finding out new uses for it.”
Mr. Seetoh also considers the Philippines as Boomi’s second most important market in the region.
“Outside Singapore, the Philippines is the second most important market for me… I’m comparing you to Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia,” he said.
“There seems to be a turning point in the Philippines. The businesses, when it comes to digital transformation, are starting to get it. They want to go forward.”
On its website, Boomi said its data integration platform enables businesses to overcome complexity and break down data silos by integrating on-premises and cloud application, various data sources, and devices.
Boomi, a software company, has more than 17,000 global customers and over 800 global partners. — Arjay L. Balinbin