More businesses to use digital technologies by 2022

HUAWEI Technologies Co., Ltd. on Wednesday said 70% of enterprises will have accelerated their use of digital technologies by next year as they strive to improve customer experience and employee productivity amid the pandemic.

“By 2022, 70% of organizations will be using digital technologies for their business processes and improve their customer experience, employee productivity, and resilience,” Nicholas Ma, president at Huawei Asia-Pacific Enterprise Business Group, said at the virtual Philippine Digital Convention (PH Digicon) 2021, citing the global forecast of the International Data Corp. (IDC).

Mr. Ma also noted the extension of digitization to traditional industries like manufacturing, education, healthcare, finance, transportation, and energy.

Metro Pacific Investments Corp. Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said digitization among companies outside the telecommunications sector has become “imperative.”

Digitization is “no longer a luxury” for them, he added, citing the Metro Pacific toll road’s use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) for contactless transactions.

“At the center of it all is the customer experience. In all of these, the mantra has always been the customer experience,” Mr. Pangilinan said.

Huawei has been a long-time vendor to the PLDT group’s fixed-line and wireless businesses.

“Cisco as well is a supplier to us and also Nokia. In fact, our first wireless network was supplied by Nokia way back in 1993,” said Mr. Pangilinan, who also serves as chairman of PLDT.

In its 2021 Worldwide Digital Transformation Predictions, IDC said by 2025, “75% of business leaders will leverage digital platforms and ecosystem capabilities to adapt their value chains to new markets, industries, and ecosystems.”

“To thrive in digital supremacy economy, 50% of enterprises will implement the organizational culture optimized for DX (direct digital transformation) in 2025, based on customer-centric and data-driven,” IDC said.

The other panelists at the PH Digicon 2021 on Wednesday were NTT Global Data Center President Yasuo Suzuki, John Harrington, Nokia senior vice-president and head of Asia-Pacific and Japan, and Dave West, president for Cisco Asia-Pacific, Japan, and Greater China.

The PH Digicon 2021 featured industry experts and thought leaders from global companies to share insights and technologies that can help enterprises in their digital transformation.

MPIC is one of three key Philippine units of First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being Philex Mining Corp. and PLDT, Inc. Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in ����ý through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin