IDC DX Awards recognizes organizations that have significantly disrupted the market or have transformed it, using digital and disruptive technologies. All the seven winners from the Philippines will represent the country to go head-to-head with winners from other Asia Pacific countries at the regional finals in Singapore on 25th October. These winners have distinguished themselves in terms of business transformation initiatives across one or more of the five DX masteries to transform and disrupt the market in the Philippines.
“This year’s nominations have proven that all industries are keen on improving their business processes and client engagement. We have seen interesting projects on cognitive computing/AI, Big
Data and Analytics, IoT, robotics and robotics process automation being utilized across vertical
industries, among others. This signifies that DX has achieved a macroeconomic scale and has become an important tool for Philippine businesses to achieve success,” said Jubert Alberto, Head of Operations, IDC Philippines.
“The Philippine businesses are commonly working in silos. As they commit to transform their
businesses, these organizations have been establishing an enterprise-wide digital strategy that
could help address IT challenges across all business units. IDC believes this is the main priority for
the local enterprises, as it will help them in crafting out a unified digital roadmap and strategy that
will provide an overall holistic change in the culture, people, and business processes. Constant
engagement and strong collaboration between IT and Line of Business (LOB) are needed for this
initiative, therefore, awareness of emerging technologies such as cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), and
big data and analytics (BDA) should continuously grow for digital transformation to take place,” said
Sudev Bangah, Managing Director, IDC ASEAN.
The Winning Organizations in the Philippines for the 2018 IDC DX Awards and their outstanding DX initiatives that distinguished them are:
Union Bank of the Philippines named as Digital Transformer of the Year: Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) is relentless in its pursuit to transform into a Digital Bank, with a culture of innovation and experimentation changing the way how the UnionBank engages with clients and employees alike. Digital transformation is evident in all aspects of the business with projects including the use of artificial intelligence in customer-facing chatbots, deployment of an open API strategy for its partners, and implementation of Robotic Process Automation in centralized backroom operations for the creation and submission of financial reports and in other tasks leading to a decrease of up 80% in processing time. The bank has also given focus to improving customer experience through the launch of its new mobile app and website, which has driven customer interactions from 26% to 98% of all total customer interactions since 2017. Its most recent initiative is The Ark, UnionBank's first fully digital lifestyle branch. The
Ark champions an interactional experience rather than a transactional space, with features that allow customers to open new accounts in less than 10 minutes with virtual telling machines and apply for home and auto loans with augmented and virtual reality experiences.
ALLCARE’s ALLCARE named as Digital Disruptor of the Year: ALLCARE addresses the compensation gap where the alternative workforce, composed of freelancers, solo entrepreneurs, professionals, and other informal workers do not have access to care and welfare that traditional employees have. ALLCARE aggregates freelancers’ benefits demand around the world and uses economies of scale to make benefits affordable and accessible to them. Utilizing blockchain technology, ALLCARE helps open this new and underserved market to providers without sacrificing operational costs through the usage of fully automated transactions in smart contracts. By incentivizing both workers and benefit providers through real-world value and utility, ALLCARE has grown to be a major disruption in the workforce technology space.
Philippine Health Insurance Corporation’s Data-driven Transformation of PhilHealth led by Jovita Aragona, Senior Vice President and CIO named as DX Leader of the Year and Information Visionary of the Year: PhilHealth is the sole administrator of national social health insurance for all Filipinos, which makes effective data management a vital to achieve the mandate of providing financial risk protection to the entire population. Led by Jovita Aragona, Senior Vice President and CIO, PhilHealth’s data management strategy commenced in 2016 with business intelligence and cloud technologies. As it broke down traditional barriers to efficiency, information accessibility-availability, and collaboration, data became a strategic asset for PhilHealth. With integrity of mission-critical data, system- and process- harmonization, and standard data report-analysis-mining techniques, PhilHealth has improved its programs and services for Filipinos through a comprehensive analysis of health insurance claims over time periods, diseases, social classes, national-LGU geographical areas, demographics, benefits programs, payment schemes, and other insurance-health dimensions. With advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, PhilHealth has also initiated a framework in detecting fraud and abuse in insurance claims. Finally, data on hand has also empowered PhilHealth to support the Department of Health in the creation of health programs, control of real-potential epidemics and emerging health conditions and trends, and synchronization of Universal Health Care initiatives.
Traci of Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) named as Talent Accelerator of the Year: After discovering a growing talent pool on social media, MERALCO launched its chatbot TRACI to support the Talent Resourcing team's initiative to optimize and streamline the job application process and establish an additional medium for engagement. TRACI enables users view job vacancies and submit applications via Facebook Messenger. TRACI is integrated with Google's artificial intelligence platform, which serves as the foundation for the chatbot’s Natural Language Processing, allowing MERALCO to provide timely feedback on job inquiries and application status. All backend services are hosted and supported on the cloud with a document management system that holds all applicant submissions. Data about job vacancies posted are populated using Robotic Process Automation, which runs daily to support the process. With TRACI, MERALCO leverages digital technology to efficiently communicate to a younger generation of talent, positively impacting brand equity and recruitment capabilities.
Asian Hospital and Medical Center’s Hopprlab Power Bi Analytics named as Information Visionary of the Year: The Asian Hospital and Medical Center (AHMC) is committed to data-driven healthcare and has leveraged advanced analytics provide better services to its patients while lowering the total cost of care. Through the integration of digital technologies and modern medicine, AHMC is better equipped to deliver quality healthcare to it is patients. The hospital began digitalization in 2016, with its integrated information system delivering real-time insights on daily operations. AHMC has also gained the ability to understand historical trends, with such as month-on-month patient surges and ER overflows, and at the same time, learn about changing risk factors and new infectious diseases. AHMC has been able to make strategic data-driven decisions to make further
improvements on its infrastructure, facilities, and manpower utilization, which includes nurses and specialists. Having also digitized the hospital’s lab information, the AHMC Medical Informatics department is now working with the hospital's pharmacy module to provide further support to doctors in their clinical decisions. AHMC has also implemented a Patient Flow System, which allows doctors to understand the end-to-end patient journey, lowering the average Emergency Room to exit time to three hours, exceeding international standards.
Unilab Implements NetSuite OneWorld to Transform B2B Operations named Operating Model Master: Unilab, the largest pharmaceutical company in the Philippines is the first in its industry to leverage cloud ERP to standardize and stabilize its distributor management program through its iSERV 2.0 project. With NetSuite OneWorld, Unilab has helped power its 21 distributors by setting them up as individual partners. By upgrading to a unified cloud ERP system, Unilab has enabled its distributors to easily manage inventory and billing processes of over 10,000 trade accounts, such as drug stores, clinics, and grocery stores. Unilab has also used this system for sales and data consolidation and multisubsidiary management. Since the completion of this transformation in January 2017, Unilab has streamlined operations for its distributors and has gained greater visibility into the channel, contributing to its US $1 billion revenue.
PhilCare’s HeyPhil App named Omni-Experience Innovator of the Year: To assist members who need immediate consultation but must go through long queues and slow turnaround times to acquire a Letter of Authorization (LOA) forms required in medical services ailment, Philhealth Care, Inc. (PhilCare) has developed HeyPhil, a mobile application utilizing Artificial Intelligence technology. A first in the local HMO industry, PhilCare has incorporated Artificial Intelligence with the function of a virtual agent to help obtain information using natural language processing. Through the HeyPhil App, members can generate the LOA at their own convenience and avail of medical services directly without queuing at a hospital or clinic concierge. From the usual average handling time of 6 minutes
at a medical partner or via the contact center and 30 minutes queuing at a hospital concierge, members can now get their own forms in less than two minutes. HeyPhil also provides the nearest physician, hospital, or clinic based on patient symptoms and location. Aside from LOA generation for consultations and laboratory procedures, members may also validate their eligibility and standard medical benefits. Finally, the app features a PhilCare Digi-Card, BMI and calorie calculators, and medical health bulletins and offers digital consultation with an online doctor.
IDC’s DX Awards follows a two-phased approach to determine the country and regional winners.
Each nomination is evaluated by a local and regional IDC analyst against a standard assessment
framework based on IDC’s DX taxonomy. All country winners will qualify for the regional competition, which will be decided by a regional panel of judges comprised of IDC Worldwide analysts, industry thought leaders, and academia.
Winners from all around Asia Pacific will join the Singapore winners at IDC's DX Summit and Digital Transformation Awards (DXa) Gala Night, where the regional winners will be announced for the categories of Digital Transformer of the Year; Digital Disruptor of the Year; DX Leader, Omniexperience Innovator, Talent Accelerator, Information Visionary, and Operating Model Master.
The regional awarding ceremony will happen on the 25th October 2018 at JW Marriott Singapore.
