ePLDT partners with Acronis offering better Cyber Protection Solutions to Business and Enterprise

With the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, enterprises need to employ Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans to ensure continued operations given these uncertain times.

To cater to businesses, ePLDT, the ICT arm of PLDT Enterprise, has strategic partnered with Acronis to bolster its portfolio. Renowned for setting the standard for cyber protection, Acronis offers its award-winning AI-based Active Protection technology, blockchain-based authentication and unique hybrid-cloud architecture to protect all data in physical, virtual, cloud, mobile workloads and applications – all at a low and predictable cost. Both organizations strengthened their portfolio and footprint following the partnership on marketing and technology.

Jovy Hernandez, ePLDT President & CEO and SVP & Head for PLDT and Smart Enterprise Business Groups adds “Part of our mission is to innovate and co-innovate with partners in support of our thrust which is to simplify the complex for our customers. We are pleased to partner with Acronis for us to truly deliver solutions of real value to the market and we are sure that our combined expertise in DR systems will enable enterprises to work with ease of mind and confidence,”

According to Acronis’ recent Cyber Readiness Report 2020, 92% of global companies adopted new technologies to enable remote work. Same research shows 50% of these companies have encountered cyberattacks at least once a week in the past few months making it critical for enterprises to ensure their preparedness for the new way of doing business and be able to respond to disruptions.

Vic Tria, PLDT FVP and Enterprise Revenue Group Head states “The increasing need to employ work-from-home arrangements today requires extreme vigilance when it comes to securing a company’s IT infrastructure. We believe that this partnership will allow us to better improve the Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans of our customers in different industries - which are crucial given these uncertain times,"

Through the partnership, ePLDT will be offering solutions that will leverage on the Acronis Cyber Cloud - a platform that enables service providers to deliver data protection in an easy, efficient and secure way. One solution is Data Back-up and Recovery Solution, customers can gain access to hybrid cloud backup, recovery and AI-powered anti-malware, manageable from a single, comprehensive console.

Jeff Mendoza, PLDT Enterprise Asia Pacific Regional Head shares “These platforms will enable ePLDT to deliver not only an easy, and efficient access to backup and disaster recovery for its customers, thru a single management console, but also provide an additional layer of cyber protection,”

ePLDT and Acronis has formalized their partnership with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, with the said new products set to be introduced subsequently.

“We are delighted to closely collaborate with ePLDT on delivering innovative and impactful solutions to businesses here in the Asia Pacific, right after announcing the launch of Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, our fully integrated cyber protection solution for businesses” said Neil Morarji, Acronis General Manager for APAC. “Moving forward, our portfolio of services will allow companies to ensure their ultimate cyber protection – one that solves safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges of the modern digital world, no matter what form their work operations take. They will stay protected with superior and expert support from ePLDT and Acronis.”

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Hikvision AI Tour 2018 Next Stop Philippines

Hikvision, world’s leading provider of innovative security products and solutions based in Hangzhou, China, embarks on an AI Tour across 40 countries spanning Asia, Africa, Middle East, Oceania, and Latin America until November this year. The company is set its AI Tour in the Philippines.

Empowered by AI and years of expertise, Hikvision is now a pioneer in intelligent video surveillance. Has diversified products and solutions that utilizing AI to address today’s modern challenges:

• Intelligent Traffic System – Hikvision Intelligent Traffic Solution helps reduce impact from events and incidents on heavily trafficked roads and motor ways.
• Smart Retail – Hikvision Smart Retail Solution packs video surveillance, business intelligence and parking area data into complete end-to-end solutions for various shopping areas.

“Shaping Intelligence: Hikvision AI Tour 2018 Philippines”, the tour next stop is the Philippines happening this October 18 at the Marco Polo in Ortigas, Manila. It will showcase Artificial Intelligence innovations covering AI Cloud architecture, AI technologies, AI products, and other vertical solutions, especially for Intelligent Traffic Systems.

Iontech Inc., one of the key players in the Information Technology distribution industry in the country, has partnered with Hikvision to bring the AI tour to the Philippines. “As we promote reliable computer systems and communication devices in the Philippines, we continue to look at revolutionary technologies like AI. AI is changing the world, and its enabling businesses all over the world address modern problems in an intelligent and efficient way. We’re very excited to partner with Hikvision to showcase the power of AI,” said Iontech’s Product Group Head, Evelyn Ativo.


See how AI technology is transforming video surveillance at the Philippine leg of the Hikvision AI Tour. Visit https://www.facebook.com/HikvisionPhilippines/ for more details.

Interesting innovations here especially Intelligent Traffic System. Hopefully our Government and line agencies will take note as these new innovation may solve our traffic problem in the Metro and key cities in the country.

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Flurry Push: The Power of Push Notifications

May 16, 2018 – Singapore, Flurry from Oath has unveiled Flurry Push - a free offering from the new Flurry Marketing Suite that enables app developers to send targeted messages to re-engage and retain users across Android and iOS. With Flurry Push, mobile developers can leverage the power of push notifications, one of the most popular forms of engagement, to effectively grow their business and drive revenue.

“We’ve heard consistently from our developers that messaging is one of the most powerful tools for boosting user engagement,” said David Berger, VP - Engineering at Oath. “With Flurry Push, we’re putting free messaging front-and-center to empower developers to take charge of their app business and address the recurring challenge of long-term engagement.”

With Flurry Push, Developers have Three types of Push Notification Campaigns: 

• Promotional: Schedule one-time, daily, weekly, or as-it-happens push notifications to drive engagement with new features, events, contests or other app content.
• New User Retention: Convert new users who have recently installed the app to active users and increase overall retention. 
• Event Driven: Re-engage and convert users following a specific event or behavior within the app. 

Push notifications are sent to app users when an app is running in the background and not in use, making it easy for developers to target users at critical moments when there has been a lapse in engagement.

Brands including Yahoo Finance and Pacer Health have been testing Flurry Push, and so far, they’ve seen powerful results.

“Push notifications are a critical component of our retention strategy, but historically, we’ve had to build the feature into our app or partner with third-party messaging vendors,” said Michael Caldwell, Co-Founder of Pacer Health, Inc. “Flurry Push has made it incredibly easy to re-engage users from directly within the Flurry marketing suite for free, and so far, we’ve seen powerful results.”

Pacer Health has been leveraging Flurry Push to promote online competition registrations through its iOS app, Pacer Pedometer, and so far, the company has seen 15% growth.

Key Features of Flurry Push:

• Actionable Analytics: Analyze app KPIs and push notification campaigns through one single platform.
• Triggered Push Notifications: Automatically send push notifications to users based on app-install time, event triggers or other audience attributes.
• Powerful Segmentation: Target users by geographic, demographic, behavioral and technographic attributes, including activity or inactivity, install date, device model, app version or specific event combinations. Save commonly-used user segments for quick set-up.

Flurry Push is live in the Flurry Analytics Marketing Suite. Mobile developers can access Flurry Push today at www.flurry.com.

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PR: Shakey's x Sprout Solutions, Inc. for Systematic Human Resource

Patrick Gentry, CEO of Sprout Solutions Philippines sealed the deal with Shakey’s Pizza Parlor General Manager Jorge Concepcion.

In 2015, Shakey’s onboarded an aggressive enterprise solutions provider called Sprout Solutions, Inc. The disruptive nature of its technology revolves around cloud-based HR, payroll and recruitment and their suite automates everything from employee login, to payout, and government report generation.

“HR was one of the systems that we needed to update—fortunately, the Sprout system is dynamic and able to address compliance issues, issues faced by employees like payroll disputes. If you are becoming a big organization, this is one of the ways to decentralize and pass down the responsibility,” tells Concepcion.

“IT works closer than ever (now) to Human Resources. Timekeeping for some 500 stores with multiple employees and multiple shifts is tedious, susceptible to human error. So what we did is look to developments in technology and process improvements to be able to monitor and identify people early on so we can develop a program, so that we are able to tap into their potential,” comments Concepcion.

Moving forward, Shakey’s envisions the work of human resource managers as more strategic than administrative—more towards driving engagement, communications, and ensuring that the ‘guest-centricity’ culture is cascaded to all employees, new or seasoned.

“The keystone of our strategy is guest-centricity,” says Concepcion. “We expect our employees to treat our customers as they would a guest at home. That means being able to foresee and understand the needs of the guest. Engagement inside-out takes a level of skill, training, and culture. To deliver this, we continue to maintain an environment where employees are nurtured.”

Concepcion adds, “The chain is growing very rapidly and the challenge is to be able to staff the organization with people who can sustain that level of growth. It’s a problem of success—we cannot lower our standards because we are successful.”

Growing means adapting to change. This includes putting enabling systems to help Shakey’s leaders do what they can to better manage people. For Concepcion, responding well to the market entails having to constantly review and update policies and tools with the process of decentralizing, enabling branch managers to make informed decisions, and giving these people the technology to handle tasks easily—all with a platform that recognizes exceptional performance from their internal workforce.

The case of Shakey’s, there is one very basic truth that remains: treating customers and employees well can only make a business better, and if adapting to the advancement of technology will help them attain that, they’re the first in line.

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