In the second installment of its masterclass series, Globe myBusiness reiterated the importance of adopting the cloud technology to minimize operational disruptions and ensure data safety amidst uncertain times for businesses in the financial services industry.

Globe’s small and medium enterprise arm brought together experts from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Business Continuity Managers Association of the Philippines (BCMAP), UP Institute for Small-Scale Industries (UP ISSI), and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to introduce the fundamentals of building an organization’s business continuity program and harnessing the power of cloud technology to back up crucial data and enable swift recovery from any disaster.

Migrating to cloud-based platforms to meet increased business demands

For financial institutions under the watch of BSP, the pandemic emphasized the importance of shoring up their operations through technology to meet the increased demands of both customers and their employees, according to Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier.

“BSP-supervised financial institutions augmented their technological capacities by migrating to cloud-based platforms and solutions, in order to address the increased digital demands of their customers and support remote work from home arrangements of their employees,” Fonacier said in her opening remarks.

Mitigating disruptions through informed business continuity planning

Financial institutions are a pillar of the country’s economy, which means that outages must be kept to a minimum or else the effects on businesses and their end-customers could be catastrophic. 

“Consumers rely heavily on financial institutions for their needs, so companies must have an organized and concerted effort to employ a bullet-proof business continuity plan that will minimize the impact of business disruptions in the country,” pointed out Mel Cabodil, BCMAP president. 

Joanna Laddaran, University Extension Specialist II of the UP Institute for Small-Scale Industries, also discussed how uninterrupted operations of the financial services industry have played a vital role in the sustainable recovery of MSMEs.

To be able to craft an efficient continuity program, there is a need for every business to identify and define worst-case scenarios, and plan out specific responses and resources for every situation, including the right tools and platforms to use.

Employing cloud-based platforms as a viable strategy for business continuity

According to Bernard Chua, territory account manager at Amazon Web Services, the use of cloud technology in ensuring business continuity has also proven to be a viable strategy. Traditionally, companies would invest in costly infrastructures to house their physical servers, but with the flexibility that the cloud technology provides, troubleshooting can be done more swiftly and maintenance expenses can be minimized.

Chua also added that MSMEs should not be discouraged from adopting this just because their team does not have the capacity yet. “First of all, you don’t have to be an expert to use the cloud. For all you know, you’re already a user of the cloud,” he said.

To spell out such an idea, Chua shared a couple of examples of how some financial institutions maximized the cloud to keep their operations resilient. One major pawnshop, for instance, shifted to cloud-based virtual servers to further bring down the risk of downtime when either their data centers in Cebu or Manila would go offline unexpectedly.

He also cited the journey of a large commercial bank in reducing their data backup time from eight hours to two hours when they transitioned to AWS Simple Storage Service, from traditional tape drives. This also translated into $380,500 in annual savings on data storage costs and increased data durability.

Equipping MSMEs with the right information and digital tools through Globe myBusiness Academy Masterclass

As part of its commitment to support the recovery of MSMEs, Globe myBusiness has been conducting masterclasses tailored to the needs of specific enterprises. Upcoming webinars in the coming months include API integration, data privacy and cybersecurity, cloud security, and marketing and CRM. 

The Globe Business Academy masterclass aims to increase the mastery and competence of      IT professionals and business owners who have basic experience with ICT solutions and who want to learn more.

Other masterclasses lined up until September include Business Continuity Planning for Financial Services Institutions (April), API Development (May), Data Privacy and Security (July), Cloud Security (September), and Marketing and CRM (September).Interested to learn more about Globe myBusiness Masterclass Cloud Solutions offers? Sign up here: https://go.mybusinessacademy.ph/l/576043/2021-04-06/gzs6h4#gref for an appointment.

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