DTI moves to the cloud with Office 365

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is the first government agency in the Philippines to implement Office 365.  After evaluating several options, DTI decided to move from on-premise Microsoft Office applications to Office 365 to empower its employees with a modern productivity platform that would help them achieve their goal of improving their processes

DTI is the first government agency in the country to fully implement the cloud service. Office 365 will provide DTI employees access to the latest versions of Microsoft Office, as well as collaborative technologies like instant messaging and video conferencing, portals and even social media for the workplace using Yammer.

DTI explored a number of options in the market but the government agency deemed Office 365 as the most suitable   solution that meets their requirements.

“Investing in a productivity platform is a strategic decision.  We evaluated other solutions but opted to stay with Microsoft for its office productivity platform. Not only is Microsoft Office  a familiar tool to our users but the additional feature using Cloud services under Office 365 deliver ways for us to communicate on email with our stakeholders and collaborate better with colleagues around the country and foreign posts around the world,” said Undersecretary Terrado. “We also wanted to make sure we were partnering with a technology solutions provider that could provide us the enterprise-grade security that we need to ensure that DTI data is protected. There is no room for compromise when it comes to security.”

The Department of Trade and Industry transitions its productivity platform to the cloud with Microsoft Office 365. [L – R] Issa Aviles, Enterprise Marketing Lead, Microsoft Philippines; Kazuhiro Arai, Marketing and Operations Director, Microsoft Philippines; Karrie Ilagan, General Manager of Microsoft Philippines; Ferdie Saputil, Public Sector Director, Microsoft Philippines; Nora Terrado, DTI Undersecretary for Management Services Group; Alfredo Torres, Management Information Service ICT Policy Formulation and Applications Development Team Chief, DTI; Carmela del Rosario, Management Information System Officer, DTI; Anne Sevilla, Trade and Industry Information Center Officer, DTI; Jamie Santos, Public Relations Officer, DTI.

“In addition to the recent deployment of the Windows Price Monitoring app as tool being used by our Price Monitors in the field, moving to Office 365 further strengthens our commitment to fully embracing new technologies like the cloud totransform the way we work and increase the mobility and productivity of our workforce. The use of Office 365 isan important way for us to move towards a more productive, and secure work environment aligned with our overall strategy for the DTI.”

“Many government agencies around the world have made Office 365 their productivity platform of choice and we are happy that DTI has done the same,” said Karrie Ilagan, General Manager of Microsoft Philippines. “With Office 365, DTI can now take advantage of the flexibility and mobility that the cloud provides. Employees will benefit from a rich productivity experience, whether they are online or offline, and regardless of what device they use.  Office 365 lets them work wherever and whenever they want without worrying about security and compromising critical information while providing the best service they can to Filipino citizens.”

Office 365 is a full cloud service that provides users anywhere, access to familiar Office applications all for devices, organization-wide collaboration, and compliance. The top-of-the-line cloud service delivers Office applications optimized for the best experience across devices allowing government professionals to securely work and access information from multiple locations and devices. Governments are also kept connected with citizens through tools such as high definition video conferencing and organization-wide social networking that help keep all team communications and documents in sync.

Office 365 keeps data safe and enables compliance through built-in malware protection and integrated compliance functionality that allows governments to adjust to ever-changing compliance regulations. Moreover, with its flexible deployment options of running it on-premises, as a hosted service, or as a hybrid of both, governments can run the servicehow they want and according to what’s most cost effective for them. Office 365 gives government professionals the highly productive and mobile experience that modern workplace demands.

DTI’s migration to Office 365 complements on-going efforts of the agency to leverage the Cloud in delivering better services to the public. Just recently, DTI partnered with Microsoft to build a price monitoring application on Windows 8 that allows the agency to migrate to a paperless, seamless and more convenient mechanism of monitoring prices of basic and prime commodities across the country.