Amazon Web Services (AWS) is eyeing to continue its growth in the Philippines, even as the company now eyes to have a person who will oversee its operations here. This is according to Nick Walton, head of ASEAN of AWS, who said that “a country director is a critical role for us, so we’re looking for one immediately.”
AWS already has a “large customer base in the Philippines,” according to Walton, including startups like Zipmatch, and big businesses like Jollibee and Globe Telecom.
Globally, AWS serves 16 regions, with the Philippine office falling under the Singapore regional headquarters. In ASEAN, the company holds summits only in four countries: Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, said to highlight the country’s significance as a market for the company.
This emphasis in the Philippines is, according to Walton, also reflective of the need to continuously provide solutions as even more companies turn to the cloud.
“More and more businesses recognize the need to be competitive,” he said, adding that being competitive means “embracing everything digital”. And so “we see lots of customers who (turn to cloud) as an enabler in going digital.”
Traditionally, by going digital, businesses are forced to run their own data centers. But Walton said that the trend is to move to the cloud sans the problems once associated with adoption. And “in the fullness of time, there’d be less companies running their own data centers.” This is reflecting that “cloud adoption is a process, and it could take time.”
It is at this juncture that AWS eyes to further strengthen its presence, as it “offers the immediate (solution of ) moving to cloud.
AWS has over 90 cloud computing services, including storage, content delivery, analytics, mobile services, and artificial intelligence that customers can run on AWS cloud. There is no upfront commitment and no long-term contract, with AWS allowing businesses to use one or any combination of the cloud services, and pay for what they actually use. Customers may also choose multiple operating systems and multiple programming languages that they prefer to build their applications.
In the search of a country director, Walton said that the priority is finding a person who is “customer-obsessed”. No timeline has been set on when this position will be filled; though Walton stressed that this is “ASAP”.
