SINGAPORE – Issues with infrastructures in the Philippines are affecting the country’s cloud maturity, said Helen Masters, general manager and senior vice president for Asia Pacific of Infor, even as she expressed optimism that movements are expected considering positive developments happening.
Helen Masters, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Asia-Pacific, delivering the opening remarks at the Infor ASEAN-ANZ Executive Summit 2018
More specific to interconnectivity, in May 2017, Akamai Technologies’ Global State of the Internet Report showed that the Philippines has the slowest average Internet speed in Asia Pacific, with an average connection speed of just 5.5 Mbps, way below the global average Internet connection speed of 7.2 Mbps. Surprisingly, low as it is, this was supposedly already an improvement from previous records.
But Masters remains optimistic for APAC as a whole, including the Philippines, particularly since the “Philippines is starting to move again,” and that “maybe in 18 months, with a strong push, it will get there (progress).”
All the same, Masters said that investment in technology is always a must “even while times are slow,” she said, since “it let’s you leapfrog the competition.” Early adoption means that businesses are “ready for the next (tech) launch ahead of the tech advances.”
Infor considers the Philippines as a major emerging market, with key verticals in the country already including such industries as logistics (which is strong in Southeast Asia as a whole), fashion/retail, core solutions, distribution and healthcare, among others.
Infor, which builds business software for specific industries in the cloud, currently has 16,500 employees and over 90,000 customers in more than 170 countries.
Infor only recently promoted Masters to the position of senior vice president and general manager for APAC. Based in the company’s regional hub in Singapore, Masters is responsible for Infor’s business across ASEAN, Australia, Greater China, Korea, and New Zealand.
